Hampstead

Went to Hampstead today, the home of Hampstead Heath. I'd been there on a hash once before, but I remembered very little of it (we'd run in the winter with torches in the dark through the heath), so I was doing the guidebook-standard walk right along with my parents. Although occasionally I would see something and think, "Hey, I remember running past that", which would allow me to orient myself a little bit.

We went to an old churchyard and saw some cool old graves, including the one of the guy who is credited with making an accurate enough watch to measure longitude. Apparently that used to be a really big problem, and who knew that a really accurate watch was the solution?

Then meandered onwards to Fenton House and took a tour of the gardens, where I paid 20p to have an apple from the orchards. I must say, some really pretty gardens, packed into not much space. Then onwards to Burgh House, read about some history of Hampstead, before heading down to Flask Lane for some lunch. Had a nice panini, but our enjoyment of sitting outside and watching the people go by was somewhat marred by some young kids sitting nearby who were chain-smoking cigarettes directly upwind from us. At one point they even flicked ash from their cigarettes that got into our food (although luckily we were nearly done by that point anyway). But when the waitress asked if we'd have dessert, there was no way, we just wanted to get away from those smoking kids! (And given that cigarettes cost about £8 a pack here, I have no idea how on earth they afforded the habit if they smoked that much!)

Then it was onto Hampstead Heath, an area left to run wild in London, a really pretty park with lots of trees. We walked to Keats House, but unfortunately it was closed by the time we got there, so after admiring a view (showin the photo), we then started to make our way home.

We stopped at the Spanish Inn on our way back, where we paused to have some Diet Cokes and admire the old pub, which had lovely low ceilings and cozy rooms inside (with non-matching chairs, my ultimate standard for a good pub), and a lovely garden outside with fairy lights.

Finally caught a bus back home late at night, quite tired from the day out walking on the heath!