The Belle Park Meadows

This evening, in the shouty aftermath of a storm that never really showed, I walked fields of long grass throwing themselves about dramatically just off Montreal Street, where the municipal golf course used to be. A short walk along the K & P Trail from Doug Fluhrer Park, it is perhaps the city’s best-kept secret.

I traipsed for a while the mowed trails along the old fourth and fifth fairways, and then the gravel track past the osprey nest and the beaver lodge. Rows of poplar in high-waisted pantsuits whispered in each other’s hair, and depressive oaks leaned darkly - glowering wallflowers set against cobalt skies.

Shutting that course down was a smart move, and what’s grown up in its place is a powerful argument for doing the same thing at all inner city courses. These are some really splendid undulating meadows we can all share, along with the coyotes and the swans, the foxes and frogs, rather than chemical-thick jade runways beset only by arthritic golf carts and ill-tempered slicers of the ball kitted out with with wonky fairground backswings.