Plucky British Optimism / Picnics in the Mud

I went to a park after work to clear my head. It still feels good to be out of the house.

There is a weariness here; people are tired of the boredom that comes about from months of restrictions 

To be bound to your region, even a pretty one, is still to be bound. Plus all the other restrictions on top of that. It’s a few months before people formally will be able to have visitors inside their houses.


It’s about 8 degrees, the looming trees have tiny fists of leaves waiting to burst open.

Dogs bound about; still ignorant of any rules after all these months; they nuzzle for a pat.

Occasionally you can come across a band of disaffected yoof, rebelling by standing in groups of 10 or so by the trees, sharing food.


But mainly it’s the picnics of two; people sitting at either end of a park bench chatting, or bundled up on a muddy knoll. It’s hard to know what people would volunteer to do in normal times, and I don’t mean to romanticise what has been unrelentingly hard for people; but the fact that sunsets are still sunsets, and people are still people, is kinda nice.



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