Saturday 21 April 2018

Eyes don't lie at the Rec

A barmy morning, I took a slightly convoluted route to work. Only an extra 10 minutes added to the 'direct' route but enough time for a diversion from the norm.

This resulted in crossing the Stanley Recreation Ground. In the morning sun it looked enticing from a distance. Upon reaching its edges, I made my way across a desire path towards the main 'official' path. The rec felt quite pleasant in a rough grass slightly littery sort of way. No manicured straight line gardens or park keepers here.

I came across what looked like the base of a missing statue. I imagined a stone figure becoming animated and extracting itself from the base before wandering off across the grass in the manner of a Ray Harryhausen creation. The remaining base resembled an altar, with a few offerings of empty beer cans and fag butts placed on or around it. Not far away a group of people occupied a bench which had a far more impressive array of similar detritus strewn about it. People for whom 8 in the morning wasn't too early for a tin of brew. Disciples of the missing statue, perhaps.


Leaving the Rec I passed the 'official' notice board. Pretty much unused apart from by the City College who had stuck a few random notices behind the glass in 2016. Some unofficial additions included a black and white sticker bearing a mysterious symbol of a four pointed star or possibly a compass. Possibly navigational, but if so too cryptic to be desiphered.  


I didn't notice at first the quote from Al Pacino in Scarface graffittied across one side: 'The eyes Chica, they never lie'. Out of context, on  rec in Peterborough, this sounded more like a warning than advice on picking up women for Cuban gangsters. Similarly cryptic to the star/compass. Pondering this and the similarly baffling statue-altar I left for work. 

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