Parks for yummy mummies and immigrants

We have discovered two nice parks with a 10-15 minute walk of our rental house.  It is interesting to note the contrast in the two.  The first is located in Blackrock park, quite close to a shopping center.  It is the closer park, and you get nice views of the sea en route.  It is fairly small, but the equipment is nice.  Because I did not know about the existence of the second park, this first park is the one I’ve frequented with the girls.  However, I noticed a couple of things about the park.  First, it is never very crowded.  Admittedly, it is a bit exposed, and it is at the bottom of a hill, so it’s not ideal.  Second, English is rarely spoken by the parents or kids in this park.  I’ve seen a couple of Irish families there for a few minutes, but the “regulars”, those I’ve seen multiple times, are not native English speakers.  Thus, I refer to this as the immigrants’ park.

I made my first visit to the second park on Saturday (my wife LBJ took the girls there on Friday as well).  This park is located in a more upmarket neighborhood, and the parents there are pretty well off.  Thus, LBJ has labeled this park as the yummy mummy park.  As you can infer, a “yummy mummy” refers to an upper-class, attractive mother.  The term is popular in the UK as well as Ireland (perhaps elsewhere as well).  Anyway, the kids like this playground better because it has better slides and climbing options, as well as a see-saw.  But it is a bit further away.

Once LBJ goes to work on Tuesday (Monday is a bank holiday here), I’ll have to figure out which park to frequent.  I’m not a mummy, I’m an immigrant, and I’m lazy.  But the kids (and LBJ, of course) like the YM park better.  And, as mentioned in a previous post, I can do my glass recycling there.  I could easily put the glass bottles in the bottom of the stroller.

That leads me to my final thought for today’s posting.  Strollers are great for storing stuff when running errands!  I’ve even been tempted to take the stroller (without a child) for ease of carrying the stuff home from the local supermarket (a five-minute walk away).