Winter garden

A week ago to see the winter garden at Polesden Lacey, to correct the rather not very satisfactory taste left by the Christmas Grotto, noticed at reference 1. Clearly a busy day as I found time to secure warfarin supplies (before Brexit) and to capture two trolleys before the off - with the second being noticed at reference 2.

The gatehouse

First thought was at the gatehouse, snapped above by the Google Street View people. Great ugly thing, serving no apparent purpose other than marking the boundary and providing a frame off which to hang the gates, presumably rarely used as the place is open getting on for every day of the year. Just Christmas Day excepted? Just think of all those hundreds of pensioner volunteers with nothing better to do. All 800 of them according to reference 1.

Was it a job creation scheme put on by a kindly landowner during the depressed years between the wars? Did the gatehouse once contain little guard rooms where the gatekeepers logged comings and goings in some huge leather bound ledger? And who gets to live in the accompanying lodge right?

The main car park was nearly full at 1115 and it was clearly time to open the overflow car park in the field next door. And we learned later that the both car parks filled up the next day, Sunday, and that people were being turned away. People who might have driven a long way to visit the winter gardens, the shop - or perhaps just to walk their dog.

Lots of all kinds of people to go with the cars. Quite a lot of people in wheel chairs. Quite a lot of small children. At least one party of people from what sounded like the US. Perhaps from the nearby school for same. Apparently one of a small family of such schools, with the website being a little coy about the US connection. Even about what 'ACS' stands for - with my guess being American Community School - a usage not to be found among the near 200 suggestions offered by Bing. A usage which always irritates my Canadian relations, who think of themselves as Americans too. See reference 3.

Hellebores at entrance

Box?

Box like edging to a rose bed. Looking very healthy, with no caterpillar or other damage, and not quite like regular box.

Winter aconites one

Winter aconites two

The star turn in the winter garden was a display of winter aconites, far more flashy than the display you get in the wild part of Hampton Court Palace gardens. Not fully out, but doing pretty well. Plus a sprinkling of snowdrops and cyclamen. These last in foliage rather than flower mode.

Escaped from the Isle of Wight

Some modest echiums, a grand display of which is to be found at Ventnor Botanic Gardens, the place which used to be a TB sanatorium when TB was rampant - a disease which is very visible in the early Maigret stories, written in the 1930's. Last noticed at reference 4.

Start of the yew walk, looking back towards the house

A bit further on

Root. In memoriam, Monica Poole

Headed east into the trees, then back along the yew walk, running above the formal hedge overlooking the downland. With the formal walk which goes with it - to the left in the first snap above - probably rather the worse for wear and winter. Probably closed. Plenty of yew trees and bushes, nothing quite on the scale of those at Newlands Corner, noticed in August last year.

Big trees

Trunk one

Trunk two

Trunk three

Base

Leaves, for the avoidance of doubt

Scar

Big trees looked well in the bright morning light. Scar left by trenching in the power for the Christmas sheds not so well. See reference 1.

Promise of daffodils to come

Sturdy lights

Lights had been strung up all over the place to service the grotto. Looked like fairly serious stuff and must have cost a fortune. Which I might not like, but apparently the takings in the shop during grotto time were double what they had been the corresponding period last year, despite some moaning about the poor quality of the sheds. And takings in the shop are no doubt what matters to the senior management team, or whatever such people are called in National Trust speak.

Decided against both elevenses and lunch on this occasion, choosing to head home instead, with our car park slot being snapped up as we left it.

Came across a new to us Infiniti car on the way home. Bing tells me that this is a luxury brand from Nissan which has been discontinued in this country. With the car executive now holed up in the Lebanon having had ideas about jumping onto the eco-band-waggon and going electric. Which this one certainly was not, having two large exhaust pipes peeping out. Not much to be gleaned from reference 5. Reference 6 rather better. Both quite keen on arty shots of mountains and forests.

And then there was a large pot hole under the West Street bridge. One of the lowest spots in Epsom, so perhaps the heavy rain had got to it, despite the soakaway into the chalk under.

And amused after we got home, to read in the DT that it was not very clever to keep more than perhaps 10% of your money in the UK. Better pickings elsewhere. And this from the newspaper which trumpets the glory of Brexit with Boris. The newspaper which, according to a rather sour piece in the current NTRB, once used to pride itself on the accuracy of its reporting. Journalists guilty of error up before the editor for wigging or worse.

Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/11/grotto.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/01/trolley-368.html.

Reference 3: https://www.acs-schools.com/#1.

Reference 4: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/06/the-big-tomb.html.

Reference 5: https://www.infiniti.co.uk/.

Reference 6: https://www.infiniti.com/.