Harvest! 8July

Gathering in the hay bales. Harvest! A few is better than none.

Hard to realise, sometimes, this is the Inner City, and of one of the most metropolitan cities in the world.

Without this City's green places, it's parks and common lands, without its lungs, and the offering of a breathing space, both mental and physical, I would have left long ago.

And this Common is my favourite of them all. Hampstead Heath would have to be the space for North London (certainly, a different land from here), but that is for all; the ghosts of the dead, the living, artists, writers, thinkers, tourists, from London and beyond. That has a special power.

Tooting Bec Common is just for us, for those in heaving distance, who belong here. That has a special power too.