We hadn’t seen each other for about a week, for me I’d been unexpectedly busy with various appointments, she had been at work and then had her delightful grandson to stay. We found a window in our busy schedules, and as it was a pleasant afternoon we decided to meet in a local park which has a splendid café right in the middle.
I parked and made my way through the gates, I inexplicably wandered under a very full willow and became a little lost in the cavern of greenness, but emerged into sunshine. I had a message from her – ‘am on bench between café and playground. Trying to be as far from Barry dogs as psst. Oh **** will have to go and sit next to them because rain. Barky not Barry!’ Predictive text is such fun!
Needless to say I found her, guided in by the Barry/barking dogs and fortunately the rain had disappeared and we took out refreshments to a bench in the sun and sat pleasantly chatting and complaining about the owners of the dogs who clearly thought it was not antisocial to have four or five vociferous hounds. We talked about family and friends, we talked about our writing and her recent success in a writing competition. We are going to the Wells Festival of Literature next week, fingers crossed that she has won a prize having been short listed in the short story comp! We talked about future writing escapades, and how worrying it is that the owners of the wonderful park café have decided to retire. They deserve a happy retirement, but we just hope someone else will take over the cafe.
We watched people passing by, including many well-behaved dogs who trotted along silently, looking happy and calm. There was a little gang of young children who raced up and down in front of us – some on bikes, one on a scooter, some just running. They were lovely, and we particularly admired one little girl who was on a tiny trike, a little too small for her, but she belted along, her feet in her yellow wellies peddling like mad, her curls flying, grimly determined to catch up with the others. Their mums were sitting on a bench further up, and they should be very proud of their wonderful, energetic little kids.
The sun moved round and it was time to head home, we both had things to do, but we had enjoyed our chat, and our stay in the park.
Lois Elsden 