Radishes

Photograph and Story by Lehan Winifred Ramsay

This house was just across the road from the park, and I used walk past it all the time. I say I used to because this week when I walked my dog there it had been demolished.

I used to think that houses like this were the spirit of my neighbourhood. It looked like such a lovely house, and there were chickens, you could hear them in the mornings. Not only was it a breath of old Hakodate, but it had a garden, there were always delicious looking things growing there in the summer. Here, they are hanging out their daikon radishes to dry in late autumn, in preparation for pickling.

It was a fine old wooden house with a verandah and glass doors along one side, looking out onto that fine garden, and at the front was a sturdy stone fence and solid gates. Just up the road from the post office. The post office is a new building built to look a little antiquey. Soon it will be the most authentic old building in this neighbourhood.