Friday, September 25, 2009

Just An Ordinary Day at The Park

Today was a lovely day. We woke up at a decent hour and simply spent the day enjoying the warm English air. We walked to the Richmond Park today. It is about a 12 minute walk from our University and it is well worth the distance. Richmond Park is one of the largest parks in all of London and it is beautiful. It is not the kind of park that I imagined with a playground and a big green field. It is actually much more than that. Just as we turned the corner and saw the vast tall yellow grass field, we were astounded. It was amazing! There was grass that led on forever into the distance to be stopped only by the lining of enormous green forest trees. Separating the portion of the park that we were at, was a shallow brook. The brook was not too deep, but the grassy walls that led to the brook were. There were small dirt trails leading every which way into the deep forest trees and going around the park. Covering the grassy field was a large herd of deer! Thirty or forty deer covered a large area. There were doe everywhere, big ones and little ones... Then just when we thought we had seen it all, out of the brook strutted a very large male deer. He had a full head of antlers and a confidence about him that was just enough to make us keep our distance. We walked toward the deer in hopes to go behind their herd to a beautiful forest of trees... however, the male deer did not like the idea of us getting so close to his ladies. He stopped in the middle of the trail, stopped his hoof, and made a loud bark/growl noise that scared us all out of our shoes! We knew he meant business and decided we could find a different spot to relax.

We crossed the road to the other side of the park where there were more trees and a few solo deers just frolicking around. I spread out my red fleece blanket and we all sat under the big oak tree. Chelsea sat and wrote letters to her loved ones back home. Christina tried to catch up on her journaling from our traveling. Charissa enjoyed sharing stories about different events in her life and pondered about the events coming up. Angela took pictures of all the beauty that was surrounding us. And I tried to read Captivating but could not focus on the words that were coming off the pages.

After some time of relxing, we all decided we wanted to climb a tree. There were so many fun trees all around us, they were just begging to be climbed. We surveyed all the trees, judging many of them to be too tall or too thin or too far. Then I saw one that too me looked just perfect. So I decided to try to climb it. So in my black Ug-type boots, I grabbed a branch and flipped myself up onto the tree. It was so fun! Once up there, I just kept going... I climbed higher and higher until I could not find a place to go. Chelsea also joined me in the tree. She made the choice to take off her boots in order to get more of a grip. The other girls tried to climb up, but did not succeed and so they gave up trying. Chelsea and I relaxed in the tree for a few moments before climbing back down to find a differente tree for the other girls. We walked through the forest where it was a little darker and simply enjoyed the free air and God's complex and simple beauty.
Our time at the park was short, but it was not wasted. It opened up our eyes to a different part of London. Beyond all the alcohol and the worldly pleasures that consumes so much of this hurting city, beauty still remains.

1 comment:

  1. That is my girl, climbing trees when they call out to her. Just don't jump out of it, and break anything. :)

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