Glasshouse

The taste of hot soil swims through the air as I sit beneath the banana leaves, feeding my son as we both gaze up at a glass sky. This room is a bright cocoon, warm with the scents of childhood; damp earth, shoots and spores; a Sunday afternoon in my grandparents’ greenhouse; cups of tea and compost. The leaflet tells me there is a resident toad in here somewhere but it doesn’t reveal itself, so we soak in the quiet of the glasshouse as white clouds drift overhead. The building was only opened last year - a decagonal pyramid shaped structure inspired by Victorian terrariums, with a hydraulic mechanism that causes it to unfurl like the sepals of a flower.