387- Lodnon 4 - St James's Park

(I used one of my own photos for the image above.)

During my first trip to London, started in post 384.  The first place we visited was Nunhead cemetery on Sunday 7th. 

After a calm Monday at the flat and some grocery shopping, we went on with the next part of our adventures.


 Tuesday 9th we headed to St James Park. On the way, I had contradictory information so we got off at St Thomas Hospital bus stop, walked over the bridge, took photos and walked about, detouring by mistake towards the embakment as we got lost on my assumption that the bulding I saw at a crossroad was a dead-end, and that the street we needed started from it. After we realized this mistake, we back-tracked, found that building wasn't a dead-end at all, and at last, arrived to St James Park, where we met with Octavian (the flatmate who was away and had let us use his bedroom), my friend Katie, and later also Ash from this flat-circle of friends. There, I managed to have proper 1:1 conversation with Katie only once we started to move about inside the park, but during the picnic, I felt very inhibited and on edge. 

After the park, we walked about a while, ending at Ole & Steen, on Haymarket street. There, we had food and drinks (mine were bread and some vegan latte). We talked some more, until it was time to head back to our respective homes. 

Octavian and Ash are very nice guys, but I hadn't met them before, and since Octavian led the conversations, I was generally demure in my own discourse. During this time, I also felt on edge, but it was only once we got back to the flat that I understood the nature of this uneasiness:  As I suffer from terrorism trauma, and that London had been target for attacks, I feared it'd be the case during our visit. Every siren that I heard kept me alert to any sign of danger and the need to dash, so I remained stressed and anxious most of that day. 

Once I understood this, I had to consciouly remind myself that in London, being so much bigger, there are more people who can need ambulances either due to their ill-health, or to accidents, and that sirens didn't systematically equate with an attack. The following days, my anxiety levels reduced, although they never totally left me alone. They were, in fact, just under the apparent calm that I was projecting, even to myself.

St James is a much bigger park than our local ones. We barely saw a small portion of it. It's not, however, all that different from local ones : there are benches, grass, trees, the usual lot of birds (although these are different at times - for example, bigger ravens, black swans and not just white, a lot more squirrels, and a lot more sea-fearing birds, since the Thames is rather there, and the sea isn't that far). 

I liked that the park includes a lot more fences for these birds and animals. Only a few people, mostly children, went over them. Everyone else respected, and I saw no one feeding bread to pigeons, ducks or swans - something that is reminded in writting everywhere, both there and in our parks, but no one ever respects that over here! 

Another difference was about the squirrels : ours run away, but in this park, if you're gentle and slow, you can feed them! Ash, whom I mentioned earlier, gave a nut to one, who ate and dashed, and it was so cute, I snapped a couple photos for posterity. 

What I take from this is that I need to be fully aware of anxiety-causing situations, so I can parry them faster, and I must learn to assert myself in conversations - which isn't new information, really. Although I tend to be ok with parks, big ones, with sirens sounding every few minutes, cause me a lot of anxiety and I'll have to address this. 

More pics from the St James shall be on Instagram and my photo blog, later on. In my next entry here, I'll discuss our trip to the V&A, from the following day. Hope you enjoy reading, and shall discover the few photos in due time.