One of my ambitions when I moved up to Highgate was to sign myself up to work on the heath with the volunteer gardeners and bramble hackers/sapling puller-outers, Heath Hands. But no sooner had I moved in than lockdown happened and all volunteer recruitment came to a grinding halt. So I had to make do …
Hampstead Heath
Reopening of Camley Street Natural Park
After four years of dedicated work – majorly delayed by the Covid crisis – the much loved Camley Street nature park in the heart of King’s Cross is to reopen on October 13th. 10 – 4pm, Wednesdays to Sundays. To quote from their new website: Camley Park is a unique urban nature reserve, surrounded by …
Summer’s last fling
As I look out on the torrential rain this morning, last week’s two days of summer seem a very long time a go. Anyhow, proof that they did exist, around the boating pond at least. But even then that grey cloud was already hovering. Anyhow, I also made the best of the two days and, …
Keats in Hampstead – 200th anniversary
When I was at school the Romantic Poets, Wordsworth, Keats, Coleridge, Shelley and Byron, formed the backbone of the English curriculum. But, being a somewhat tomboyish sort of teenager, I found them decidedly ‘soppy’, whether it was Wordsworth wittering on about daffodils or Keats about his nightingales. Coleridge and his Ancient Mariner was a bit …
All the fun of the fair..
Hampstead Heath has always been a holiday spot for Londoners. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries grander folk built large houses in rolling estates to which to retire in the summer months while poorer folk made the hour’s walk up from the city to picnic on the open heath. Entertainers abounded, as did complaints about …
Postponed………
For the last ten days tents have been popping up all over the Kenwood Lawns, blue pipes snaking their way along every path and teams of high viz jacketed workers swarming all over the park – in preparation for last weekened’s Heritage Live concert – 10,000 expected….. Rag N Bone Man, Boy George and the …