Have I said that we love the trams? We definitely do. Stephen has been studying our National Trust book, looking for places we can easily reach. For our walk yesterday afternoon he found Morden Hill Park, which is on the Wimbledon tram line. We leave our apartment block and walk down to the tram stop. The park is about 25 minutes away.
We came home the same way, though we got off a couple of stops early to do some shopping. Then back on the tram to home. The trams are a smoother ride and much faster than buses. I started dreaming about Kent Street Weir being just a tram ride from our place… We can catch the bus there, but would have to walk about a kilometre from Albany Highway to the park. It can be done, but we take the option of driving there instead.
The late sunsets mean that it is still very light at about 8.00 p.m. We find that our evening meal times are getting quite late because we don’t really feel like heading home when we could enjoy being out. It is often the warmest part of the day.
I’m finding that photography, even in parks, is a bit unsatisfactory because we are usually at home by the time the sun sets, and it rises when we are still wanting to sleep – therefore the light can be a bit uninteresting. Plus the uniform green of trees and grass mean they sort of blend together in wider shots. A better photographer would still be able to work things out, no doubt.
It is a very pretty park. We fell into conversation with a local resident. He had given us some directions, and stopped by us, getting off his bike when we were examining a tree. Stephen has a book from the library which is a big help in classifying features of trees and helps with identification. He wasn’t any help with the name of the tree, but told us that the park is very much used, especially on weekends when it becomes quite crowded. It is 125 acres, with different areas and a small, but fast flowing river. We enjoyed talking with Rocco (he is Italian, but has lived here since he was seventeen) and he told us a bit about his life and his job at a local school. He and Stephen found a connection as Stephen worked at a nearby school back in the 70s.
As well as the rose garden and parklands, there was a lovely cafe, open until 6.00 p.m. We enjoyed ‘cream teas’ – a large scone with choice of jams and clotted cream, plus any hot drink. We ended up having three scones between us to use up our jam and cream.
We had been planning to cook a tiny chicken roast dinner when we got home, but we weren’t hungry enough, even getting back quite late. We had soup, a small salad and a slice of toast each, and still felt overfull at the end of the meal.
Perhaps this post makes much of very little, however we really enjoyed the excursion and we want to aid our memories of our time here in the UK. Stephen used to always complain that I had lots of photos, but no narrative. So, we now have narrative. He would blog differently, of course. He takes lots of photos on his phone and could easily keep a companion blog to this one. Perhaps he could be pursuaded.