The Dodgy Park

Today's park is not going to be rated - you're never going to go there unless you move into my street. It's one of those dinky little parks with barely any bones to it which sits in a grassy patch at the end of a street or adjacent to a main road. Nothing attractive at all.

So why on earth am I bothering to post given that this blog has been set up for "ratings" and "recommendations" and I'm not going to do that? I wanted to point out the value of all parks big or small and - more importantly - the value of going to a lo-fi park frequently rather than saving up for the hullabaloo of a drive and packing a picnic (etc) to go somewhere more flashy.

The park below is across the road and up one street. Thus we go there ALL THE TIME. Way more often that we go anywhere else. It's our local. It has one slide, two swings, a couple of falling apart rocker things that I'm actually too scared for CK to go in incase they are rusted away and break at the slightest bend. It has an excessive amount of graffiti offering cracks, good times and telling me that Jenny is a slut. There are always booze bottles on the ground. The one time we met someone else here the other girl played a game with CK and cheated, thus this has become known as "the cheaters park" by CK (she mentions it every time we go there...). It's got nothing going for it really.

But given that its across the street and given that we can pop there for five minutes with young MK in the sling and CK walking, its actually got everything going for it. CK has decided that this is her animal rescue centre (a la Go Diego Go). This park will never be a treasure island or a vet surgery or a cafe or a school. It's always going to be the animal rescue centre. And for that she loves it dearly.

My post today is to say don't save up your park experiences until you have the time to go to one with rocking ships or climbing frames that reach the clouds - go to your dodgy one down the road frequently. Your kid will make a connection and form a scenario around how they want to interact with the park stronger than if you head to a park where its all laid out for them.

Photos below of CK mid-animal rescue. A baby bear was caught in a large tree and only she and her sister could save it.