Trumpets

One of our visits to Puckpool, just about a month ago now: time must fly when you are marooned indoors against the heat. The elderly thermometer inside our front door says 75°F (or 24°C) while my telephone says 33°C, which is presumably an estimate for outdoors. Which is not enough to stop the delivery men and women of Amazon Prime, as a small parcel has only just been delivered. On the other hand, hot enough that I needed to deploy the wrecking bar this evening to lift the loose end of the garage bi-fold so that the bolt slid home.

This view to the west, taken from the shelter of one of the bus shelters along the esplanade. Much the same view, but taken from the beach, is to be found at the top of reference 3.

A bit easier than the last pebble counting exercise. Much tighter distribution of size, with more coarse and less fines. There also what looked like buzzards circling over the trees behind the beach, the trees of the abandoned Harcourt Sands holiday camp. For which see reference 9, provided that is, you have a taste for advertisement infested blogs.

At some point, we took beverages at the Dell - probably fizzy water for him and decaff coffee for her - where we were seated at a table with a fake finish. Not scored, as I may have scored it before, or at least something very like. A regular table with an image of ancient boarding stuck to the top of it, slightly frayed at the edges.

Trusty sunshade visible left, although I have failed to compute what is happening bottom left.

On one of the blocks inside the Battery, there is a plaque commemorating the service of men of the US Coastguard during the Second World War. I had thought that I had noticed it before, but all I can find today is the reference to them at reference 4, at a rather different sort of place altogether. But next to the plaque is the one snapped above, concerning the service of the Miami Division of that coastguard.

Google Images (GI) tells me that the Countess de Cortez might well have been an eminent south Florida expatriate, likely something to do with the coastguard, very much the sort of person used for ceremonial functions of this sort, but unlikely to be anything to do with the village of Cortez of that state, and certainly nothing to do with the Countess (portrayed by Lady Gaga) of the Hotel Cortez in a horror series turned up by Bing. I thought GI sounded a touch shirty on that point, perhaps reflecting the seriousness with which veteran matters are taken in the US. Whoever she is, a small to non-existent presence on the Internet.

We now get to the trumpets, noticed before, but name forgotten. With the telephone, once again, having trouble with floral contrasts in the bright noonday light. GI tells me this afternoon that it is the trumpet vine, aka Campsis radicans. Reference 1 tells me that it is odd pinnate, a subject which got me going last year, a fact confirmed both by inspection of this image under zoom and by the clear images of same at reference 2. Reference 2 also talks of it being a wetland plant, which does not throw GI at all, who explains that they are both seriously sun loving and drought tolerant. The brick wall behind this one being good for holding the heat: '... The historic stone and brick fortification walls absorb heat from the sun throughout the day. They slowly release it at night, creating a warm, sheltered microclimate that mimics the heat of a North Carolina summer...'.

And, as it happens, the yellow version we had come across previously, at Wisley, was up against a wall too. For which see reference 5.

Onto to the Puckpool café for a bacon and egg bap or something of that sort. A useful place, not very busy inside on this occasion. They sometimes do cinema inside of an evening - and crazy golf outside. The place of the Chelsea Tractor, as noticed at reference 6.

And so home to get out of the heat of the afternoon, and in the evening, by arrangement, to the Yarbridge Inn. BH was happy enough with her fish, but I made the mistake of taking soup followed by chicken - which turned out to be some fairly modestly sized pieces of chicken swimming around in a great deal of some kind of white sauce. With some potato balls on the side, something brown and fried, about an inch in diameter. Perhaps delivered to the inn in boxes, frozen, by Brakes?

Which I can't now find on the menu at reference 7. Nor can I see now why I would have opted for the chicken anyway, the menu have several other more likely looking options. Perhaps there was a specials board.

On the way out, we came across a van and trailer combo, possibly with a motorbike on the trailer, sporting the 'Prestigious Fox' branding we had come across the year before, noticed at reference 8. Not sure where, possibly the car park at the Yarbridge Inn, possibly not - I dare say a bit of effort would track it down. In any event, it dawns on me on this occasion that the Fox in question is almost certainly the same as the Fox family which run the inn. Maybe I will ask Gemini what exactly the business does: selling branded T-shirts seems a bit thin.

PS 1: in the course of looking for a particular snap today, I learned - after quite a few years now - that one can scan a lot of thumbnails in a full screen File Explorer window very quickly indeed. Much faster than doing the same job with smaller chunks, in the not full screen version. The brain seems to be really good at this sort of image thing; much faster than looking for a word in a screen full of text.

PS 2: the indoors thermometer still says 75°F. Maybe it is stuck, like the barometer below. I now find that thermometers are very cheap at Amazon, with old-style glass tube even cheaper than digital. So a pair of wooden ones, complete with little eyes to hang them off, is now on its way to me for £6.99. Provenance and accuracy unknown - but Amazon clearly believe in the value of the '99' style of pricing. A value demonstrated by experts; another demonstration that what we do is not entirely governed by what we think or know.

References

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

Reference 2: https://harvest.cals.ncsu.edu/plantguidedb/index.cfm?ViewPlantID=10565.

Reference 3: https://psmv6.blogspot.com/2026/08/parked-at-puckpool.html.

Reference 4: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/01/london-necropolis.html.

Reference 5: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/search?q=trumpet+vine.

Reference 6: https://psmv6.blogspot.com/2026/07/scone-report.html.

Reference 7: https://www.theyarbridgeinn.co.uk/.

Reference 8: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/08/ryde.html.

Reference 9: https://hamandeggerfiles.blogspot.com/2019/10/harcourt-sands-derelict-holiday-camp-in-ryde-isle-of-wight.html.

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