By Natalie Bennett

Sometimes Soho and Covent Garden can all be just a bit much – the crowded pavements, the jostling crowds, the cars bullying their way through the scrum, the lines of buses. You might love it, but also need a five minute breather for it.

And you can get it, in an astonishing quiet and peaceful little corner of community-preserved peace: The Phoenix Garden, just off the bustle of Shaftesbury Road.

It is not a public park, but a little oasis of maintained by a volunteer trust and open from 8.30am to dusk 365 days of the year. As you might expect on workday lunchtimes even it can get a bit hectic, but most of the rest of the time you’ll be sure to be able to rest your legs as you sprawl on a comfy bench, watching the bees buzz and the birds flock.

Even today, in the midst of December’s cold and rain, it boasted a flock of 20 or so remarkably contented-looking sparrows, and I’m told that notable other regulars are a pair of kestrels who drop in regularly, and a woodpecker who last year nested in one of the old trees.

It even boasts what are described as “the West End’s only frogs”, in a peace pool.

Should you not want rest, but a bit of exercise, every second Sunday there’s a community workday, to which anyway is welcome to contribute their efforts. I’ll definitely be going along, even if it isn’t until the weather gets just a touch warmer.