A seasonal carpet

A carpet of magnolia petals, spotted in Linton's Lane. At least I thought Linton's Lane, but Street View fails to reveal the spot for me. Maybe I will be able to find it next time I am down there.

The Screwfix whitebeam. Possibly in bud, but certainly not in leaf.

The Screwfix borage, still going strong a fortnight after it had last been snapped at reference 1. Although the flowers had lost the striking, creamy whiteness of that earlier visit, not captured in the snap at that time.

A few days later to Nonsuch Park, where we came across lots of primroses and primulas, these last coming in all  kinds of colours. With primrose petals having been noticed at reference 2.The outing which also produced the Wellingtonia of reference 3. A birthday outing, as it happens.

A bed which looks rather grander here than it did in real life. But it looked well enough, all the same. The volunteers have been busy.

Some yellow primulas.

The hearty lobing of the petals still just about present under zoom but weakened by all that breeding. Furthermore, we have moved up from five petals to six.

A number which I would have guessed would have been constant across the primula genus. While the images turned up by Bing are mostly fives, but there are some sixes. On the other hand, the Wikipedia entry at reference 4 does not include the word 'petal' at all: the editor can't have been into this sort of thing.

The small brown cones of a conifer, not a Wellingtonia, but the same sort of thing which puzzled me a bit later in the day, from a distance, at reference 3.

A lilac in full flower. Five petals to the floret, the flowers as a whole reminding me, under zoom, of the candles of the horse chestnut.

Purple fives.

A champion tree, a weeping Yoshino cherry. There were quite a lot of champion trees dotted about, so one supposes one of the volunteers was keener on record keeping than weeding. Something that I can well understand! All the same, some of the champions look pretty scrawny to me, something that I have noticed before. I associate this morning to those competitions for small children where everybody gets a prize. But see reference 5 for the full story. No doubt it all goes to promote tree care and tree awareness - which I very much approve of. Very ecological, very save the planet.

At some point, a visit to the café for tea, decaff and buns, in my case settling for a ham and cheese toastie, which tasted rather better than it looked. A café which seems to change both format and management fairly frequently. Often busy enough when we are there, with dog walkers, runners and pensioners - but maybe the trade is too irregular for the place to make a decent living. Maybe wet days are very quiet. Marginal, in that the place survives, but without really thriving.

Some of the outdoor furniture, some of it looking quite new and expensive. With the van from Bidfood sneaking in some more supplies at the back. Did my toastie arrive on the premises ready assembled, just needing a quite blast in the toaster?

A company which one sees all over the place. I think, for me, by far the busiest catering supplier on the street. Brakes a distant second.

Eighteen hits on the search term 'toastie', although I did not spot the one in question. The curious can try for themselves at reference 6.

PS: Brakes having popped into mind earlier this morning, took a while to recover after breakfast (on Thursday). I thought about asking Gemini, which would probably have been quicker, but actually recovered the name from reference 7, turned up by his friend Google.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv6.blogspot.com/2026/03/more-trivia.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv6.blogspot.com/2026/03/primrose-petals.html.

Reference 3: https://psmv6.blogspot.com/2026/03/wellingtonia-135.html.

Reference 4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primula.

Reference 5: https://treeregister.org/.

Reference 6: https://www.bidfood.co.uk/.

Reference 7: https://www.ukhospitality.org.uk/supplier/.

Group search key:20260324, 20260327.