Sometimes it’s not the monuments or the landmarks or the stupidly expensive tourist attractions that make your day. Granted I have enjoyed every single cliché immensely. I’m a cliché kinda girl. But someone said on Twitter yesterday something along the lines of making the most of the little moments because you don’t know which will turn out to be big moments in hindsight.
Yesterday we planned on going to the British Museum and then to have a look around Camden Town. On a whim, we started at Borough Markets on the opposite side of town and when we were done there we decided to look around Regents Park, because it was in the same area of the Museum and Camden. Regents Park was alright, but it’s a lot more formal that Hyde Park, all rose gardens and sports fields. Instead of heading to the Museum or Camden, we decided to head back to Hyde Park, one of our favourite spots, and find us some squirrels.
We bought a back of peanuts and headed back to the spot we last fed the squirrels. It took a while to get them used to us but we soon had them running up onto our knees and sitting on our shoulders. At times one would be be jumping off as another was running up to see us. Some were greedy and would pry our fists open to find more peanuts after taking the one offered. Others would only take one but would go and bury it and come back for more to hide. A nursing mother squirrel sat on the back of the chair behind Courts for 45 minutes eating more and more.
Now I don’t know if you’re supposed to feed the Squirrels and I don’t know if peanuts are good for them. We were using unroasted unsalted nuts still in their shells and judging by the number of empty peanut shells around we weren’t the first. I also know that Squirrels are probably very dirty and all that sort of thing. I don’t care how dirty they are, we had so much fun!
Occasionally a family would come past and comment and we would share the peanuts so they could try it too. By the time we left, the squirrels were so trusting of us that I could get one to follow me down the path by clicking my fingers as I walked. We had given the last of our peanuts to a lady a few benches down but the squirrels hadn’t realized and were looking to us for food, soon congregating around this lady when they realized the source had moved.
All in all I think we spent around 1.5-2 hours there, just making Squirrel friends. It was nice to sit and relax for awhile, and it was nice to have animal company. We’re so used to being surrounded by cats and dogs all the time at home that it’s quite difficult to get used to not having them now. I miss Izzy and Toby like crazy and after an afternoon with the Squirrels it was weird to come back to our homebase and not have a fur to curl up with.
So sometimes it’s the little things that end up being amongst the highlights of a holiday. 1.50 for a bag of nuts plus a train to Hyde Park Corner.
What’s been an unexpected highlight of your travels?
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