What's the weather like where you are today? It's bloody freezing here again. I had to wrap up for this evening's walk. But I still did it – we're on day 21, and I can't miss a day because then we'd be all out of sync. Time seems to be important to a lot of people right now, including me, and I feel like I need to mark it and record it.
So, I set off up the street, wrapped up to my eyeballs again, not quite sure where I might end up. I got my daily shots of the empty roads; very important. What's weird about this one is that I don't actually recognise where it is and don't remember taking it. But it's on my camera roll and I clearly did take it because there's my wrapped-up shadow in the corner. Trick of the light and the night, I guess.
I found myself heading towards the park. I wasn't sure if I was going to parade around some of the streets I used to know as a teen or just get to the end of the park and turn back. But one thing I did know was that I definitely wasn't going in the park – no way; if I couldn't brave it when Matthew was with me, I wouldn't dare on my own. I mean, look at it! Creepy as hell.
So I walked along the pavement next to the park, noticing that the cathedral (that's why Lancaster is officially a city, apparently, because it has a cathedral) was very pretty. I also pondered for a while over the fact that eyes are far superior to iPhone cameras (let's skirt over the fact that I'm blind as a bat without my glasses, shall we?) – I could see the cathedral in beautiful focus and quite some detail with my eyes, but the iPhone could only see this:
Further on, I reached the Triangle. I don't know if this little hub has a more official name, but it's always been known as the Triangle as long as I've been around. It's because that little patch of grass you can see is in the shape of ... a triangle. Lancastrians are nothing if not imaginative.
I didn't feel like turning back and marching home the way I came, so I carried on round the perimeter of the park. There's a building in the middle of it that's hella creepy looking at night, all white and ghostly. Who in their right mind would want to go in there?
Well, apparently I was not in my right mind this evening because I found myself inside the park. I actually said to myself, out loud, 'good god, woman, what are you doing?' It seems I'd temporarily gone slightly insane because I was also gibbering a little bit. But then I stopped dead and shut the hell up when I noticed a deathly pale figure approaching me – I grabbed my phone and tried very surreptitiously to get a photo of it, thinking quite clearly, ooh, this'll look good in the blog.
This is what I captured:
I'm well aware that you can see nothing at all that might resemble a figure, but I can see it. Turned out it was just a youth-type person in a white tracksuit. He even smiled and said 'evenin'', which is quite unusual for this part of town.
I soldiered on – I'd got this far, I might as well just walk right across to the other side, and it's not a very big park. But to get to the other side from here, I was going to have to get past that hella creepy building. I've never liked it because it's got a sort of tower at one side that looks like it might have been used to lock people away a long time ago. Also, it's surrounded by sinister trees that try to grab you.
I reached the creepy building and now had two choices. I could go this way round, which was pitch black, no lights at all, probably where the murderers hang out:
Or I could go this way, which was brightly lit and about 20 metres from the road and the Triangle. I went this way, because I'm a coward, but also because it has always been drummed into me that a woman alone should NEVER go through the park at night.
Twenty metres from the road, easy peasy. Until I stopped at the front of the creepy building to take a photo and my stupid brain went into overdrive and said to itself, what if you see a face looking out of one of those windows? FFS! I actually did a little scream giggle, stuffed my phone back in my pocket and ran – yes, ran! – to the main path.
Here, big car park on the main path, right next to the road. This is how far I ran, because that's the creepy building behind me. I don't remember the last time I ran, but it wasn't this year, and it possibly wasn't last year either.
I did consider braving it right up the path to the end, but I'd completely spooked myself and had to get back on the pavement. Look, see how shaken I was? Idiot.
I need to come up with a plan for work days. It might be sensible for me to walk around lunchtime, so let's see how that works out tomorrow. Course, that does mean that James and Thomas definitely won't join me because the lazy sods will still be in bed at that time.
Until tomorrow, when I hope we see birds again.
WQ
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