We used to go there frequently, whatever the weather, because there is a very good kids' play area with see-saws, climbing frames, swings, a roundabout and similar equipment that can cause damage to under 5's if you're not watching them like a hawk. But not the floor: it's covered with a kind of slip-free rubber material that offers good grip (so no home-made slides in icy winter) and is relatively soft to fall on (from gear that is much smaller than the stuff when I was a kid). In those far off 1950s days, the slide and swing frames were a good 15 feet high, and the roundabout a primitive wood and steel affair that could carry at least 20 kids round and round at breakneck speeds - and all of it bolted onto a concrete and shingle area that could shred knees as well as trousers if you fell off, and break young bones like matchsticks. And frequently did......ah, happy days!
So anyway, the playground was full of laughing and screaming kids, and anxious parents jabbering into mobile phones or reading newspapers - a normal sunny afternoon in fact. Everyone was having a fine old time ignoring each other (at least the adults; the kids were playing together as kids always do, whether siblings or perfect strangers. It's a shame a kind of reserve, a shyness, creeps in with puberty and teenage zits that puts up barriers that the really young don't have).
The grassy areas between budding bushes were full of slightly older kids kicking footballs around or talking or gaming on mobile phones, and squatting dogs on the end of long leashes held by uncomfortable owners, scrabbling around in pockets for plastic bags or something to clean up. Other kids were cycling or skateboarding around on the clean and well tended pathways between the lawns, and old age pensioners sat together on freshly cleaned and painted benches with ornate iron armrests, gossiping, complaining or laughing together in a grey haired and toothless companionship that, despite my advancing years I will not join (even though on age grounds I am eminently qualified) This is another advantage in lacking Polish language skills.
I found a bench to myself, and sat down in the sunshine. For a while I watched the kids chasing straggly pigeons on the flower bed surrounded grass area across the path from me. It's an occupation that always make me smile. No matter how quiet and careful the kids are (and "quiet and careful" are not words that usually sit well with the typical 4 year old), the pigeon, no matter how old or infirm, will always avoid the attack. The bird will flutter a few feet, then settle down to forage again, its back carelessly turned on the advancing kid......and again....and again....until bird or child gets bored with the game and buggers off.
I decided to read a bit more of my book. Currently I'm wading through Rushdie's "Satanic Verses" and frankly it's doing my head in. Now I know all about the book - how it upset the Muslim community to such an extent that the Ayatollah Khomeini (then Supreme Leader in Iran) issued a fatwa against Rushdie, who was forced into hiding and 24/7 surveillance and private protection at a cost of millions of pounds - part funded by the UK Government who were understandably reluctant to allow a British citizen to be slaughtered over a book. I know he was always a bit of a controversial author, and a bit of a media darling, partly because of his writing and partly because in his ad agency days, pre-"Midnight's Children" (his Booker Prize winner - and indeed recently voted the Booker of Bookers) he came up with the immortal "Naughty - But Nice" slogan to advertise cream cakes on the telly.
Now I've read "Midnight's Children", plus a short story of his called "The Prophet's Hair" - both of which, along with "Verses" show him to be anIndian and probably lapsed Muslim himself - and I can see they are very imaginative and surreal stories, full of fantastical imagery and a twisted sense of humour......and I can certainly see why any devout Muslim would be offended by some of his prose and ideas. But to kill the bloke for it seems a bit harsh, because above all else I find the writing is so......I guess turgid is the word. It's written with many Indian English phrases and slang, and a sing-song metre that makes it hard to understand. Having worked with Indians a lot over the past 20 odd years I can get that more easily perhaps, and given his nationality this of course is quite natural for him. But any book that contains convoluted sentences that run to a full page or more with odd punctuation and mixing proper English with Hinglish is going to be tricky, no matter how clever and convoluted the plot. I had the same problem with Melville's "Moby Dick" But I will finish the damned thing eventually....I'm stubborn like that. Can't say I'm enjoying it much though.
Anyway, I read it for 20 minutes or so (a couple of paragraphs) and then gave it up as a bad job. I wandered off around the edge of the park to the football and basketball area. It's fenced off, and is a small sided astroturf (sorry, 4G) surface with smaller goals and a couple of hoops courts running across the pitch, one in each half. There are many of these scattered around the city (I think probably every park of any size has one) and they are always in use either by one of the many football schools, local clubs or public schools, or simply by groups of people having a bit of fun. I watched a half dozen teenagers having a kick-about and I have to say the pitch looked and played a lot better than the ones that Sutton and Maidstone use in the the English National League (the fifth tier in the English game's pyramid structure). "Plastic pitches" are widely hated by most of the game back home, apart from the clubs that use them, and there is a continuing debate amongst both the game's governing bodies, players and supporters, as to whether they should be banned outright. I've played on the older versions myself, many moons ago, and they were passable but not as good as they were made out so be. The newer ones, like this one, look much much better and I would think must be a pleasure to use. God only knows what Maidstone and Sutton are doing on the threadbare front room carpets they call pitches.
Jusr around the corner from the pitch, round another path winding between well tended and colourful flower beds, is our local church. Like all city churches (and many village ones), it's huge, and in our case relatively new - our entire suburb itself is less than 50 years old I think. In front of the main entrance (served of course by wheelchair ramps) is a big paved area that acts as an over-spill when there is a particularly important Mass - Easter or Christmas, say, or weddings and First Communions - and the church itself can't hold everyone. There are speakers mounted on the wall by the doors and the Mass is broadcast to the celebrants who perform all the usual devotions outside. Sometimes too a kind of fair is set up there - on Palm Sunday for instance (another decent sunny day, though cooler) there were perhaps twenty stalls, covered by gaily coloured striped awnings, selling the traditional palms for Mass (plus another couple selling home-made smoked cheese and honey - delicious). There is also an area, sunk perhaps three feet lower than the surrounding square, that contains 20 or so fountains that play in a kind of synchronised pattern - very pleasant on hot days, when kids use them to cool off. Along either side of the square are ranges of small shops - a chemists, a second hand clothes shop, one selling dash-cams, others. There is also a rather excellent ice-cream parlour (the only place I know that sells beer flavoured ice-cream, and very nice it is too), and on the opposite side of the square another small cafe that sells coffee and tea, a selection of pastries and cakes and, er, ice cream. I bought a coffee and sat in the sunshine for a while drinking it and just watching the world go by.
Then I simply headed home for dinner, as the temperature started its retreat from the balmy 20C, and the sun dipped below the apartment blocks between home and the airport in a beautiful sunset (red sky at night and all that stuff). As I walked past another street cafe, just across from my block (KillBill's - must try it sometime), I reflected that I was in a good place. I've worked hard for nearly 50 years, and now retired, with my health intact. While not wealthy, I have a lovely family and a warm, comfortable home in a pleasant and safe neighbourhood. I finally, for the first time I can remember, have next to no stress in my life (beyond the normal worries any family man has). I'm fit and healthy (touch wood!) for my age, and very very happy.
I'm doing ok.
Postscript: I started writing this on Wednesday evening, but what with Easter prep, shopping and suchlike I've only just around to finishing and publishing. It's now Easter Saturday, and remarkably the weather remains good - sunny still and the temperature consistently hitting 20C. And not a cloud in the sky or spot of moisture anywhere. The Rain Man, for once, seems to have missed a trick. Happy days!
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