Of globular wildflowers, half-carved dragons and giant yew trees.

One of the things I do like about where I live is the beautiful park nearby.  It isn't extensive but it has lots to offer and the Friends of the park and the local community do a lot to improve it and make it enticing for a variety of folk.  I've enjoyed visiting it on various occasions and seeing the plethora of activities it is used for.  Sometimes I get freaked out by the boot camp club who train in the pitch-black.  I'll be hurrying by nervously in the semi-dark and all of a sudden, I'll be aware of a row of people all doing press-ups on the grass. That's a good way to send the blood-pressure of this average 33 year old through the roof as they give her the shock of her life.  I've mentioned the model-boat club, there's a tennis club, boxing club who all have premises in the park and the swimming pool is just outside.  But it's the natural sights that have been so carefully tended that I love.

One of the newest innovations, which in my opinion, is brilliant, is the newly planted wild flower meadow. The park is named after the meadows it originally held and so they have tried to make it come back to its original intention.

CBC and good friend wandering through.  During the 2nd week of September, I suggested we all go for a walk in the park and visit the cafe for cake and tea.    The beautiful thing is, this area was originally just grass with some large trees but in the storms of last Autumn/winter, several were blown down, so they have incorporated the 'tree corpses' into this new feature.You can see one part in the background.

The array of Cosmos' puts me in mind of my wildflower wedding experiment in which I had 2 beautiful troughs of Cosmos' two months after the wedding!


They've thought of everyone and wheelchairs can come through the wide grassy paths they have put through the meadow.

Beautiful cosmos'


Er.... beautiful Dahlia-type thingies...

More cosmos (safe ground here)

Bright yellow things...

More yellow flowers...

Red flowers (should really learn some flower names...)

I like the fact that the old tree is now a fun challenge to climb it. Look behind and there's a series of little stump logs which we tried jumping between. I did the logs but not the tree...




Another fallen tree has been turned into a bench at the edge of the meadow.


More flowers.

Here's the approach to it. I keep thinking what a pretty blog background it would make for some shots but that would involve either an obedient husband or tripod action- there'd be no way of being subtle about it.


We had the obedient husband but we also had the gourmless, dozy facial expression and bushy haired disaster! Wasn't planned but impromptu offering from CBC!

Devious face carved into the edge of the log.

Here's the carved bench and a weird little set of steps being demonstrated by N.




There are two trees that were damaged but remain with their roots intact.  I love looking into the large crack along this one and imagining I am a squirrel. Or a pixie under the faraway tree.



Or a character in Narnia sheltering from the White Witch as she comes by in a hollow tree.

Peeking out to see if she's gone and seeing Father Christmas instead.


After a while, we headed away from the Wildflower meadow. There is a lovely children's garden to the left here where squirrels frolic in gay abandon (no really, they are so relaxed they're almost horizontal!)


Over the other side of the lake, there is a hilly open space where events such as the Orchid cycle race and the funfair and Praise in the park happen. The cafe is just to the right. It does great cake.

The lake has featured in my Scavenger hunt posts and this itself has changed.  They introduced these fountains in order to aerate the water for the wildlife in there. Ducks, geese, moorhen and coots. My friend G once wrote a piece for 2 oboes, 2 cor anglais and an Oboe d'amore called that (except for the coots) Clever eh!


Over by the lakeside by the children's playground (hugely popular at the weekend), there used to be a horrid muddy patch which looked scummy and I'd see rats/water voles (I hope) scurrying along but now they've planted wildflowers there too.



I love the games and relationships of the birds.  There was definitely some sort of interesting conversation going on here. I wonder what they were saying?

Happy mallard having a wee snooze.

If that's not enough, there's a crazy-golf course AND a pitch and putt golf section. You have to watch out for straying golfballs but I've always been safe. This is where my favourite yew tree lives.  What a great old specimen.



And what post on my park would be complete without a rotund squirrel to complete matters.

"What IZ you looking at?"

"Talk to the tail cos the face ain't listening..."

Yet another, still evolving addition is the dragon sculpture, also being formed from a storm-damaged tree.  Slowly but slowly, a sculptor is turning this tree into a dragon. There's also going to be a wizard and storytelling chairs.



I love having this valuable resource so near by. Do you have anything like this near you?

xx