Hyde Park

All you need is a net,

a ball,

and a few good mates to play with.

   Explore Hyde Park on a weekday afternoon. Sit down and watch a pick-up game of football. Choose a team to root for and sit back to watch some free entertainment. Be careful of where you sit though, the boundary lines tend to be flexible.

   Walk all the way around Hyde Park, don't cheat and bike it. I did this by accident by following the bridle path to what I hoped would be the Hyde Park Stables; I didn't find those, but I did end up where I started at the little food kiosk at Speaker's Corner. As I ate my lunch at a picnic table out front I watched the pigeons.

   The pigeons are great characters, but be protective of your food (feeding the pigeons often carries a fine in places such as Trafalgar's Square). On one of my walks around the city, I encountered a pigeon with a crust of bread around its neck, you could just tell it was a special bird.

   The hardiness of these birds fascinates me. It's fun to watch males chase uninterested females and puff up their feathers to defend their territory. A pigeon with a broken foot will still hobble around, pecking the ground in search of a stray crumb. Their persistence in their unending search for food is something to be marvelled at.

   So watch the pigeons for a little while on a quiet Thursday afternoon in Hyde Park... or wherever your favourite pigeon watching spot may be.

   Londoners love their sun. They love it even more because the city rarely gets any. So when there's a heat wave and the sun emerges- every Londoner comes out with it. There are parks everywhere in London and we were lucky enough to have Hyde Park at the end of our road. Almost every single day, I would pack up a blanket, a book, my camera, and some food to make the journey. It was great to be outside enjoying the sun (or the shade) and just relax.