Looks like I need to relax

So I went for a walk along Camden Canal today, intent on a visiting a few parks and such that I had been meaning to go to but had missed on prior walks. My first stop was at Camely St. Natural Park, a very small but nonetheless nice little spot just north of one of the main trainyards. I guess it is pretty hard to find any natural area in London, so I should really be thankful for any tiny slices of it I can find around here.

My next stop may seem a tad more macabre to some people. One of my favorite spots to visist whenever I travel somewhere is the cemetary. This habit actually started when I was living in Helsinki, and there was a boneyard just across the street from my dorms in central Helsinki. This ended up being a place I spent a lot of time at, as I took to taking walks over there, reading on the benches, and feeding the animals that frequented the spot. It had this great landscaping, with various levels that required going up and down stairs, and was filled with all manner of trees and bushes. Oh, and the monuments and headstones were beautifully made, while helped contribute to the haunting beauty of the place.

Anyway, so today I stopped by St. Pancras Gardens, while I was delighted to find was actually a the location of St. Pancras church as well as a small graveyard. And I was even more excited to see some of the people who were buried there or had connections to the place. Sir John Soane, famous London architect, was buried there, along with his family, in a monument he designed. It is, according to the plaque, only one of two Grade 1 monuments in London, whatever that means. Mary Wollstonecraft also appears to be buried there, though I would have to doublecheck the grave there. Oh, and they also have the Hardy Tree, which over the years has grown intertwined with several extra tombstones scattered around its stump It was so named because Thomas Hardy, one of my favorite authors, worked as an architectural assistant to renovations on the church. He was in charge of uprooting and moving the graves in an orderly fashion.

No wonder so many of his tales are so bleak.

Anyway, my last stop was back at Camden Market, the most popular market in London. I got there along the eastern bank of the Camden Canal, which is a side I had not been along before. And, I was a little surprised to find, it is probably the easiest place to buy drugs imaginable. There is no subtlety, no underhandedness about it. It smells like weed all over, because, well, people are smoking weed all over. One guy advertised having the best skunk weed ever. Okay then. I had at least three guys come up to me and try to sell me some dope. I must have looked really stressed out or something. Sorry guys, didn't mean to get your hopes up. I was just going for a Sunday walk before heading back to read the paper.