This one’s for East Londoners: Back to nature, back to life, back to reality

 Written in the spirit of looking for things for which to be grateful, this post has moved on from its original intent.

Having been told by the dentist I have no need of fillings, that my nights collapsing into bed unwashed and unscrubbed have wrought no lasting damage, I feel more inclined to keep in better shape. I have picked up the pill, done the shopping, had a pap smear, taken Ava to her hearing appointment. Later, I will give blood, but not for reasons of altruism. I’m getting my house in order. I’m back on fighting form. There are opportunities on the horizon, and for the moment, I feel gloriously free. And I know for definite I still find the playground after school boring as hell.

Anyway, this post written early on Tuesday morning, is slightly less robust, but taking pleasure in the little things: It’s a day of preparations. We have the dentist, haircuts, shopping all lined up. Perhaps one last holiday hurrah for the kids, if they’re lucky – a play date with  Freddy, so fellow reprobate Linda, ad woman, single mum, firecracker, can get shit done herself. Tomorrow, it’s back to school, and I should be back to the office. But instead, I’m making plans. Soothed by a weekend of friends, family, kids, my stress response seems blunted or perhaps I simply no longer care, but in any case, I am calm, prepared, if slightly battle weary.

During the course of my work, I blogged for brands, and in that time I wrote many of those ubiquitous top tens that litter digital media these days under the guise of ‘shareable content’. I always gave them as much pep as I could muster, given the subject matter was often fairly dry, and  in recent months I had actually begun to enjoy my role, working on travel content, which I would research from my desk and write with as much unctuous detail as I could.

I must have been fairly convincing, even to myself, as yesterday, with the best of the holiday’s spring sunshine not yet given way to rain, we decided to explore a place I had written about, partly as an excuse to find out more about it, as it is practically on our doorstep, partly because it’s so vast, it’s hard to know exactly where to start. We went to Epping Forest.

In the course of my research, I discovered many things about the forest: once the hunting ground of kings and lair of notorious bandit Dick Turpin, it has also been the final resting place of various poor souls, from the infamous ‘babes in the woods’ murders to the dumping ground of many a gangland brutality, particularly the notorious Jimmy Moody, ‘enforcer’ for the Krays, he himself was eventually shot at the Royal Inn in Victoria Park, just a stone’s throw from our old house and our one time local. Always good to know you’re standing in crime scene when you’re having a pint.

But researching the forest, what I really wanted to know was how to negotiate an area so vast that I could comfortably take my kids for a nature trail without getting hideously lost (or murdered). The answer, it seemed lay in Wanstead Flats, an area I’ve previously only driven past up the A12 out of London which always appeared to combine scrubland and shabby housing in an unappealing mix.

Wanstead Park, according to my research and subsequent blog – here, if you’re interested, apparently offered the solution. Well trodden nature trails combined with lakes, relics from the park’s past as a royal hunting lodge turned extravagant residence passing into the Child family in the late 1600s (perhaps a distant relation to the Only Way is Essex’s Amy Child? It might explain her lack of chin…)

Today, many of its building languish in disrepair, but nature has reserected the park’s glory, and after a short journey, pug Johnny and Linda’s Freddie along for the ride mainly to stop Jonah moaning about the prospect of going for  “walk in the country,” we arrived to a suburban street of 30s villas, looking not unlike a slightly less well-kempt Richmond edging the entrance to the park, and as i always do when I find a littel pocket of pleasantness, I began to think about house prices nearby.

Carpeted with the lilac tinged fresh bluebells, the unbounded wildness of Wanstead Park filled the air with the scent of spring, and this, despite the roar of the North Circular only metres away  meant it felt wholesome just to breathe. Coupled with the park’s well trodden trails, fallen trees, and verdant overhang as well as a rustic kiosk selling nostalgia-flavoured lollies provided us all with enough entertainment to last a whole, expense-free morning.

At this time of year, on a sun-and-cloud filled day I really feel it as to be the nicest “thing to do” with kids in the whole of north London, to get them away from their technology and force them to run and climb and chase sticks. Go if you can. There’s a riding stables (Aldersbrook) where I hope, when my financial future looks more stable, to get Ava on horseback, but aside from that, it’s just nature at its best, and a kite if you’ve got one to hand, and a picnic, all just 15 minutes up the A12 from Hackney.

Tom cooked roast leg of lamb and the most delicious rhubarb cake I’ve ever tasted and we spent the afternoon drinking and eating with Linda and Natasha, while Freddy and Jonah searched for tadpoles in the eco park up the road, Ava slunk around us grown ups alternating laps and Johnny Milton hoovered up leftovers. It felt good to be with friends as we drew up plans for the future. I don’t feel so scared anymore. I merely feel relief.