Parks and Recreation

Unfortunately, I subbed out my rain jacket for my umbrella this morning, thinking it would leave more room in my bag for Peep, my picnic lunch, and my un-assembled kite. Rain jackets or coats are more preferable in actual rain, though, since the wind can and will invert umbrellas, and my mini umbrella—conveniently purse-sized—is also conveniently small enough to get either my bag or me wet, meaning poor Peep got a little damp. The rain didn't last for long, though, and we did have nice, cooler weather for walking around Regent's Park and lunch on Primrose Hill.

Prior to today, I haven't actually been inside of any of London's parks, so it was nice to be able to walk around and see all of the beautiful flowers and gardens. The street noise is surprisingly muffled and the park seemed very quiet and relaxing. Seeing all of the flowerbeds, arrangements, and the occasional small topiary reminded me of Cypress Gardens in the old days, and I almost expected to see some strolling belles appear to greet visitors. They, of course, never appeared, but the most people I ever saw, aside from the group of children playing cricket on the sports fields, were in the rose garden, which was a highlight of the day for me...

It did start raining while we were strolling among the rose beds, but it was still beautiful and smelled wonderful. I always think of rosebeds as containing a variety of different rose bushes since ours does at home, but the massive rosebeds in Queen Mary's Gardens were each devoted to one particular kind of rose, so there were these blankets of pink, then red, then golden yellow, then white, then blush, etc. With the breeze from the approaching rain shower, the buds and blooms were all swaying and waving. It seems almost prettier that way than they might appear in average weather with direct sunlight all around. At any rate, the gardens were gorgeous and I spent lots of time photographing the name of each rosebed's variety before getting some shots of the blooms themselves. This earned me some strange looks from another couple roaming the grounds, but I think it's nice to know the name of the flower too, especially since some of them were actually familiar to me.

After our garden tour, we walked to Primrose Hill for our picnic lunch and kite flying. I don't really remember if or when I last flew a kite, largely because I think all previous efforts failed due to a lack of wind. There was no shortage of wind atop Primrose Hill, though, and it was really fun to fly my little owl kite after a quick lunch. The sky was bright blue again, so all of the kites from class really stood out, and it was neat to look around and see ten or so kites flying around and trying not to cross. I'm not sure why or how Primrose Hill got its name since I didn't see any flowers on or around it specifically, but it did provide quite the observation point to get a panorama of London. (I tried taking some panorama shots with the help of my camera, so hopefully those will come out and I can add them to my London pics slide show in the side column.)

We're all going to see Billy Elliot the musical tonight as a class, which should be exciting since it's always fun to see shows and Billy Elliot has won so many awards and is much acclaimed. I did see the movie when it came out, so I'm looking forward to seeing the stage adaptation too. Since we'll be out later going to and coming from the show, I'll even have a chance to get some more evening shots around London to pair with my daytime shots of activities and attractions.