Peace and Angst

Today I feel "this website is dull". Bloggly ugly dull dull. That's not even my voice I'm writing in. It's like I've been possessed by another, someone who drivels and cares not from whence the words come. 'Bloggly' I ask you. I'm sure the cardinal rule of blogging is not to mention the actual act of composition (how dirty!) but I'm driven by the urge to put things artfully into words, and when it isn't working I feel hollow and appalled with the waste of effort.

For something more cheerful, why not go to the Maygrove Peace Park? It is just around the corner from (somewhat fictional) Finchmore Road. There are swings, to the delight of Pie, and a sort of assault course for grown-ups which Mr Q throws himself onto with both vim and vigour. Aarghh, there goes that voice again.

It is peaceful: there are quotations from John Lennon, Ghandi, Edmund Burke and The Mayor of Hiroshima, engraved into paving slabs. A statue of a figure in contemplation on a rock lends a cerebral air - and could be an Anthony Gormley sculpture, which would bestow kudos as well as peace.

There is an 'outdoor gym' - Camden Council have installed them in parks all over the borough. The first one we saw was in Kilburn Grange Park and was being played on by loads of kids. It was still fenced off at the time, prior to its unveiling, and the sight of tons of children eagerly doing illicit exercise brought joy to the heart.

Last week, being half term, there were lots of children in the Peace Park. On one hammock-like piece of apparatus, about eleven kids were clinging for dear life as a young man (care-worker? escaped prisoner?) swung them higher and higher. I could hardly bear to watch.