Sparrows

Tweeted a small flock of what I took to be sparrows, maybe as many as a dozen, not something I see much of, grazing on fallen flowers from some ornamental tree on the southern pavement of Manor Green Road.

Surprisingly tame, but they took to the hedge adjacent before I was in camera range and to the air by the time I reached the hedge.

Rather duller plumage than those snapped above, turned up by Bing. Google Images suggests that these last are Eurasian tree sparrows (Passer montanus), turning up, inter alia, this very image, but also points me to reference 1 and the house sparrow (Passer domesticus), which is very probably what I saw.

References

Reference 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_sparrow.

Reference 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurasian_tree_sparrow.

Big case: The second day

Following the first day of reference 2, up for breakfast in the basement, complete with the higher grade table furniture which we remembered from last time.

A breakfast which was dainty rather than substantial, which was fine given that we had eaten quite late the evening before, served by a young lady dressed in black. We wondered what, if anything, she had to do to purify herself after handing bacon and such - not that, as it happens, I took bacon on this occasion.

I wondered whether these were the only stairs in the place. One might have thought that such grand houses would have had rather grander and less rickety stairs, but such were nowhere to be seen.

I had had grand plans for us to go and visit the spring flowers at the bottom of Hyde Park, a short way along from Hyde Park Corner. This scheme then morphed into a stroll down to the Kings Road, itself torpedoed by a No.49 bus to Clapham Junction turning up just as we reached a bus stop. For which our senior bus passes were ready and waiting.

Pleased to tee that the Piggies café was up and running, having been shuttered on the last occasion that I passed it.

Street art has arrived at Clapham Junction, this being the underpass which takes Falcon Road to the Falcon public house, noticed in these pages from time to time. Rather better quality than the stuff we get at home, in Epsom.

And two real tickets from the ticket office at the Station, not the paper tickets one is apt to get from Epsom. Although I do allow them to be more reliable than the cardboard ones; optical rather than magnetic,

Spiral sausages and a baguette from P&V, now occupying a chunk of the ground floor of what used to be Arding & Hobbs, noticed, for example, at reference 3. On the train, I was interested to see that their signature bag was made in Vietnam. Big case left foreground.

Quite a decent haul at Raynes Park, although I have yet to properly engage, beyond BH telling me that the McLean is a museum in Greenock and the two magazines right coming from Taiwan. Plus evidence that the botanical bookshop noticed at reference 4 is still in business.

The baguette was taken for lunch. Very good it was too. Chewy crust and open texture.

The spiral sausages taken the next day. Also very good. We did one and a half at the first sitting.

One of them in one piece.

PS 1: a correspondent tells me of a new town north of Cambridge called Northstowe. Maybe even bigger than the Wisley Acres previously noticed. But also using, at least in part, land left over from the Second World War. Not pure greenbelt, without quite being brownbelt.

Both gmaps and OS know about it. I also see that the Huntingdon Road on which we used to drive through Fenstanton on many a Sunday has been superseded twice. First by a by-pass and then by the A14, the trunk road up north from Felixstowe Docks. Felixstowe being, as it happens, my natal town.

PS 2: I had to check where Greenock was, and I have now reminded myself that it is at the mouth of the Clyde, on the south bank, to the east of Glasgow. Presumably a rich and important town in its day.

[Winter at Ornans by Gustave Courbet (1819-1877)]

The McLean museum and art gallery is clearly a serious place, well worth a visit if one were in the area. And at least one painting by someone whom I have heard of. But a painter whom, to my surprise, is not to be found in the archive.

References

Reference 1: https://www.northstowe.com/.

Reference 2: https://psmv6.blogspot.com/2026/03/big-case-first-day.html.

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/06/cheese-day.html.

Reference 4: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/11/kew-part-three.html.

Reference 5: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustave_Courbet.

Vocabulary

[Vue de la Meuse à Givet]

A short digression, triggered by my thinking that the Davies adaptation of the book at reference 1 had strayed rather a long way from the original, even when making allowance for crushing 125 or so pages into 50 minutes or so.

This led to the book itself, where, on page 284, I find the phrase 'sa face houleuse' in the context of the Meuse in flood at night with the surface whipped up by the wind. It occurred to me that Simenon was using 'face' where we might use 'surface'.

I then get to a list of vaguely related words: face, surface, visage, figure, plan and plane. Most of which, according to 'Le Petit Larousse', mean roughly the same thing in French as in English - but with differing pattern of usage.

With the exception of a carpenter's plane which is 'rabot' in French and 'figure' which we do not much use for face in English. And a quick scan of the two pages given over to figure in OED gives lots of interesting meanings, all more or less related, but no faces.

While face itself gets around four pages. Again, all more or less related to human faces, but extending to coal faces and type faces.

PS 1: Givet is a town in France, on the Meuse, in a tongue of land sticking into Belgium, rather in the way that Malden Rushett sticks into Surrey. I think the gist of reference 3 is that its place in France was consolidated during the incessant wars of Louis XIV.

PS 2: according to Larousse, 'rabot' is derived from a word for rabbit, of which more in due course. Also a relation of our carpenter's term 'rabbet'. Possibly obsolete.

PS 3: it was also a morning when BH surfaced the book noticed two years ago at reference 4, from somewhere near the bottom of the heap on her bedside locker. I had forgotten what a bloody and complicated business the colonisation of the interior of what is now the United States was at times.

PS 4: I wonder sometimes why I find the etymology of words so fascinating, a fascination which I believe I share with my mother. While only yesterday, I was reading about a small tribe - sometimes called the Iatmul - in New Guinea at reference 5, a tribe which used to go in for noisy and sometimes violent debates in the men's house:

'... On the one hand there are men who carry in their heads between ten and twenty thousand polysyllabic names, men whose erudition in the totemic system is a matter of pride to the whole village ; and on the other hand there are speakers who rely for effect upon gesture and tone rather than upon the matter of their discourse...'. [page 126]

Plus ça change. And I have read of plenty of other tribes, from various places around the world, who were keen on words in much the same way - so my fascination does have roots. I dare say Freud had something to say about it all if the title of reference 6, turned up by Bing, is anything to go by.

PS 5: I began with Maigret so it seems right to end with him. Last night, we watched the Davies adaptation called 'A touch of pride' and I was at a loss to know from which story it had been taken. Eventually, the brain traced back from a character called Dédé to the story at reference 7 and checking proved the brain right. Whoever had adapted the story had had the neat idea of transposing this story about the young Maigret onto Lapointe, who is a youngster, unlike Davies who clearly is not. Not a problem for a writer, he can jump around in time as much as he likes - but not something that works on a screen, for a television series.

References

Reference 1: Chez les Flamands - Georges Simenon - 1932. Volume IV of the Rencontre edition. Story 3 of 4.

Reference 2: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chez_les_Flamands. 

Reference 3: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Givet.

Reference 4: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/05/life-in-minnesota.html.

Reference 5: Naven: A survey of the problems suggested by a composite picture of the culture of a New Guinea tribe drawn from three points of view – Gregory Bateson – 1936.

Reference 6: Masculinity, Motherhood, and Mockery: Psychoanalyzing Culture and the Iatmul Naven Rite in New Guinea – Eric Kline Silverman – 2001.

Reference 7: La Première Enquête de Maigret - Georges Simenon - 1949. 

Checking up

[Frederike on the right and Louise on the left. Johann Gottfried Schadow, The Princesses Monument, marble, 1795-1797, Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin, Germany. Lifted from reference 3]

Quite by chance,  I recently acquired a copy of the book at reference 1. I am getting through it slowly and was intrigued earlier today on page 152 by the following:

'... one of [Schadow's] most beautiful and emotive works is his 1796 marble life-size statue of two of Frederic William [II] and Luise's daughters, the Princesses Luise and Friedericke as teenagers. Hidden away for many years as it was thought to be too suggestive...' 

Schadow being the chap who put the famous chariot on top of the Brandenburg Gate aka Tor. Aside: Berlin has lots of tors, just as Paris has lots of portes and London has lots of gates. Another relic of the past.

So I set out to find out a bit more about this, fairly rapidly turning up references 2 and 3. Reference 3 is a fairly detailed account of the statue and its context, including the information that the statue was put away because:

'... Louise’s husband did not care for the way she was pictured. So it was hidden away and forgotten about for several decades...'.  

These two stories did not seem to be quite the same, so I thought I would ask Gemini where White-Spunner got his from, with the start of his long reply being snapped above.

This fairly rapidly led to references 4, 5 and 6 - and I got lost in a welter of Fredericks and Williams, White-Spunner had warned that the Prussian royal house - the Hohenzollern family - was keen on these two names and made a lot of use of then, sometimes both together. A royal house which also bred well, with marriages often producing lots of children.

Eventually, I worked out that my problem stemmed from White-Spunner talking of daughters when it would have been more accurate to talk of daughters-in-law. So reference 4 was about the elder daughter-in-law and reference 5 was about the father-in-law, King Frederick William II. With said elder daughter-in-law being married to the heir apparent who became, in due course, King Frederick William III.

The statue was very much in the fashion of the time and has subsequently become very popular with reproductions of all sizes being widely available in souvenir shops. It owed its long exile as much to the change of tone of the Prussian court with the accession of King Frederick William III as anything else. Where anything else included the rather scandalous life of the younger Princess, Fredericka, initially married to one of the new king's brothers. The new king felt that the royal and regal status of his wife, the Princess Louise of reference 4, was tainted by association.

So my line this morning (Tuesday) is that White-Spunner's short gloss of a long story is about right, only let down by his carelessness over daughters and daughters-in-law. And reference 3 is a bit economical with the truth, does not get dug into the scandals.

Maybe later today I will get down to further checking of Gemini's long story.

PS 1: the spelling of the names of the two princesses does not seem to be very stable. Perhaps no more than a wobbling between the German and English spelling.

PS 2: a post which has been complicated by half of it getting lost in a typo on Monday evening, now reinstated.

PS 3: Daily Art seems to be a Polish operation, or app in telephone speak. And according to reference 7:

'When Polish art historian Zuzanna Stańska considered what she could do to make the art world less stuffily academic and more accessible, building an app felt right. She had the requisite knowledge and she’d already been creating apps for museums, so bootstrapping her own art-focused app wasn’t too much of a stretch. In 2012, DailyArt hit the app stores, and with it, an elegant solution to an industry-wide problem: getting more people to engage with fine art, no PhD or a VIP pass to Art Basel necessary...'.

PS 4: breakfast prompted me to think about the nuts and bolts of checking. Is it to be all online, or are there print resources to hand - either at home or in our local library? This last being quite strong on arts: but how long would it take, as an inexperienced user of bricks & mortar libraries, to run something down? Then if it is to be online, which sources can you trust? Personally, I go for known brands and academic institutions. In the absence of either of these, I might give some weight to the advertised qualifications of an author. Search engines, however, have more resources, and can use various other tests - other tests which have the convenience of being easy to automate.

Does the content match the query? In the early days of the Internet when there was nothing like as much content as there is now, this was pretty much enough. And even now, I think Bing puts more weight on this than Google.

Moving on from the content itself, does that content get lots of hits? If lots of other people are going for it, then so will I.

Does the content get lots of references from others? Have third parties bothered to notice this particular content? Print academics used to go in for this, including lots of references at the end of their papers, partly in hope of reciprocation. I think Google started doing this quite early on.

Then do content providers keep lists of trusted content creators? People like ONS of reference 8? Lists which are maintained in some old fashioned way, involving people as well as algorithms? Or perhaps black lists, content creators to be excluded for one reason or another.

Is the content creator paying me to promote his content? If he is, then I will nudge him up the search results list. This being important since the raw search results list can be very long and it is not much good to the content creator being down the bottom, as few people bother to drill down that far. Some content providers flag up content which has been promoted in this way, some don't. Gmail, for example, flags up the advertisements it includes with your mail. Newspapers sometimes flag up articles as partner content or some such.

Looking at the references below, mostly respectable. Reference 8 best, Wikipedia references good and reference 1 thought to be reasonably reliable. References 3 and 7 unknown.

Something to think about on my morning stroll into town? Although in practise, while I may get the odd stray thought when I am out, there is not much foreground thinking. Far too much other stuff going on. But I dare say that there is thinking of a sort going on in the background, just as there is when one is asleep.

References

Reference 1: Berlin - Barney White-Spunner - 2020. Simon & Schuster paperback edition.

Reference 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princesses_Monument.

Reference 3: https://www.dailyartmagazine.com/prinzessinnengruppe/.

Reference 4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louise_of_Mecklenburg-Strelitz.

Reference 5: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_William_II_of_Prussia.

Reference 6: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Hohenzollern.

Reference 7: https://observer.com/2025/02/interviews-art-historian-zuzanna-stanska-dailyart-app/. Another arty site, not, I think, anything to do with the Observer newspaper.

Reference 8: https://www.ons.gov.uk/. 

Big case: The first day

A week ago to Cadogan Hall for a Beethoven concert. Chosen because it was afternoon - which we thought we could manage - and because it was orchestral - which made a change. The scheme was that we would check into the hotel in Sydney Street after the concert and take dinner at PJ's next door. The motivation being that this was a full length concert which we could manage - with our having had very few evening outings since the plague. In some ways a reprise of the expedition noticed at reference 1.

Next decision was to pack for one night into BH's fancy case from Victorinox and to walk to the station for a train to Victoria. This being preferred to a smaller case without wheels, not in shopping trolley format. A substantial case, probably bought from John Lewis in Kingston, rather than T.K. Maxx, the other place we know that sells luggage.

So we walked down to the station, taking in no trolleys on the way but a good bit of twittering across the tracks when we got there. Nothing to be seen though.

On the way, we passed a Land Rover Defender in the Eclipse car park, sporting one of the boxes attached to the rear side window which has been puzzling me for some weeks. Carcheck and Gemini between them now tells me that it is a 'Exterior Side-Mounted Gear Carrier', which you might use, for example, for your muddy boots. You can also have a similar looking box which is actually a ladder, so that you can climb up onto the roof. Perhaps this is so that you can climb up to scout the way ahead when you are driving through difficult rivers. What a lot of nonsense!

Picked up a black cab from the rank on leaving Victoria Station, no waiting involved, and got ourselves dropped outside Peter Jones where we took lunch up on the sixth floor. A room with a view.

Pie and chips for me, something called a tuna melt for her. This last involved cheese and she did not complain about it tasting of sardines in the way of the one at the end of reference 3. She also remembered to get me just a spoonful of gravy, rather than the lake that she prefers herself. A very suitable light lunch.

I would only fault the green beans, a bit on the wet side, probably from having been stood in warm water for too long.

Onto to the Cadogan Hall, to find that they are into personalised number plates in the way of the late lamented First Line Recovery of Blenheim Road.

An alarm on the way in on account of a sign saying that no large bags would be permitted. In the event, there was a cloakroom, as I would expect of a serious venue, and we were able to deposit both coats and case. £2 an item, as opposed to included with the ticket at the Wigmore Hall. I say expect, but I wonder now whether venues for more popular concerts, places like the big tents in Docklands and Wembley run to cloakrooms?

The programme was the Egmont overture, piano concerto No.4 and symphony No.6, aka Pastoral. Grzegorz Nowak was a slightly flamboyant conductor, appearing in a longish, glittering green jacket and appearing not to use a score.I thought the proper term was a frock coat, but BH was not having it. Bing was a bit inconclusive, with most of the images of coats of the right length and material being tight waisted, which this coat was not.

A sprightly chap considering that he is very nearly as old as I am, with a day job in the far off Philippines, with their top orchestra. Which appears to share space with the people snapped above - rather in the way of our own Royal Festival Hall.

The pianist was rather younger, more solid and more stolid. A Cadogan Hall veteran according to an image to be found at reference 6.

Behind us we had a chap with a motor mouth and in front of us a couple of chaps who stank of stale tobacco. I suppose I must have smelt like that once: I could certainly make the curtains stink if I smoked a cigar indoors. Fortunately, the mouth stopped and one did not notice the smell once the music started.

The seats for the violinists came with the little blocks under the back legs, which we noticed at the previous visit, just over a year ago, noticed at reference 10. Gemini  knows all about the posture problems of musicians and also points me at reference 11, a company set up by a violinist to make the very blocks. Gemini also says that some musicians carry their own blocks, although they might not work so well when visiting a sloping stage.

Maybe musicians who really care about their backs carry the full set. I dare say we would see them more often if we heard full orchestras more often.

Didn't care for their feet so much, as a surprising proportion of the lady musicians were sporting heels of various heights.

Given that do not do orchestras very often, I found the orchestration impressive, but the experience as a whole left me a little flat. For me at least, it lacked the intensity of chamber music. BH got on rather better with it.

Out to take another black cab - which a young couple with a baby insisted that we took, even though they reached the rank a few seconds before we did. 

Passed a Pret in the Kings Road, complete with a smashed door, two police cars and an ambulance in attendance.

Onto our hotel in Sydney Street, where BH was defeated by the contraption for making coffee snapped above. There some graphic instructions on top of it, but not instructions which worked for us. Luckily, we found the kettle in a cupboard and we were able to manage that.

An establishment which appears to be staffed by ladies, although I dare say there is a maintenance man in the background somewhere, a member of the Brown's Word family of reference 8.

It might be quite fun to take a short break down at Amberley Castle, just up from Bognor. Top centre in the snap above. Very  handy to the West Sussex Literary Trail, running down the River Arun. What more could one want?

But, despite the very dynamic pricing, probably a bit too strong for us, with a couple of nights running to between one and two thousand pounds, all in. Maybe a birthday treat in six months time?

I was puzzled by the label 'MHW' on both sides of the River Arun, at North Stoke a little to the south of Amberley. Gemini explains that this is mean high water, a matter of some interest given the flat land round about and that the Arun is tidal at this point - tidal indeed all the way to Pallingham Lock, north of Pulborough. Marked on the OS map but not known to its search function, an anomaly I have noticed from time to time before.

Pallingham Quay and Pallingham Lock Farm still present, but I can find no trace of Pallingham Lock.

Gemini explains that the lock still exists, but is a ruin which the canal heritage people have yet to have a go at. A lock which connected the navigable lower reaches of the Arun to the canal above.

All in all, not a bad job from Gemini, even if his geography is a bit shaky at times. An area which, like the fens of North Cambridgeshire, looks to be interesting from a water use and water management point of view.

Back in Chelsea, after a short timeout, we made our way up the road to PJ's.

BH not best pleased to be sat next to a rather loud lady from the US, possibly theatrical, possibly being entertained by some theatrical minders. At least two of whom went for quite a long fag break. BH did get used to it and they were rather good seats otherwise. I wondered how much they paid for the bottle of wine to take out - not something that one sees in a restaurant that often.

Bread came in small round loaves; good, despite being described as sour dough.

For me, onion soup followed by linguine. This last not being nearly as good as I had come to expect: prawns plentiful but overcooked. Mussels leathery. Sauce watery. We learned later that Sunday was something of a half day for them, with the kitchen shutting at 21:00. So maybe I was getting the bottom of the pot, something that had been standing around for a while.

Interesting take on apple crumble. Not bad, but very sweet and you needed to topping to cut the sweetness a bit. Nothing like a crumble that BH might make. Or indeed might have been dished up at school, where it was a regular fixture.

The principal beverage was a Sancerre. Probably the people at reference 12. 'Silex' for flinty soil.

BH was happy enough with her grub, the ambience was good - so linguine notwithstanding, I dare say we will be back. Maybe not Sunday evening.

PS 1: to the hotel inspector: interesting to see on our return that they had bothered to reinstate the ceiling coving when the bathrooms and such were taken out of the corners of what might have been the original rooms. There must be enough demand for this sort of thing for the moulds to still be available, up and running.

PS 2: fans of T.K. Maxx might be interested in the piece at reference 13. As it happens, I have probably bought more stuff from them than BH. She does find much in her size and does not care for either the bustle or the cramped aisles. While the bag first noticed (but not snapped) at reference 14 is still going strong. Good as  new. Finding a snap is left as an exercise for the reader.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/01/kensington-business.html.

Reference 2: https://www.victorinox.com/en-GB/.

Reference 3:https://psmv6.blogspot.com/2026/03/early-march.html.

Reference 4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grzegorz_Nowak_(conductor).

Reference 5: https://culturalcenter.gov.ph/resident-companies/philippine-philharmonic-orchestra/.

Reference 6: https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mario_Galeani.

Reference 7: https://sydneyhousechelsea.co.uk/.

Reference 8: https://brownswordhotels.co.uk/.

Reference 9: https://www.pjschelseabrasserie.co.uk/.

Reference 10: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/03/cadogan.html.

Reference 11: https://www.chairblocks.co.uk/about-us.

Reference 12: https://boutinot.com/wines/domaine-michel-girard-sancerre-silex/.

Reference 13: Big bargains and ‘white knuckle’ buying: inside the rise of TJ Maxx: Savvy buyers and a vast supply of high-end clothes have propelled discount chain’s owner TJX into retail’s big league - Gregory Meyer, Financial Times - 2026.

Reference 14: https://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.com/2012/04/bags-revisited.html.

Pitcher plant

Back to Wisley a week or so ago, another fine day in a run of bad days, weather-wise that is. Got through the shiny new M25/A3 junction without bother, but then got into a big queue as we got off the A3 onto the Wisley slip road. The big queue being a consequence of the number of people going to Wisley and the fact that utility works for the Wisley Acres estate (aka communities) had cut traffic down to one lane. For the communities see reference 1.

The consequence of this was that we were sent to one of the outer car parks, still a grass field, possibly part of the research side of the Wisley operation. But they had spent what looked like a good deal of money converting a large shed into a toilet block - a convenience indeed as the main entrance was now getting on for half an hour away.

On the way to which we passed the interesting looking building above, to which I shall return below.

Curiously, despite the number of visitors, the café at the entrance was not particularly busy when we arrived and BH did not have to queue for long for our tea and rock cakes. This being around 12:15.

Onto the lily pond for our first bench, at some point taking in this unusual version of a weeping Atlas cedar, of Hook Road fame.

This bush looked very like a sage to me, but it was described as a Phlomis grandiflora 'Lloyd's Silver', of the Lamiaceae, which first only rates a skeleton entry in Wikipedia, at reference 2. 

We had tried rubbing a leaf between our fingers, which reliably produces smells with most kitchen herbs, but nothing at all. Although, as it turns out today, I was right to the extent that the host family incudes all manner of aromatic plants, including the sages.

The crocuses were more or less over - with the stunning display of our last visit completely gone - but there were plenty of other flowers. Including, for example, this camelia. Not my favourite flower, but it can be showy, as here.

Plus lots of daffodils and hellebores and some magnolias.

Another showy flower, unknown to me and with no label that I could see. Off the cuff, I think I said witch hazel, to be rebuffed by BH. To be fair to her, it does not much like the witch hazel we have in our garden - where they do not do terribly well - or indeed other witch hazels which we came across that same day. However, Google Images sends me to reference 4: Corylopsis spicata of the witch hazel family.

While the dubious, miniature daffodils of our last visit turn out to be Narcissus bulbicodium, aka the hoop petticoat daffodil.

Onto the big glass house for another look at the pitcher plant which caught my eye, but not my camera, last time, for which see reference 5.

The relevant leaves are those above the pitcher, not those below.

Among something of a jumble of plants, but the label for this one might have been 'Nepenthes 'Bill Bailey''. Google Images does not seem very convinced at all, this despite the ventrata images at reference 6 and elsewhere being very red. As indeed are those for Bill Bailey.

The other label was 'Dendrobium chrysanthum', which is a sort of orchid, this was the orchid annex after all, and nothing to do with my pitcher.

So not much further ahead. Maybe these pitcher plants produce hybrids very readily and maybe both form and colour of the pitchers varies a good deal.

Out to see some sort of hawk circling over trees in the distance. A cooperative hawk in the sense that he headed our way, getting quite close enough for us to make out his forked tail, making him a kite. Plus a sort of mewing, with rather more tuneful, rather longer and higher notes than those of the buzzard, with which we are more familiar.

We took lunch in the regular cafeteria, not far from the main entrance, a place we have not used for a bit. I took a sort of sausage stew, a bit thin on sausage but plenty of red pepper and tomato, for around £15. At the time, I thought that this was a bit dear, but I suppose the stew was much what you might get in a High Street restaurant, at much the same price. BH had settled for something more modest, probably more healthy.

One of the Spanish trolleys affected by the attached garden centre, which had strayed into Car Park No.3. From Marsanz of Madrid, for whom see reference 7.

Around the back of what we by then knew was called 'Orchard cottage', complete with two-seater outdoor facilities. A rather institutional look about the place.

According to reference 8:

'... Formerly the Old School House, Orchard Cottage is one of the oldest houses in Wisley village. It was built circa 1860 in Foxwarren Style by Charles Buxton or Frederick Barnes, and is listed for its special architectural/historical interest. Later converted into five separate flats, the property is now being offered to the market...'.

It is also a Grade II listed building. So lots of fun with the heritage people, never mind the considerable expense, if you were the one who has taken it on. 

Google is slightly more informative than Bing. With more background at references 9 and 10.

We shall await developments. Or perhaps one should say redevelopments.

PS 1: I have now taken a proper look at reference 10, which provides a lot of interesting material about Foxwarren Park and its first owner, Charles Buxton. In the snap above Foxwarren Park is to the left of the upper orange spot, just across the road from Painshill, while Orchard Cottage is just to the right of the lower orange spot. Wisley Gardens, bottom left. So the cottage was from the same time and place as the big house.

A big house which, according to reference 10:

'... Architects of neo-Tudor buildings of the period generally used Bath stone for the tracery, copings, mouldings, arches and other dressings – stone masons were abundant and well versed in architects’ needs. Buxton broke with this by using ‘specials’ for all the detailing. These are custom-moulded bricks and, though commonly used in the 16th century, would have been far more difficult to obtain by this date, and there is a strong suggestion that they had to be made to order...'

Perhaps what we now call terracotta - of which a good deal is to be seen in grand Victorian buildings in London. And which is what we appear to have at the cottage.

Charles Buxton was mixed up with both Quakers and brewers, and his name lives on outside the Duke of Sussex public house in Waterloo, an establishment where we once took a memorable Christmas lunch. Now gentrified, as can be seen at reference 11.

It also lives on in what reference 10 describes as a best-seller, his 1848 memoir of his father, a prominent abolitionist, snapped above from the Internet Archive.

It must have done pretty well, with Abebooks selling the original for several hundred pounds, and a variety of reprints since at much more modest prices.

PS 2: Foxwarren Park makes the cut in the Surrey Pevsner, as do the old buildings at Wisley Gardens (described as a pale imitation of Lutyens), but Orchard Cottage does not. I might add that the paintings at Chaldon, noticed very recently at reference 12, make the front cover. And that there is a fountain in the Victoria Tower Gardens - very near Smith Square - to be followed up.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv6.blogspot.com/2026/03/blue-crocus-day.html.

Reference 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phlomis_grandiflora.

Reference 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamiaceae.

Reference 4: https://www.botanic.cam.ac.uk/the-garden/plant-list/corylopsis-spicata/.

Reference 5: https://psmv6.blogspot.com/2026/02/fake-194.html.

Reference 6: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nepenthes_%C3%97_ventrata.

Reference 7: https://marsanz.es/en/products/.

Reference 8: https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/166597715#/?channel=RES_BUY.

Reference 9: https://victorianweb.org/art/architecture/buxton/1.html.

Reference 10: https://lesseminentvictorians.com/2020/12/20/the-gothic-horrors-of-a-victorian-worthy-charles-buxton-and-foxwarren/.

Reference 11: https://www.thechaptercollection.co.uk/duke-of-sussex-waterloo.

Reference 12: https://psmv6.blogspot.com/2026/03/second-outing.html.

A good result

Since the tyre pressure problem reported at reference 1, the virtual dashboard of our fairly new VW polo has been decorated with a small golden horseshoe, now known to be a symbolic representation of the cross section of a faulty tyre.

Having failed to persuade the horseshoe to go away through our own efforts, we had resort yesterday to Epsom Autos on West Hill, the people who have been looking after our motor affairs for many years.

It now turns out that the problem was a slow puncture in the tyre indicated, now repaired for a modest twenty quid or so.

Which is a good result in two ways. First, we have not had to buy a new tyre, which would have been expensive given that VW put good class tyres on their cars. Second, the golden horseshoe was about a real world problem, rather than being an artefact of the car's sensory arrangements. Which, given that we had had to abandon our trusty Ford C-Max because of the failure of the engine management system, rather than because of a failure of the engine, would have been irritating.

Gemini does what looks like a good job on the subject.

He goes on to tell me about the system needing a reset after a pump - but I shall worry about that on another day.

In the meantime, I did a bit of rudimentary checking with Bing, who turns up a car parts website which offered, for our particular car, a 'RIDEX 2232W0101 Tyre pressure sensor', which would replace part of the valve on the tyre itself. It would measure pressure directly and transmit it to a receiver somewhere in the body of the car. And it does involve a battery which will eventually run down - a possibility mentioned by Epsom Autos before they had actually seen the car or its tyres.

The Gemini story is that it is possible but unlikely that our car is fitted with these particular gadgets. My bet is that he is right about this. Something else to worry about on another day.

PS 1: BH tells me that the sound system in the Polo has sprung back into life. That will need action this day.

PS 2: more help to be found at reference 2. I suppose we are getting more safety - but we are also getting more bother. I haven't thought or done anything about tyre pressures since we got a flat in the Isle of Wight, back in 2021. See reference 3.

PS 3: a place to record the purchase of my latest pair of Moab ventilators, from Cotswold, made, I believe, in Vietnam. Now coming in at around £100, including more or less next day delivery. Both the old pairs were quite down at heel, so choosing which one to retire was a bit of toss-up. But the laces were in good condition and have now been washed and added to the stash of same. 

Last purchase about 18 months ago, as recorded at reference 4. While from reference 5, it would seem that I have been buying these very trainers for near fifteen years.

But at that distance in time, I fail to see what the disgusting of the postscript to reference 5 or the sequined ladies of reference 6 were all about, although the disgusting may have been to do with the public display of corpses. Hopefully it all made sense at the time.

From which I associate to the three day display of the corpse - I think naked - of Richard III after Bosworth. The point here being to make sure everyone knew that he really was dead; to head off any further trouble, any possible pretenders. A story which is largely confirmed by Gemini.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv6.blogspot.com/2026/03/blue-crocus-day.html.

Reference 2: https://erthie.com/how-to-reset-tpms-volkswagen-polo-pn2265/.

Reference 3: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2021/07/a-tale-of-tyre.html.

Reference 4: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/11/trainer-time.html.

Reference 5: https://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.com/2011/10/off-boil.html.

Reference 6: https://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.com/2011/10/tawdry-trinity.html.