Rien

At some point last week we thought to take a look at the housing estate on what used to be the site of West Park Hospital. Most of the other hospitals in the cluster sport Wellingtonias - some of them lots of them - so why not West Park? As it turned out, no Wellingtonias, but we did turn up the fake already noticed at reference 8.

The rather serious looking security arrangements at the gate into the grounds of Hollywood Lodge (once Horton Lodge, a fairly grand house for a lodge, last mentioned at reference 8). Grounds which we think is used by travelling people for their horses. If only they had as much respect for our property as they would like us to have for theirs!

But a bit further round, it turned out that their security arrangements were as haphazard and messy as their living arrangements. Holywood Lodge maybe somewhere behind the screen of trees left.

A bit further round still. Perhaps into the next field now. From there, round into Richmond Crescent, which took us past some rather grand new houses - plus a relic of the old hospital, seemingly now a facility operated by CAMHS (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services), seemingly part of the Surrey & Borders Partnership, an NHS Trust. Quite a large cluster of buildings on the edge of the site, no idea what they would have been when the place was part of a mental hospital.

I had forgotten this curious bit of green space, with its path and steps leading up towards what was presumably a gate out onto Christ Church Road, perhaps to provide access for guided walks on the common across the road. Presumably once a properly tended garden.

An oblique view down the same path, with a view of what for all the world might be the old mental hospital. Not sure that I would want to live in such a place, be the grounds ever so mature.

A fine pine tree, just to the left of the path as you look up it. No idea what it is either. Maybe Scots pines grow like this when grown as a specimen tree.

A rather flash looking new car outside one of the new houses. Maybe a BMW i8 plug in hybrid - which Autocar suggests might cost something more than £100,000. Lot of money to spend on fast changing technology - and a lot more than I would spend on any car. Would Musk the Mouth be a better bet? Someone near us clearly thinks so, as noticed at reference 9.

But the bottom line is that we saw quite a lot of mature conifers, some of them not very well. And while we have not covered the whole of the estate, I would be surprised if we find any Wellingtonias. Maybe the superintendent of this hospital decided that he was going to be different and choose his own trees. Or maybe he just didn't get on with the other superintendents and wanted to cock a snook at their taste in tree planting.

From where I associated to the famous 'Rien' of Louis XVI on the day that the Bastille was stormed, noticed at references 1, 2, 3 and 4. And glancing at reference 4 this evening I was reminded was a savage business storming the Bastille was, even if the number of the Kings' men who got themselves killed was very modest. More symbolic than anything else. The sort of revolutionary savagery that Dr. Zhivago, recently noticed, knew all about.

But I also learned that my reading had been mistaken. It was not that the king did not get anything while out hunting that day, rather it was that he didn't go hunting. So not nothing caught, rather nothing to report.

From there, having a few minutes to spare, I jumped to reference 5, where I came across a bit where aristocratic refugees in Vienna were explaining how naff it was that Napoleon had an 'N' engraved on all the then late Louis's hunting guns, given that he didn't know the difference between 'la chasse aux lapins' and 'la chasse à courre'. What a plonker.

While as far as I can make out, the first is hunting on foot for rabbits, the idea being to shoot them, perhaps with a gun dog to help. While the second is hunting with a pack of dogs for things like wild boars (the things Astérix is keen on) and foxes (the things I am not keen on). With sports of this sort clearly alive and kicking in France, as can be seen from reference 6 and 7.

PS: I have also learned that when making file names out of post titles, the Blogger people drop accents. See reference 2.

Reference 1: http://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.com/2012/09/rien.html.

Reference 2: http://psmv2.blogspot.com/2015/06/communique.html.

Reference 3: http://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/11/last-post-for-tippett.html.

Reference 4: Louis XVI - Jean-Christian Petitfils - 2005. Beginning of chapter 21. Page 690.

Reference 5: Les adieux de la reine - Chantal Thomas - 2002. Page 10.

Reference 6: https://www.chasse-lapins-garenne.fr/.

Reference 7: https://fr.wikihow.com/chasser-le-lapin. An entertaining tutorial taking you from buying the gun to popping the rabbit in the pot. They seem to shoot rabbit with rifles, possibly pump action for speed, low calibre so as not to make too much mess, while the chap I once knew who went rabbit hunting used a shotgun.

Reference 8: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2021/01/fake-115.html.

Reference 9: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/03/tesla-comes-to-town.html.