Things kids say

A warm and sunny day today. Clare's garden is flourishing with lots of red and yellow roses, honeysuckle, and many other flowers. All our watched over French bean  plants have grown over two metres tall and are now in flower, such a pleasure to see.

After breakfast I drafted my Sunday sermon, then went for a walk around Llandaff Fields before lunch. The new trees planted below the houses being built on the corner of Penhill are growing healthily and the ground area they cover isn't being mown. Its long grass is rich with white clover and daisies. I wonder if it going to be left to go wild, and bushes allowed to create undergrowth to shield the ground floor level of the terrace above?

After lunch in the garden, I walked around Thompson's Park several times. There were scores of children with their parents, fresh from the end of an afternoon session at day nursery, enjoying the wild spaces, and populating them with their imaginations. Two little girls climbed the steps ahead of dad with the toddler. I heard him shout out to them "I told you not to go down Death Valley come back now." A small voice further along the path I was on shouted in protest. "But I'm not in Death Valley Dad!" I think this is what the kids call the wooded area behind the railings along the edge of the escarpment above the duck pond, several child sized paths run through the thicket under the trees, ideal for adventures. Not Fairy Dell, but Death Valley - the mind boggles.

Several notices have gone up in the park asking dog walkers frequenting the park not to let their animals run free in the lower section, but keep them on the lead, to safeguard the children. Already one notice had been uprooted and lay on the grass, so I took a photo, posted it on Instagram tagging the Council, hoping someone in the Comms department is awake on Friday afternoon. The notices in question are mounted on a wooden post secured in the ground with a metal mounting that can easily be knocked into the turf with a sledgehammer. And just as easily pulled out again. 

The notice is printed on a sheet of white plasticised cardboard, not exactly designed for longevity. One of the panels still standing had stray coats draped over it. Such a notice is needed. In the old days a metal or wooden one would be fixed to all three park gates. What's the point of erecting notices which by nature look temporary when a permanent solution is needed, now our parks get so much more regular use, thanks to changes in social habit wrought by the pandemic.

After supper we watched an art programme by Andrew Marr on Channel 5 about Picasso's powerful portrsit masterpiece 'The Weeping Woman', painted after his Guernica masterpiece, which also features a vignette of a woman weeping. Taken together both are a profound statement about the horror and cruelty of war. It was an excellent thoughtful production, like the others in the series watched so far.