h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

http://www.rbkc.gov.uk/leisureandlibraries/parksandgardens/yourlocalpark/hollandpark.aspx

Holland Park is the land surrounding the former residence of Charles Fox, 18th Century politician and expert in living it large, a fact that endears the place to Mama from the get go, although it had many other interesting owners. The house itself is now in ruins, and what’s left is the backdrop for outdoor opera every summer, which Mama really must go to one day. There is a youth hostel round the back as well which Mama has also never visited but which she secretly thinks must be an impossibly romantic little getaway spot. She is probably wrong about this but it would be cruel to disillusion her.

The Park is just down the road at the other end of Kensington High Street from Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park. It’s not really on the tourist trail but Mama knows it well as she used to live round the corner (this was a lot less glamorous than the address makes it sound), and she still takes my Awesome Big Brother and me there on occasion.

The park consists of a large playing field, which I never get to run around on because it is constantly occupied by people playing football, and some formal gardens where Mama used to spend whole weekends with only a book and the people having their personal trainer shout at them as they run up and down the steps or do push ups on the flowerbed walls for entertainment. This is a concept I just don’t grasp – Mama allowed to sit down? Surely not. Next you will be telling me she used to have lie ins. There are some very nice benches there though.

There is also a Japanese garden, complete with bamboo garden toys and coy carp, which used to have their own personal guard to make sure that nobody pinched the fish. My Awesome Big Brother would spend the entire weekend on his tummy watching them if Mama let him, and she can usually only tempt him away by promising to let him chase the peacocks. Yes, there are peacocks. How cool is that? They mostly stick their tails up mockingly at my Awesome Big Brother from behind a fence or sit on top of walls shrieking insults at him, which shows a certain surprising streak of intelligence. I think they’re fab and can only be tempted away with promises of… well, actually Mama mostly just picks me up and carries me off when it’s time to move on.

Anyway, up the back and past a grassy area which is so ludicrously full of people in the summer that it is actually impossible to pick your way between the picnic blankets without trampling all over them (so we rarely try to avoid it, my Awesome Big Brother and I), there are woods. Mama, ever the pseudo nature lover, would spend more time rambling in amongst trees if we hadn’t used up most of it on the fish and the peacocks. Somewhere in the woods there is a big children’s playground, which we will probably go to more often now Mama has discovered it is there.

She and my Awesome Big Brother used to go to the toddler’s sand pit playground next to the playing field quite a bit too. It’s a wonderfully fraught place where all the Mamas try to keep track of which little tea leaf has walked of with their sand toys this time and usually fail, resulting in a lot of freebee buckets and spades, which just adds to the confusion. However, I spurn sand utterly so we usually go and get ice cream in the café instead. By now, everybody will be utterly unsurprised to find that Mama considers the place expensive, and also by the fact that this apparently does not deter her from going there (*cough* coffee *cough*). But the ice cream is very nice and conveniently in pots, which means me and my Awesome Big Brother are less likely to get covered in it. Always a bonus, that.

Anyway, worth a visit, but beware it is a locals’ park and absolutely rammed full of families on the posher end of the spectrum whenever the sun shines.

[Amy P]

That youth hostel does sound tempting...