View over London

At the beginning of October I wasn't feeling that great with my blood sugars being all over the place, so I phoned in sick from work. I stayed in bed and slept for a while. I got up about 10:30 still bleary eyed.

Sarah-Jane came round and on coming in burst into tears on Andreas shoulder. She had been experiencing some work place bullying recently and just felt the need to cry.

After calming down a little she suggested we visit Hampstead Heath. I wasn't sure I was up to it; I felt washed out. Still, the idea sounded quite good.

When we arrived at the West Hampsted tube station I was interested to see they hadn't really changed its decor and lay out. It still has the old ticket offices and tiling edges it had always had.

Those who know me, know that I am a bit of a gadget freak and I always want to take my gadgets with me. The trouble is, when I am feeling unwell I get a bit impatient with them. So this day was not a good day for my personal little computer to start messing about. I wanted to download some maps and be able to see where we were going, using it to make sure we wouldn't get lost. At first it did not work! I fiddled, pushed, shoved, shouted and cajoled it to work and eventually it did get working.

As we reached the top of the hill we saw a kite flier. I didn’t think there was much wind but it was a huge kite and he seemed to be struggling with it. It was one of those 2 handed stunt kites that you might see on the BBC mini films between programmes.

The view across London was spectacular. Many times I had seen on TV different people using the benches at the top of the hill to sit at and show a view of London. Now I have seen and used that very same bench.

So we headed down the hill on the other side toward the lake. SJ and Andrea described to me how they had been here before but had got lost. There were two sets of lakes and got confused which one they were at. I could see what they meant. The heath seemed daunting with so much to explore.

We got to the lakes and saw for the first time how large they were. While we were at the top of the hill their true size were obscured by trees. There were pathways around each lake and as we walked between two of the lakes we were surprised to see someone swimming. This gentleman was swimming amongst ducks and swans! It turned out it was permitted, for we saw across the lake, huts for changing and steps into the water. Back and forth he went. His friend was looking on from the side. The weather wasn’t cold but I am not sure if I would have taken the plunge myself.

We walked around the lakes and tried to return where we had entered the heath. I chose what I thought was the right path only to find we in completely the wrong place. We had to re-check and eventually. There was a short walk through streets back to the station.

Along the way there were some girls in pink outfits walking home with their mothers. We thought they might have been been at a party but as walked on further we saw they were from a dance class. the pink looked lovely against the grey of the streets.