A picnic on the Heath

8th August 2020: A Picnic on the Heath

August 8th is my birthday. In ordinary years, I take a bunch of my favourite people punting in Cambridge, or head to the standing stones at Avebury to unleash my inner pagan, but, over the years, I have spent several birthdays on Hampstead Heath. 

The first Heath birthday was in 1996 when I was at drama school. I had recently discovered the place and was keen to show it off to those who hadn’t yet been drawn in by its magical ways. I still have the pictures I took of Edward Thornhill and Sam Jane standing in tall grass, somewhere near Kenwood, recreating a corset-tingling scene from A Room With A View! The pictures were taken in black and white but have a curious green tinge. In the 1990s, long before the digital age made photography accessible for all, I took pictures on XP2 film. The joy about XP2 was that, although the film was technically black and white, it could also be developed in the same colour-processing machines which back then could spit a whole set of pictures out in an hour. The drawback, which was also a positive, was that the photographs ended up with colourful hues to them. It was impossible to predict what colour your pictures would turn out. Sometimes they would be almost black and white. Other times they’d have a subtle sepia tint, or a rose-coloured wash. They could be slightly green, a little blue, or, on less happy occasions, garish orange! It was an exciting lottery which gave each set of prints a unique mood. 

I loved the pictures because they made me feel like I was living in Edwardian times, and, certainly, when I look back at my albums, you’d be forgiven for thinking the optimistic, youthful faces peering out at you, would shortly be off to fight in the trenches! 

Anyway, I wanted everything to be as simple as possible for my birthday this year. Many of my friends are still wary about travelling or being in confined spaces, so a picnic on Heath was a no-brainer. It actually never occurred to me that the weather would be anything other than sunny this year. Despite the fact that it’s never actually rained on my birthday, I regularly get myself in a proper pickle trying to think of alternatives for inclement weather. This year, it was just going to have to be what it needed to be. 

The highlight for me was the fact that my dearest friend, Fiona was flying down from Glasgow to join me. I have missed her intensely during lockdown and this has been the longest period since we met where we’ve not seen each other in the flesh. The first thing I did when she stepped into our house was hand her the Christmas present which had sat on our fireplace for eight months! 

We arrived on the Heath just after noon and chose a spot half way between the summit of Parliament Hill and the Men's Ponds. When we arrived, the sky was pretty thick with white cloud but after about half an hour, the clouds vanished, the sun burned through, and it suddenly got really hot: panic-inducingly hot. So we made a dash for the shade of the nearest tree, where we pretty much stayed for the next ten hours, barring, of course, the occasional visit to an ice cream van on the edge of the Heath at Millfield Lane. 

The police were patrolling. Since lockdown, police have been a regular fixture on the Heath, which feels a little strange. They are, of course, the ultimate fun-sponges! We kept seeing panda cars creeping along the wider pathways. They mostly seemed to be handing out fines to cyclists, which felt like a bit of a waste of resources.

There are three natural lakes used for swimming on the Heath. A Men's pond, a Women’s pond and a pond on the other side of the heath in which both men and women can swim. Since the ponds reopened in July, you have to book to swim in them and they’re usually sold out days in advance, which leaves many people bitterly disappointed, particularly on a scorchingly hot day. 

Between the Men’s and the “Ladies’” pond, there’s a more shallow boating lake. It’s recently been considerably re-shaped, extended and landscaped to avoid a repeat of the 1975 catastrophe which followed a freak storm when a phenomenal amount of rain fell on the Heath in a very short period of time. All of the ponds burst their banks and caused such terrible floods in the neighbouring districts that, in one case, a man actually drowned in his basement.

Anyway, I’ve never seen anyone so much as paddle in the boating lake - giant signs warn against it - but on Saturday, scores of people were actually swimming there. There were kids in there wearing arm bands and all sorts. It was like a modern day version of a Seurat painting! 

I think it was probably the angry-looking fishermen on the edge of the lake who dobbed the swimmers into the police. They’ve probably paid big money for the licenses which allow them to fish in those ponds and wouldn’t necessarily want scores of sun-stroked idiots frightening the fish away! 

In total, I think 17 of us sat down to picnic (if you include the babies inside the tummies of Abbie and Little Michelle.) Neither yet know the gender of their children but if old wives tales are to be believed, Michelle’s bump, which sits high, neat, large and proud, would almost certainly be a boy. 

Most of the picnickers 

In the golden hour before dusk, the shadows lengthened and the entire heath started basking in a glorious peach-coloured light, which melted into an arc of pink and purple cloud, whilst the red and white lights of Central London came out to dance on the southern horizon. 

We sat, eating pizza, still under our tree, as the evening winds drew in and the light died. The last to leave (apart from Nathan, and Fiona, who stayed at ours) were Ted, his wonderful partner Gersende and their three year-old daughter, Emma who is the spitting image of both of her parents, and one of the most charming kids I’ve met in a long time. Abbie’s son, Wilfred (himself something of a charmer) was obviously also somewhat taken by Emma. They stared at each other for long periods of time like star-crossed lovers in a period drama. And now we’re back to A Room With A View! 

Fiona, Edward, Nathan and me

It felt fitting to end the night with Fiona and Ted. Two of my oldest friends, and probably the two people (aside from my brother and parents) who have attended more birthday picnics than anyone. All three of us were at the Northampton Music School together. I’ve written recently about our myriad adventures as a busking string trio in the Midlands. 

I checked my emails as we left the Heath to find one from my astral twin, Alison, another music school alumnus. We were born on the same day in the same year and always drop each other a Happy Birthday missive. She’s currently training to be a priest.

I left the Heath feeling a wonderful sense of happiness that people are returning to the joys that nature can bring. The place was filled with families. And children playing and laughing loudly in a way that they just wouldn’t whilst playing computer games and such. This is the biggest gift, I feel, that lockdown has given us.

That pink arc

The Golden Road

August 6th, 2020

I’m in Wales. One of the reasons I’ve not blogged for the last few days is that I’ve been blissed out, living life on a moment-by-moment basis, whilst salty sea breezes buffer my skin and etch lines into my forehead! I look like Captain Birdseye!

I’m staying in a cottage in Pembrokeshire, with a group of university friends. We come away most years and have stayed in the same beautiful seaside cottage near Dinas Head on three occasions now. I think we first went away together as a group twelve years ago. On that occasion, we went to the New Forest. My abiding memory of that particular holiday was our camp site being invaded by a set of tiny New Forest ponies, who rampaged through our little patch like a bunch of football hooligans. One of them ended up in young Isabel’s tent, steadfastly refusing to move. I have seldom laughed as much as I did that afternoon.

Anyway, yesterday, after embarking on some sort of Krypton Factor-style challenge involving the transportation of fourteen people and four cars to various key points along the length of a long, non-circular public footpath, we set off for The Golden Road, which stretches across the Preseli Hills, about six miles inland from where we’re staying.

The plan was to take our packed lunches and go for a very long, gloriously rugged walk. There seems to be some sort of heatwave going on this week in London which has not reached Pembrokeshire, but, the pay-off has been the most astounding, elemental weather. And nowhere was this more the case than up in the Preseli Hills. On several occasions, we actually found ourselves within the clouds. Great mists would roll in and then, almost immediately, glorious windows opened up in the clouds, allowing us to peer down at a patchwork of fields and ancient woodland and then out to the elephant grey sea. The sun shining through the clouds had turned little sections of the yellow cornfields below us into shimmering pools of gold. It was magical. 

Those patches of gold

The Preseli Hills are, of course, the very hills from where the giant rocks of Stone Henge were quarried. It’s impossible to comprehend how they managed to transport such enormous blocks of stone over such large distances and, indeed, why it was that they chose to use rocks from this part of the world.

The area does feel mystical, somehow. Most of the hills’ peaks are crowned with Iron Age burial mounds. Huge piles of stones mark the spots where important, yet long-forgotten people have been laid to rest. The views from these tors are exquisite. You can see for miles and miles. At one point we realised that the misty mountains poking up in the distance, far across the sea, were almost certainly in Snowdonia - probably 100 miles away! The winds, as you might expect, were somewhat bracing up there. 

All fourteen of us at The Place of the Eagles (Foel Eryr)

We came across very few people on our walk. It ought to have been a fairly easy walk, but the paths in some places were almost unnavigable, vanishing regularly into marshland. Even the hardiest walkers were turning around and returning to their cars! The soil on the hills is really peaty and in some places curiously bouncy. I wondered if I was experiencing an earthquake when one patch of turf suddenly started to bounce like a trampoline!

The drawback was that the trainers I was wearing, veterans of my 120-mile walk along the River Nene four years ago, were entirely un-waterproof. Within minutes of starting our trek, my socks were a soggy, sodden mess.

About half way through the walk, whilst sitting on a tor, I took my shoes and socks off to get some air on my feet. It was whilst ringing out my socks that I noticed my feet had gone weirdly pale and wrinkly. Jeannie described them as looking “parched” which was curiously appropriate whilst being simultaneously the complete opposite to what they actually were!

To avoid trench foot, I made the decision to do the rest of the walk barefoot. It turned out to be a rather wonderful experience. I’m entirely flat-footed, so actually a long walk can leave me in quite a lot of pain after shoving my trotters into shoes which are nothing like as wide as Hobbit feet like mine need shoes to be!

The sensation of walking across the moors barefoot was fabulous. The grass was soft, springy and fabulously damp. Periodically, I’d feel a foot squelching into a pool of water or peaty mud. The only time I needed to put my trainers back on was to negotiate a section of the path where thorny gorse had grown across the ground. But for the rest of the time I was as happy as Larry. No accidents. No cuts or grazes. Just happy feet! 

Nathan and Jago in the mist

At one point, we came upon a large family of Ultra Orthodox Jewish people making their way up the mountain side, which is a somewhat curious sight outside London or Manchester. They were playing rather loud music as they walked - half-klezmer, half-pop music. I walked a little further, but when I looked around to see where they’d got to, they’d disappeared to the extent that I wondered if I’d actually imagined them. 

Iain, Wils, Lola and Tomas

Oh yes... and when we got back home to the cottage, we were rewarded with a beautiful sunset!

The view from our sitting room window (not even joking!)

Spaldwick

May 30th: Spaldwick 

On 30th May, Nathan and I drove up to Huntingdon to visit our good friends Lisa and Mark and their kids Poppy and Rosie. Nathan is Poppy’s godfather and was told when he accepted the position that he would be responsible for her glamour and her grammar!

Lisa’s middle child, George, didn’t make it through childbirth, so I have taken on the responsibility of looking after his memory on Earth. The London Requiem is dedicated to him.

They live in a charming village called Spaldwick, which is near to where the A1 meets the A14, not far at all, in fact, from Brampton, where Samuel Pepys grew up. The powers that be have been working on the junction of those two massive roads for some time now. The exit from the A1 onto the A14 feels a little messy and unnecessarily windy, but my parents tell me it’s entirely revolutionised the A14 which was a total disaster in those parts.

It was an incredibly hot day but Lisa’s garden is cool and shady. Rose had her paddling pool set out in the garden and was leaping in and out of it with boundless energy. It was one of those days when, as children, we’d be allowed to get the hosepipe out. 

Rose's paddling pool

Every time I’m in Lisa and Mark’s garden, I’m reminded of one of my most mortifying experiences. It was the day that Andy Murray first won Wimbledon and they were having a massive garden party. It was another incredibly hot day and the party erupted into a huge water fight. There were water bombs and pistols, hoses, and frankly, anything which could be filled with water was being used as a weapon or a missile. 

Mark and I were stalking each other like Ninjas, pouncing with increasingly ludicrous quantities of water. A marvellous opportunity presented itself. I caught Mark just outside the kitchen door taking a breather, so filled the entire washing up bowl with freezing cold water, sneaked up behind him, and tipped the lot over his head. I laughed demonically.

Imagine my surprise when Mark turned around, a look of deep shock on his face, and I realised it wasn’t Mark at all! It was a complete stranger who wasn’t taking part in the water fight. I felt just terrible!

Anyway, on May 30th, Lisa and Mark proudly took us to see their new allotment. Apparently the Spaldwick allotments have been a long time coming but curiously it was during lockdown that the Parish Council finally made it happen. I think there are maybe 20 separate patches, all rather pristine-looking with big water tanks regularly spaced along a central path. 

The allotment

There was something deeply moving about the place. I couldn’t put my finger on it. Maybe it was seeing all the villagers enthusiastically erecting and painting sheds, carefully digging their patches and sharing the knowledge they were learning. None of them were jaded old timers. No one was pretending to be king of the allotment or policing the behaviour of anyone else. They were just coming together as a community and doing something really worthwhile. It was genuinely heartwarming. 

Proud Mark

I think the weather helped by bringing a sort of nostalgic quality to the place. The sun beating down. Clouds of dust spewing into the air. Rosie ran off into the hedgerow where the local children had built the mother of all dens. It was so reminiscent or the late 1970s somehow: Those long, hot summers of drought, ABBA albums, teddy bear’s picnics, flared jeans, Atara’s Band, blackberry picking and Silver Jubilees. 

Lisa in her shady garden