swings and roundabouts

I’m 54 years old.  54!!!!

I couldn’t even imagine being that old as a child, even though my parents had me relatively late in life (especially back in the 60s) so was around “older” people all the time.

I remember a discussion with a girlfriend when we were 16 or so and we thought 27 was ancient, and I’m now twice that age.

Anyway, just yesterday I had the energy to take Dexter for a short walk for the first time in ages and we went to Heol Las park.  Heol Las was the village I grew up in.  It’s only a short distance from where I live now but I’ve rarely been back there, and the trip to the park brought back some lovely memories.

It had 3 football and rugby pitches in the Winter, a fantastic cricket pitch and red gravel tennis courts for the Summer, and of course a play area with swings, a roundabout (in fact 2 - I think) and a big slide - well it’s huge when you’re only 2.  I used to ride my bike down what was then to me a massive hill in the park, and then sprint as hard as I could to get back up it time and time again.  Perhaps that’s why I was a competent racing cyclist?

Now though only the cricket pitch remains, there’s no rugby pitch and the football fields have been replaced with small 5-a-side pitches.  The tennis courts where I’d pretend to be Jimmy Connors (he was my favourite player) are gone, the nets being constantly vandalised. The play area has been modernised.

I guess we’re lucky that the local council hasn’t sold it for development though I can guarantee they’ve thought about going down that route.

It was lovely going back.  I could hear the sounds of us playing into the late Summer evenings.  I could smell the old smell of tennis balls, cricket gloves and liniment. 

And if I tried hard enough I could still see the old swings and roundabouts, feel the pain of barked shins and hear my mother calling me home for tea.

my own Alpine climb - it's really steep, honest!

open spaces where we once played rugby and football