An outing in the park

One of the many reasons I was thrilled to find out we were coming to London was that it would give us a chance to spend some time in a park. I do love living in India, but it's not easy to walk down the street there, what with all the cows and rickshaws and people and piles of trash and so on. Clean parks are difficult to find, and if you do find one it's usually too hot to play anyway.

London is full of gorgeous, clean parks. And the temperature is in the low 60s. Brilliant!

On Friday we walked from our apartment to Hyde Park, passing Marble Arch on the way.

Evie was with us but didn't want her picture taken with the boys.

Johnny was much more impressed with this square once he found out that there used to be a gallows here where an estimated 50,000 people were executed. Prime real estate for haunting. Now that's cool.

Once we got to Hyde Park, we picked some flowers ...

... saw an old police building that's still in use (we also saw lots of mounted police officers) ...

Samuel looks cold, but he refused to let me put his jacket on him. Monster.

... saw lots of geese and ducks at the Serpentine ...

... and swans with their babies.

We had a late breakfast (early lunch) of pancakes and fruit and egg-on-toast at the Serpentine Cafe.

It rained a bit as we ate, which made for great puddle jumping ...

... and puddle falling.

Hyde Park has at least as many leafy hideouts as St. James Park ...

... and we spent a very long time at one of the fenced-in (yay!) children's playgrounds.

Mom is the best, because she brought cheese cubes for a snack.

We made friends and played tag and pirates.

We walked through the rose gardens on our way out of the park. They were in full bloom, fragrant and lovely.

We stopped at a fruit stand on the way home and bought cherries and green grapes, which we washed and ate immediately after walking through the door. Delicious!

It was a Mary Poppins kind of day.