Trolley 659

Two trolleys of the five available in the Kokoro Passage yesterday, at least one from B&M, but none from Waitrose.

We wondered afterwards why there are lots of M&S trolleys in this passage, but very few from Waitrose. Part of the explanation is probably that Waitrose is not visible from the front of the Ashley Centre and is nearer the multi-storey car park at the back of the Centre. But that does not strike me as good enough. There is a small underground car park next to the passage, and it seems likely that the trolleys come from people who have parked in it, rather than come from the railway station on the other side of Station Approach - although you do get trolleys left more or less outside the station doors too. But why would M&S people use one car park rather than the other? Ditto Waitrose people? Are there socio-economic differences between the two client bases that I have not dreamed of? Are Waitrose just more careful about clearing away their trolleys from the passage, perhaps several times a day?

A little tongue-in-cheek, I tried asking Google's Gemini, who had quite a fair go at saying why this might be, without committing himself. An answer which might well have done quite well as an answer to a GCSE question of a 14 or 15 year old at school.

Then it was the turn of Google Images who did pretty well too on the snap above, prompted by spotting a sprinkling of these pretty mauve flowers - a rather deeper colour than you get in the snap above - in the new daffodil bed at the back of the back garden. A daffodil bed which contained lots of plants but very few flowers this year. No idea why not, but they don't seem to do very well there, despite all the garden compost heaped up behind - compost which seems to suit the honesty very well, now springing into vigorous flower, also mauve. Last noticed at reference 4.

Google Images was pretty sure that they were  herb-Robert (Geranium robertianum), with a rather sketchy description to be found at reference 2. With an unusually feeble illustration, with Wikipedia usually coming up with quite good illustrations for its entries. I was then interested to find that the people who look after the forests in San Juan County in Washington State were not keen on it at all, along with a lot of our other plants and trees which I rather like, like gorse and holly. See reference 5. And a lot of the images turned up by Google seemed to involve one or both of the words 'invasive' or 'weed'.

It seems that the plant has a long history of medicinal use, probably kick started by the medieval Robert who first popularised its use. Some of this is to be found at reference 3.

An identification more or less corroborated by the more botanical Bentham & Hooker.

There was also the matter of its leaves, smaller versions of those of the umbrellas of reference 6. But not a relative: do not be fooled by the similarity of the leaves!

PS: I now know that San Juan County is a group of islands, the San Juan Islands, lying between the Washington State mainland and Vancouver Island. Nothing to do with California, as I had first thought. Presumably the Spaniards got that far north, at least along the coastal belt. I think that we once laid claim to them too but were seen off by the Yankees. And there do appear to be a lot of forests in satellite view.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/03/trolley-658.html.

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

Reference 3: https://permaculturenoosa.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/05-Medicinal-Herbs-Herb-Robert.pdf.

Reference 4: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/02/trolley-639.html.

Reference 5: https://s3.wp.wsu.edu/uploads/sites/2054/2014/04/Noxious-Weeds-in-San-Juan-County-Forests-A-Brief-Guide.pdf.

Reference 6: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/03/trolley-656.html.

Group search key: trolleysk.