Woke at 8am this morning to the sound of steady rain on the window pane.
Up and down the street by 8.30am.
I decided to eat breakfast out this morning.

A lovely long sit by the window watching ( not that many ) people go past in the rain...
A croissant and a very large chocolate milkshake later....
Still trying to figure out what to do with my day.

Sunday in London.
Speaker's Corner in Hyde Park.

So off on the Tube

Stockwell
Oxford Circus
Marble Arch

I'm getting the hang of this.

Still a very steady rain..... Borrowed your black umbrella, Megs.
Mine blew inside out on the way back from breakfast.
Yours works very well.

No speakers on Speaker's Corner yet....so off I wandered for an exploratory walk in Hyde Park.
It was lovely.
No wind now just a very steady falling of moisture.
There was a fundraising run on for the Stroke Foundation.
( They kept telling me I was going the wrong way.)
Walked along the Serpentine...
Then saw 2 horses and riders going by....
Said hi to them.
( Horses and riders )
And kept walking.
Then it occurred to me that they may know where to hire a horse for a ride in Hyde Park so I
did a u-turn and hot footed it off after them...( trailing your umbrella long behind me like a sail, Megs....I can really put on the pace when I want to, you know.)

Anyway, caught up with them and, it turns out they were from the Ross Nye Riding School.
So they gave me directions to their mews and suggested I get there about 2pm.

It was just noon...still a very steady, heavy precipitation happening.
So I sloshed my way back to Speakers' Corner.
Still no one speaking... ( The Wimps! )
Bought lunch and sat in a gazebo and had a great chat with a Scottish man who could not believe I was having a cold lunch on a day like that.
( At least, I think that was what he was saying... )
He had a very long conversation with me.
I nodded a lot.
I think he has relatives in Perth....but wasn't moving out himself.

Then shot across the road to KFC to use their facilities even though all the signs said I was not allowed to as I was not a customer.
( If challenged, I was planning to put up an argument about being a customer in Australia.
I am not sure if that 10,000 mile chicken burger I had last November would have cut it though.)
Luckily, not challenged.

(This blog is fascinating, isn't it? Tell all your friends to log in.)

Then back to Speakers' Corner....still no speakers....they must melt in the rain.
So I bought an ice cream.
And off I set to find these horses.
The weather was not being kind.
It was raining very heavily.
And I'd been walking in it for 3 hours now.
I was thoroughly enjoying myself but I was wet from the knees down and my shoes were like little ponds of water.

As I made my way round the park, I did consider that it may be a bit wet to go horse riding.
And thought about turning back...but, look, I was wet anyway.

Quite a walk.
Found the stables in this beautiful old Mews....
And a young 16 year old girl, Mae and I went for a ride through Hyde Park for an hour and a half.
And it didn't rain once while we were riding.
Had an absolute ball!
I was riding a small chestnut gelding named Phoenix.

We rode out of the mews onto the road.
Traffic stopped for us....just fell in behind.
Then we crossed the major road to get into Hyde Park.... again, traffic stopped for us.
Wonderful ride over an old arched bridge....down to the Sepentine lake....in amongst the trees.
Weaving past geese and ducks and swans.
Phoenix didn't like the geese much and put on quite a performance when a whole herd of them came out of the water and crossed in front of us.

I absolutely loved this.
I got the idea to ride in Hyde Park when Meagan and I saw horse riders on our picnic nearly 7 weeks ago.
And now I've done it.
I used to read about people riding here....now I am one of them.

Back to the mews...stopping traffic again.
I was waving to everyone.
I had a ball.

Then, asked directions to the Tube.
It started raining again.
Stood under an awning and rang Mum.
Got cut off as I was taking more pictures of the horses so Mum rang me back.
Lovely chat in the rain, Mum.
Nice to share when you've just done it.

So back to Balham on the Tube.
Changed.
Off up the street to buy wine.
Dan was cooking a roast.
Lovely roast chicken with the housemates.
Then apple crumble made by Andy.
Two Sunday roasts in a row, Meagan.... I see a trend developing here.

Lovely, lovely day.
I loved every second of it.

Xxx