our london adventure: Wimbledon and Richmond

Today was the first day of the two-week spring break, and since it was forecast to be the last springlike day before a few days of cooler weather, we decided to head to Richmond Park, almost exactly three months to the day since we first visited its incredible landscape. We started the afternoon in Wimbledon, where this dog wished us well on today's journey:

We looked around the village, which was small and quaint; and the high street, with its satellite locations of Oxford-Street standards and a huge mall called--you guessed it--Centre Court. Wimbledon Common was nice, with an understated pond near the village;

a windmill;

a golf course that blended so well into the rest of the park that we couldn't tell when we were walking on the course, which had us looking over our shoulders every time we heard the "crack!" of a ball; and a lovely pond called Queen's Mere, where we spotted one of our favourite ducks

and another bird with outspread wings watching over a nest.

The whole area lent a peaceful sense of isolation

which was only broken by this coot who came over to say hello, wiggling cute alien feet and noisily squawking away.

Spring blossoms perfumed the air around the pond

and although there was still a majority of the common to explore, we decided to head over to Richmond Park for a while and return to Wimbledon on another day. We wondered if we would be lucky enough to see the deer again, but didn't have to wonder for long, as a large herd grazed leisurely just across the stream from us.

People were sitting on the banks, lazing in the sun, enjoying the idyllic setting--even Bob struck a picture-perfect pose:

We crossed over to the deer's side of the stream and continued walking through the park.

Along the way, parakeets called out

and we marvelled at how far away from London the whole park felt.

We decided to aim for a pair of ponds in the centre of the park, Pen Ponds, and they turned out to be beautiful. We came across the smaller pond first,

where we spotted six swans on the far side,

and although there were other people all around the pond, four of the swans made a bee-line right for us,

walking right up onto the bank where we stood.

When we continued walking, they got back into the water and swam toward us once again. The only explanation we could come up with was that Bob was carrying our picnic-lunch litter in a plastic bag and the wind was rustling the bag in the wind. Maybe the swans thought we were going to feed them? Regardless of the reason, it was funny to feel like they were "our" swans as they followed us around the pond.

The most remarkable sighting at the pond was this pair of beautiful geese (I have no idea what kind they were, but their eye markings were incredible) and their impossibly cute goslings:

Bob walked up to the pathway between the ponds, exclaiming, "Oh, weird!" and when I joined him, I realized why:

We never expected the ponds to be at different elevations, and the fact that the smaller pond was so much higher made for a strange sight. Further along our walk, Bob stopped and pointed to the ground. When I asked what he was pointing at, he said that I should take a picture of the ancient turtle who was poking his head out through the dirt, and after he pointed out the "turtle" to me, I did just that:

I don't understand how he saw that tiny rock (the photo is taken from a few cm away) while walking (and wearing sunglasses), but it was very cute. After even more walking, we were pretty tired and quite hot, so we aimed once again for Pembroke Lodge to have some cool drinks and enjoy the view.