More park

Following the visit to the productive south and east sides of Battersea Park to check for Wellingtonia, as noticed at reference 1, back there a week or so ago to check on the west and north sides. Would they be as productive?

A misty start to the day, warm by 10:20. The frame house was still stopped. There was a trolley in station approach; maybe later. While the resident indigent was stripped off, on his spot outside the station doors, facing the morning sun.

Reaching Clapham Junction, there were Bullingdons at Grant Road, so took off on one to Battersea Park, parking up at the stand called Surrey Lane, actually the one between Surrey Lane and Petworth Street on the TFL stand map above. And then to stroll up Carriage Drive West, turning right at the top into Carriage Drive North.

Lots of mature (London) plane trees. Some interplanting of shrubs and trees. A curious sweet smell from what I took to be the large heap of rotting grass and leaves in the park yard. A smell from which I subsequently associated to the smell of silage. Some fancy flower beds. A temple. Some fountains. But no Wellingtonias.

Emerged from the park top right in the map above to pick up a second Bullington by the stand on the river, just by the railway. A great deal of noise coming out of a gym which was branded for the celebrity called Grylls. Much fun was being had with the manoeuvring of a large lorry in a confined space, presumably somewhere near Sopwith Way, but I have yet to spot any connection with the aeroplanes of reference 2. Perhaps it is another Sopwith.

Plus a bicycle enabled flight of steps, snapped above. A larger version of the steps I used to know well by the locks at Jesus Green in Cambridge. But not sure that I would care to take a Bullingdon down these steps, now. Tyres too fat and me too old.

From where I emerged into the near complete development at Battersea Power Station. A development at which I have sniped from the train for some years, with the reconstruction of the chimneys having seemed a particularly silly bit of heritage action, but which I found very impressive on the ground. An improved version of Tate Trash, aka Tate Modern. A handsome building, nicely landscaped with plenty of suitable facilities round about. Lots of outsize furniture involving sheets of fake grass matting.

Made my way past the new tube station, across the road to the Duchess Belle, from where down Thessaly Road and along to the house that I now know is called the Griffin Belle, once the Plumbers' Arms or some such. All part of the same family. Lots of plastic flowers, as can be seen from the shots offered at reference 3.

Two cheerful girls serving, I thought perhaps a pair of sisters from Spain, but I did not get around to asking. Various clumps of blue-collar workers out for their lunch, including both ark and clarke. Easy enough to find reference 4, but reference 5 took a bit longer, being detoured around a large house renovation operation in the US.

Suitably refreshed, to the Estrela. By which time it was sunny and hot, so we elected to sit inside. Grilled pork belly was one of the dishes of the day, so I took that. Fairly much like the pork belly we used to eat at home years ago, when there were still butchers about. Followed by another go at their passion fruit pudding, which was as good as last time, that is to say as noticed at reference 1. At least I think it was the same thing. No crustacean this time. But it was the same wine, visible top left in the snap above.

Out to come across this rather flashy camper van in South Lambeth Road. A rather flash couple who appear to make their living out of posting risqué (by our standards) videos on YouTube and places like that. A sample of which is to be found at reference 6. 

Called by at Clapham Junction, to find that the Red Cross shop might have had a sale on, but there was nothing much of interest for me. The place which had, in the past, given us the DVD about the dancing king, aka Louis XIV. And it got worse, as the store across the road had run out of their fine Turkish flat bread, baked, I seem to remember, in a commercial baker somewhere near Liverpool Street. I had to make do with the tropical rolls offered by the other store, underneath the arches, snapped from Street View above.

Home to some fresh mackerel, a gift from a sea fishing neighbour. The first time we have had fresh mackerel for a very long time. With fresh mackerel being streets ahead of the fish you usually get from fishmongers. White and firm. So, as it turned out, a high protein day. With more to follow the next day.

Followed that first evening by a few of Sainsbury's oatcakes. In a packet which their packaging artist - perhaps a creationist from the University of Creation here at Epsom - had seen fit to decorate with what appeared to be ears of wheat. Perhaps the artist concerned was not a proper veggie.

The following morning, I moved onto the tropical rolls, the bread equivalent of long life milk. From what appears to be an artisan baker in the Kettering Road, in Northampton, as far, that is, as one can tell from Street View where it is masked by a large lorry from Maersk. Odd sort of place to be sending supplies to Clapham.

But whatever the case, though rather odd and rather sweet, they served quite well with some reasonable kabanosi from the place without the Turkish flat bread. Without also, I might add, the sausage from Kosovo. For which see, for example, reference 7.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/08/battersea-beef.html.

Reference 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sopwith_Aviation_Company.

Reference 3: https://www.bellepubsandrestaurants.co.uk/griffinbelle.

Reference 4: https://www.tclarke.co.uk/.

Reference 5: https://www.arkme.co.uk/.

Reference 6: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLaP1TW0XPyE5p_-5P3r1FA.

Reference 7: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/04/kosova-suxhuk.html.