Rose festival

To Polesden Lacey a few days ago to inspect their rose festival, a festival has already resulted in a fake post at reference 2. With our last visit seeming to have been in January, as noticed at reference 1. I wonder why it has taken so long to get back?

A bright clear day and we made what for us was an early start, but the queue for Chessington still stretched almost back to the M25. While before we got to Malden Rushett we were able to admire the fine cow parsley on the northern banks. In flower and with some of them standing well over two metres. So a good bit taller than those snapped above at roadside unknown. Not to be confused with the Asian invader, giant hogweed. While BH remembers how, in our time in East Anglia, the cow parsley used to bring on the sneezing.

I remember thinking, as we drove up the long drive, that it would be something of a pull on a bicycle. And we get there to find that it is something of a destination for the older cyclists, who were able to demonstrate the new-to-me style of bicycle rack. Clearly more relaxed types than I, with none of them bothering with locks and chains while they bought their teas and coffees.

We also had an older lady, smartly dressed, who sported what I thought was called a toque on the back of her head. A bit like the fascinators worn at racecourses, but a bit more functional. But checking, I find that a toque is either a variety of woolly hat or what chefs wear. So what this would have been properly called I don't know.

A fine climbing rose in the entrance yard, once the stable yare. That apart, roses were not that thick on the ground, and the peonies and irises were largely over. But we were impressed how well some of the irises looked, even as their flowers ripened into seeds. Lots of onions of various sorts. Some cammasias (see reference 3). But no wild garlic, despite my being fooled by what to me were some lookalikes. And no echiums, which we have seen in the big herbaceous border in the past.

On this day, for some reason, I found the collection of graves for Mrs. Greville's various dogs a bit maudlin. But maybe as a rich, childless widow, having dogs and mourning them in this way is understandable. And given that he money came from brewing in Scotland, maybe Poleseden Lacey should be twinned with Buckfast Abbey, who sell, or at least sold, a good chunk of their output of tonic wine to the winos of Glasgow. For which see reference 4 - from which I have lifted the snap above. Must look out for one.

View of antique urn from a secluded thatched shed at the top of the rather elderly cherry orchard. A fine place, out of the sun, in which to sit & doze. The urn appears to be unknown to both Bing and Google.

A yellow buddleia, not quite the same as the one in our garden.

A lot of young gardeners about. We thought perhaps some kind of National Trust apprentices, but maybe they were from the Camelia Botnar foundation which we found out about later, for which see reference 2.

We passed on a snack in either cafeteria proper (inside the stable yard) or the snack bar (out front), opting for making do at home.

On the way home, we thought about paying Fowler the fish man a visit, the fishmonger of Great Bookham, from whom we once purchased a fine pair of lemon soles. We eventually decided against, while wondering how long he can survive, given the massive decline in such shops since I was a child. Along with all those butchers, bakers and candlestick makers.

With a fishmonger I remember using in Bridge Street in Cambridge, now being something called Poco Kids (disused). At least I think so. A regular street when I was very young, then a tourist street, but including a decent pub - The Pickerel - then decent, apart from a few dodgies from Magdelene across the road (said maudlin), now doing food from Greene King - and a decent second hand bookshop, but now, according to Google, including at least one charity shop and one vacancy. River to the left.

PS: we happened to go past the cow parsley at Malden Rushett again today. Now well past its best, and this lot not particularly tall. But this was where we were stopped at the lights.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/01/festive-polesden.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/06/fake-159.html.

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/05/shoulder.html.

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