Feeling a Bit Sad: Autumn Musings.

Autumn, for her, is often a time of reflecting. Of looking back on what has been and how she felt about it then, how she feels about it now. She's trying, post Caring (and it does still need a capital letter, probably always will), mid marital crisis, to put herself at the centre of her own life. To be the heroine of her own stories and not a supporting role, no matter how vital, in someone elses!

Our heroine is in The Park, the Arboreutum to be precise. It's a glorious autumn day and the trees are spectacular in their shades of red, orange, amber, yellow, purple, brown and indescribable shades between those colours... She has been walking along kicking leaves and is feeling A Bit Sad. This particular park reminds her of her Dad, dead now, just over a year ago, in midsummer. Incidentally, it was the first 'public arboretum' in the UK, opened in 1840. A 'gift' from a local philanthropist to express his gratitude to the working people who'd helped make him so rich! Although initially private, a sixpence being the original entry fee she seems to remember, it was free on Sundays and Wednesdays for all to enjoy. Eventually, in 1882, the charges were abolished and all classes of people could enjoy a stroll on any day of the week. She thinks about these facts, her Dad liked facts, he wasn't much of a man for stories but he liked facts. She herself is a lover of stories, and suspects that the arboretum has many to tell.

After his stroke her Dad was in a 'rest home' at the back of this park. Supposedly 'recuperative' but actually just a place to park people after the six weeks 'rehab' stroke patients get if it's felt they're not ready to return home. He hated it, although he liked seeing the park from his window and could occasionally be persuaded to be wheelchaired out in it. It was between January and March, the time he was 'inside', as they later came to call it. She remembers it well, and he had a horror of being cold! Even with a rug and a hat and gloves and all that paraphernalia he often complained, although he loved the trees. He was a lover of nature and liked to look at how things changed with the season. They used to look at squirrels too.. she still counts squirrels sometimes, on her walks, to tell him how many, then remembers he's no longer here to tell... He also had a horror of being stuck in that place to die... They got him out, got him back home, and that's when her big life change began. When she left everything behind, moved cities, moved in with her parents and became A Carer, with a capital C, a Family Carer. Five years ago, nearly six now.

She sits on a bench and watches the leaves drift down. She can hear both birds and the sounds of the city. Children's voices from a school nearby, traffic, people walking past. This is the city of her youth and this park used to be full of dealers and junkies and Not a Nice Place then. Now, thanks to CCTV and community work, it's much safer, at least in the daytime. It's cleaner too. Community service ensures the ground is mostly covered in leaf litter and not the other kind. No piles of Disguarded Items either. Some of the nearby streets still collect those - it starts with a old matress, or a sofa usually. Odd how those sort of piles develop - fly tipping she thinks it's called. Unwanted items must have a sort of law of attraction. Also, she suspects people think 'oh good, I can dump my (insert name of item) here because other people have and it'll save the bother of getting rid of it responsibly' (or thoughts to that effect). She walked past one of these rubbish piles on her way in. There may be needles and baggies under the bronze and yellow drifts of leaves but she doubts it. Times have Changed. They have, she suspects, changed many times since that initial idea of 'a place for recreation'.

So she sits on a slightly damp bench with her takeaway chai and the golden light of autumn warm on her face, and looks at the trees. This is a tree zoo. It was made to 'educate' (and impress she suspects) as well as for 'leisure', a new, emerging concept at the time of it's beginning, and to delight. Some of these exotic species were planted over 200 years ago. Once, there was a catalogue that could be bought for a shilling. Not all have survived and some of the 'exotics' have been replaced by the more pollution tolerant London Plane or Limes and so on.

There are magnificent beasts here, massive trunks, gnarled, worled, weathered. These trees have seen a few things, and would have tales to tell! Some of the trees here are listed on the British Isles Tree Register, a catalogue of notable trees in the country recorded by the Forestry Commission. Another fact her dad liked. The layout is stately and spaced. Arranged by humans and not natural at all. Designed and planted by Louden, who became somewhat famous as a horticulturalist and whose ideas were rather against the fashion of the day which was to imitate nature. A place to perambulate and ponder, then and now. Also very beautiful and with a quiet sort of strength, certainly to her.

Some of these trees feel like friends. She's paused by them, leaned against them, or cried under them. Sometimes she's sat and read in their shade, or sitting against a trunk, because she's been back many times since her Dad got out, during his lifetime and since. Although he had many memories of this park, and used it as a child and a young man, living not far away, he could never be persuaded to come back after escaping from 'that place'. That was sad, she felt, that his pleasure in the place had been spoiled by an overlay of 'bad memories'. That's how we are as humans, the stories we tell ourselves are coloured by our emotions, and 'facts' can be affected by feelings.

She likes trees, trees are solid and steadying somehow. The black walnut is a particular favorite. That one's been here since the beginning and is indeed, as often described, a most 'handsome tree'. There's the one like the 'indian bean tree', she forgets it's name. (It's the so-called “Northern catalpa”, Catalpa speciosa, if you need to know). She's walked the 'circuit' widdershins, as she mostly does, before choosing a bench in the sun. There's a 'tree trail' these days and she was surprised to find it too is anti clockwise, as was the original planting/walking plan, she thought it was just her who did it like that. With her dad, it was usually a clockwise circuit, because he was that sort of a man. Today is a 'wobbly' day and she feels a bit better sitting here with the warmth of the sun on her face. Borrowing the strength of the trees.

The Park I was writing and Musing in is Derby Arboretum. https://friendsofderbyarboretum.co.uk/