psmv5: Ealing

It so happened that I went to a concert at the Wigmore Hall the day after the one noticed at reference 1. The only problem being a timetabling error in that I was supposed to go to the first and we, that it is to say BH and I, were supposed to go to the second, the first being more to my taste than hers. The second being offered by the Takács Quartet of references 2 and 3 and consisting of Haydn Op.42 and Dvořák Op.51. With reference 3 being a reminder of the passage of time: the outing described there would not do at all now.

A day which started cool and breezy so summer raincoat and folding umbrella seemed right. A good pairing in that the umbrella fits fairly comfortably into a side pocket of the raincoat.

A fine display of buttercups on the Meadway roundabout, once home to four rose beds, still visible in the lie of the grass.

Prompted by some story in the media about the success of the Elizabeth Line, I had done some homework by looking into a suitable destination from Bond Street and had lighted upon Ealing and a possible Wellingtonia there. With the result that, walking to the station, I had a fleeting image of a large tree stump with a viewing platform erected around it. Stump, for some reason, off-centre to the left. The sort of image one might get while dreaming or dozing, but not usually while walking along the road. Very odd.

At the station, one of the ticket machines, a large thing as big as a US style refrigerator, had its front open and was being attended to by one of the ticket clerks. It all looked very complicated inside to me, so I have no idea what she was expected to be able to do with it. Perhaps top up the box or roll of blank tickets.

The eager, female platform announcer did not seem as irritating on this occasion as it had the day before.

Noticed lots of signs about staying off the tracks at Vauxhall Station. Why there? Lots of drunks and drugged from the clubs under the nearby arches?

Managed to find the right exit at Bond Street for once, the trick being to take a sharp left just past the second and last escalator. A turning that is not visible until one is on top of it, and I could see why it was easy to miss it.

Impressed at Olle & Steen by a young lady in baggy white trousers treading her Bullingdon up the hill to the Wigmore Hall, that is to say from left to right as one sat outside. Impressed because my days of standing on the pedals to get up hills are long past and I have to make do with sitting to the pedals.

Plus a minor infestation of delivery bikes, not yet as bad as that outside the McDonalds at Epsom. Bikes which might not cost as much as a scooter, but which must still cost a fair bit. Plus accessories. Maybe there are finance companies which specialise in offering loans to recent immigrants for this sort of thing - the payments on which must soak up a good chunk of their earnings. With interest rates taking a high rate of default into account?

Despite the coffee, I did not maintain concentration through the second half of the concert, which surprised me. I had been expecting to enjoy the Dvořák more than I in fact did. Perhaps concerts two days running was a mistake?

A short and very suitable encore in the form of a humouresque from Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, possibly one of the three listed as Op.31 in the Wikipedia entry at reference 6. Despite dying young of pneumonia, a prolific chap and it is odd that I have not heard of him before.

An enthusiastic, more or less full house.

Out to take the long walk under Bond Street to the impressive Elizabeth Line, which whisked me along to Ealing in no time at all. I had forgotten that Ealing was not that far from Notting Hill. A railway flavoured building site more or less all the way from Paddington. I puzzled about how quickly the line surfaced after Paddington, given that it seemed quite deep at Bond Street. Maybe there was an intervening hill which I did not know about.

Found my way to the park which might have the Wellingtonia and a fine park it was too. All mixed up with Pitzhanger Manor and Soane the architect with a museum in Lincoln's Inn Fields, for which see reference 7. Amongst others, lots of young families enjoying themselves in the fine weather.

Found the Wellingtonia originally spotted on Street View and noticed at reference 4. And more or less next to it there was a handsome monkey puzzle tree, sporting very large fruits or cones, which I do not recall seeing the like of before.

They looked a good deal bigger than pineapples. Reference 8 tells me that these are the female cones - also that individual leaves on such a tree might last more than 20 years. And I read at reference 9 that you can know this without sitting around watching for 20 years - and all much easier to do than one might at first suppose.

On the way out I came across a handsome extension to an older building, something to do, I think, with Ealing College, called Soane's Garden Room.

Shut, so I am unable to score the piano lurking within, no maker name being visible. I could, I suppose ring them up, but it might take a while to get through to someone who either knew the name of the maker or could be bothered to go and look.

I wanted a snack at this point, rather than a full-on meal, so I declined the various restaurants on offer in favour of the Drapers' Arms. A place got up a bit like a Wetherspoon's, but careful inspection of its website at reference 10 reveals it to be a member of the Mitchell & Butler family. For some marketing reason or other Mitchell & Butler chose to hide their lights under a bushel.

Fresh white flowers on every table, subsequently identified by BH as alstroemeria, a flower I have become rather keen on. Most recently noticed at reference 11.

Furthermore, unlike the White Hart at Waterloo, they were up for giving me one of their small white loaves, served with a large amount of butter and oil. But just the ticket despite the weasel words 'sour dough', bulky without being too full of calories.

Out to find what seemed to be a thriving town centre, despite plentiful charity shops and a sprinkling of derelicts. Plus the interesting bit of newish-build snapped above. Back to the station where I was able to score the piano noticed at reference 5 and more or less walk straight onto train. Two on-train beggars. Plus fine view of the underside of Westway, a motorway I knew better when it was little more than pile-caps - that is to say great masses of low-grade concrete used to cap off deep concrete piles. D1/½ as I recall, with A¾ being the strongest mix, used in more challenging situations. The letter bit for the amount of cement, the number bit for the maximum diameter of the aggregate therein. Not designations which seem to be current if Bing's response is anything to go by.

Offered a seat by a young lady just before we got back to Bond Street. Plenty of time to catch the 16:54 from Waterloo. In-train entertainment took the form of a very noisy small boy, very keen on railway engines, possibly special needs. Grandmother quite ineffective, but his mother did rather better, calming him down until we got to Stoneleigh, when he came back online. Perhaps he was getting hungry.

In-train announcements as loud and unnecessary as ever.

Enough puff left on arrival at Epsom to bother with the trolley noticed at reference 12. But I think I must have passed on Wetherspoon's.

PS: somewhere along the way I puzzled about whether Google's Gemini had access to offline storage, rather in the way of ICL's George III of the 1970's. That is to say, there was some mechanism for wheeling chunks of stuff on-board on-demand. So if I asked about the number of petals on the nettle flower, it would wheel in a whole lot of stuff about flowers and nettles. Whereas my earlier notion had been that its knowledge was all compiled up and it was not possible or convenient to add stuff in on the fly. Including here knowledge which it might have thought it had gleaned from prompts and comments from users. I should say that I use Gemini in a rather interactive way, which seems to work for me, and I do offer comments.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/06/fugal-affairs.html.

Reference 2: https://www.takacsquartet.com/.

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2021/11/an-evening-outing.html.

Reference 4: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/05/wellingtonia-111.html.

Reference 5: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/05/piano-85.html.

Reference 6: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Coleridge-Taylor.

Reference 7: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walpole_Park.

Reference 8: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Araucaria_araucana.

Reference 9: https://rchn.biologiachile.cl/pdfs/2001/3/Lusk_2001.pdf.

Reference 10: https://www.thedrapersarmsealing.co.uk/#.

Reference 11: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/06/trolley-699.html.