September 30th Richmond Park

We decided to have an unadventurous day. Packed up the smelly cheese and walked up to Richmond Park ( a few hundred meters from Michael and Julie's ) . An amazing place; over 2000 acres of grassland and woodland with herds of wild deer, right in the middle of one of the world's biggest cities. The park has a ring road around it, but once you move off the road there is silence and aloneness. ...if if wasn't for the continual stream of aircraft leaving Heathrow Airport ( the airport is quite close to Richmond) you could well imagine that there is no city surrounding the park. The New Yorkers love to tell you about Central Park....but it doesn't even come close to Richmond Park. We found a nice old fallen oak tree and ate our smelly cheese and biscuits, quite alone with only a few stags having a rest a short way off. I am not quite sure about the history of the park..but I suspect its origins may have something to do with Henry VIII wanting to have a retreat or whatever.....his name crops up all over the UK

 I stand corrected about which King it was. According to Wikipedia it was Charles the first (he subsequently lost his head)....who moved his court out to the Richmond area to escape the Plague, and decided to take over the land  as a park....apparently the locals were not too pleased....I wonder why?

We have been attempting to put up some photos on the blog...but it is quite time consuming and we do have a lot of photos to "wade" through.