Another fabulous day on the heath. Blue skies and the dark wateside trees reflected in the pond – last year’s bull rushes, small bits of fluff sticking to their rough conical brown brushes.
This is the Stock Pond – one of the 30 ponds to be found on or around the heath, many of them created in 1777 by the Hampstead Water Company to help meet London’s growing water demands. (There is also a Ladies Swimming Pond, a Men’s Swimming Pond and a Mixed Swimming Pond – all of course now closed by the virus. Not to mention a Boating Pond, where those little boats were sailing on Saturday, the Viaduct Pond and the Vale of Health Pond!)
And just starting to open up on my path down onto the heath, delicate branches of cow parsley – I think…. Or are they too small and delicate for cow parsley?
They remind me of that wonderful Queen Anne’s lace I found last year on the foreshore down in Faversham with my good friend Sarah Langton Lockton.