Yesterday after a quiet morning and a walk to Waitrose, I jumped on the Overground and a National Rail train and headed down to Sutton. I met Geoff and Dooka there and we hopped on a bus down toward Banstead Woods. After Geoff was kicked off his flight a couple of weeks ago, he was rebooked on one on the 13th August so we’ve been trying to do some fun things around London to take up his time. He’d read about Narnia carvings spread throughout Banstead Wood, so that was our destination for today. After getting off the bus we were under the impression that it was just a quick walk down to the woods. Unfortunately, that involved wandering along the verge of a main road with no footpath (albeit with minimal traffic) until we arrived at a gated estate. With some hesitation, we went through the (unlocked) gate and then felt a little more secure when we found a nature trail heading into the woods. This began a fairly random wander through the woods, following a few numbered markers - with no reference map. I was really enjoying the green and quiet - entirely different to the Australian bush in look and sound - but at some point, Geoff checked the website that he’d read about the Narnia carvings on and we established that we’d come in the wrong entrance. Luckily we were able to follow some paths in approximately the right direction and after a bit of bush bashing, we could hear children and assumed we were going on the right direction. After following the shouting sounds and then heading down a hill, we found a huge carving of Aslan (the lion ‘king’/god in the Chronicles of Narnia) and then further down a carving of Lucy by a lamppost by a gate to a field. At this point we figured that was goal achieved and plonked our picnic blanket down in the field and had a great picnic. I’d brought some Pimm’s and lemonade alongside some olives, (lactose free) cheese, (gluten free) biscuits and grapes, Geoff had some prosciutto, salami and strawberries and all up we had a great old nibble. At about 5:30 we figured it was probably time to get moving so we got a little bit lazy and just ordered an Uber back to Sutton (in our defence, it would have been an hour and a half walk). After a brief stop at the shops, we headed back to the place Geoff is staying. He’s cat/housesitting for his neighbours while they’re away, which works very well, given he’d just moved out of his place when his flights were cancelled. Once we got there, I was blown away by the size of it - a two story, four bedroom house in London - with a backyard?? What?! It was lovely though, and after a delicious chicken cacciatore for dinner we just had a quiet night of funny shows on Netflix, snacks and wine. In bed by 11, very sensible!

I woke up around 8 this morning and just chilled in bed until I heard movement at 8:30, at which point Geoff and I made some coffees downstairs. Once Dooka got up at 9 and we’d hung around for a bit, we made a plan to head to the Mayfield Lavender Farm for the morning. After a couple of buses, we got there around 10:30, at which point it was already getting busy, so we were glad we’d left when we had. I was so surprised by how beautiful it was. It certainly helped that it was a gorgeous blue-sky day, so that perfectly contrasted with the vivid purple of the lavender spread across the fields in front of us as we arrived. All you could smell was lavender, and under the sounds of people talking throughout the field was the current of bees buzzing all around. I don’t think I’d ever seen so many bees (Geoff pointed out that Peter would have been glad he didn’t come!). We saw plenty of bumblebees too, which was a treat. We had a great explore of the fields before finding our way to a converted airstream in the middle that was functioning as a cafe/shop. Each of us got an enormous lavender scone with jam and clotted cream, and I got a lavender lemonade. They were all sufficiently lavender-y, and it was lovely sitting under the shade of the one huge tree in the middle of the field while we ate. Once we were finished there, we had a quick stop at the shop for Geoff to grab some lavender sprigs before we headed back to the busstop. I farewelled both of the boys and hopped on a bus in the opposite direction, from where I grabbed a national rail train home.

When I got home I continued my mask-sewing project until Peter woke up. We’d planned to head down for a wander around Camberwell before he started a night shift in the office, so while he had a coffee and woke up he plotted a google maps of the houses in the area that he wanted to suss out. Obviously we have to be cautious of in-person visits at the moment so at least doing a little walk to suss out the area gives us an idea of whether to scratch a place off the list. It was only a short Overground train ride down to Peckham Rye, from where we walked to the first place on the border between Camberwell and Peckham. It was a nice quiet street and from the outside the building seemed pretty decent and solid. The apartment for sale was on the end of the block at the top, so only one shared wall as well! From there was walked down through Camberwell into the start of Denmark Hill, where we veered off to a side road to check out another place. This one was far less appealing, in a big block looking over other blocks and with neighbours all around. Huge shame because the high street nearby looked so great! From there we walked down towards Brixton, through a lovely park and to the next block of units. This one also looked really good, with a secure gate around the block, a quiet neighbourhood and lots of trees to make it lovely and green (and it has a backyard!). The next one was only a block over, but was another dud, right on a main road and just not a nice spot. But as I said to Peter, at least that narrowed the places in that area from 4 down to 2! We walked down to Brixton and found a very cool ‘hip hop chip shop’ for dinner and grabbed chicken wings and a burger before Peter had to head off to work.