My Favourite Place: By Humaira Ikram
I've always loved being outdoors and my environment has affected and inspired me. When I started school, I used to say hello to a local man who always sat under a beautiful tree. He said it was an almond, but I’m sure now that it was a magnolia. Then, when I was at university, I’d run to my classes, past a little shop called Kips Flowers in Notting Hill, and I thought to myself ‘I’ll own that one day!’
My favourite place now is Home Park at Hampton Court. I can walk along the Thames tow path and back through Kingston, and I stop at the end of the Long Water – for me this is the special moment, the point where I can breathe again. You can see Hampton Court Palace lit up in the distance. I love the perspective – it's a straight vista with straight lines leading to the Palace as a focal point, with the edges of the water and the avenues of lime trees on either side.
Nobody ever goes there as they don’t know it exists. We often walk down there on Christmas day with other families in the area. It's a chance to be outside, get together for a mince pie and a nip of something in the fresh air and be happy.
Last year was the first year that I have worked on RHS Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival and I rode my bike through the park each morning. Every day I’d stop when the sun was rising, and listen to the crickets in the grass. It was so beautiful, it was the feeling of being on holiday – I feel really lucky this is where I live!
It is so calm and beautiful, you wouldn’t know that you were in a city. It isn't exactly a natural environment, but it’s enough of a wilderness for me. I’m from the city so this is an open space that I feel comfortable in, a place of my own; somewhere that I can enjoy and relax.