A short visit

This to notice a short visit to Polesden Lacey, at the end of last month.

An expedition which started with a rare failure to focus, in the car park of Epsom Hospital. The subject being a vehicle belonging to Mr. Mills the builder, who once did some serious, mainly decorative, work inside our house. At that time, he did not drive such a grand vehicle.

A Friday lunchtime which saw the roads busy, even the relatively minor roads that we were travelling on. Maybe it was the Bank Holiday to come.

Somewhere along the way we passed a builders merchant called 'Chandlers', presumably the same family who gave their name to the large suburban villa of that name, noticed back at reference 1. Maybe, at the time the house was built, there was a branch of the merchant in Epsom.

Car park busy at Polesden Lacey, which meant that we were in overflow. But we were spared walking back to the car to do 'pay and display', the usual form at National Trust, even when, as members, one is not actually paying on the spot.

What appeared to be a cultivated convolvulus on the wall of the house proper.

A shady corner, supplied with chairs from which to admire the view.

A shady corner which was also a dumping ground for various bits and pieces.

Plus what might once have been a water fountain, for the greater comfort of house guests. Not sure how it might have worked, given that even back in the day, the guests might not have care to drink water standing in the bowl.

Plus a faint tinkling from the large piano indoors. Maybe one of the piano playing volunteers was on duty: I don't suppose mere visitors are allowed to touch. See reference 3 for previous notice of the piano.

From there to the cafeteria where I took a cheese scone while waiting for my lentils. Scone not bad at all for a shop, although not quite what I might have made for myself. Chick peas not bad at all either, if not up to the standard of the cafés on Tenerife, where they are something of a national dish. Mind you, I am going back twenty years or more, so maybe things have changed.

We passed on the fish shop of Bookham on this occasion.

Home to find a postcard containing a postcard containing important information about our gas supply, as previously noticed. We we a little alarmed at the time - were they going to dig up our fine new drive - but it all passed off without incident in the event, with just a neatly mended hole in the sidewalk.

PS: I see over Tuesday breakfast that Google paid for seven full page advertisements for Gemini in the main section of yesterday's Guardian - out of a total of 42 pages. Competition for revenue to pay for all these data centres must be hotting up. Interestingly, sport seemed to be safe: no advertisements allowed in among all the football.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2021/03/madan.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv6.blogspot.com/2026/01/heritage-one.html. Search suggests this as the last visit to Polesden Lacey, which seems an improbably long time ago. Maybe there is a hole in the record.

Reference 3: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2018/12/osberts-day.html.