Come fly with me: Into another world

It was one of those days when the cold seemed to be dissipating from London, the lack of sunshine a mere echo of the past few weeks of rain (as I'd heard). And on such a day, after an early-morning jog down Sloane Street, through Knightsbridge and into Hyde Park, and a delicious breakfast while reading the Saturday papers and magazines at the Cadogan Hote, I learnt of the private park directly opposite the hotel and decided to venture inside. Past the kids' party with mothers in dresses holding their children and socialising, past the tennis courts, I found a beautiful archway with entangled branches running through and a bed of leaves padding the grass on one side. Through this wide arch sat a bench, behind it a tall stonepiece with a bowl of leaves, and meandering around the bench pink and purple flowers, beautifully manicured plants and bushes, and branches of trees reaching out here and there.

There might have been cars and buses running past outside the park — after all, I was only a few minutes from Knightsbridge and Kings Road — but even on a Saturday afternoon, all I could really hear was the singing of birds from behind me, then from further away on my left, and then a chorus echoing through the park. A squirrel quietly made its way through the barren pathway and into the shrubs on the opposite side, and a moment later my attention was drawn to two other sprinting squirrels, one chasing the other, so fast I would have missed them had I looked up a second later.

This park, just like the Cadogan Hotel with its sense of antiquity, could be placed in any era. Two floors below my room at the Cadogan, in Room 118, Oscar Wilde had been arrested in 1895. You get a sense of this being one of the oldest hotels in London as soon as you walk in and see the old lift rattling as it is opened and closed.

The tea room extends this British charm with classic paintings, richly embroidered curtains, creams and beiges working with the wood to create a warmth that is so imperative on a grey London day.

And staying in such a hotel, taking a stroll through a charming park, set the tone for the festival I was attending later that day, where the theme, "Out of the Enchanted Forest", demanded a dress code of fauns and elves, deities and legends, unicorns and phoenixes, nymphs and heralds of the spring. Somewhere far in the country that evening, it was a mix of crazy, artistic and creative sorts, from costumes made of leaves and bushes to a blonde wig flashing with light bulbs, a fan of feathers parading the head and luminous pink and blue eyelashes.

I do wish I could tell you I made my entire outfit, but alas! I did pay a visit to a fantastic shop called Prangsta to hire an awesomely wild outfit for the night. And what a feeling it was to be parading in a character that certainly wasn't me but that reflected some part of myself in its ancient glory and the artistic flair of a headpiece on which a bird was pecking at some twigs. The fascination of the event lay in its assortment of people and outfits, and the enjoyment lay in the company!

The previous weekend required an elegant ball gown and a week later it was an outlandish, fairytale party, unique in all elements including camping for the night. The evening chill of the countryside, however, persuaded me to venture back to the warmth of my bed at home.

A larkish weekend … It's good to be silly sometimes!

— Follow Meera Ashish on www.talefourcities.com and @meeraashish and @talefourcities