Richmond Park

Probably my favorite thing about this area, besides being right on the Thames, is Richmond Park. At 2500 acres it is the largest park in London by far (that's seven times bigger than Hyde Park). It is situated up at the top of Richmond Hill. So far we have only explored the section just past the Richmond Gate. The kids and I have been up there several times already as it is a good outing to get out of the apartment, get outside and let Ripy run around, but not have to go too far or risk getting stuck in traffic. It is far enough that we have to drive but it only takes about 4 minutes to get there--just across the river and up the hill past the kids' schools. Here are some pictures from three of our outings up there.

The first time I went with the kids they wanted to bring a lunch and have a picnic.
However, after minimal walking, they declared that we were going to sit down mid-horse trail and eat right there. Having 2500 acres to choose from doesn't matter much when you have the patience of a hungry Rippy.

A few days after our initial visit we went again. On my morning run along the river I saw ripe blackberries and I also had seen blackberry bushes from afar on trip number one. So we headed up with our berry baskets, er, sandwich bags and found plenty of ripe berries.

Here is Ainsleigh with her bag of berries:

And here is Rippy with his:

Yes, that is a picture of an empty bag. You see, the berries went straight from his hands to his mouth and never did one berry make it into the bag. Meanwhile, Ainsleigh exhibited remarkable will power and didn't eat any because she wanted to make sure we had enough to bake something with once we got home.

My bag:

Playing post-berry picking. 2500 acres is a good amount for Rippy since we are living in an apartment and have no yard.
Back home during Rippy's nap time Ainsleigh and I made blackberry scones from this recipe I found. As a complete aside, I think the author's commentary on the recipe is quite funny. Mainly because she referred to it as "healthy" which I assume was because of the 1/2 cup of whole wheat flour. Never mind the sugar and butter and, my favorite, the lemon and sugar glaze she drenched them in (we did not put any glaze on ours and they were plenty sweet). In any case it was an easy way to cheat on scones because it did not require rolling out dough. Another plus was that the greek yogurt made them more moist than a traditional scone.

A few pictures from baking with Ainsleigh:

We took a second trip to pick more berries a few days later and have made three batches of scones in the past week. On that trip we discovered King Henry's Mound, with views of St. Paul's Cathedral ten miles away in what is now a protected view. It was foggy so I will wait for a clear day to try to get a picture but for now you can look here.

We also discovered several different gardens, including this rose garden. This reminded me of my friend Leslie, who has gorgeous roses in her front yard back in NC which you can see here.


But the main attraction at Richmond Park is probably not the gardens but rather the deer. There are two kinds of species of deer in the park, red deer and fallow deer. Sarah would be happy to explain their differences to you, which can also be found here. These pictures are of the fallow deer.
As you can see you can get quite close to them. The ones in these pictures were right along the road.

I also went for a bike ride on some of the park roads this past Monday night. At the other end of the park is where the large red deer reside. The stages are huge. I will have to get a picture of those on a subsequent visit, as well.

And, of course, thistles abound.

It is definitely a nice refuge to have all that green space nearby. I don't doubt that we will spend a lot of time up there, given that we have already been five times.