I moan a lot about where I live, telling the Husband that I hate the fact we have to live in London for his job. But, actually, where we live is really quite nice, and I consider myself lucky to live near such open spaces as Morden Park.
We went for a wander this morning, through the little park that is by our house, full of young families, playing on the swings. Down by the river past the bus garage, across the road to Sainsbury’s and further down the river, past Dean City Farm, which was bustling with children and their parents, all going to see the peacocks and the horses. We walked through the wetlands of Morden Park and on into the National Trust buildings where there is a tiny, second-hand bookshop selling such wonders as The Reader’s Digest Bedside Book of the Art of Living, which I picked up for a pound. Published in the 1950s, it’s proof that for decades people have felt out of touch with their fellow man, alienated by the modern world, distance from God.
Walking with the Husband is one of my favourite things to do. We talk more openly out in the fresh Autumn air than we can in a house where the TV is always on and there are other things to distract us. Walking with him is a free luxury, we should remember to do it more often.
We stopped at Merton Abbey Mills for a cup of coffee. I love Abbey Mills. A former textile factory, it prides itself as London’s Alternative Market, which always makes us laugh given that we used to go to Camden a lot. But it’s where William Morris worked for years, and Liberty bought most of their fabrics from here before the 1970s. These days, there are little restaurants and market stalls which are ever so nearly right, but just not quite. I’d like to see more handmade crafts, less of the useless market tat you can buy on any street corner. It has a wonderful pottery place, though (featured on FaceJacker, if you watch that sort of thing) and we promised ourselves we’d go down their one weekend and get lessons. Abbey Mills is a great place to people-watch, I could probably stay there all day.
But we wandered home eventually, tired from our walk, cheeks reddened with the fresh breeze, to our little house, which I don’t hate as much as I say I do.