I have been extraordinarily lucky in terms of the weather and today, another hot, sunny day awaited us on this Easter Sunday.
I woke up with a headache. This seems to be the price I have to pay for a pint of cider and a bit of sun nowadays. Aramis, however, was not doing much better, so we stayed in bed until social and biological obligations called us to duty.
We walked down Seymour Place to Hyde Park, which was quite a sight. Parts of Oxford Street and Edgware Road were closed due to climate protests and the area around Marble Arch was packed with tents.
Aramis loved Hyde Park: a wide, open space where he could run free and where there were a lot canine-friendly things to see and do. This type of sightseeing was very much to his taste.
But it got even better than that: Londoners, Aramis found out, are very generous people. Everybody had kindly left the remains of their last night’s meal on the grass for him to enjoy. His excitement grew more and more as he was snacking his way through Hyde Park.
As it was getting hotter and hotter, I made sure to keep Aramis well hydrated and offered him water whenever we took a break.
You know the city is packed with people when even your two London friends admit that it is unusually busy. Aramis, however, was on his very best behaviour again: he ignored the enormous masses of people and the noise; walked past flapping pigeons, teasing squirrels, yappy dogs and roaring motorcycles in perfect dignity and silence.
We got to Green Park and Buckingham Palace, where we met up with James, with whom I’d left my car and who also took the picture below.
When Aramis met James yesterday, he was a little puzzled at first, but then recognized his old friend and greeted him accordingly. The two of them get on very well indeed.
Together, we wandered towards St. James’s Park, where we discovered a beautiful spot across the lake.
Just a few steps further we found the birdkeeper’s Swiss cottage which I had written about in my project when I was still at university.
We walked past Downing Street, heading towards the Thames, as I really wanted a picture of Aramis in front of Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey.
Well, the good news is that I did get that shot of Big Ben. The bad, that it had changed somewhat from when I had last seen it.
There were also more protesters, so the streets were closed and a lot of police was in the area. It was during the subsequent trip to a nearby pub where Aramis made friends with two police officers who wanted to fuss over him.
We met up with another friend and went to a dog-friendly pub for lunch. Aramis crawled under the table and ‘conked out,’ as James put it.
The Adventures of Aramis 