…I’ve been to London to to visit the Queen. Well, if not actually visit her then to wander around some of her parks. Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park to be precise. And what did you find there? Londoners no less. Strange folk, the lot of them.
But they do know how to enjoy these gardens. It was barely summertime – in fact most of the country was being inundated by floods and the evening news was showing us people all over the country being evacuated from their flooded homes, including from those in Reading, just a few short miles up the road. But in London the sun was shining and making the city glitter. It was too cool for an Aussie to be sunning himself but on any spare patch of public green the pale skin of some Vitamin S seekers could always be seen. I enjoyed an afternoon here in the park and especially enjoyed watching how Londoners made the most of Kensington Gardens. While visitors trooped around the Serpentine, posed with Peter Pan and took in the Serpentine Gallery the locals wandered out among the long grass and aged oaks and pretended they were not trapped by one of the largest cities on the planet. In this place you could either be on your own and escape the swirling millions, or you could imagine you were in a village and could engage strangers with such civility that a visitor could be forgiven for thinking they were chatting with their neighbour.
