Why parks in cities make me sad.

I just got back from a hen party in Dartmoor. It was lovely, and I'll write about it as soon as I get some photographs worthy of the event. But, as we were wandering o'er hill and dale, I was trying to explain to someone why I hate walking in city parks. And it's because they remind me of what I'm missing. I grew up in the countryside, and there were fields, meadows, stretches of trees, and those scents which merge to create the atmosphere of something very, well , natural going on. You could walk for hours without seeing a single person, catch glimpses of foxes and sometimes deer, and witness nature just getting on with it. In Cardiff, it's hard to find a stretch of park or lake without coming across someone who thought of it before you, and it's hard to feel the sheer exuberance and fertility of spring when the scene is fenced in, the borders patrolled by the muted sound of traffic. Don't get me wrong, I would rather have the parks there than not - I would love to fill the city with as much greenery as it could contain. But my appreciation is marred by a certain amount of underlying envy. To walk through a park in a city is to catch a poor reflection of something very wonderful that is going on somewhere else, and I'm missing it.