WIlderness in Hyde Park © A. Harrison
Despite the chaos and the crowds, London is full of quiet spots. The first I discovered was, surprisingly, Heathrow Airport, when we landed in the first light of morning. After a long flight with little sleep, and with queues for security and waiting for our luggage, we needed a moment to sit and catch our breath over a coffee. The cafe was half empty, perfect for planning our attack for the day before jet-lag struck.
The area around our hotel was another, which was just five minutes from Paddington station. Who knew the station had so many exits? I thought we were at Exit A when we were actually at Exit B, then we turned the wrong way, walked down the road, turned around, crossed the street, and found ourselves where we thought we had started. It was abit like walking through an Escher diagram.
Gothic spires of St Mary’s, Paddington © A. Harrison
Amid this chaos of arriving, and the bustle around the station, were restaurants and cafes serving the midday crowds. Heading towards our hotel we missed the street and strolled down to Sussex gardens – literally a few minutes away and the world is quiet. The place was so peaceful, with the trees dressed in the soft greens of spring. I love the London mew (this area had so many) which are so often hidden from sight and always a quiet refuge. Flowers were in bloom everywhere, from window sills to lamp-posts. Summer had most definitely arrived in London.
Flowers at every turn © A. Harrison
Another day we sat upstairs at Kings Cross St, recovering after the chaos of finding platform 9 3/4. It was a pleasure to have a cold drink while watching the world below, where so many people milled around, staring at the clocks, staring at the boards with the platform info. Perhaps they were simply mesmerised by all the numbers, but some took forever to find their gate. Why did they stand there so long?
Suddenly, the answer came as a gate opened and everyone filed through, in an orderly, very British queue. Then the gate closed, and before longs the next lot start massing.
I glanced up: the ceiling was the most amazing modern architecture, in such an old building. An old building rumoured to be the resting place of Queen Boudica (apparently her ghose has been seen wandering around here at various hours of the night).
An unlikely resting place for England’s warrior queen © A. Harrison
In Hyde Park , we mingles with the crowds enjoying the sunshine, before coming across many parts of the park which are almost wilderness. I love all the daisies popping up in the lawns, just offering a place to sit, and be for a while.
Daisies in Hyde Park © A. Harrison
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Something to read while travelling – perhaps one of my novels or poetry collections? More available here
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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