it's nice in Dulwich

On Sunday we took a trip to Dulwich. Although it's only a 15 min bus ride away from Brixton we were yet to venture Dulwich way (or anywhere beyond Herne Hill to be honest). After getting off the bus and loosing our bearings slightly we had a wander around and happened upon Dulwich Village. I'm guessing they call it that because it's as if you've walked in a country village - it's very leafy and the houses are quaint (lots have sash windows) and you get the feeling that it'd probably cost you a supremely pretty penny to live there. Saying that though there was a nice sense of community, the road was closed to cars as everyone gathered to watch people dancing (possibly morris dancing...they had white handkerchiefs...). We didn't hang about and instead joined a throng of people heading for Dulwich Park for the Festival Fair.

NB: We had originally started the day with the aim to check on the lambs, chicks and ducklings at Vauxhall Farm which we'd visited a month ago. However, we arrived at the farm to find the lambs and some of the other animals were gone. A lady there said they'd gone to the Dulwich Fair for the day. So we thought we'd go too. We were not lamb stalking.

Dulwich Park is a very lovely park indeed with a bowls green, a lake, a tea room/cafe and a slightly secluded garden with the most beautifully bright flowers. It was also home to a piece of artistic sculpture but some jerk nicked it last year. The fair had pitched up on one of the large grassy areas - there was food stalls and cake stalls, clothes stalls and vintage stalls, book stalls and homeware stalls, as well as a number of people promoting non-gm vegetables. The animals from Vauxhall farm were there (we got to see the lambs, they'd grown a lot) as well as owls and falcons doing demonstrations with their trainers. There was also a victorian style fairground with a carousel and ferris wheel. My favourite thing was probably the Southwark Children's Brass Band blaring out some well known songs, it was a pretty awesome accompaniment to a stroll in the park and a snoop of the stalls. After coffee and a cake Mitch and I had a walk around the lake and gardens, it really was very pretty. It was rather busy in the main bits but the gardens were quite peaceful aside from the odd dog or two. In fact the entire festival was full of dogs, all sorts of breeds. And babies. I joked to Mitch that I was surprised we were allowed into the park without one or both! Apparently we'd missed a dog show that'd happened earlier that afternoon which is a shame (Mitch loves dogs, he petted many that afternoon).

Funnily enough there are no pics of Mitch petting any of the numerous dogs in Dulwich, but here he is petting a baby bengal owl. Aw.

I'd like to go back to East Dulwich and have more of a mooch about some of the shops looked interesting... It felt good to do a little exploring in South London as, for me, it's mostly unchartered territory!