Polesden

A week or so ago we paid our Christmas visit to Polesden Lacey, this year a few days before the event, rather than the few days after of last Christmas, noticed at reference 1.

The journey started with a minor blockage around Christ Church, with near half the road being blocked with parked cars. Presumably something or other going on in the church, with a proportion of the attendance content to park in the road, rather than find somewhere more convenient to other road users and walk.

While the journey ended being slowed down by a lorry delivering a whole lot of the interlocking steel mats used to cover up the field used as an overflow car park. Mats which I thought I had noticed before, but cannot today track down. In any event, plenty of people had turned up to enjoy the festive fun by 11:00.

First stop was the cafeteria for coffee etc, where I took tea and a cheese scone. Neither looking nor tasting anything like those noticed at reference 2, but acceptable nonetheless. Probably better than the sweet scones which were also on offer, and which I find go stale a lot faster than cheese scones. For some reason, the cafeteria made me think of care homes. Maybe this was what the residents lounge would look like at elevenses time.

This may have been something to do with the Christmas trail offered (for a fee) to children. But I did not get as far as reading the information board which might have explained all.

Some mushrooms on the sheltered path on the way to the big house.

All the fun of the fair. Plus extensive renewal of the external walls. Trust talk on information boards of going back to Mrs. Greville's original colours and finish. No expense spared.

And so on into the house, where we found that the principal rooms had been professionally decorated by one Charlotte Lloyd Webber of reference 4, once the daughter-in-law of the famous Lloyd Webber. A fellow visitor, who suspected that I was not an enthusiast, explained that this sort of thing was an excellent way of providing work for resting theatrical scene dressers, regular work being a bit thin on the ground at the moment. I still wondered about the expense: it may not have been my bag, but a lot of work had gone into it.

A repurposed billiard table.

Not for the first time, I wondered about actually looking at the books, some of which might have been interesting, for example those snapped above. The trusty gave me the official line about accumulating grease from sweaty visitor paws, but she was also quite sympathetic. She offered to fetch someone who would be allowed to open a book for me and I think she would have turned a blind eye had I discretely taken a peek, but I did not like to put her to the test. She was only a volunteer after all. But silly for all that. Maybe the Trust should run book lovers' days, when some at least of the books can be looked at. They could even charge extra to keep the riff-raff away: I would turn out. I don't any of them are actually valuable, just old and sometimes impressive, as here.

How long is it since gentlemen of leisure actually read their way through books of this sort? Or books of sermons? I associated to the dozen of or so very fat volumes of Churchill stuff edited, as I recall, by one Martin Gilbert of reference 5, and knocked down to me for a tenner. Hard to see anyone pouring so much time into Churchill now. But I suppose he was as important to the British people who lived through the second world war as Nelson and Wellington were to the British people who lived through the Napoleonic wars. Which reminds me that I still think the less of the French for making such a cult of such a blood-thirsty tyrant. Star general though he may have been, at least most of the time.

Some bulbs starting to show outside.

And plenty of cyclamen. I suppose that they have already flowered. Ours have.

A bright clear day, so aeroplanes going down to Heathrow should have been visible just below the northern horizon, but I failed to spot anything. Maybe next time I will bring the monocular and may do better.

Drew a blank at the nearby fish shop too, it being Monday and it being shut.

Home to the mushrooms already noticed at reference 6.

PS: checking for Churchill, I find that memory is not that defective. See reference 7. Although, to get at which, I was reduced to the geekery of view page source.

References

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

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/11/cheesy.html.

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/12/fake-168.html.

Reference 4: https://clweventdesign.com/.

Reference 5: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Gilbert.

Reference 6: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/12/mushrooms.html.

Reference 7: https://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.com/2010/11/churchill-1.html.