Hamilton is a dump too!

O Hamilton my Hamilton!

We went to the lake front playground, where some of my fondest memories are set. When we parked and got out, my heart broke. What a run down, soul destroying place. There are three playgrounds, now, all separate. One of them seemed to be the weekend project of some DIY hack. There were plywood panels bolted to parts of the climbing areas. The metal was worn and rusted, the rubber matting underneath was cracked and ripped.

The grass was long. The toilets smelled icky from fifty feet away. The rubbish bins were overflowing. There is what appears to be a construction site there, but it looks as if the contractors gave up and left three months ago.

The steam train is still there but gone is what felt like the longest slide in the world.

It has to be said that the clientelle has deteriorated considerably. Now, it feels like an unsafe place, with dirty little thugs skateboarding, spitting all over the place and seething with contempt for anyone who gets in their way. Perhaps their iwi now owns the land and we are nothing but intruders.

The drinking fountain was clogged up with rotting water.

The play equipment was tired and colourless. There is what looks like a thick plaited rope which is supposed to be a swing.

I could go on. I probably shouldn't.

I loved that place. I love the memories I have of it. I guess like so many other things those memories will have to remain as they are, isolated in time.

Silly me to think that my past could be revisited. I am rooted in my past, but as the things of my past disintegrate little pieces of me are chipped away, too, until perhaps I will become as desolate and meaningless as the once beautiful snippets of my previous existences.