Sunday in the Park with Mabel
I walked round Waterloo Lake in Roundhay Park, Leeds, this morning.
Now it's the New Year everyone's out there, wearing their Christmas jumpers and cluttering the place up with their new Christmas bikes and scooters, whizzing past me at breakneck speed on the narrow path round the lake.
I'd make them all get a licence for all this shenanigans in the New Year sunshine. The licence would have to be earned by trudging round the lake a few times in the November drizzle, like I did. Only then would they earn the right to go round the far side of the lake and take that iconic seagulls-on-posts shot that I take about twenty times a year.
"Oh look, seagulls on posts. That looks rather good, I'll take a photo."
In fact, the only time it was rather good was when one of the seagulls was a cormorant, in the very early days of this blog. But I take the photo of the seagulls anyway. The digital age has made me reckless.
And then there was Mabel.
Mabel was a brown-and-white mongrel dog with interestingly large ears. Her owners let her off the lead and she hurtled into the far distance and didn't come back for about half an hour. The whole park rang to her owners' anxious cries.
"Mabel! Mabel! Mabel! Mabel! Mabel! Mabel! Mabel! Mabel! Mabel! Mabel!" - oh, you get the idea. It became very tedious very quickly.
Finally, they found her, put her on the lead and walked behind me for about five minutes. Then - to my utter amazement - they let her off the lead again.
I opened my mouth to shout "Nooooo! Don't do it! Are you insane?" but bottled it. Off went Mabel, at top speed, straight back the way we'd all come. Off went her owners, trailing pathetically after her.
"Mabel! Mabel! Mabel! Mabel!" - - - on and on and on, until I got back to my car and could shut them out.
It got me thinking about the dog I owned as a child: a poodle called Fluffy. Yes, Fluffy is the kind of name you're going to get if you let a six-year-old girl name a puppy entirely unaided. You, as the child's parents, will be the ones shouting it in the park, so Think On, as they say round here.
On a similar sunny winter's day in 1966, The Communist and my mother were pushing my baby brother Michael in a pram, somewhere in the Lake District.
The photograph was taken by a very young yours truly, with my beloved Instamatic 100.
And there's Fluffy, doing what Fluffy always did, which was to run ahead at the speed of a jet engine.
But, unlike Mabel, Fluffy would always come back. He came back and lived to be sixteen, in fact.
I feel I should also point out that my mother got her value out of that sheepskin coat. She was, in fact, wearing it yesterday. They made things to last in the Olden Days.
Now it's the New Year everyone's out there, wearing their Christmas jumpers and cluttering the place up with their new Christmas bikes and scooters, whizzing past me at breakneck speed on the narrow path round the lake.
I'd make them all get a licence for all this shenanigans in the New Year sunshine. The licence would have to be earned by trudging round the lake a few times in the November drizzle, like I did. Only then would they earn the right to go round the far side of the lake and take that iconic seagulls-on-posts shot that I take about twenty times a year.
"Oh look, seagulls on posts. That looks rather good, I'll take a photo."In fact, the only time it was rather good was when one of the seagulls was a cormorant, in the very early days of this blog. But I take the photo of the seagulls anyway. The digital age has made me reckless.
And then there was Mabel.
Mabel was a brown-and-white mongrel dog with interestingly large ears. Her owners let her off the lead and she hurtled into the far distance and didn't come back for about half an hour. The whole park rang to her owners' anxious cries.
"Mabel! Mabel! Mabel! Mabel! Mabel! Mabel! Mabel! Mabel! Mabel! Mabel!" - oh, you get the idea. It became very tedious very quickly.
Finally, they found her, put her on the lead and walked behind me for about five minutes. Then - to my utter amazement - they let her off the lead again.
I opened my mouth to shout "Nooooo! Don't do it! Are you insane?" but bottled it. Off went Mabel, at top speed, straight back the way we'd all come. Off went her owners, trailing pathetically after her.
"Mabel! Mabel! Mabel! Mabel!" - - - on and on and on, until I got back to my car and could shut them out.
It got me thinking about the dog I owned as a child: a poodle called Fluffy. Yes, Fluffy is the kind of name you're going to get if you let a six-year-old girl name a puppy entirely unaided. You, as the child's parents, will be the ones shouting it in the park, so Think On, as they say round here.
On a similar sunny winter's day in 1966, The Communist and my mother were pushing my baby brother Michael in a pram, somewhere in the Lake District.
The photograph was taken by a very young yours truly, with my beloved Instamatic 100.And there's Fluffy, doing what Fluffy always did, which was to run ahead at the speed of a jet engine.
But, unlike Mabel, Fluffy would always come back. He came back and lived to be sixteen, in fact.
I feel I should also point out that my mother got her value out of that sheepskin coat. She was, in fact, wearing it yesterday. They made things to last in the Olden Days.
posted by Daphne at 2:20 pm
4 Comments:
Bloody cormorants - dressing up as seagulls. What can you do?
Hehe, great story about the dog-walkers. Amazed they could be so daft after having lost her the first time. To have the park ringing with their shouts for her must have been exceedingly annoying when most people go out for peace and quiet.
Be glad you didn't walk around Albert Sq from 1985-2000.
"Willy...Willy..oh where's my Willy".
(thank you, Ethel Skinner)
Ahhh and it was great to see the photo of Fluffy, the one legged dog.
I used to enjoy my strolls around Waterloo Lake before they put in that tarmac path - now as you say it has been spolit by people on wheels of all kinds whizzing past. Why couldn't they leave it in the natural state?
Post a Comment
<< Home