There is a small oasis in our local tip. Morpeth’s waste recycling centre has been transformed into an Eden, a paradise on earth. Among the metal skips and lumbering vehicles, among the ephemera and detritus of our modern lives there lies a pair of small gardens. Someone, I assu
me it is one of the people who work there, has rescued the plants from their unceremonious end and given them a second life. They have been pulled from the waste and been planted in the verges that stand next to the roadway.
There are even a few ornaments mixed in amongst the greenery including a small bird bath in which is swimming a small white plastic bird. The tip has its own swan lake. The plants are thriving. They are obviously well tended by someone who knows what they are doing and they add a welcome relief to the otherwise tedious task of clearing out your garage or getting rid of your garden clippings.
I had to stop and take a photo or two. I felt the need to capture the juxtaposition of two of mankind’s most defining characters, our wantonness and our creativity. What greater contrast is there than to see beauty thrive in a place set aside for rejection and de
struction. It is the sublime amongst the ridiculous. Everywhere we go we can see how man has defaced the environment. Destruction is our way and a callous disregard for the environment must be amongst our greatest shames.
Yet here, in a small corner of a northern town, in an area more noted for decay and abandonment there is a beautiful and well-loved corner that is certainly not forgotten. It shows that there is creativity and beauty in what we do.
It offers us a moment of redemption.
