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Diary

Raffaella Barker

Wednesday, 18th June 2008

Raffaella Barker moves back to London and enjoys a circus

With my last book finished and the new one just a speck on a page I have a ‘school’s out for summer’ sense that is at odds with more or less everything else in my life. Cycling around London only contributes to this, and as Hyde Park is the hub of my daily existence, I am beginning to believe that no one really goes to work, they just get into their office clothes, pick up their briefcases and head for the park. I usually enter by the Italian Fountain and it is a social nexus, with promenading, flirting, dogs coming and going, roller bladers gliding by and always a herd of runners, beautifully choreographed, charging on and off the set of park life, providing a cattle prod of guilt whenever anyone was thinking of just sitting down with a book for 20 minutes. Speaking of cattle prods, in the 19th century there was a herd of cows in St James’s Park, and I think it’s time to bring them back. Keep the milk local. Fetching it from the cows would be a fine daily ritual and could bring Londoners closer to nature. I shall ask my son if he thinks it is a better idea than wearing woad.

Poppyland by Raffaella Barker is published by Headline Review at £12.99.

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