*Louise**
***
Imagine the derrières that dawdled in these deckchairs on a hot summer’s day.
Old ladies with paperback books, reliving past loves, back when they were just sixteen and they’d meet their sweetheart right here in the park, in a snatched hour between work in a West End shoe shop and dinner at home with mum and dad.
Mothers with children running rings round the lines of chairs, totting up figures: the price of a new uniform for her, a school trip for him.
The shared confidences spilled over a lunchtime conversation, where two office workers, heads bent together, gossip about the guy from accounts and the girl from IT.
Think of the shoppers, having walked from Bond Street to Marble Arch, dropping chic paper bags stuffed with gauzy garments (“Don’t look at the price tag. It’s Armani, darling, I just had to have it,”) and easing tired feet from designer shoes.
The weary tourists, all their sights seen for the day, kicking off trainers or ballet flats and flipping through the guidebook or consulting an app to decide where to go for dinner. Bhel Poori just off the Euston Road, Pie, mash and liquor (jellied eels too if you’re feeling brave and authentic) in Peckham, or fancy fish and chips and posh piccalilli in a pub at Parson’s Green.
Where will they go once winter sets in and the chairs disappear, stacked up and tidied away until the March winds herald spring and the start of a new deckchair season?
Blog photograph copyrighted to the photographer and used with permission by utata.org. All photographs used on utata.org are stored on flickr.com and are obtained via the flickr API. Text is copyrighted to the author, Debra Broughton and is used with permission by utata.org. Please see Show and Share Your Work
