The Lakes

half-term, unpaid childcare

what else would we do, the place 

comes highly recommended 

not an arm and a leg to get in

it sounds familiar

only half an hour by car

we’re on

we’re hooked

we’re off

it’s busy obviously

half term remember

logs delineate parking spaces

4×4 city picnic world, kid haven

the publicity is bang-on

It’s very very good

good adventure playground

good hiking and cycling

and most important of all

bloody good coffee

kids smother the climbers

ropes slides and tunnels

like killer ants

their chorale noises both 

enchant and assault my ears

we set up base-camp

so she knows where 

to come back to for lunch

as she becomes a killer ant

I need a pee, bloody furosemide

and go in search of one

on the way back it hits me

a flash of retrospection

the church across the valley

St Peter’s, the lakes much 

gentrified now but still familiar

I’m upwind of the kids cacophony

all I can hear is the rattle 

of reeds and bulrushes

pranked by the slightest zephyr

and the dapping of ripples

like supping trout

I used to fish here, with him

my late father

could only have been about eight

no more than ten for sure

they were just gravel pits then

good sport if the nearby river

was slow or in spate

bikes left in nettles

would still be there on the way back

it was my paradise then

a different sort of haven

another calmer quieter

adventure playground

*

Graham R Sherwood 10/22