May. 19th, 2004 01:54 pm
Wandering.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ang_rosinI walked to the library this morning. It's only a 5-10 minute trip by the most direct route - over the field and through the cemetery - but one that I haven't taken regularly for years. When I was a kid I'd often walk there after school to swap my books but now my trips to the library are taken by the car, on my way to, or from, somewhere else.
But the weather was pleasant this morning, I had nowhere else to be, I fancied the exercise, and I had the excuse of a book to return [1], so I walked to the library.
It's actually a quiet and pretty little walk during the day, if all the kids are in school. In the field I passed a pensioner walking her dog and the council groundsman preparing to cut the grass. I also, unthinkingly, walked right through a group of fledgling blackbirds, much to the dismay of Mum: she chirruped and strutted until I passed.
In the cemetery there was what looked like 100 young starlings hopping awkwardly in the longer grass. I imagine the groundsman would arrive as soon as the playing field was finished and their rich pickings would be destroyed. There was also a Nissan Micra parked on the path by the derelict chapel, seemingly packed tight with pensioners. They'd gone by the time I walked past again - I wonder if they ever managed to extract themselves from the car.
When I was a teenager I'd run through the cemetery, or avoid it completely and walk along the main road. The rows of gravestones, the decaying flowers, the abandoned buildings - all these echoes of death creating a gothic symphony of horror in my imagination. I even thought there were bats. Bats! In the middle of Bootle![2] Now if I feel anything at all as I pass the gravestones it's a sort of peaceful sadness. Quite often I'll wander off the main path and read the inscriptions on the stones, particularly the older (and grander) ones from the late 19th and early 20th century, as I doubt they get any visitors now. Many of the older gravestones have been cracked and broken by passing bored youths, similar vandals to those who took out the clock faces with stones, I imagine, or carved their names in the wooden doors of the chapel.
One part of the cemetery that appears to remain vandalism free, though whether this is through respect, vigilance, or constant clearing up I don't know, is the Baby Garden. This is a small, gated enclosure containing some benches and a memorial plaque for those children who have been lost before, during, or just after birth. I always feel cheered by the sight of this garden - it's a relatively new addition to the cemetery and a reminder of the progress that has been made in obstetrics. It's also, very obviously, a place designed as a celebration of life, rather than a morbid reminder of death.
[1] Quicksilver, which I have now finished, and grudgingly admit is worth the struggle. I have now ordered The Confusion, much to the amusement of the librarian.
[2] A few years later I saw my first local bats. They lived in sea defences on the beach at Seaforth Docks.
But the weather was pleasant this morning, I had nowhere else to be, I fancied the exercise, and I had the excuse of a book to return [1], so I walked to the library.
It's actually a quiet and pretty little walk during the day, if all the kids are in school. In the field I passed a pensioner walking her dog and the council groundsman preparing to cut the grass. I also, unthinkingly, walked right through a group of fledgling blackbirds, much to the dismay of Mum: she chirruped and strutted until I passed.
In the cemetery there was what looked like 100 young starlings hopping awkwardly in the longer grass. I imagine the groundsman would arrive as soon as the playing field was finished and their rich pickings would be destroyed. There was also a Nissan Micra parked on the path by the derelict chapel, seemingly packed tight with pensioners. They'd gone by the time I walked past again - I wonder if they ever managed to extract themselves from the car.
When I was a teenager I'd run through the cemetery, or avoid it completely and walk along the main road. The rows of gravestones, the decaying flowers, the abandoned buildings - all these echoes of death creating a gothic symphony of horror in my imagination. I even thought there were bats. Bats! In the middle of Bootle![2] Now if I feel anything at all as I pass the gravestones it's a sort of peaceful sadness. Quite often I'll wander off the main path and read the inscriptions on the stones, particularly the older (and grander) ones from the late 19th and early 20th century, as I doubt they get any visitors now. Many of the older gravestones have been cracked and broken by passing bored youths, similar vandals to those who took out the clock faces with stones, I imagine, or carved their names in the wooden doors of the chapel.
One part of the cemetery that appears to remain vandalism free, though whether this is through respect, vigilance, or constant clearing up I don't know, is the Baby Garden. This is a small, gated enclosure containing some benches and a memorial plaque for those children who have been lost before, during, or just after birth. I always feel cheered by the sight of this garden - it's a relatively new addition to the cemetery and a reminder of the progress that has been made in obstetrics. It's also, very obviously, a place designed as a celebration of life, rather than a morbid reminder of death.
[1] Quicksilver, which I have now finished, and grudgingly admit is worth the struggle. I have now ordered The Confusion, much to the amusement of the librarian.
[2] A few years later I saw my first local bats. They lived in sea defences on the beach at Seaforth Docks.