The Park, The Yellow Football and The Brutalist Factory - Field Notes
Early morning exploration again. Twice in a row.
I woke before the city did, the kind of hour where the air still belongs to birds and the occasional distant car. I left the house and first walked to the public garden, while the light was still pale and undecided, then to the park.
There are a few spots from which you can see the river. I stopped at my special one for a while.
Sometimes I take my shoes and socks off at the park and walk upon different terrains: grass, soil with a mix of leaves, twigs, rocks, cobbled paths. My feet like it, and putting the socks and shoes back on feels peculiar. Different terrains bring different, unconscious conversations with the ground.
The next day, early morning again. Later I wandered through hidden back lanes and found a strange little path that looks like something out of a Hobbit story. Narrow, green, slightly secret. It leads somewhere unexpected — an abandoned factory.
A Brutalist building. Concrete. Brick-walled windows. And a secret entry.
I slipped inside and explored the factory. Once outside again, I walked around the courtyard.
And there it was. A yellow football sitting among weeds, as if someone had left it there for the next person who might pass through.
I played with it. At first just a few kicks. Then the body remembered more things. Feet control. A few taps upward. Knees. Passing the ball between the feet the way footballers do when they are warming up or showing off a little.
Funny thing is, I didn’t have to think about it. The body knew.
For a while I just played there alone under the blue sky, with the motorway humming somewhere in the distance and plants reclaiming the concrete. It was joyful.
Both mornings I never once took the phone out. I took no pictures. Some things are better left visually unrecorded.
[image: Ashley Pye - Yellow Ball]
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