A lovely Labour Day spent walking along the so-called Emerald Necklace. One of the pleasures of living in Boston, especially Jamaica Plain, is that I can walk through parks all the way from my house to downtown. So this morning Trevor and I set off with Isaac. Our path took us through the Arboretum, along the Arborway to Jamaica Pond. From there we crossed into Olmsted Park, which does straddle the Boston-Brookline line, though it seems to be much more on the radar of Brookline residents. Every time I've come to Olmsted Park, I feel like I'm wandering in the ruins of some lost civilisation. In some ways I suppose I am.
See? Throughout the park there are the remains of lampposts, benches, walking paths. If you sit at the shore of Ward's Pond, you could be forgiven for thinking you're in the middle of a far-off forest. The sensation of being far away and yet in the middle of the city has always been very intriguing. Beaver Lake in Vancouver's Stanley Park came to mind.
Can you spot the hobbit?
This is a bend in the Middy River, right near the Museum of Fine Arts. It brought back memories, walking this stretch. There are so many colleges in the Fenway area, the streets were swarming with U-Hauls and students burdened with their various new belongings. It's fifteen years that I've been here now. Tempus fugit.
This is a rose garden that I'd no idea existed. I took this picture because it makes it look like the gate leads to a garden that has skyscrapers growing from it. Which it does.
This is one of the many gardens in the Fenway. The Victory Gardens were started during the Second World War to encourage people to grow vegetables since there was extensive food rationing. Now people grow mostly flowers. You can see that some of these gardens have been well attended for years.
After a leisurely picnic on a bench along Commonwealth Avenue, we came upon our destination, the Public Garden. I suppose the necklace would include the Common, but we were meeting Soma, who was fresh from the Boston Harbor Islands to share blackberries that she and a friend had picked.
This is the pond the Swan Boats ply.
Willows are probably my favourite trees in the world.
Waiting for the T. If you thought we were going to walk all the way back to Jamaica Plain after all that, then you crazy.All in all a perfect day.
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