At 32 years of age it is so easy to take walking for granted!
I have a favourite place I like to walk… a park named after a man who, as a boy, flew his kite there when it was a dairy and a piggery, this kite-flying youngster went on to become our local Alderman (early 1900’s), Mayor and then member of the House of Representatives. Such important titles for a man I recognise for something much simpler…
I remember my local park when I hadn’t been walking for very long at all! I remember the two-tiered tennis courts, I remember where I was standing in the park when on my fifth birthday, my mum’s friend gave me the card I remember most vividly. I remember riding my bike on only 85% of the park’s circular track before having to turn around, because ‘bad men’ were hiding there.
The Bridge
I remember the bridge above the storm water drain the local kids used to play under, and the random mound of rocks that acted as our kingdom and fort. I remember the steep hill I couldn’t roller skate up, and the same hill I avoid walking up now! I remember the Weeping Willow that I spent hours climbing, staring at or sitting under and I remember weeping myself when in the 1990’s, the council removed the dying willow. I remember the park when it was double the size, before the M5 took the Netball courts. At 13 years of age I had fallen in love with my local park so much that when all my friends were Ice Skating, Shopping and Bowling for their birthdays, I invited my friends to sit under my Weeping Willow and play. Boring? Maybe!
After many years I am back living near my local park again. I am once again walking around my smaller, hilly, Weeping Willow-less park, enjoying nothing more than saying hello to and smiling at the other lucky ones who have discovered the simple hidden pleasures of John Mountford Reserve.
Ahh... Serenity 
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