Cherries

We took our first cherries of the year yesterday, from Greece out of Sainsbury's. I had spotted some cherroes previously, not least in Borough market, but I had been put off by a combination of price and doubts about the quality of what I supposed were foreign cherries.

But yesterday, BH noticed that they were half price with her nectar card, so went for a packet. As it turned out, they were rather good, with just the odd dud. Checking this morning, the Sainsbury's website offers a generic country of origin  - 'Grown in Argentina, Canada, Chile, Greece, South Africa, Spain, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States' - presumably reflecting the vagaries of the wholesale cherry scene.

Checking the archive this (Thursday) morning, it looks as if we are a few days ahead of last year, with the first of last year being a little later in the month, from M&S - for which see reference 1. Country of origin not supplied.

While a couple of days ago, I thought to have another go at identifying our Serbian spruce, for which see references 2 and 3. The prompt being the appearance of two sorts of cone - large female and small male - which ought to give Google Images something good to bite on, in the absence of the shape of the tree generally.

I try helping him along a bit, albeit getting it slight wrong. Get him to focus on for and against the Serbian Spruce, rather than dissipating his effort across a wider field. He sticks with his previous identification - but is he really adding any value?

The business of the stripes on the needles is a plus point, although it is far from clear in my snap that the stripes are on the underside. Need to take another look for the shape of the needles.

I try again, this time prompting him to say something about the cones - having been disappointed that he had not managed this unprompted.

I find the information about cones convincing, although I don't see anything purple about the larger, female cones - although they do look to be hanging down. And I don't see that he has got enough to go on to talk about upturned branches. And I certainly have yet to see a shimmer, although with the two-toned leaves I can see that there might well be one.

In sum, the identification has not been disturbed, but Google Images has work to do on presenting his results. I would like better differentiation between what he has deduced from the image supplied, from the clue supplied and what the identification supplies from his own database.

Noting that, in this case, he did correct my clue 'Serbian pine' to 'Serbian spruce' first time around. He does not always believe what I tell him - which has been a problem with Gemini in the past.

I think it unlikely that he has referred back to my previous inquiries about this same tree, although that may be coming in due course.

Hopefully, I will remember to check that the male cones do indeed fall off sometime soon. This seems quite likely, as I do not remember noticing them before.

PS 1: there will be problems with him using previous inquiries. It is easy enough for Google Images to know when I have asked him about Serbian spruces, but how does he know that I am asking about this particular one and to tie in the right previous images to the current query?

Prompted by a neighbour, I have in the last few days turned on timelines in gmaps and I have been a little surprised how inaccurate the resultant maps are (on my telephone). The sample above was turned up by Bing from someone else's telephone.

Perhaps, Google is only bothering to record my position from time to time and it only joining up the dots with straight lines, rather than trying to make intelligent use of his maps. On the other hand, he does seems to get the time I leave home for my walks and when I get home again right, and he does know that I am walking. But I will know more when I have built up a bit more data. And maybe there are settings that I can fiddle with.

Then sometimes, I feed Google Images raw images from my telephone camera, and the filename includes a date stamp. In fact, in this case, is a date stamp: '20260608_165420'. So he could, in principle, bind together my images of this particular tree by using location data. Provided that is, that there are not several such trees visible from the one location.

In any case, this all falls apart when, as I often do, I help him along by using the Snipping Tool to home in on the object in question. Then the date stamp of the file I pass to Google Images will tell him that I am at home, which does not help him very much. Unless the metadata gathered up by the Snipping Tool carries forward the name of the original file.

Clearly time for breakfast.

[Kallas, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and US Vice President JD Vance during the AI Action Summit in Paris, 11 February 2025. Lifted from Wikipedia at reference 6]

PS 2: interested to read at reference 5 this morning of an external relations power struggle within the European Union. And from reference 6, I learn that Kallas, one of the protagonists, as an Estonian, has a complicated relationship with Russia. Plenty of history there. I associate to the very public power struggles within the Labour Party, at a time when there is plenty of proper work to be done.

PS 3: and the piece at reference 7. Maybe the Russians cutting themselves off from their regular diet of Internet will achieve more than other kinds of sanctions?

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/06/trolley-880.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/search?q=serbian.

Reference 3: https://psmv6.blogspot.com/search?q=serbian.

Reference 4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picea_omorika. The story according to Wikipedia.

Reference 5: EU countries weigh ‘tearing apart’ bloc’s diplomatic service: Chief diplomat Kaja Kallas and her EEAS are in capitals’ crosshairs over leadership and co-ordination issues - Henry Foy, Financial Times - 2026.

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

Reference 7: How the FSB cut Russia off from the internet: Shutdowns have made one of the world’s most online nations resort to cash, paper maps and pet cams - Anastasia Stognei, Max Seddon, Financial Times - 2026.

Group search key: aisk.

Wellingtonia 135

Wellingtonia 135 was captured in the margins of a visit to Nonsuch Park.

Spotted from the A232 in what turned out to be the (inaccessible) grounds of Cheam Cricket Club. Things seemed clear enough from a distance, but as close I as could get, I worried about the brown sheen to the lower branches, not previously - or not recently - noticed. But back home, a visit to reference 2 convinced me that all was well: the brown sheen was the male pollen cones.

In the road behind, we had this very thin conifer, a bit lost in the snap above in visual clutter.

But this did not stop Google Images this morning which, on a cropped version, says Serbian spruce. Which I had thought of but discounted on the grounds that it seemed too different from the one he had previously identified in our road. Previously noticed several times at reference 3, but not, for some reason, including a full-length snap like that above. A job for today.

But did he add his remarks about turned up branches after he had made the identification, or were they part of that identification? Clear enough in the snap above, but not a feature I remember from the specimen in our road. Not that there is anything wrong with a mixture of top-down and bottom-up thinking: all a question of balance.

Or, thinking here with my fingers, perhaps the answer is more prosaic. Google Images looks for features, scores them in some way, and then matches the combined score - possibly a real valued, non-negative, one dimensional vector - with his database of trees, with the answer being the best match. Which might or might not involve turned up branches.

PS 1: location according to Ordnance Survey (OS). Orange spot marks the tree spot.

And, for present purposes with rather better labelling, according to gmaps. Neither map seems to include the nearby foodie house, one of the Grumpy Mole collection, previously regular public houses for the sale of beer, wine and spirits.

I was also irritated, not for the first time, by a publicly funded school - Nonsuch High School for Girls - sporting an advertisement for a branch of the David Lloyd chain. As a lefty, nostalgic for the days when schools could concentrate on schooling rather than on revenue.

PS 2: Monday: I have now inspected our Serbian pine and it does indeed exhibit the turned up tips to its branches, said to be a feature of the species.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/10/wellingtonia-134.html.

Reference 2: https://www.treeguideuk.co.uk/giant-sequoia/.

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/search?q=serbian+spruce.

Group search keys: 20260327, wgc (a relic of from before the days of the search key suffix).

A circuit

 A more or less uneventful circuit in the morning, although it was followed by the equine sculpture noticed at reference 1 and the Serbian spruce at reference 2 in the afternoon. It was also the first day of Google's time line, which now tells me that the morning Screwfix circuit did not include the Middle Lane extension - which I would be hard put to comment on otherwise.

But I did take in the Big Yellow project in East Street, where the finishing ground works seem to have ground to a halt, with no-one to be seen.

Gemini assures me, in very checkable exchange, that all is well. I lift a few points:

• The company is in good health financially
• The site has been the subject of long planning negotiations. The flexible office facility, Sainsbury's side as you walk up East Street, was part of the package agreed with the Council. It will be interesting to hear how it does
• There has probably been a switch from the contractor which put up the building (Curo, a name I remember noticing before) to their internal fit-out team.
• External groundworks are probably down to some sub-contractor and could have been paused for a variety of perfectly innocent reasons.

Trying to run down some previous posts which noticed this development with the search key 'big yellow east' was hopeless, turning up all kinds of other stuff. Searching for 'majestic', the name of the previous occupant, the people given rather short notice to quit, does rather better. See reference 3.

Going on, Gemini is doing well agreeing with me this morning! He goes on to explain that Majestic are quite keen to get back into Epsom and are actively looking for a suitable site.

Some of this stuff comes close to what we (in the civil service) used to call 'commercial in confidence'. I assume that Gemini's legal people have provided them with proper legal cover should I get into financial trouble using any of the stuff provided by Gemini. Unlikely to happen to me, but it easy enough to see how it might happen in the outside world.

Moving on, the convolvulus in the passage, previously noticed, was doing well this morning, not that my snap really came off. Wrong angle.

The Screwfix whitebeam.

The travellers who had been camping at Blenheim Road had moved on; perhaps they had come down for the Derby, something of a big event for travelling people. And someone had done a very good job of cleaning up their camp site. Either them or the Council or some combination thereof. A few bits of litter, some scrape marks on the grass and that was about it.

There was more water in the stream after the rain. But I don't suppose it came close to flooding down the other end.

There was action in the unit in Manor Green Road which used to be the butcher. No idea yet what might be coming. I refrain from asking Gemini!

A bit further along, someone has created an interesting instant garden with a planter at the front and some pots behind. And going so far as to label some of the plants, in the way of a botanical garden. Among the plants, you had the striking leaf snapped above, labelled as Brunnera macrophylla.

Google Images spot on, with his AI reply starting: 'The plant in your front garden planter is Siberian Bugloss (Brunnera macrophylla), specifically a variegated variety such as 'Jack Frost' or 'Silver Heart'. It is a hardy herbaceous perennial characterized by large, heart-shaped leaves with a distinctive silvery-white frosted pattern and prominent green veins...'. Not often that things are so easy to check!

On this occasion, for once, Wikipedia at reference 4 would not have been very helpful.

I wonder what mathematically minded botanists would have to say about the network of veins, a network which is vaguely tree-like but full of loops. A directed network? Maybe all those loops provide protection against damage. Maybe human veins show a similarly redundant structure?

A reminder that I should be getting on with reference 5, a left-over from last year's excursion into the world of phyllotaxis, for which see reference 6.

PS 1: BH tells me that the Epsom Civic Society, the people who always seem to be saying 'no', had their fingers in the Yellow Box pie. To my mind, very much part of what is gumming up our planning system.

PS 2: a bit later on Friday: I have now paid another visit to Big Yellow in East Street. The site looked completely deserted with nothing going on, inside or out. But security was alive and well, as not many seconds had passed before a security man appeared and explained that the taking of photographs was not permitted - which I think is going rather beyond his powers, if not his instructions. He also explained that all work had been paused and that, hopefully, it would restart before too long.

I was impressed by the shiny new pole, centre left in the snap above. Something to do with entry control, in due course.

Gemini is not at all put out by this new information and explains that Curo, the contractor for the building have done their bit, been signed off, and that we are now waiting for one of the Big Yellow fit-out teams to turn up - with Big Yellow presently being busy on a number of new sites, in and around London. And that the sub-contractor doing the ground works outside has just been paused for the time being. Simpler and more secure just to shut the site up completely than to have odd bods fiddling about outside. Plus said bods need to work around the utility people putting in power, communications and so forth.

Not completely convinced, but I shall wait and see how things turn out.

A bit down from the heady heights of 2022, but there does not seem to be anything bad going on here. But see reference 7 for more.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv6.blogspot.com/2026/06/diomed-etc.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv6.blogspot.com/2026/06/cherries.html.

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/search?q=majestic&max-results=20&by-date=true.

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

Reference 5: Do plants know maths: Unwinding the story of plant spirals, from Leonardo da Vinci to now - Stéphane Douady, Jacques Dumais, Christophe Golé, Nancy Pick - 2024. Published by the Princeton University Press, printed in China.

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

Reference 7: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Yellow_Group. A company which appears to have done well in 25 years.

Group search key: 20260608.