We had a little time to spare up at Wivenhoe Park on Friday afternoon. Back in the day and having a little time to spare at Wivenhoe Park meant necking four cans of SPESH down by the lakes and then waking up with all sorts of mysterious and unknown stains down my Forest ‘89 replica kit.
Thankfully my tastes are a little refined these days. The Forest ‘89 replica is still worn with pride 0 and it’s also stain-free. I’ve also learnt my limit in that two cans of SPESH is all I can take these days.
Instead of collapsing around the back of the lakes, we decided to take on the Wivenhoe Park Tree Tour. Who knew such a thing even existed?
A little bit of an online shifty and soon I was able to download a ten page PDF documenting the various trees and the exact walking route.
Blimey, that sounds like bloody hard work. Maybe the best option is just to walk around and look at trees?
We tried to follow the guide as best as possible. I learnt about a Legion Grove, which used to be a cool leafy glade. That’s just the kind of shit you would never do as a student.
I was kind of interested for the first ten minutes or so. The endless commentary from my tree-walking partner did my nut in. She was determined to read the entire ten page PDF and point out trees of interest. I was just in search of my next can of SPESH, to be honest.
The timing was half decent. The students are back at Wivenhoe Park tomorrow morning. I thought we had got away with looking like a couple of nerds staring up at trees with no other fuckers around. I was wrong. A pal from football who works at the University clocked us. Oh dear.
We did get a little lost when my tree partner failed to identify a silver birch. It was staring her right in the face.
The walk then got a little random. It was punctuated with some zigzag movement that took in pretty much the crazy and bonkers frisbee golf course around Wivenhoe Park.
My only observation of note is that I quite love the contrast of the 1960s brutalism of the University against the backdrop of the Mother Nature shit.
It all got a little too much about halfway through for me. We were walking through some pines, which our ten page PDF guide reliably informed us were victims of the Great Storm of 87. They didn’t look too damaged to me.
The walk was cut short at my request. It was starting to do my head in by now.
But if you’re not a fan of trees, then maybe this one is for you. I should send some of the fuckers from the Town Council on the Wivenhoe Park Tree Walk. Yeah that would liven the stiffs up.
SHOUT OUT Helen C for the heads up 👌🏼
