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In Ruurlo we had a big garden behind the house.  It was separated from the house by a road and the place used to be the ground of an old and small farm house that was known as the “Griebus.” 

When I was about 14 or 15 years old I buried a horse-chestnut somewhere in this garden.  A few years later I discovered that it had germinated and grown into a little tree of a few inches high.  I asked my father if I could plant the little tree on the lawn where the bird-cherry used to be.  He said it was okay.  I planted the chestnut tree on the spot.

At the time that I had become a father myself, some seventeen years later, my father had to sell the garden to the municipality.  He had retired from the shop and my brother Rob had taken over.  The municipality changed the infrastructure of the village; it now wanted to use the space as a parking lot.

Just before the garden was handed over to the village, I went to have a last look and I saw that the chestnut tree had borne seeds.  I gathered some, photographed them on the spot, and took them home to Amsterdam.