My husband was in meetings all day today so I was left to explore on my own.  Oneof my goals for this trip to London was to get to know some of the neighborhoods so I radiated out from our hotel into St. John’s Wood.  The church, a medium-sized, Ionic-columned cathedral of the same name,  is the central feature of the area, .  The church is adjacent to a full city block of park space which includes an ancient cemetery that they now call a wildlife area and have let it become a bit jungly.  It reminded me so much of the sweet little Elizabeth Park that was just a block from our house when our boys were preschoolers.  They both have pointy wrought-iron fences, venerable trees, and perennial flower borders.

It is possible that I hadn’t seen lilacs in a decade.

I took this squirrel picture to remind my son, Anton (now 21) of the time when he was a wee tyke of 4 and was playing under a big poplar tree in our yard.  Without seeing it coming, a giant squirrel, like this one, plopped down on his head and then ran away.  I’m sure they were both equally surprised.

This well-stocked wine shop, Jeroboam’s, had a basketed bicycle out front as though it was for making home deliveries.  Cute prop, I thought.  About 20 minutes later, I passed by the store again.  The shop was locked up  and a sign was in the window.

All I really did all morning was notice stuff.  Surprisingly quaint and small town-like things were going on.  A woman was actually feeding bread crumbs she had brought from home in a plastic bread sack to the pigeons in the park.  Lots of elderly people were sitting on the benches facing the morning sun.  New mothers were pushing infants in actual prams,  not jogging strollers.  A gardener was working up the dark soil in the flower beds.  I smiled a lot and remembered living in a historic neighborhood, in a not-so-big city, pushing my babies around in a stroller, feeling like time was standing still.