Just one of these two was returned to the M&S food hall from the the Kokoro passage. The other had been seriously damaged, a deliberate act of vandalism requiring considerable force, and needed to be recycled. However, unlike Waitrose, I know of no back door for M&S, so nowhere to return it to. What they do about deliveries I have yet to work out. Drive onto the market square in the middle of the night?
On the way to the trolley, I had been intrigued by some mistletoes in some trees along the path between the hospital and the sports ground, off the Dorking Road. More or less spherical, this despite reading recently that spheres are not very common in the natural world.
A zoomed view, with two sports clearly visible, straddling the telegraph pole. I believe the drill is that the seeds are sticky and adhere to any branch that they might fall onto, naturally or otherwise.
The view from more or less directly underneath the one lower left in the previous snap. A total of six sports altogether.
Back at ground level, a fair bit of what was probably mostly blue alkanet. But, being from the same borage family (Boraginaceae), I thought it would serve for further botanical investigations, as advertised at reference 2.
It can be seen here, for example, how the margins of the leaves run down the side of the petiole, more or less onto the stalk, from where they run down to the next leaf as a slight ridge. So slightly, or at least almost, decurrent. Then what with sessile leaves as well, I associated to the problems of reference 3.
A view from the top. This sprig having been lodged in the chain link for ease of viewing. Dropped in the shopping bag for more careful inspection later.
Carrying on through down and down Hook Road, the house containing a fine example of a weeping Atlas cedar had a slightly moribund look. Let's hope we are not in for a sale followed by destruction of the cedar. A tree which I have had my eye on for well over a decade now, snapping it from time to time. See reference 4 for first notice.
The idea had been to pop the sprig of alkanet in water when I got home, before tucking into the my lunch of cold roast pork rolls. Rolls fresh from Costcutter. However, yesterday evening, I remembered that I had left it in the shopping bag - where it was very wilted and looking rather sorry for itself. Clearly the pork rolls, taken with a touch of Guardian, had won out. But the sprig was in surprisingly good shape this morning: clearly a tough breed. Further news in due course.
PS 1: the trip also produced a new washer for my collection. Thin black rubber (or at least rubberoid), 3.5cm in diameter. Probably more for the seal it would give than for locking the nut, but the rules don't say anything about that.
PS 2: a little later, YouGov invited me to take their dementia test, the panel snapped above being one of two. Not too challenging. Not clear whether they are interested in the incidence of dementia in the population at large or worrying about the effect of dementia on the results of their surveys.
PS 3: later still. Google's Gemini did not know about the goods entrance either. But he did know enough not to try and make one up and he did offer some tips on how I might go about finding out for myself.
References
Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/02/trolley-642.html.
Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/03/white-alkanet.html.
Reference 3: https://psmv2.blogspot.com/2014/09/botanic-problem-3.html.
Reference 4: https://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.com/2011/04/tweets.html.
Group search key: trolleysk.
No comments:
Post a Comment