I'll always remember when me and my friend, Jon, were students. We'd been working on a video project all night and kept encountering a glitch in the playback of a particular scene. We flipped and cleared off around 11pm, intent on going to the Pier nightclub in Cleethorpes. It was my first time walking through the Country Park. It was deathly silent and dark and I'm sure we heard ghostly footsteps follow us across one of the wooden bridges...
There was the many Parkruns I've done there. Many times from 2016 to 2017 (and a few more years after that) it was like a ritual. Saturday morning with my mate, Matt. Picked up at 8.30am, at the Country Park by 9am, finishing with (hopefully) a PB by 9.30am. Brilliant days where I met many new running friends.
Then after the pandemic Jake and I visited here for the first time. Eating sweets by the lake and exploring the surrounding wooded areas. We got a little bit lost that day.
And then there was the time me and Ange visited there. We'd only just met and she'd come to visit me. We watched a sunset beside the lake, laughing as one of the cloud formations looked like Snoopy the dog. Such a beautiful night and such a beautiful memory. One I'll never forget.
When Ange and I split up for the first time two years ago my sister took me here and we walked around and around before getting back into her car and driving around the town, trying to sort my head out.
Then, strangely, back in November, the day Ange and I started talking again, that night Matt and I went for a run in the dark. That, again, was a memorable night.
And so we return to the present. Again, it's a place filled with many memories. Most of them happy. It always makes me feel melancholy when I return here. For a place that I don't visit that often, it's played such an important part of my life. I guess it will continue to do so.
Finally, here's a small selection of pictures that I took on Sunday.
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