During that killer Millennium Drought a few years ago, around about this precise time of the year, The Addy ran an article about redevelopment plans for Rosalind Park.
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It was to be used for emergency agistment for starving sheep to maintain a breeding base for when the drought broke. And – of course – it was April 1, but a lot of people fell for it and launched into “Bloody Council” tirades on social media.
But, oh how I wish I’d known the following information. I reckon we could have cranked the outrage industry to full Thermonuclear Defcon3.
A very dear friend who is of proud Dutch heritage was telling us the other night of a much-loved park in Amsterdam, and I reckon it could be the model for our Rossie Park.
It’s called Vondelpark after a 17th-century playwright and poet Joost van den Vondel. It covers 47 hectares, about twice the size of Rosalind Park, and gets more than 10 million visitors a year.
But many of the locals think it should be called Fondle Park.
The Dutch have a different approach to some social issues compared to Australia, and one of them is that it’s okay for folk to visit the park at lunchtime and strip down to their undies to do a little sunbathing. And when I say undies, I mean just the bottom bits.
That’s possibly why they get 10 million visitors a year.
The local town council thought the rules needed a little tweaking, so it brought in new bylaws.
Among other things, it stipulated that full nudity was out. Curiously, that caused some public upset.
But, you could have sex in the park – as long as it wasn’t near the kiddies playground and you took any rubbish away with you when you left.
The council said sex in the park would be preferred to be around twilight or in the dark.
Oh, and one other thing. No dogs off leads. That upset dog owners. One commented: “As long as there’s been a park, we’ve been allowed to let our dogs run free.” Yeah, well now you can let some other things run free and unleashed.
I know Sunday’s April 1, but I swear I’m not making this up. After our friend told us about Vondelpark, she emailed an article about it, and at first I thought: Hmmm, could be fake news. But further checks with news sites, tourism sites and sites which reveal fakery and scams, it was shown to be correct.
Just imagine the pitchfork-carrying, flaming torch mobs which would invade Pall Mall if we were to suggest this for our serene and (mostly) fully-clothed Rosalind Park.
Their heads would explode if it was proposed we permitted topless sunbathing and a bit of rustling in the rhododendrons. Passion among the possums. Frolicking with the fruit bats. Doing whatever they liked in the fernery.
Footnote: if we adopted a Vondelpark approach, it wouldn’t be the first time Rosalind Park was associated with err, vigorous and unconventional activity of the nether regions. We forget who Rosalind was. She’s from Shakespeare’s As You Like It, and was a nobelman’s daughter who ran off with a chap and lived in the woods, disguised as a bloke, while her cousin was disguised as a Rosalind’s sister. It is a searing tale of passion, lust and love lost and found.
Get out those pitchforks. Light those flaming torches.
WAYNE GREGSON