Cynthia Reyes Twigs in my Hair: A Gardening Memoir – a review by Ronald Mackay…

Reading this sweetly nostalgic gardening memoir is like travelling delightfully in time.

Gardening is good for our health.

Nostalgia, like laughter, is infectious. Both add to our well-being when we are most in need.

The nostalgia evoked by the exquisite memories and photographs in Twigs in my Hair is a celebration of past experiences so significant that they are still very much part of the author’s most intimate present. Her reflections on the triumphs and beauty of past gardens provide writer and readerwith a well-spring of positive and life-affirming feelings.

While gardens provide the occasion for these recollections, the stories that Cynthia Reyes tells are steeped in profound and respectful relationships — relationships with mothers and husbands, her own and others’ children, close friends and considerate neighbours — and in cherished life events such asforging a career, courtship and marriage, and motherhood and professional responsibilities that span several decades.

The…