Today was a good day. Since Central London was crawling with people today thanks to the royal wedding, it was decided it would be a great day for a picnic – so long as the rain chose not to fall. Well, the rain stayed in the skies, so bright and early we rose to prepare a small meal for a noon picnic: chicken and butter sandwiches, potato chips (or crisps as they call them here), fresh fruit, and juice.
With the food made and packed away, we set off for a large, obscure park less than a 15 minute walk from the house. When we reached the park, our first activity was cricket which I have never played before. Now, there is no sport – maybe with the exception of badminton and archery – that I’m at all good in. Today I added cricket to the long list of sports I can’t play.
I will admit it is much easier to hit the ball in cricket than it is in baseball or softball…a definite advantage in having a bigger bat. Yet, even with that advantage I managed to hit the ball only half the time; still better than my batting average in baseball! Supposedly my hits increased as time went on, but I think that was simply a statement said to up my moral. My bowling abilities are a bit better, although they certainly wouldn’t stand up to the professional level.
Abandoning the game after about an hour or so, we began walking around the park. The park we were in is a huge park by London standards and is full of trees and waterways. With spring in full swing, the birds were twittering away in the vibrant green foliage of the trees. The air was heavy with the heady smell of flowering trees and bushes.
We found a perfect spot to eat off the beaten trail near a small stream, spread out our blanket, and sat down to enjoy our simple lunch. Except for the occasional passerby and the sound of traffic from the main highway outside the park, it was quiet and enjoyable. The food was pretty good too.
After the food was consumed, we began walking around all the waterways. The park used to be an estate owned by some important person who had several fancy, ornamental ponds created on the lands. Now everything is overgrown with trees and undergrowth so nothing is very ornamental anymore.
There are tons of water birds who call the park home: mallards, Canada geese, a couple Egyptian geese, coots, moorhens, cormorants, tufted ducks, and a single swan. We had some leftover bread from the sandwiches, so we had brought that along with to feed the birds. In one part of the park, far from the main gathering place of the birds, a Canada goose started following us. I finally stopped and gave it some bread because it wouldn’t leave us alone.
Finally we reached the main gathering place. The birds are smart and they know you have bread when they see or hear a bread bag. So as soon as they saw us, the mallards and geese swam over to us. The Canada geese are not afraid to come right up to people and take food from their hands. However, they aren’t very nice about it and my fingers got bit a few times.
But the single Egyptian goose that was hanging around surprised me a bit. He/she also came right up to me for some bread. Yet, while the geese and ducks were going a bit crazy over the bread, the Egyptian goose carefully took the bread from my fingers. It’s like it had manners! I have never seen a bird take food so nicely, and I wished I had taken more bread with.
The Egyptian goose who was ever so polite!
Anyway, after the duck/goose feeding episode, we returned home. The rest of the day wasn’t very exciting; I watched a couple things about the wedding, uploaded some photos on deviantART, and then did some cleaning. Nothing too trilling.
But enough about my day. While I have managed to post a few things in the past few weeks or so, I haven’t posted much. Insha’Allah I hope to post a bit more in the upcoming week or two. I have a few great topics for posts: the proposed male circumcision ban in San Francisco, implementation of Shari’ah law in the US, and a couple others I can’t remember right now. I just need the motivation to actually write them!
Well, that’s all for me. I hope you had a great Friday and have an equally great weekend!
Fee amanillah!
Iman
No comments:
Post a Comment