Common and beyond

Last week we paid a rare visit to the ponds at the bottom of Epsom Common, just across the road from what was the West Park Hospital and is now a housing estate.

Small pond

Parked in the car park on the common side of the road and headed for the small pond. Change in management style, in that the small field to our left, lower left in the snap above, used to be regularly mowed and now looks as if is cut just a couple of times a year. Do they collect the cuttings? One might have thought that long grass would lie around for quite a while.

Fierce signs instructing us to dial 999 in the event of sighting anyone fishing in the close season, which seemed a touch extreme for such an offence. Not that we saw any such person.

Took a look at the large pond behind where we saw no herons, but we did see some young water fowl, presumably from second sittings.

Richmond Fellowship

Next stop the Old Moat Garden Centre, the place from where we usually get our Christmas trees, part of the Richmond Fellowship. Tea and a very modestly sized piece of cake in a café which reminded of that at Emmaus, north of Cambridge, noticed at reference 4. A pleasant atmosphere; a pleasant place for ladies to natter over a light lunch. Indeed, I believe BH knows several that do. Also dog friendly - which a lot of places are not these days.

Out to inspect the rather neglected nursery gardens. One can only suppose that it is hard enough to make a small nursery pay these days, even when the workers do not have problems of their own: too much competition from the big growers, not to mention the big foreigners. And perhaps running the café provides better work experience.

Abandoned space heater?

Beans and other stuff

Modest greenhouse action, with grapes left

Surplus Christmas trees

Mystery tree

Couldn't find the mystery tree, noticed at reference 3, from the inside, but we were able to find it again from the road. Koelreuteria paniculata, aka Pride of India, aka Golden Rain tree.

Pretentious villas

Which come at a stiff price

Back along the road to the old entrance to the garden centre to take in Horton Heights, already noticed at reference 1. To find that it was a rather pretentious collection of suburban semis, with the odd detached house thrown in. But not finished and securely fenced. Not sure what the red car is doing next to the skip. Are some of the houses occupied?

Back home, I asked Cortana about them, to learn that one of the bigger ones could be mine for a million and a half. No garden to speak of, but plenty of more or less derelict sheds in the immediate vicinity, probably something to do with asylum occupational therapy and somehow left out when the land was flogged off to developers. One of the sheds used to be something to do with the scouts: perhaps they would not be bought off and are now something of a problem.

Not our thing at all, even supposing we had that sort of money. But then, will they get it? Something odd is clearly going on.

Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/08/fake-81.html.

Reference 2: https://www.theoldmoatgardencentre.org.uk/. Old Moat Garden Centre.

Reference 3: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/search?q=old+moat.

Reference 4: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2018/11/getting-lost-on-way-to-ely.html.