Ruskin Park by Saharah

I have a tree that was planted especially for me when I was only a year old.

When I go to Ruskin Park I know my tree is waiting for me, it fills me with an unimaginable excitement. My tree is always covered with gold, red, amber and green leaves that delight my imagination… I remember going to see my tree when I was about six or seven and the beautiful leaves had hundreds of small gaping holes in each one. I was distraught when I found out that it had disease and the park keepers had to chop off all the diseased leaves and they did not grow back until the next spring. Every time I go up the steep hill and under the canopy of the humungous oak trees I feel as if I am as free as a bird, soaring over the treetops. Nothing can catch me.

            The first time I ever saw my tree I remember running straight to it as if I was being pulled by an invisible magnetic force. I had never been to Ruskin Park, yet my one and a half year old self just knew that it was mine. I have visited my tree so many times but I can remember everything that ever happened, I remember when I was little I would run all the way from the minuscule, colourful ice cream van that was always bursting with life and energy. I remember that I always got a small plastic cone filled with a sweet vanilla ice cream topped with a red, sugary strawberry sauce that was so syrupy my teeth were glued together.

            When I was little I thought that Ruskin Park was separated from the rest of the world and it appeared to be of such great size I sometimes felt that I would be lost in the soft pink blossoms from the small, narrow entrance to the clearing which held my tree. Surrounding my tree is a fifty year old Oak the height of a mast on an old fashioned pirate ship, with the leaves as the flag that waves that flutter and ripple in the wind, surging forward with each gust of air that passes through it brown and gold leaves.

            To get to my tree you have to venture through winding paths, across playgrounds in which young children play on the swings trying to swing high into the aqua sky. Past the tennis courts where the bright yellowy green tennis balls lay abandoned by exhausted players. Up the steep hill to the duck pond filled with mysterious deep blue water covered with hundreds of brown, green, blue and silver feathered ducks, then a flash of white, a beautiful swan gliding across the water, its powerful wings spread wide. Then under the canopy of green leaves, pink blossoms and warm brown wood beneath the summer sun, to the glade which possesses my tree. 

            I always feel really calm when I go to Ruskin Park as it is not a particularly busy park however there is always something to do. I remember when I was younger there was a huge tree with a massive branch that my Dad put me on as if it were a large swing. Unfortunately the tree became diseased so the branch was chopped off and now sits next to the destroyed tree like a dismal stump. My tree is twelve years old, the same as me… it is about 6’5’’ and its highest branches stretch high above my head. Despite this it is small enough for me to put my arms around it easily. Ruskin Park is near Denmark Hill in London and I nearly moved there once but my Dad decided to say no way.