From the Duck Ponds to the Sand Dunes

From the Duck Ponds to the Sand Dunes

All started many years ago back when I was just a tot, walking with my grandma past the duck pond in the park. 

Out our house and round the corner along the road and through the gates , then straight past the duckpond and bowling green to the swings and slides and roundabout. 

Through the years of growing up , every day I'd pass that pond , as every day of childhood and into teenage years I could be found playing then later hanging out in that park. 

Usually a pair of ducks or maybe sometimes two, sometimes even nesting but ducklings were never viewed

 Always lots of frogspawn when springtime came around and then some weeks later tiny froglets jumped about. 

Sometimes just like these days when there was flooding the pond spread across the grass, and it became like one huge swimming pool viewed from our loft behind the park. 

When I went off to uni  there I found another park another pond, on Sunday afternoons tired from studying , we'd take a break and walk and feed the ducks upon the pond. 

But soon I would depart to a life far away where there were no more duckponds just camels in the dunes

Miles upon miles of sand that is seemingly without end, and herds of camels travelling  calmly in search of food and friends.

 No parks as we knew them back in the UK.

And certainly no duckponds no water no rain. 

But every year I would return, with my sons in hand and every Summer's afternoon come rain or shine would be spent in the local park. 

The park no longer so pristine, the tennis courts in disrepair , the hedges and trees not so well trimmed, the flowerbeds somewhat unruly

And the duck pond, oh no words for that. 

Covered in algae and pond plants overgrown stagnant and unclean, no ducks to be seen, no funny little frogs.

What a disappointment, no ducks for my boys to see , but still each day we'd pass it, the duckpond in the park. 

Years and years flew by, my sons now grown men, mum moved to North Chingford, and my days in the park on visits home were doomed to end. 

When I flew back from the desert and wanted to relive and feel the green, I'd walk in Epping Forest and feel the calm and breathe. 

But South Chingford was calling and I joined the little gang who ran the local library based at Chingford Mount. 

So then on sunny days sometimes after shift I would take my sandwich and wander down to the park. 

The park  was looking good but would never be the same; they had new wood carvings and training machines. 

The pond was slightly better but still I saw no ducks, but I always felt nostalgia wandering through the park. 

But recently the park's been rehauled building flood drains and god knows what and amazingly someone cleaned up the pond, good old volunteers of course! 

And Richard has informed us there are now 5 males and 1 female sitting proudly on the pond. And even though when it floods their pond spreads all around, at least we have ducks back in the duckpond in the park. 

As I sit here in this city, city upon the sand, surrounded by desert for thousands of kilometres on end; as I see the camels wandering when you leave the city limits -

and where it rains once or twice throughout the year. 

Then I think back to the duckpond in our lovely local park; I think back of all the memories gathered in the lost park, and I laugh at Richard's picture of ducks wandering in the giant puddle in the park.

Michelle Jamal

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