A Walk in the Park

May 18, 2013

Well, it is Saturday today and from the past weekend we know that everything is packed on the weekends, so we thought we would check out the Sherlock Holmes Museum, thinking that a minor site like this would not be so crowded.  Ha, ha.  There was a line 200 people long, just to get into the museum.  So we decided to walk right by the line and over to Regent's Park.

The lovely Regent's Park was a good find.  Queen Mary's Gardens are just beautiful.  As we walked along the path to get to the gardens we enjoyed plot after plot of hundreds of tulips in every color.  I especially liked the yellow tulips surrounded by blue forget-me-nots.  Each different display was artfully designed and beautifully  presented.

We strolled along the stream and stopped to admire a group of big herons who were feasting on bugs along the bank.  And we passed though an area reminiscent of Giverny, with a Japanese bridge and willow trees hanging over the stream.

As we entered the garden we were treated to our traditional "trip wedding" .  The wedding party was just debarking their huge stretch limousine and marching up the path into the gardens for photos.  

The bride and groom were African, perhaps Somali, and all of the female guests were dressed in robes and headscarves.  The bride wore a contemporary white, ruffled gown.  

There were two little boys who must have been in the wedding party because they were dressed in pristine white suits.  And there were some girls, a bit older than the boys, dressed in white party dresses.  The  kids were playing and gamboling on the manicured lawns and over by the Japanese garden and stream and we were sure that soon those white suits would be covered with grass stains and the white shoes would be smudged with mud, but somehow they managed to keep clean.  They even got into a "football game" with two little Anglo boys who were kicking the ball around with their dad.    The bridal kids just took over the ball and were having a great time playing soccer as the two little boys and their dad just stood there and watched, bewildered.  Finally soccer dad managed to regain custody of the ball and bride daddy came over and rounded up the troops for photos and the fun was over.

I spent some time walking around the rose gardens too.  Although the roses are not in bloom yet I was impressed with the extensive rose gardens.  There are hundreds of plots of roses, each plot a bed of about 35 bushes, and with a plaque which identifies the name of the rose.  I bet these gardens are lovely in the summer when the roses are blooming.

As the afternoon progressed we decided park time was over and we walked back, past the long line at 221b Baker Street again, and into the Baker Street Tube Station to head home.