Spring is here!!!

What's big and green and lovely all over?

Today, it was certainly Hyde Park.

Since coming to London, I've been missing one of the few things one can truly miss from suburbia (other than my family, of course), and that is greenery (although I doubt that there can be very much of it back home just now). Thusly, today, on this, the rarest of sunshiney days, I took myself off to the park, making the not-so-arduous walk all the way down Oxford Street, through the shopping mecca to the green pot-of-gold at the end. After, of course, stopping by Sainsbury's first, to purchase my semi-picnic lunch, I went through the Marble Arch and into the green.

These flowers were the first thing I encountered upon entering Hyde Park, and, well, they made me so happy that I just had to take a picture of them. The trees are still bare, but it doesn't matter so long as I've got grass and flowers.

This semi-former playground of the well-to-do evokes images of classic movies. I can easily imagine petticoated ladies strolling down the lanes, or hired coaches driving hurriedly by its perimeters. Primarily because of the nerd in me, the trees remind me of the in-between place where the kids in The Magician's Nephew first entered Narnia. I am also determined to believe that this is the park in which the heroes of 101 Dalmations found love, both canine and otherwise.

This sign very pointedly tells me that Peter Pan is to my left, and although I have yet to discover where he is hiding, I will find him eventually.

Nowadays, instead of carriages and strolling upper class ladies, Hyde Park is full of runners, people walking their various dogs and children, rollerbladers, picnickers, tourists and pigeons.

While I can't say much for the children, several of the dogs were attracted to the smell of my lunch (as, unfortunately, were several of the pigeons. Those things are creepy when they keep hopping around you, particularly because of the red eyes. Say what you will about tourists, but at least they don't try to steal your lunch).

And, of course, there's this guy:

Seriously, I didn't mess with this picture at all (and I actually don't think I could make it weirder than it is). How he could run in that thing is beyond me.