Wilderness

A week or so ago, back to the wilderness at Hampton Court Palace to see how the spring bulbs we getting on, just starting out at the time of our last visit, noticed at reference 1, rather more than a month ago now.

A bright, clear morning after a slight overnight frost.  Good start continued with marking down trolley No.480, as already noticed at reference 2, for collection later. Unusually, a queue of cars along the last stretch of Hampton Court Way, otherwise the A309. Failed to work out why.

BH charged with doing battle with the car parking side of the ticket machine at Hampton Court Station. A battle she won in reasonably short order. We went on to admire a pair of handsome dogs, one large, one small. Quite possibly Akita dogs from Japan. In very good condition and they looked both expensive to buy and expensive to keep. I shall stick to patting other peoples'.

Having arrived at the Palace, I was irritated by the lack of money to spend on gardening, while there seemed to be plenty of money to make wicker art. Life sized models of knights in armour and that sort of thing. Also by a tendency to be economical with the truth, citing horticultural reasons for changes rather than just coming out with the fact that admissions money has taken a terrible battering over the past couple of years and that, in consequence, some large fraction of the large gardening team have left to pursue other interests. And that, in consequence, some once fancy flower beds have been simplified or put out to grass. And access to what used to be be called the Apprentices' Garden is denied.

That said, the spring flowers in the wilderness were in very fine form. And I came across a Metasequoia. While failing to check up on the large tree behind. Is it a coastal redwood?

A lot more people about than last time, including lots of young families and quite a lot of tourists.

While the flowers were in sufficiently fine form that there was some competition for benches in the sun, it being a bit cool to sit in the shade. All the best spots were taken.

And a strong infestation of mistletoe. I think I read somewhere that the relationship is more symbiotic than parasitic, with there being a two-way interchange of the necessaries of life between the mistletoe and its hosts. Will the host survive without any leaves of its own, in the way of the root stock of a fruit tree onto which the desired fruit has been budded or grafted?

Next lot of daffodils coming on in the foreground.

Picnic'd in our regular spot on a bench up against the north wall, more or less in the sun, shining down through the avenue. A spot we usually have more or less to ourselves.

The Wellingtonia still present in the inaccessible Apprentices' Garden, still unscored as at the time it was first noticed, the rule was that one had to be able to touch a tree in order to score it. 

Strolled back down the canal, the reeds and such in which had had their winter cut. Plus various chunks of mistletoe brought down by the recent gales. From which we learned that some at least of all the buds we noticed at reference 3 can turn into small yellow flowers, not that ours did.

Oddly, the Microsoft Photos application refused to rotate this snap to its present position, citing problems with trying to store the result. I had to resort to rotation within Powerpoint, which one suspects of throwing lots of pixels away, although it looks well enough in drafting mode.

Some large carp to be seen in the water and one large casualty.

A look at the privy garden, looking very well in the midday sun. A look at the sunken gardens. Through the Orangery, taking a passing look at Mantegna's triumphs, and so back to the outside world.

Taking in a forgotten corner of the grace and favour world on our way. Still quite cold in these passages, never lit by the sun. All very old speak; reminds me of Watford Orphanage in the days that the Department of Employment had it, or of the basement of the Treasury building before it was modernised. I don't recall going there after, and it may be that modernisation did not reach that far down. Maybe it is still very old speak. Complete with all its massive electrical equipment, all green enamel, glass fronted dials and levers.

The very desirable development site between the railway station and the bridge has been cleared, but work looks to have stopped again. Snapped here through a hole in the hoarding, with the station behind and to the left. One supposes that the council, their planners and the developers can't agree about the division of spoils. Contrariwise, the signs on the outside of the hoardings are for Hobart of reference 4, who appear to be into paving and car parks rather than buildings. It would be rather good if the site were to revert to being a public open space with lots of benches. Maybe even flower beds.

Closing event of the visit being a middle aged cyclist who had not thought to remove the thorn or whatever from his tyre before replacing the tube and reinflating. A mistake I used to make from time to time, before the invention of reinforced treads made punctures more or less a thing of the past. At least for me. Very irritating when it does happen. And this chap was indeed rather cross with himself!

The long queue of traffic heading north across the bridge was still there. Puzzle one. And puzzle two was that all the aeroplanes we had seen appeared to have just taken off. The line of aeroplanes heading down west to land was completely absent. While I thought that they had two runways, one for up and one for down. Hence all the palaver, now stilled by plague, about the third runway.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/01/to-palace.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/02/trolley-480.html.

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/03/debris.html.

Reference 4: http://www.hobartpaving.co.uk/.