Christmas grotto

Last Friday to see the grotto at Chessington Garden Centre, it being much less after Christmas than the £15 or so you pay before Christmas. I am told that if you want a good slot you need to book, with booking opening about six months in advance. By the time we got there, there were certainly places to stack waiting children, but nobody in them.

The main entrance to the grotto proper, past all the displays of various kinds of Christmas goods, not yet dismantled, but some of them discounted.

The first tableau, mushroom themed.

I think that all the tableaux were themed for some story or other, although we did not always know which story. This one is the mad hatter's tea party.

No prizes for getting this one. Notice the large amount of material needed to provide the background drapery.

The stable.

This, I am advised, is a grinch. Getting near the exit.

Not altogether sure what would have happened here before Christmas, but it may have been to do with the collection of photographs taken at strategic points along the way.

A souvenir brochure, including games to amuse and slots to hold photographs. BH also acquired an empty, Christmas tree shaped tin for biscuits, but this was confiscated on exit on the grounds that the check-out staff were unable to price it.

All in all, a major undertaking, which grows from year to year as the stock of grotto-suitable stuff accumulates. We got the idea that it was the work of a group of enthusiasts, who got cracking in the middle of each year, rather like the groups that do floats for the west country carnivals. Or perhaps like the groups that put on amateur opera and amateur dramatics every year. Also that there was a charity angle. But with the garden centre contributing a good deal of power and space, if nothing else.

I elected to return on foot, leaving BH to get the vehicle home. So down Rushett Lane and into the estate in the grounds of what had been West Park Hospital. Most of the new houses were in fact flats made out of what were the old ward blocks, and to judge by the cars parked around outside, not particularly expensive flats. There were a few scraps of health left, around the edges, perhaps in what had been clinics, occupational therapy units and such like.

Note the quality of the brick work, including special bricks with special corners up the sides of the doorways. A relic of an era when we could afford to do things with a bit more style - if with rather less knowledge and a lot less technology - than we do now.

The posh end of things was mainly represented by clusters of rather grand semi detached residences, but even these did not have much in the way of gardens, although they did have garages. With these ones backing onto what had been staff houses in the olden days.

But the mature green space with plenty of trees is a definite plus. Something by way of a garden without having to do any gardening, which probably suits most people just fine. What they have not got is anything in the way of shops or community facilities, which it seems are impossible to make pay in these days of supermarkets and, more recently, online shopping. Horton retail maybe a kilometre up the road, Old Moat Garden Centre with coffee shop much nearer. A place which also provides some occupational therapy, some of the care in the community which we so badly need. Maybe one day I will find out what the old moat was, if anything.

But they do have allotments (first noticed at reference 2), and they have now erected a deer fence. A fence with a substantial lockable (but unlocked) gate and rather less substantial plastic netting making up the fence. One wonders how long it and its wooden posts will last. Less than five years I should think.

There were more allotments taken than I remembered from my last visit, but still well short of a full house. And my impression was that, with the fence, the actual area given over to allotments has rather shrunk. Perhaps in recognition that the enthusiasm of the residents of West Park (or whatever it is now called) for gardening, does not quite match that of the eco-warriors which got the gardens put there. Not a bad spot for an allotment though and I did, once again, think of the merits of taking one of them myself, but decided that it would take out too much quality time, very much a dwindling asset these days.

Reference 1: https://psmv2.blogspot.com/2012/12/winter-wonder-land.html. While there have been various visits to Chessington Garden Centre in the generally vicinity of Christmas, this appears to have been the last occasion on which we actually visited the grotto.

Reference 2: http://psmv2.blogspot.com/2015/08/chamonix.html.

Reference 3: https://www.theoldmoatgardencentre.org.uk/.