I must say that I rather like Dartmouth’s Royal Avenue Gardens as they are at the moment.

Sure the fishpond needs sorting desperately while the rails around the war memorial need the rust removing and the steel work repainting, oh and the paving slabs are filthy from various vehicles going in there when no vehicle ever should be allowed drive over them.

Perhaps the rule ought to be if it can’t be pushed in then perhaps it shouldn’t be in there at all .

However, the north side prairie planting keeps small birds in seeds through the winter. When we are all of us busy building extensions and cutting down trees and bushes to improve our lot and our views this provision of winter food stuff for the local dispossessed wildlife becomes very important. What’s more, the gardeners do what they can and it must be very disheartening to hear so much criticism of their work again and again.

Some of the buskers are really good, while one of the regular entertainers is about as harmonious as the sound of a chain saw at full pelt in an empty water tank .

Better that I don’t mention the rats mind, as I have seen three this week. Or was it the same rat three separate times?

Kevin Pyne

Lake Street, Dartmouth