Sunday dawned beautifully and I decided that Hyde Park was a better option than Kew Gardens in the good weather. And it was great to be there on a Sunday when so many Londeners were about. My pictures tell the story better than I can, but I am so far behind in sorting them, you will just have to wait.
I jumped off the tube at Picadilly Circus (and wondered what all the fuss was about), and walked down to Buckingham Palace. While I was here, and again later in Kensington Gardens, the penny dropped that this trip was in part for me a pilgrimage. I have never been much of a royalist, with the total exception of Princess Diana. She will always be my royalty, and I suppose I needed to come to Buckingham Palace to see where all the flowers were laid upon her death, and walk around Kensington Gardens. I'm sure I have more to do to remember her properly but today was a very good start.
I had wanted to take the palace tour, and wonder around the gardens, but I didn't have a ticket and the queue looked like I would be standing in it for an hour. Too long. I headed for Hyde Park, and spent the next 4 hours wondering all over, around the Serpentine, the fountains, the gardens, Royal Albert Hall, and back to Speaker's corner, which seemed to have become an Islamic debating point. In all, there were tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people in the parks. It's the lung of London. Perhaps not enough from an environmental point of view, but surely from a people point of view, its somewhere they can go to 'breathe'.
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