I created this post almost two months ago, in order to post photos and write about a trip to Battersea Park last summer. But, on reflection, there's not a great deal to say.
It was a hot day in June and summer had barely begun. We didn't know it, but this was the start of an extended period of gloriously hot summer weather.
We caught the bus down to Battersea Park. We intended to go boating, but worried that everybody else would have the same idea, and the queue would be a mile long. And, indeed, there was a queue. I suggested we joined it, and after ten minutes we would be able to gauge the length of the wait. After ten minutes, we were taking possession of a rowing boat - the wait was longer for pedalos, but we wanted to row.
We spent an hour rowing. We don't do it very often, and my partner cannot grasp that I am better at it than him. Even though I always explain "I used to row at University".
I know you have visions of me, in an eight, up at dawn to train on the River Trent. That's not precisely what I mean, even though my old University has a decent reputation for rowing - in fact, I don't think you can call yourself a Nottingham graduate unless you did some rowing at Uni...on the boating lake.
Battersea Park is a lot smaller than Highfields in Nottingham and a lot of it is roped off. Sharing the water with so many other users, as well as myriad water fowl, means more time is spent steering round obstacles than actually opening up and rowing straight. Perhaps inevitably there's always one party who seem to think that there's only them on the lake and everyone must make way for them.
I was rather touched to see a young woman in a hijab with two young boys in a rowing boat. She was floundering, not having grasped that you have to sit backwards in the boat.
I explained to her that you have to use the oars to push the water backwards so that the boat can move into the space - and use the small boys as lookouts. It would have been easy to mock her ineptitude but I admire her for venturing outside her comfort zone and bringing a great new experience to her sons. I hope they found the hidden treasure.
Boating in a municipal park is a nice way to spend an hour every so often, and it's not difficult once you get the hang of it.
