Or was I in Kensington Gardens?
Flowers in the grass © A. Harrison
Heading back to my hotel in Paddington, I got off the tube a stop early to take a stroll through Hyde Park. Expecting to find perfectly manicured lawns spreading in all directions, I was surprised to discover many different parks hidden in one.
I’d landed in London during a heat wave – well, a heat wave for London. It was, after all, over 25ºC, and signs in the Tube warned people to carry bottles of water to avoid dehydration. I love catching the Tube. Everyone and everything are all so calm and ordered. There is no pushing, as people walk in orderly queues and stick to their side of the walkway (which, for some unfathomable reason is sometimes on the right, sometimes on the left. No need to worry about getting it wrong – there’s always an arrow to let you know.) All very British.
The Gatekeeper's Cottage © A. Harrison
The only thing missing were the range of shops found in the Metro of Paris or the MTR of Hong Kong. However, the trains just seemed to arrive, and the system proved easy to use (although at Earl’s Court I managed to get on the right train but heading the wrong way. I blame the jet lag; I was, after all, on my way from the airport after the long haul from Australia.)
Another surprise: for many of the sections the train travelled along were above ground, with the stations bathed in sunlight.
I emerged at Marble Arch and entered Hyde Park, wandering along paths at random. (Although roads run through the park, I kept to the smaller walkways.) The grounds were filled with people walking, strolling, jogging, sitting. Some were reading, others having a late picnic. Dogs ran everywhere, off the leash but not annoying anyone, save for the birds they were chasing. Some of the lawns were impressively manicured, but others ran to (for the British) wilderness. Avenues of trees, expanses of grass, ponds, lakes, flowers peeping through the grass.
A wilderness in the middle of the city © A. Harrison
Eventually I came to the Alexander Gate, which stands at the boarder between Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens (although they are in essence one large parkland). At the entrance stands the most exquisite house – the Gatekeeper’s Cottage. Groundsmen were busy planting flowers and blooms were everywhere. To one side stood trolley loads of flowers ready to go in to the gardens. (I love the pots hanging from so many of the streets lights, bringing a burst of colour to the streets. Who tends them, I wonder. I never saw them being watered, yet the flowers thrive despite the heat. What happens in the winter? Do the same mysterious pot-plant keepers remove them?)
On a side note, in an effort to raise funds to maintain London’s parks, some of the cottages are available for rent. A little above my pay grade, but at least I wouldn’t have to mow the lawns (plus you get your own key for the park gates, which are locked at sunset).
The Italian Gardens © A. Harrison
Near the Gatekeeper’s Cottage are the Italian Gardens, an interlocking display of four ponds surrounded by terraces, fountains, urns and statues. They were designed by Prince Albert, an enthusiastic gardener (did he actually the dig the soil, I wonder?) as a gift for Queen Victoria.
For me, at the end of a hot day of sight seeing, I simply enjoyed the soothing sound of tinkling water as it fell from the fountains, before heading home.
A fountain in the Italian gardens © A. Harrison
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Some of my writing you might enjoy:
An elderly matriarch walks through walks through her kitchen garden in the Tuscan hills, carrying her sketch book. The morning mists swirls around her, but soon they will fade and it will be time for the Spring Offering.
The mist muffled the day. It lay over the light, holding captive the cold air of dawn, until under the warmth of a late morning it would become nothing but a chill memory. Spring was still a few weeks away, and for a while longer winter would hold the hills captive. The valley below her was a world of grey. A tangible, moist grey, which flowed and ebbed with the centuries. It came with its own remembrances, damp with clinging. Of journeys to places where there was no winter, of the magic of coming home. Of lying warm abed with her beloved whilst the bells called. Of being young.
In another time, in a Venetian palazzo, a lord fumes on learning a priceless statuette, of an Etruscan goddess, has been stolen. He knows her worth, but remains ignorant of both her history and the power of her beauty over others.
Waves of cold anger flooded the room, spilling into halls where servants hid in the shadows, pretending not to hear. The wrath spiralled down the marble staircase and into the spacious receiving hall, made a few twirls under the candelabra then past the imposing tapestries hanging from the walls. It pushed through the heavy wooden doors and onto the chaos of the street outside. There it searched for a horse and rider who had fled through the night and continued now by day, splattered by the foam of exhaustion.
As the mists of the morning fade, the two times and places overlap, and the goddess returns to the light of the world.
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