I graced Wat Tyler Country Park with my presence a few days ago. What (Wat ?) a lucky
little park! Been there many times over the years, lots of memories, mostly
good, a few not so. The journey there was fairly uneventful ,the usual
diabolical pavements of course, but I'm getting the hang of those. I did have to
navigate a railway level crossing and I had visions of 'Bessie' (Mob Scoot)
conking out half way across, then me suddenly moving VERY fast in a sideways
direction and finding myself hitching a lift on an express going to London.
That's the pleasant image...So, I trundled on past the council tip (the one that
DOESN'T recycle as far as I know) all the time huge, full refuse collection
trucks thundering past, kicking up dust storms on their way to the landfill
site. Some bright spark in the past - "Let's create a country park for the good
people of this town. We could situate it next to the landfill and near the muddy
creek, on the site where they used to make high explosive munitions. It'll stink
a bit in the Summer but we can get the rubbish Jonnies to spray a kind of
perfume - that'll mask it!" And that's exactly what they do. The stench of
putrifying rubbish is bad enough on it's own, but when mixed with what amounts
to satan's air freshener, it's enough to make you gag. No such problem today -
at least on the journey there. So I hit the park gates. Bessie explodes. Huge
fire ball. Ignites some of those (buried) munitions mentioned earlier. Chinese
spy satelite misinterpreps as a missile launch. Retaliation imminent. So, once
inside I found a lot of paths that I never knew were there. Found quite a large
building called the "Green Centre". Seemed to be promoting a 'green' lifestyle,
but also had natural history and local historical exhibits in glass cases. One
was dedicated to the Napolionic wars containing various artifacts - including a
cannon ball. My Dad dug one up in our back garden when I was a kid. He was quite
surprised to find a Napolionic war raging under his brassicas. He used the
cannon ball (which some local luminary said was almost certainly from the time
of the English Civil war) to create kindling for lighting our Olde Worlde coal
fires. Raise cannon ball above head. Throw down with force on unsuspecting
scrap plank. Dendro-carnage! Saw and did lots more, but I think photos of things
(like interesting sculptures, the REAL Grey aliens who wiped my memory so I
can't remember their TERMINATED) might be (a little) more interesting than
descriptions. So I set off home. The landfill smell was quite strong (but 'raw'
and unperfumed). Stopped at my home-from-home TESCO! Bought skate ('Ray') wings
and a 4 serving strawberry trifle. On the way home, exchanged words with a bloke
who has the same scooter as me only bigger. May challenge him to a 'burn up'
(mine is newer). Got home. Poached skate wing. De-flippin'-licious. Invited
myself to join me in eating strawberry trifle. He's a pig that 'me'. Only one
portion left. Guess what's for breakfast...?
