Memories of Mowbray Park

There's a park on the edge of the city where I live. It's a beautiful park, a large park. It has a bandstand and a fine display of council, municipal planting.  In the summer it hosts picnics and concerts. In the winter there are reindeers and twinkling lights in the trees. It has a large pond with ducks, geese and swans. 

As a child I was taken to town on a Saturday morning by mam and grandma. We'd meet up with grandma's sisters by the pond in the park so that I, "the bairn" could chuck bread to the ducks. I remember all of this.  I remember the group of old ladies, all sisters, that I walked around the pond with as I chucked bread to the ducks. I remember being the centre of their world as I walked around the pond with the old ladies, and my mam.  I remember listening to their gossip, as grandma and her sisters caught up with a week's worth of news.

I continue to walk around the park on Saturday mornings, and all those memories flood back every time.  But these days I'm not meeting anyone in the park, for gossip and news. I don't even chuck bread to the ducks.  I walk through the park, past the ducks and the swans and around the bandstand on my way to visit mam who is now in a care home with Alzheimer's Disease.
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