Warm sunny days have resulted in more walks in parks, both royal and otherwise, and commons.
Hatchlands Park comes to mind first, as a few days back maytrees ma, who had a lunchtime engagement planned with school colleagues, asked us to look after her two children, age 7 and 4, for the afternoon. Hatchlands Park is only some five minutes drive from her house so we drove to Hatchlands which is near Guildford, Surrey where she and her family live.
The walks there were ideal. There were spaces for young children to play and acres of woods and farmland to walk through.
Wimbledon Common appears elsewhere on this blog, for example at:
Bushy Park near Hampton Court I had not visited previously but we visited this royal park at the suggestion of maytrees min who accompanied us. Its name , Bushy Park, is rather unprepossessing at least to me but Bushy is a large park akin in some ways to another royal park which is nearby, namely Richmond Park. There is a large area within from which dogs are prohibited which seemed to result in the wildfowl on the large pond nearby, being rather more laid back than can be the case elsewhere.
Kew Gardens of course is a wonderful park space given over to nurturing diverse plants from around the world, some of which plants are almost extinct. My old school friend, John Farr, who lives in Kew and I, met for a walk there on a rainy day recently; see:
A few days ago my younger brother and I set off to walk from Wimbledon to Richmond Park and back. I have blogged enthusiastically about Richmond Park previously; see for example:
However so engrossed were we in conversation that we became completely lost. Mrs maytrees and younger brother's wife who were attending a ladies' lunch had been told we would return well before 4:30pm from our walk which commenced at 11:50 am that day. Having become well and truly lost we accidentally stumbled upon the crossing to Wimbledon Common from the Park and returned home at 4:29pm.
Of course other parks or similar may be found all over London for example Highgate Cemetery, Battersea Park, Hampstead Heath, St James's Park and so on.
Most other parts of the UK have excellent parks as indeed of course do other countries.
Hyde Park and Kensington Palace Gardens in central London are impressive; the latter is particularly worth a visit if early for a train at nearby Paddington Railway Station see; Kensington Palace Gardens and rather amusingly, a fellow blogger reminds me on that post, of another London Park.
Many parks abroad may be better and far larger than any I have visited in the UK but simply enjoying those areas one can reach, including parks one does have relatively easy access to, is surely the wisest course, certainly at present.
As for foreign parks, perhaps the one I have enjoyed most, is the entirely manmade Central Park of New York; see
The largest Park in Europe is Dublin's Phoenix Park, which I have also visited many times with mrs maytrees.
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