Neo pagans

I'm walking along Parkland Walk, an attractive disused railway line which runs from Finsbury Park to Highgate via Crouch End. It's a great favourite with joggers because it seems to follow the only route heading South East that doesn't involve huge hills. 

Did you know that Finsbury Park backwards is Krapy Rub Snif? You do now...

I woke up in Thaxted this morning, seemingly rather early, with the warming sounds of wood pigeons caressing my ears. At one point one of the little blighters was sitting on the chimney. His cooing seemed to echo around the entire house.  

It felt very sad that, on the most beautiful spring day this year, my father found himself stuck in a hospital bed. We went to Cambridge first thing to visit him, blatantly disregarding the hospital's official visiting hours and telling a porter that I wasn't prepared to have a conversation with him via an intercom and that he could tell me to my face if he was going to send me home after travelling all the way from London to see my poorly father. Rather wisely, he relented and let us in. 

My Dad is being kept in for another night, largely due to the fact that his kidneys were slightly affected by the issue he had with his bladder, and they wanted all his "bloods" to come back down to  normal before sending him on his way. It seems sensible. 

He's having a wonderful time, of course, surrounded by patients, nurses and porters to befriend. My Dad is perhaps the most relentlessly optimistic person I know and will always look for the positive in a situation. I felt a great deal less concerned about leaving him today than I had yesterday.

My mother and I took ourselves to Grandchester. The weather was so stunning today that it seemed rude not to go there and follow in the neo-Pagan footsteps of our great heroes. We're both secret lovers of all things Bloomsbury, so taking tea in the orchard where Rupert Brooke, Virginia Wolf and E M Forster took their tea felt appropriate. It was glorious. The sun was glowing, the trees were starting to blossom and everything was taking on that delicious lime-green colour. Except the scones, which were fluffy and fruity!

We stopped off at Byron's Pond, a weir surrounded by fields of bamboo, on our way home and walked for some time along the reflective banks of the Cam. It was a new find for us both, one, I predict we'll visit again. We were both missing my Dad. It seemed wrong to be there without him. 

I came home and found myself at Tottenham Hale contemplating a tube journey into town and a tube replacement bus back out again and decided instead to bus it to Crouch End and then walk the rest of the way home. A good decision as it happens!