Oxleas Wood. 

I discovered Oxleas Wood when I had the madcap idea that the first weeks of January were a good time to get up on a Sunday morning in the frost to see a sunrise. (These things happen when you get to a certain age. We are frequently to be seen as a Lycra streak on Q1 in the commute too. No telling.) Greenwich’s One Tree Hil was facing  the wrong direction, and after a little homework we took a punt that a hill at Oxleas faced East.

Well, it kind of did, but the early sunrises of January were a bit underwhelming and the cafe at the top of the hill didn’t open til 8:30 (declining to serve some quite interesting sounding breakfasts until 9:30… yay!) but we figured we should wait for the best cloud cover and kept on trying. And gradually moved on from our believed vantage point kind of tip-toeing on a tree root, with heads twisted kind of eastwards, to discovering the pathways through trees, that are different every day we go. In fact the winter scenes get pretty magical sometimes. 

Frankly after a few visits, we were addicted and our summer (slightly less sunrise related) visits have provided different (although more traditional) views of beauty to that I find I can’t go on holiday anymore, I would miss the thrill of seeing oxleas under different atmospheric conditions. 

So much more than manicured Greenwich Park.