Sir David Attenborough lives in Richmond, a 20 minute walk to Richmond Park. I live in Kingston and from Kingston you can also walk to Richmond Park although I usually drive. This park is a treasure. You can lose yourself in nature in it. You can touch one of the 1,400 ancient oaks up to 800 years old. You can walk in the magical woods and hear the sounds and smell the scents of these beautiful places. The deer are all around you. You leave them alone and they leave you along. They are used to people. When you live in an urban environment you must, from time to time, connect with nature; connect with your roots because it heals the mind. It is better than an antidepressant.
A 30 minute walk in Richmond Park with a good friend will do you no end of good. It will brighten up your day and make the remainder of your day enjoyable. Richmond Park is probably one of the best parks in the world. It has a wild quality as you can see from the video so you genuinely feel that you are in a wild landscape. This allows you to leave your crowded, noisy, urban environment behind. The softness and gentleness of Richmond Park is in deep contrast to our normal city lives.
I go to this park every day for weeks on end sometimes. I don’t go to the park every day of the year but I may go to it every day for a fortnight or three weeks. I walk for about an hour which is about 6,600 steps if you’re counting. Inside the park there is a garden called the Isabella Plantation. It is a magical garden within a magical park. It is more formally arranged than the park but still retains a wildness and naturalness. It is full of little treasures and beautiful exotic trees. It is large and takes about 10 minutes to walk through at a saunter. I go to it often.
