The pond before

A snap of Stamford Green Pond, after the most recent heat wave broke, but before the last puddles dried up. Say ten days ago. Looks quite watery from this angle.

But a bit more mud showing in this one. The white to the left of the bin being the front wall of the 'Cricketers'.

On into town to gather up a stray trolley from M&S. No.1242, from July 2025.

Scaffolding up the fairly new build block which has wrapped up Epsom Station. Something that seems to happen fairly often, which makes one wonder about the quality of the new build's builder.

And under the arches to catch some big arches. Notice the pink goo oozing out top and bottom. I might say that the bun looks a lot more attractive on this poster than the one at reference 1 did in real life - but then, it was rather early in the morning. 

I was rather surprised to find that my visit was three months ago. I would have guessed one; yet another example of how my sense of time is deteriorating.

I might also say that it is a long time since I have been hungry enough to want to eat such a large burger - although I was quite fond of the bacon and egg rolls supplied by the Laing's cafeteria on their Westway project, back in the late 1960s. Without, I should say, any kind of goo, pink or otherwise.

The line at the very bottom of the poster smelt of franchise to me, on which Copilot offered the snap above. A business which requires a good wad of cash for buying in. Which also reminded me of reading somewhere that McDonald's is more a real estate company these days than a fast food operation. And I read in the chicken article noticed at the end of reference 2, that chicken is now bigger for McDonald's than beef, poster notwithstanding.

Home via Court Recreation Ground, where the black smudge in the middle caught my eye.

I zoomed in on the smudge and offered the result to Google Images, who I thought did rather well. Good enough for me, anyway! Maybe he gets lots of questions about this sort of thing.

A rather different sort of park life. The stuff that goes on when all us pensioners are tucked up indoors.

PS 1: the upstairs and downstairs thermometers recorded 79°F and 73°F this morning. Which seems rather a lot, but, to be fair, it did seem pretty warm in town this afternoon.

PS 2: the pond this morning. Some fresh water this time, not just water seeping through from some leak. Not far off the level when it will start washing over the little wall, off snap below, and into the stream running down Manor Green Road to Longmead.

Later on, into town for some white rolls to go with some left over mushrooms, left over, in fact, from the soup noticed at the end of reference 2. Mushrooms not the same on brown, be it ever so home made.

The café at the western entrance to the Ashley Centre used to be in two parts, but the inside part has now been closed by the new owners, who are concentrating on the outside part. I was rather struck by the amount of catering equipment left behind, with lots of stainless steel. Presumably it will go to auction and fetch a fraction of what it cost to put in.

While on the subject of mushrooms, Gemini offered the snap above. I rather liked the line that it might not be soap left over from the washing up, rather alkali which reacts with the fats in the butter to make fresh soap!

As it happens, we don't have a dishwasher, but I had used a wooden spatula. 

PS 3: I am starting to feel a bit uneasy about my share of all the global warming being generated by all the data centres fuelling all this AI - although I dare say businesses with more serious requirements than mine are much more serious offenders. I shall ponder - but whether I do anything about it is another matter.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv6.blogspot.com/2026/05/mcdonalds.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv6.blogspot.com/2026/08/more-water.html.

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