New Year 2010 - Hampton Court

Jase and I saw the New Year in at the Hampton Court Hotel (above is a picture of Hampton Court Palace as viewed from our bedroom window.) At night the palace was lit up in different, changing coloured lights, very pretty. Below is the view over the Thames and the Bridge at Hampton Court. We watched the fireworks at midnight being reflected in the Thames.
As we were staying in the Catherine Parr suite we got a 4 poster bed, pictured below.
Jase and I had a quiet New Years Eve seeing the new year in together watching the fireworks as mentioned above, from the huge bay window in our hotel room. It was bitterly cold outside so it was lovely to be cosey and warm indoors. We toasted the new year with some beer.

When we woke on New Years Day there was a fine sprinkling of snow over everything but as the day was bright and sunny much of the snow had melted by the time we set off for a walk at 11. As you can see in the picture of the stag in the bottom right hand corner of the picture there was still a small amount of snow on the ground in Bushy Park.
Bushy Park is full of wildlife including deer, water fowl, song birds and bright green parakeets. Jase and I went armed with our cameras to get some photos of the wild life. You can see Jason's pictures on his flickr page by clicking here

All the pictures on my blog were taken by me. I really like the photo of the bird below drinking or is he looking at his reflection?
There was a very grumpy swan on the pond, he just swam up and down menacing the other birds and either running them off the lake all together or as in the picture below forcing the other birds to flap away.
The bad tempered swan seemed particularly upset by the presence of geese. I'm guessing because they are fairly large and maybe not permanent residence on the water if they just winter here. Below is a picture of the swan threatening a goose that he had managed to threaten out of the water and on to the bank. One of my favourite cafes is one on the banks of Grassmere in the lake district. The out door cafe is often pestered by a large swan they call Henry viii who harasses patrons of the cafe hissing at them until they move or leave him food. This swan was just as fearsome as Henry viii up in the Lake District and as this swan lives right next to Hampton Court Palace I think he too deserves to be named after the hot headed, larger than life and aggressive King.
Below is a photo of the poor birds that had been intimidated by the swan into a corner of the lake.

Bushy Park is famous for its semi wild deer. As they are used to people visiting the park they are not completely wild but they are still very wary of humans and you really wouldn't want to get too close to one of the stags or one of his does. I was very patiently waiting for a good picture of this stag, standing very still, being very calm, letting the stag get used to me and carry on with his bark chewing. Whilst I was engrossed in this another stag walked right behind me, close enough for me to have touched him. Jason saw all this but couldn't call out to me in case he spooked the stag or me! Jase took a picture of the scene, me blissfully unaware of the giant stag at my side. I'll blog the picture that Jase took after this entry.
Bushy park is also home to some rather exotic birds, bright green parakeets. There are many urban myths about how the birds came to live in south London but none of them can be proved. I like the myth that Errol Flynn introduced them whilst filming in London.
We had a lovely morning in the park, it was a fantastic way to start the new year.