When I asked Eve what she wanted for her birthday back in March she said a Butterscotch Pony.  I said over my dead body, or words to that effect, but that she could have a riding lesson on a real horse instead.  She asked if I would come with her, so only two months later, on a rainy Tuesday, we turned up at Wimbledon Village Stables for our joint lesson.

After almost 20 years on a horse, it felt very high up, but as soon as we reached the bridleway across the wet green field, it sort of came back to me.  Eve was a natural and spent the entire time with a big grin on her face.

The rain turned out to be a blessing.  It felt like we had the whole world to ourselves.  Our soundtrack was the soft thud of the horses’ hooves on the earth path and the drip drip drips of water falling from the leaves.  In a world of damp browns and greens, robins hopped from branch to branch and squirrels scurried across our path like a real life version of Bambi.  Our lovely horses, Alice and Cookie, knew exactly what they’re doing and even my inexpert riding doesn’t matter.

After an hour of quiet contemplation and viewing the world from a new angle we returned to the stables.  Eve’s first question was “When can we go again?”.  Soon I hope.

Where do you think we are?  Somewhere deep in the countryside?  A million miles from the big smoke?  We are a 20 minute drive from our house in Battersea, in Richmond Park.  Last Saturday, a gorgeously hot and sunny day, we made some sandwiches and spent the day in this beautiful ancient woodland in the city.

We walked no more than a quarter of a mile from the car park, up a small hill and into the woods.  We squatted in other people’s magnificent dens (we are obviously not the only den builders in London), searched through leaves for ‘woodmice’, tried to catch butterflies and ate our picnic under giant oak trees.  And we hardly saw anyone all day.  There were a few riders, a couple of dog walkers and a man doing rather comical exercises on whom the children practised their unsubtle spying skills.

We found feathers, tiny caterpillars, a discarded antler, thousands of tadpoles and shy little rabbits who disappeared down their holes as they heard us approaching.  If it wasn’t for the vapour trails criss crossing the sky, and the distant hum of cars, we could have been miles from the city.

Richmond isn’t the only place where we can pretend to be in the countryside.  We have Wandsworth Common, Putney and Barnes Commons, the thousand acres of SSI of Wimbledon Common, all a short drive or bus journey from our house.   Big green pockets of muddy, stick-filled, caterpillar-rich, toddler entertainment.  Who needs Legoland?

There are few finer things in the world than a warm spring day when the cherry trees are in bloom.  It’s little wonder that blossom is a Japanese obsession, with the progress of the emerging flowers reported on the national news and cherry blossom parties being held wherever the beautiful trees are to be found.

Sadly we won’t be in Japan at blossom time next year, we will be in steamily hot Thailand, no doubt complaining about the humidity and trying to shelter from the scorching sun.  If I’m feeling homesick, I’ll look at this photo and imagine that I’m back at home, looking out of our bedroom window at my beautiful tree.

Lewis Carroll must have had Hampton Court Palace garden in mind when he wrote Alice in Wonderland. Tulips as upright as soldiers, spotty panthers and golden lions planted amongst the cowslips, ancient yew trees with topiaried canopies, the famous twisting maze and Henry VIII himself, striding purposefully along the avenues, guarded by manificiently pantalooned gentlemen. The green parrots resting in the cherry tree add a final surreal touch.

Of course there’s interesting stuff inside the Palace too. On this visit, Eve and I enjoyed helping Kateryn Parr get dressed for her wedding to Henry VIII. We learned about front parts, fore sleeves, fotheringales and French hoods as Kateryn and her Aunt gossiped about the Privy Council and Anne Boleyn. On other visits we’ve helped turn the enormous spit in the kitchen, been shown around the Georgian wing by a ghost and helped to make a marzipan crown for one of Henry VIII’s wedding feasts.

But on a beautiful English spring day, it is hard to stay inside for too long. The gardens are an absolute joy. There are cooling fountains, a long, grassy riverside walk, a flower filled meadow with shady trees and bold robins who almost feed out of your hand. The formal gardens are perfect for games of hide and seek and flamingo croquet. And the topiary hedges are so huge and so wonderful that a whole family of small children could set up home in one of them.

Sir Dickon had to be lured out with tic tacs.

This post was written for Photo Friday over at Delicious Baby.  For more travel photos, head on over…

We are not travelling to run away, or because something is lacking in our lives (other than sunshine).  We love where we live.  We love our little arts and crafts house with it’s heart cutout banisters and beautiful fireplaces with their built in overmantels.  We love our tree lined street full of families with small children.  We love our local high street with it’s market full of friendly stall holders.  Fruit always taste better when it’s been sold by Ted and Barbara.  We love our children’s school with it’s teachers who dance to the Glee soundtrack and give lessons in den building.  We love that every time we walk down the street we end up chatting to friends until someone’s child starts yelling “stop talking Mummy”.  We will miss all of this while we are away and it will soften the blow of coming home again.

We’d bought our house before we walked through the front door.  It was the cherry tree that sold it to us.  We came to look at it on a rainy May day.  As we huddled in the porch, waiting for the estate agent, we both looked at the beautiful mature cherry tree standing on the pavement in front the house and separately thought “this is where I want to live”.  We were lucky enough to get our wish.  Every April, for two glorious weeks, I wake up to the most beautiful, palest pink, double cherry blossoms outside my bedroom window.  The top picture is the bark of MY tree.  I walk past it countless times every week.  Sometimes, I stop and look at it, and I remember how lucky I am to live where I do.

This post was written for The Gallery over at Sticky Fingers.  This week’s theme is ‘Outside My Front Door’.

On Wednesday I was wandering through Soho and saw this.  It’s fake hair.  The building is an art gallery which used to be a gunmakers.  History, bizarreness, art.  We’ve got it all in London.

The London Wetland Centre is a lovely place were you can learn about camouflaged bugs, flying feathers and mating shrimps that aren’t really shrimps.

I’m sure it’s 42 beautifully landscaped hectares are even lovelier on a day that’s slightly above freezing, but as we seem to have entered a mini ice age, I may never find out.

We’ve pond dipped, stroked ducklings, zipped on the zip wire in the fabulous playground, admired the wide open spaces and gorgeous planting.

Next time, we might even go in summer.

This post is part of Photo Friday at Delicious Baby. For lovely travel pictures, click here

“What was your favourite thing about Chinese New Year?” I asked Eve as we travelled back from Soho on Sunday afternoon.

“Nothing was particularly my favourite, I really wanted to watch the dancing dragons, but we could hardly see anything through all those people’s legs.”

“What about the atmosphere, I enjoyed that?”

“What do you mean, atmosphere?”

“Drumming so loud you can feel it in your chest, babies dressed in colourful silk outfits, the warm wheaty smell of steamed buns, reedy flute music playing over the tannoys, busy stalls selling paper dragons and red and gold souvenirs, the popping and sparking of fire crackers, escaped balloons floating up into the clouds, streets festooned with rainbows of paper lanterns.  All of that is atmosphere”

“Oh, yes, my favourite thing was the atmosphere.”

This post is part of Photo Friday at Delicious Baby. For lovely travel pictures, click here