There is
a new skate park. This has been a long time in the making; all summer builder-artists
have been creating curving concrete surfaces. And now it is open. I knew it was
because suddenly it was surrounded by litter. And also there were skateboarders
even at 7.00 am when I was walking my dog. I admire the dedication. By my
lunchtime dog walk the place is heaving. I watch some impressive bicycle
tricks. It's good, it's wholesome, it's not playing computer games. It is
very boy-dominated. Where are the girl boarder/bikers? I know they exist; I
work with one, one once lived next door and I've seen them on the Southbank
too. But not on the new skate park.
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Another irritation, and now I'm being a cantanker, is that I find myself
living on a through-route artery to the skate park. Okay, I'll cope during the
day, but at 6.00 am (Are these the shy ones that want the park to themselves?)
and at 11.30 pm the clatter-chatter, grundle-trundle I wish to pin tack the
street. It’s probably all karmic. I am a loud person, I must irritate many, I
must be made to suffer.
Maybe I’m jealous, I have no balance, no spatial sensibility and no
wheels. Are we meant to travel this way? Initially I think not but for all my
clumsiness, all my falling-on-my-arseness on roller-skates, I now recall ‘Chorlton
and the Wheelies’ and more recently those wonderful diamond-spined beasts, the
Mulefa, in Philip Pullman’s ‘The Amber Spyglass’.
So maybe I’ll have another try. Maybe I’ll buy some carboot
roller-blades. Maybe I’ll be Mulefalicous. And maybe set the alarm clock for 5.00 am.
