Too Good To Be True

Warning: I am about to channel my early childhood weirdness and reference a musical. For those of you who haven't picked up on my choreographed-dancing-and-show-tune love affair....we must not have met yet!

There is this magical scene in Mary Poppins (who am I kidding--like there's just ONE magical scene??) where Mary Poppins, Jane and Michael Banks, and Bert-the-chimney-sweep jump straight into a sidewalk chalk drawing and voila! Gray, dreary, rainy London is no more! They are suddenly in a world of brilliant flowers, green rolling hills and dancing penguins.

Good news, folks. We had that moment today. Minus the dancing penguins.

Once again, all credit must go to the now-famous Peppy. She came to lunch yesterday (And we had no food or dishware. Another story for another time.) and told us of a local park not far down the road from our new flat. This afternoon was brilliantly sunny and warm so Will and I set out to find Cutteslowe Park. You must keep in mind that when I hear the word "park" I think local neighborhood swing set and sports fields. Even after living near Audubon for over a year, I still had no mental framework for what we found. We wound our way through neighborhoods, crossed over a busier street on a pedestrian bridge and suddenly found ourselves in an oasis of green. Oh the green.

We found our way onto the dirt path that wound itself around the park. It had the conventional park-y things (basketball goals, playgrounds, mums chasing after toddlers babbling in British accents, etc), but it also had great rolling hills of vividly green grass that stretched on for acres. The trees surrounding the fields were all turning to brilliant golds and reds and oranges. Several locals were out on the expanse throwing balls to their labs. The path led us into old farm land now owned by the park. Trails had been cut through the tall grass and wild flowers, and every now and then a bunny ran across our path. We were in awe of all the beauty we had stumbled across... and then the most cheesy thing happened.

All the birds started singing. I kid you not.

Mr. Walt Disney couldn't have scripted these birds better himself. These birds put the sewing/cleaning/singing Cinderella birds to shame (and if you are unaware of my reference you too should be ashamed!). How did we respond to such a joyful outburst?

We laughed. We laughed because it was too overwhelmingly gorgeous to actually be real. We laughed because it was all so ludicrously beautiful. We laughed because we never imagined ourselves living in a place like this. The only possible thing this practically animated park was missing, of course, were the penguins.