Necessary distractions

So today I had the second part of the dental treatment. Unlike last week I knew what to expect and was therefore much more anxious and nervous and had been losing sleep over it too. Fortunately the grey skies that greeted me first thing this morning had cleared by the time I set off. I remembered last week how lovely it had been to walk through the park. Armed with my Ipod (yes, yet another Miss Marple to solve whilst sitting in the chair) and camera I took a leisurely stroll to the dentist. I decided to photograph the dahlias that I had so admired last week.



As I walked through the park with my ears concentrating on the goings on in an English village in 1940s and my mind choosing which photos to take, I found myself at the dentist's in no time.



Well enough said about the dentist, on my way back I wandered through the park enjoying the solitude and the relief of knowing that I was dentist-free for a whole month. I walked past the Edwardian Manor house that sits at one end of the park, oh how I love this place, the shutters do it for me everytime!



Through its gates and into its gardens, the secret garden we use to call it when my daughters were little.



Up and down the brick paths I ambled, enjoying the peace.



There is a walk in the path that has dahlia planted on each side. Two long rows of dahlias - a riot of colour and shape.



They reminded me of rows of jars of boiled sweets in an old fashioned sweet shop. Something for everyone, a taste to satisfy us all.



This white one reminds me of the white witch in Narnia, spiky and glacial.



You can't be miserable for too long when these are staring you in the face.



I can't grow dahlias, the slugs seem to like them too much in our garden, but oh how I would love to have a garden full of them. Their symmetry just fascinates me, the tight pompoms, the blowsy blooms, there's nothing shy about a dahlia. Confident, sometimes brash, but always fun.



Other people had stopped too to look at the flowers and we smiled. (it was only a couple of hours ago that I realised how stupid it is to try and grin when your mouth's numb, I'd obviously overcompensated in the cheesiness department and taken a big bite out of my bottom lip, that'll teach me!).



So I carried on walking and Agatha Christie continued to describe the intrigues, poison pen letters and dramas of village life and it struck me how very little the scenes I was seeing now in the park would have changed over the years. People out for their daily constitutionals, playing tennis, the white uniforms of the members of the bowls club, toddlers pushing dolls in prams, swinging in the playground, swaggering about on the grass. Friends meeting in the cafe by the rose garden drinking tea and chatting, the park's gardeners busy tidying up the beds for the Autumn, I was so deep in my daydream that it wouldn;'t have surprised me if a village bobby would have cycled past me in hot pursuit of a sultry murderess, bitter blackmailer or petty thief!



I use to spend every day in the park when my daughters were little. Sunny days, cold days, blustery days and fine days. Hours spent in the sand pit, out the sandpit and shaking sand from our shoes. I have very vivid memories of me playing in the local park when I was younger, tearing round the roundabout, hours on the swings, playing with our dog on the grass. It is one of life's coincidences that Mr Ragged Roses and I, although we grew up miles and miles apart, spent our early years living very near to each other. When we met twenty years ago we discovered that we use to play in the same park at the same time as toddlers. We both remember the squirrels and the boating lake, - did he chase me round the playground I wonder?



Today was the first time in a long time that I walked through the park and really noticed it. Park life had really won me over, aren't we lucky to have these spaces? I needed a distraction, and found one, I came home happier and relieved that it was all over for a while, and, if it wasn't for all the injections I'm sure I would have smiled.