As I walk into the grounds of Green Park, I am caught entirely off guard. I knew there would be floral tributes. But this?
The park is awash, and I really do mean awash, with flowers.It is a veritable sea of gorgeous tributes.
Tulips, roses, daisies, sunflowers, hydrangas, geraniums, carnations…masses and masses of them, organised into different ‘sections’ so that the public can walk between them.
I’m later told that this is one of the two dedicated royal parks at which people are being offered the chance to leave tributes (the other being Hyde Park) but Green Park is the ‘final destination’ for any flowers left in the many other parks across London.
The rows and piles of flowers - whilst incredibly beautiful - are also interspersed with cards, letters, handwritten notes, and drawings (many from young children).
Inevitably, there are also balloons, Union Jack flags, plenty of stuffed Paddington Bears, and a few marmalade sandwiches besides.
(Park gardeners, apparently, have been imploring people only to bring tributes that are ‘sustainable and biodegradable’ but their warnings are clearly not being heeded).
It is now Monday, so the tributes have been growing in the last few days (I will later learn that, over the weekend, such were the number of people arriving at the park that traffic was brought to a standstill in the area). I can only imagine how many more flowers are going to be brought in the coming days, before the day of the funeral.
It’s a very mixed crowd. I see young and old, black and white, individuals and families, and eavesdropping on conversations (and chatting to a few people), I realise that many of them have made the journey from far beyond the capital.
I walk from mound to mound, reading many of the childrens’ cards and staring at their drawings. I am incredibly touched at the words they have written.
Moreover, the atmosphere is not particularly sad - it is not even subdued, rather quiet and respectful. Many people I can see are looking carefully for a special spot to lay their flowers and cards - and I suspect that, much like me, many of them have a loved one who died in mind.
I did not go to Buckingham Palace or Kensington Palace after the tragic death of Diana - particularly because the crowds were so enormous but also because I wanted to keep a certain distance from the hysteria that had beset Britain that week.
There is no hysteria here. Just beauty and a sense of gratitude. I can only wonder what the Queen would have said, I think to myself, as I make my way to the tube, turning for one last glance of a scene that is, by any standards, quite extraordinary.
Then again, these last few days have all been extraordinary and there are quite a few more to come.