I could feel my eyelid twitching, dear reader.
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It’s one of my signs. A key performance indicator, which indicates, well, compromised performance.
Eyelid twitching demands the metaphorical parking of a few tasks, demands some time be spent idling, calls for trip down to the Park, down to Maitland Park …
And the way that splendid expanse of green has always been a salve for me, for us.
And like all good things, the Park is a place that will have you as you are: with your swimming friends, with your far-flung getting together for a birthday party family, with your team - or just you and your thoughts, your twitchy eye.
And the way it’s a timeless place down there. The way there’s a solid familiar set of feelings on offer as you enter…
The way if you come in from Elgin Street, through the silent but still speaking gates, by the Memorial - the way it makes me step soft past the angel up there, sword aloft, towering above us, lest we forget.
Or if along old Blomfield Street you come, a less grandiose way in, tradesman-like, but beautiful. Come that way and you meet the netball courts - where in Saturday winter sunshine a thousand whistles, like Bellbirds, tinkle through the day - and the kids play and play - like they always have…
And hockey, croquet and cricket too, they're there for me and you.
On the well loved turf - on soft hallowed soil - Robins Oval, a rite of passage for Maitland Sportspeople - such a wonderful piece of Earth, quivering with life.
And there’s the Bowling Club too - a slice of authentic country town Australia
Over there, old pavilions and rotundas, magnificent functioning cultural relics - reminders that this has long been ground for leisure, for proper floodplain living.
And I can imagine them all down there, all those years ago, in gentle shade or soft sun, living like us, breathing easy and slow in the Park…
![A TIMELESS PLACE: Robins Oval sits beautifully in the centre of our city's lovely park. Picture FLOYD MALLON A TIMELESS PLACE: Robins Oval sits beautifully in the centre of our city's lovely park. Picture FLOYD MALLON](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/Q9r3V9AUcqpAGD3DNsaA9W/b4fc3dad-da2f-46e3-8077-dcf089d58f95.jpg/r0_530_5184_3375_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
Yet despite the magnificent continuity of the Park, some things have changed, good things too I reckon: like the little kids bike track, their own safe circuit for learning, and a bit of daring.
The play equipment has been modernised, made less death-defying I suppose. Long gone is that spinning wheel thing that I played on back then – the way there were threats for the spinner and the spinee.
And I reckon I like the new stuff better, reckon we would have all enjoyed the flying fox, the bare-foot kids of yore…
And that there new walking track dear reader, the way it circumnavigates it all, how you can skate or ride or run or just amble around the whole place.
The way it can cure a twitching eye dear friends…
And so it goes. Goodnight.