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Sydenham Hill

These are photos from the area I now call home. Its really, really lovely and very unusual to find something quite so suburban in London. Every one has been telling me to count myself very lucky for the environment I'm staying in (its a simplex) and the area, especially for the price I'm paying. I have photos of where my Mom stays, an area called Belsize Park, which is quite posh. When I find them, I'll post them on this page, so you can see what a more typical London suburb looks like.

I have to apologise for the size of the pictures. I no longer have access to Photoshop, so these have been resized in paint, which wasn't terribly successful. I'll resize again and put more up (there are lots) when I get something more efficient to work with.

 

 

This is the view from my bedroom window. The house is part of what is called the Dulwich Wood Estate, which is a privately owned estate. This means that they've allowed parts of it to be used for housing, etc. but parts have also been left almost completely wild. The woods you can see from my bedroom window are home to lots of local wildlife like foxes, badgers and hedgehogs. Apparently. I haven't actually seen anything other than magpies and crows yet, but I'm going to start putting out milk and bread for the hedgehogs, so expect infra- red photos soon (finally got around to figuring out how to activate all the night shot modes on my camera). This is our garden. It spills out into the woods. The only fencing is the estates perimeter fence, which actually has access gates in it anyway. Its quite something for me to not actually be able to see any fences or bars. Rather wonderful actually.

 

This is our nearest pub. Its within crawling distance from the house. I haven't been there yet, but I'm sure it won't be long. The footpath from our road comes out here - and literally two meters away is the entrance to the footpath to the train station.

 

This is the footpath to the train station. Going down the hill. It is tarred, but there are massive gates on either end that prevent anything other than bicycles and pedestrians from accessing the path. Its cuts right through the woods, making it an absolutely gorgeous walk.

 

One would expect this house to be a farm house, and it may once have been, but its not. Its at the bottom of the hill directly across the road from the train station. One of the things about this little suburb is the number of 'real-size' houses. What I mean is the style of house we're used to back home. I had pictures of the area my Mom stays in, to provide some comparison, but I'll be damned if I know where they went !

 

This is the footpath going back up the hill. About half way up, the trees stop being enough to make the walk pleasant, but I keep telling myself that the house came with a built in stair master, which is a feature of course.

 

 
Almost at the top - that's the pub in the distance. Perfectly situated for inspiring the weary to make the last few meters up the hill.

Its not actually that bad, I'm just embarrassingly unfit.

 

 

 

5 October 2003