flakes and flukes

There was so much sunlight yesterday that I kept on forgetting what month it was, then precisely which day of the week it was, as the small wagon train that is baby and me took to the footpaths and byways of Assiniboine Park.

Given my recent curiosity around the frozen goldfish pond in the middle of the English Gardens, I thought I'd pay another visit.

I didn't mention it last time but in the slurry of days between my first and second visits, the frozen carp had attracted the attention of other park-goers.

When I returned, there was evidence of what must be one of the the oldest impulses - smashitsmashit - in the form of cracks and foot-shaped holes in the ice.

And this wasn't about the splintery joy of breaking new ice but what I can only describe as attempts to liberate the ice-immobilized fish - as many of these cracks and holes were on or around them.

There was even evidence that a fish had been uncovered, only to have it disintegrate into flakes of white flesh and dull scale that now formed a skid mark across the surface of the ice.

As if it was a flying fish forced to crash land there...and disembodied on impact.

The third visit showed that the fish liberation brigade had gotten more desperate.

A concrete block had been appropriated from the base of a planter and slammed down on centre of the ice.

It had made an impression a half inch deep but probably no deep bone-heavy thunk, as when a large stone is heaved into a body of water or through suitably thin ice.

Between the botched resuscitation and the fact that ice was no longer translucent and cloudy by turns but pebbled and rough, the image I'd imagined - the smooth lick of ice, the gently floating fish somehow in and beneath its surface - was gone.

On my way out of the gardens, I passed a older woman crouched over two miniature dogs all tricked up in sweaters and harness-style leashes.

The woman was easing one of the dogs out of its harness, muttering to the dog as she worked.

"Mummy put it on wrong, didn't she..." she said. "Silly mummy."

Now, the part of me that remembers giving birth to the similarly-harnessed bundle in the stroller is uppity.

It was trying picture a woman giving birth to a small yappy dog - and failing - as we left the park.