Still in Hampstead

I'm still remembering last Monday morning's walk in London.
I had decided to follow Kate Kellaway's  " Of Kites and Keats " walk in Time Out  london Walks partly because it started in Kentish Town, but also because it would take me to Hampstead and I'd never been there before.

                Past Bailey Mews

           An old narrow lane  ( College Lane  I think )

                   Past beautiful houses on Grove Terrace where
                    Kate Kellaway grew up.

                  Heading up Parliament Hill  I overhear a Mum answer a
                                       young school boy.

             
       
                "  No she  is not insane, she is practicing T'ai Chi ".

                      Amused I continue on up the hill.

         
                  Next I'm met with a film crew recording  .  .   .     .   .

             
               On through  more secluded paths

         
                Past the deserted mixed bathing pond

           

                   Along the verdant path



     

Past Keats Close in Hampstead 

To stop at Keats' House and read from Kate Kellaway

" It is wonderful to see the old propped mulberry tree and reflect that it was in this garden that Keats heard the nightingale that inspired his poem. It was here, too, that he wrote a less well known companion piece to  '  ' Ode to a Nightingale '  ; 

" Oh there is nothing like fine weather, and health , and books and a fine country, and a contented Mind,and Diligent habit of reading and thinking, and an amulet against ennui - and, please, heaven a little claret- wine cool out of a cellar a mile deep - with a few or a good many ratafia cakes - a rocky basin to bathe in, a strawberry bed to say your prayers to Flora......."

 Well content with my ramblings I return to Deb's and pack for Ireland.