By Samantha Hillman

Editor of D&D’s Sunday Paper

BIG STICK ENERGY.

Haters will say that you need a dog to go to the dog park. 

I know this because they tell me all the time. Because despite not owning a dog, I love going to the dog park. It’s a small enclosed park inside the actual park that is near my house, filled with - wait for it - dogs. Other people’s dogs! Ripe for pats.The light is exquisite (shady, dappled, the perfect amount of sun). I like the atmosphere. The energy! I like the variety of seating options (wooden platforms,  sturdy memorial benches,  tree stumps). I like the lack of sprinting children and the lowered risk of losing an eye to an errant baseball (it’s all about the low toss at the dog park). It’s a glorious spot to read a book, gather your thoughts, and pat all the labradoodles who would have probably perished in your actual care.

Haters will then say:  Sam, you still need a dog to go to the dog park. That is literally the only rule of the dog park. It says so on the gate. 

To that I say: (firstly, live a little. And secondly) you don’t actually. Nobody checks. And in the unlikely event that someone does, that some fellow-park goer slash actual dog owner tries to strike up a chat about which dog - which elite hound - belongs to you, it’s as simple as just gesturing vaguely toward a group of tousling pups, and uttering something nonspecific (“It’s that handsome boy”), disorienting (“he’s behind the tree”), or a straight-up depraved lie (“he is dead”). 

Anyway, I digress. My point is, while perhaps you should, technically, be the actual owner of an actual dog to go to the dog park, it’s time we stopped letting minor technicalities get in the way of doing the things we love. The heart wants what it wants, and my heart wants to pat your border collie. 

And just as you don’t need a dog to go to the dog park, you don’t need to have the flu to enjoy this herbaceous flu-fixing bath soak. 

Nor do you need a beach house to appreciate the subtle tropulance of a rattan palm wall sconce. 

You needn’t be familiar with the graceful folkloric poetry of Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo, to wear a nightie inspired by it. (Though it is well worth a read). You don’t need to be in bed, or even inside, to wear a nightie like that, either.  More of a slip if you ask me. 

You don’t have to be an artist in fin de sèicle France to drink absinthe-spiked cocktails. (You don’t even need to be the sort of person who goes to Burning Man, either. I always assumed absinthe was the alcoholic version of, I don’t know, dropping acid but, uncharacteristically, I was wrong.)

You don’t need a Spanish grandmother to eat la tortas de aceite. Nor do you need a plate to put them on, but here’s a cute one anyway. 

If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times: you don’t need to be a hotel guest to enjoy the breakfast buffet (RIP), and you don’t need to be an evangelical vegan to realise that your table (and life!) is sorely lacking a teensy ceramic asparagus, to rest your knife upon.

Anyway, have a lovely weekend full of things that bring you joy. I’ll be at the dog park. It’s my (actual!) birthday and I’ll pat your dog if I want to. 

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