I had just collected Sienna and Cairo from school.
They were playing at what I call The Tarzan Swing Rope place. It’s a spot on the Parkland Walk* in north London where there’s a huge tree with sprawling roots and branches on the top of a bit of a ridge, so there’s a slope down on one side of the tree.
Someone (the local government forestry maintenance people?) had put up a thick rope: one end around a big branch, the other end around the middle of a stout stick so that one can sit astride it like a T-bar on the ski slopes, and swing down over the space above the slope.
Takes a bit of practice to get it right, but the children have been doing various versions:
*sit astride the T-bar, and swing back and forth
*hold on to the T-bar with the hands, jump off and swing out in a wide circle, like a flying trapeze artist
A lot of people use this Parkland Walk — some exercising their dogs, some taking children home from school, some just out for a walk.
On Monday, an Oriental couple walked past, then stopped to watch. I was trying to work out if they were Japanese or Korean. Sienna then asked me if they were tourists — I said maybe.
The bloke then took his mobile phone out to take a photo of Cairo swinging on the rope, so I called out, through my mask, “Do you want to have a go?” He said he was too heavy, I said it’s very sturdy. He worried he wouldn’t be any good at it, I said he could just have a little go, as it’s great fun.
He then turned round and called out my name!
It was a Japanese student of mine from 25 years ago! He said he’d instantly recognised me from my voice. Even through the mask!
(London, 2021)
*The Parkland Walk follows the course of the old railway that ran between Finsbury Park and Alexandra Palace.
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