Wellingtonia 121

I was pleased yesterday to find that Wisley are not only planting more Wellingtonia - they already have quite a lot of them - they also go in for varieties - a possibility I had not previously thought of.

The rules do not usually allow very young trees, but I thought that this dwarf variety could be an exception. To be found down by the new lake which used to be a vegetable trial ground, a ground from which I once lifted a handful of Brussels sprouts which looked like they were going to go to waste. As noticed at reference 3.

A dwarf variety going by the name of 'Moonie's mini', described at reference 2. Might be the best I am likely to be able to do in our own garden - at least it might be if I could find somewhere to buy one. For once, Bing was not helpful.

PS 1: there is a useful article about Wellingtonia at reference 4 - an article which rather damps down the estimate of hundreds of thousands of these trees in the UK I once came across but cannot now trace. This author goes for a few tens of thousands. And I should perhaps not have been surprised that people in the US were not best pleased when an English collector wanted to name the tree for a UK hero - but the name has stuck, at least in the UK.

PS 2: the Veitches of Exeter were important in the Wellingtonia business. Must ask BH what she knows about them. But in the meantime see reference 6.

PS 3: a little later. Getting there on the hundreds of thousands. My own reference 7 does not help. But Bing turns up reference 8 (BBC), from where I go to reference 9 (Royal Society Publishing) and from there to reference 10, from where the snap above is taken. A quango called Forestry England, presumably the rump of the Forestry Commission of old.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/03/wellingtonia-120.html.

Reference 2: https://redwoodtrees.co.uk/redwood_database/sequoiadendron-giganteum-moonies-mini.

Reference 3: https://psmv2.blogspot.com/2016/01/butterflies-1.html.

Reference 4: https://www.treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/sequoiadendron/sequoiadendron-giganteum/.

Reference 5: https://www.treesandshrubsonline.org/. Looks to be a fine source of information about trees - at least if you know what they are called.

Reference 6: https://www.gardenhistorygirl.co.uk/post/the-veitch-nursery-a-family-dynasty-c-1808-1969.

Reference 7: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/02/jigsaw-20-series-3-report-no3.html. Claim mentioned but not referenced.

Reference 8: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-68518623. 'Giant redwoods: World’s largest trees 'thriving in UK' - Rebecca Morelle, Alison Francis, BBC - 2024'. Turned up by Bing, complete with reference 9.

Reference 9: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.230603. 'Giant sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum) in the UK: carbon storage potential and growth rates - Ross Holland, Guilherme Castro, Cecilia Chavana-Bryant, Ron Levy, Justin Moat, Thomas Robson, Tim Wilkinson, Phil Wilkes, Wanxin Yang and Mathias Disney - 2024'. Which sends me on to reference 10.

Reference 10: https://www.forestryengland.uk/route-for-redwoods.

Tomatoes

Monday was a baking day, batch No.745, with what I might say was a successful outcome, with two good loaves appearing by mid afternoon. This mean a late afternoon circuit, which ended up with this non-scoring trolley from B&M, a long way from home. Not captured as I had my own trolley. Capture which would have meant, in this case, wheeling the thing home and taking it back in the morning.

At some point, I had been reminded that, because of my forays into the M&S food hall, we were running something of a surplus on tomatoes and that I had better do something about it. So what better than to attempt a version of the tomato salad we had taken a few days previously at Cappadocia? As noticed at reference 1. To which end I had picked up some fresh parsley from Waitrose and, fine fresh bread notwithstanding, knocked up the salad snapped above. Tomatoes, parsley and a little rape seed oil. I thought about cucumber and decided against; no substitute for the crunchy pomegranate used by Cappadocia. Not bad at all. The bread was pretty good afterwards too.

The only catch was that this (Friday) morning, checking at reference 1, I find that the salad that I remember from Cappadocia does not look to involve tomatoes at all. Parsley yes, pomegranate yes - but there are no tomatoes to be seen. More a green salad than a red salad.

Memory playing tricks again. Quite short term tricks on this occasion.

The next day, I passed up on another non-scoring trolley, this one from Sainsbury's, just off East Street, when I was heading for the Screwfix underpass.

And then, nearer home, I came across what appeared to be the demolition of what had been a rather odd looking house, not very old, tucked behind the electricity sub-station (if that is the right term) at the bottom of Christchurch Mound, by the stream.

BH tells me that it had once been the home of an old lady who had an even older cat, a cat who got rather senile by the end, up to all manner of stupid stuff. But that was quite a long time ago and we may have moved forward an owner or two. We await developments with interest.

No clear what goes on in the back garden in the snap above. The house being demolished more or less centre, the sub-station below it. Stream running bottom left to top right immediately above it. Tin-lid next door long gone. Presumably this house was a bit of in-fill after most of the estate had already been built.

There does appear to be the shadow of a small chimney in the snap above and a chimney pot in the one above that, so not that recently, as I guess most new houses had stopped having chimneys by the 1970s.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/03/trollfest.html.

A new Trek

Not so warm for my last visit to the Estrela, but the leaf buds were bursting on the hawthorn outside out bedroom window and it was warm enough by early afternoon to sit outside to eat.

There was a train with an abstract, geometric paint job on the front of a carriage of a train at Clapham Junction. Very bright and cheerful. The first time I have seen such a thing during the Southwestern Trains tenure of the franchise.

A Claud Butler bicycle on the deck in the tunnel under the tracks at Vauxhall. Not much like the Claud Butler which I used to own near fifty years ago, when it served to carry me to work, from Bury Lodge (of reference 4) to Titchfield - a run which involved a more serious hill in the middle than I would care to tackle now. 

The route which is marked in light blue and is 18km or 1 hour according to Ordnance Survey, which sounds about right. In my mid-twenties, both directions in rain, frost, snow, light or dark was not a problem - although I remember that keeping the bicycle light batteries topped up was a bit of a pain. I don't remember punctures - although I would have carried the kit in those days - but I do remember the bottom bracket failing. A failing which required an afternoon's attendance by a couple of Army mechanics who happened to be on hand.

Not a brand I come across very often - although I should say that the one noticed at reference 3 is much more like the one I used to ride than that snapped above.

Not made much progress on checking out the nearest Wellingtonia to the Houses of Parliament, but I did think to checkup on the one in Vauxhall Gardens, taking in the handsome young fir free snapped above on the way. About which Google Images is not much help at all, even when I tell it that it is the tree I am interested in - this being necessary despite having given it a cropped version of the snap above. But, to be fair, there are a lot of conifers and identification is tricky. Maybe a visit to Wisley will do the trick?

Wellingtonia all present and correct. Presumably, at some point, the parky (aka professional tree surgeon) trimmed off the lower branches.

While outside the Estrela, I noticed for the first time the overhead traffic light. Apparently it has been there for years and years, but I do not think I ever noticed it before. One does not take in as much as one might like to think. 

Useful Tate Library to the right. Apparently the upper floors are let out to affordables, some more desirable than others.

Adequate bread and adequate bean soup. Sometimes their soups are quite good, but they they are not reliable. However, there was a change on the wine front, for a change. Served at room temperature, so presumably they don't sell enough to keep one in the cold cupboard behind the counter. Rather good for all that. 

And the key 'soalheiro alvarinho' turns it up fast enough at reference 5, in the far north of Portugal. Presumably seen its share of armies over the years, as Portugal and Spain settled down to their present frontier.

The black spot may well be the place in question, but who knows whether the snap lifted from reference 5 is looking north towards Spanish mountains or east towards Portuguse ones? Maybe with a bit more effort I could work it out from the road running up the middle.

Food got much better with the spare ribs, served without their sometimes dodgy gravy, but with plenty of trimmings.

Polished off with one of their fruit salads and a spot of brandy. Just the thing after all the fat and carb snapped above.

In the margins, I found out that the Estrela, strong on fish and sea food, offer a fine crab salad. Something to try one day. Maybe not as plentiful as the crab at reference 7, but maybe with a spot more presentation. Salad and so forth.

There was some discussion of the short takes of the advertisements which are made for televisions and telephones these days, perhaps something to do with declining attention span. There was also the matter of the irritatingly short takes used by the people who make the 'Shetland' series that BH and I are currently watching of an evening. The being that they have two or three strands of story on the go at once, with the takes being in seconds rather than minutes, although I have not bothered to time them. I find it rather tiresome and not helpful for keeping track of what it going on. These stories are quite complicated enough as it is without trying to keep track of it from 10 second dollops. But I might say that, notwithstanding, they make good use of sound track to crank up the atmosphere.

Also that the current series depends on people remembering what had happened at an outdoor party (so far north?) more than twenty years previously. Consulting my own memory, I don't find very much at all that far back, just the odd highlight. I dare say more could be unearthed if suitably prompted, but could one trust it. Would it be reliable testimony?

And while I think of it, the Wikipedean take on the origin of the name. BH has been asking.

While à propos of the proposed cuts to benefits, it was pointed out that it costs more to live if you are disabled. You need all the extra stuff and all the extra help - offset, to some extent I suppose, by a reduced tendency to splash out on outdoor entertainment. No doubt the relevant government department take all this sort of thing into account when setting the rates for personal independence payments (aka PIPs).

No aeroplanes on the flight path down to Heathrow, is being the day of the substation fire. We wondered how proof such things are against hackers from parts east. Something for some IT security part of government to worry about. But there were two trotting rigs on the South Lambeth Road, out taking the air.

The name of the author of the book I have read recently about Orwell's first wife went missing. After a while Anna Wunder popped into mind. From which it was easy enough to get my telephone to tell me the right answer, Anna Funder. A useful backup to the wetware. A book which I shall be reporting on in due course - but suffice it to say for the present that I was a bit shocked by what I read about Orwell - even allowing for this being a fictionalised account. Childhood hero and all.

I have probably noticed the curious placement of the central chimney before and it would still be interesting to plot the descent of the shafts from the inside.

An interesting medley framing the spy house in the middle. One of the chaps at TB did time there as an electrician when it was being fitted out, and he told us of the interesting arrangements that were made to stop bad people getting at or making use of the waste water, perhaps to export classified material.

More prosaically, I wonder whether the stainless steel canopy over the bus station, aka art work, has been made into a listed building yet? Speaking for myself, sometimes I am impressed, sometimes I find it rather ugly: I guess it must all depend on my mood and the lighting.

These colours seemed a bit brighter than usual. Just because they are newer or because some new variety of spray paint has arrived in the shops? One supposes that the stuff is quite dear, so the people doing it can't be on their beam ends - assuming, that is, that they don't just steal the stuff.

On the first train a young lady with some kind of educational music book, rather like a score, which appeared to be made up of lines of music with a treble clef - that is to say not a score for a piano or a string quartet. Plus she had a telephone, or something of that size and shape, which could act as a keyboard. At least it looked like a short keyboard, even if no sound came out on the odd occasion that she appeared to be consulting it. Maybe it transmitted sounds into her ears wirelessly. No idea what she was up to - and rather too much drink taken to go over and ask her. Maybe if I had happened to be sitting next to her.

One novel for BH from RPPL. Knocked off, as I recall, in a day or so. Entirely readable and by no means featherweight. It has been retained for a second helping. I learn today from Wikipedia that the author is more poet and translator than novelist, there is a French connection (this novel being set in provincial France), she now teaches at Goldsmiths and lives in Tunbridge Wells.

A young man (who looked to be of school age, which I suppose just about computes given the time of day) with a rather flashy looking bicycle was occupying the space by the doors on the train to Epsom. It looked brand new, and it was, I think, some kind of Trek mountain bike, and nothing at all like my Trek tourer, much more like the bike at reference 3 than anything at reference 2. This one was something called Level 4 and was complete with various go-faster stripes which he was very proud of. While I had a short chat with the chap standing behind me about real bicycles.

Reference 2 does not admit to Level 4, but it does admit to Gen 4 - which seems to push the prices into thousands rather than hundreds. Who was paying for this one?

I wondered afterwards whether part of the point of reference 2 is to make the whole buying experience terribly complicated, arcane even. To add value by making choice and purchase a big production, a big experience. Perhaps the people who sell mobile phones are at the same game - perhaps targeting the same sort of young men.

Home to capture the trolleys previously noticed at reference 1.

PS: POTUS has been going on about how VAT is, in effect, a tariff on goods imported from the US into places like the UK. One should perhaps remember that most states in the US levy a sales tax, which is not that different, albeit at a rather lower rate, say averaging around 10% as opposed to our 20%.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/03/trolley-803.html.

Reference 2: https://www.trekbikes.com/gb/en_GB/mountain_buyers_guide/.

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/06/trolleys-702-and-703.html.

Reference 4: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/02/marmalade.html.

Reference 5: https://soalheiro.com/wines/soalheiro-alvarinho-classico-2022/.

Reference 6: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melga%C3%A7o,_Portugal.

Reference 7: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/03/fishy-polesden.html.

Television violence

Still reading Freud’s essay at reference 1 which I reported on at reference 2, given Freud’s emphasis on the important of violence in our makeup and in the way we organise ourselves, I thought it would be well to take another opinion on same, starting with the fine book at reference 3, which I first read more than ten years ago.

This led to Willard W Hartup, which led to the affordable reference 4. In which connection the large variation of price of second-hand books on the Internet continues to surprise me. The market is far from perfect – in the sense that economists used to use the word – and it is often worth checking. In this case, a book of some 600 pages, made up of papers given at a conference in Monte Carlo on aggression, organised by NATO in 1973. My copy formerly owned by someone at the MRC Epidemiology Unit at the Royal Edinburgh Hospital. 

And I recall some people from that time starting to get a bit uneasy about the amount of science which was being sponsored by the US Department of Defense. Did you really want to take the Defense Shilling, as it were?

Turning the pages of reference 4 led to the paper about television violence and children’s aggression at reference 5. Robert E Liebert was a professor for many years at SUNY of reference 6 and looks to have done a lot of work on this subject – although, oddly, apart from his various books, for example at Abebooks, he is more or less invisible on the Internet. And invisible at SUNY, despite being there for around thirty years.

Now I have often wondered whether violence on television serves to sublimate or promote violence, so I was interested to read that, on the basis of more than 50 studies in the US alone, involving more than 10,000 children, Liebert concludes that ‘there is a statistically reliable and socially significant relationship between the amount of violence that a child sees on entertainment television and the degree to which he becomes aggressive in his attitude and behaviour’. He discounts the one dissenting study. Violence on children’s television was clearly a topic of considerable interest at that time.

I have also looked at reference 7. This was a report of an experiment done with about 140 children, half boys and half girls. Half were shown a short film with aggressive content, half were shown a non-violent film. Immediately after the showing, the children were tested for aggression in two stages. The second stage involved watching them at play, but the first stage involved giving children buttons to press which it was said could hurt or help an unseen child. An unseen child who did not in fact exist. I don’t suppose such an experiment would be regarded as proper now, but the key result is summarised in the snap above. It seems reasonably clear that watching violence promoted violence, with a bigger effect for boys than for girls.

While in the interview at reference 8, Liebert affirms that violence on television does not sublimate innate violence, does not allow children and others to blow off aggression harmlessly. He also tells us that televised action attracts, as well as just violence.

Fifty years later than the book with which I started, I am aware of several successful and non-violent television programs for children: ‘Sesame Street’, ‘Peppa Pig’ and ‘Big Cook Little Cook’. And not all computer games are violent, thinking here of ‘Super Mario Kart’, a favourite of one of my own children. Perhaps, collectively, we have learned: we have successfully promoted non-violent entertainment for children.

But it would be interesting to find out whether Liebert’s work has stood the test of time. Maybe that will come.

References

Reference 1: Civilization and its discontents – S. Freud – 1930.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/03/interim-report-no1.html. 

Reference 3: The evolution of childhood: Relationships, emotion, mind – Melvin Konner – 2010. 

Reference 4: Determinants and origins of aggressive behavior – edited by Jan de Wit, Willard W Hartup – 1974. 

Reference 5: Television violence and children’s aggression: The weight of the evidence – Robert E Liebert – 1972.

Reference 6: https://www.suny.edu/. 

Reference 7: Some Immediate Effects of Televised Violence on Children's Behavior – Liebert, Barron – 1973.

Reference 8: How children react to graphic violence on TV, real and fake – Sandra J. Weber, Robert M Liebert, New York Times – 1991. A newspaper interview be found at: https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1991/02/10/854891.html?pageNumber=224. 

Two circuits

The morning circuit involved a modest amount of shopping, so I decided on the trolley.

With the first item of interest being a fine display of dandelions on the south facing bank to the western entrance to the West Hill rail bridge. The best display I have seen this year. One can only suppose that they like the sun.

Then heading back over Clay Hill Green, a fine display of celandines. Ours our coming out in the back garden, but they are not getting the sun that these ones do. Pity I failed to eliminate the shadow.

With a bonus being the arrival of the green alkanet. Perhaps a week earlier than last year's first sighting, noticed at reference 1.

I did try for an art shot of some handsome tulips, but once again the telephone could not really cope with the bright floral colours.

On the second circuit, I probably solved the blue-black car problem mentioned at reference 3 by the simple expedient of making a note of the registration number. After which carcheck tells me that what we have a 2025 BMW X3 XDrive20 M Sport MHEV blue auto. I guess the '25' in the registration number was a clue. Bing suggests of the order of £50,000 new - which is rather more than we plan to spend on our next car, assuming that is that we get as far as one. And I failed to find it in the depths of reference 4.

But at least on this occasion, my notion that black had changed to blue was actually correct.

Then having got through town, some of the white alkanet (?) which got me exercised about this time last year. This underneath the advertising hoarding at the top of Hook Road. For an episode from the last series, see reference 2.

Close up of same.

Much action at the old Majestic site.

While opposite, an office building which was given a wash and brush up last year, is now suggesting conversion to residential. Which I would have thought would cost a good deal - all those new services to be put in for a start - but presumably less than starting from scratch.

For the first time for a little while I made it to the Screwfix underpass. Looks rather more bright and cheerful in the snap above than it does in real life!

PS 1: the small and scruffy flyer snapped above was thrust into my hand by a young lady as I was crossing Hook Road, just before I got to the white alkanet (?). The god lot are going to have to do a bit better than this to catch this one.

Furthermore, I failed to make much sense of the address given bottom right.

PS 2: a correspondent has reminded me of the times we have stayed in the Beachcroft hotel, a few yards to the east of the Butlin's at Bognor, the place called 'Holiday Centre' in the snap above. Also that while Bognor itself might be a bit run down, like many another seaside resort, there is also some very fancy housing to both east and west, particularly west. See references 5 and 6 for some of this. Visits which failed to restart after the plague. Maybe this year?

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/04/trolley-667.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/03/white-alkanet.html.

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/03/fishy-polesden.html.

Reference 4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMW_X3.

Reference 5: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/search?q=bognor. I notice here, along with Bognor, what appears to be an unscored Wellingtonia at Petworth.

Reference 6: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/search?q=bognor.

Boundaries

A morning digression.

When one makes images on paper with a pencil one is apt to draw outlines. As a beginner, that is likely all that one does. If one is not a beginner, perhaps something like the snap above (from reference 1).

Or if one is making an image on a wood block with a burin. At least, if you are an engraver who follows in the steps of Eric Gill.

But the real world, on the whole, is not like that. If you view an object, there is a point of view and the boundary of the object as seen from that point of view, is unlikely to have a marked boundary. You just have one mass of colour meeting another mass of colour, perhaps in something approximating to a straight line, in the way of the snap above, lifted from reference 2.

But there are exceptions. A picture on the wall, a rather special sort of object, is likely to be framed by a frame, although there is something of a fashion these days for frame-free presentation.

Another, illustrated by the snap at the top of this post, is where the lighting and the object combine to produce more or less black boundaries on white. Where incident light is trapped in some crack or crevice, which thus appears black.

Yet another, my starting point, is where the light is behind some material which does not have a sharply defined surface, say a cotton sheet rather than a slab of smooth but matt stone. In the latter case, one just gets two masses of colour meeting, without a boundary. But in the former case, you may get a white boundary between two darker masses. Somehow, enough light is getting trapped on the surface so that when viewed tangentially, as it is at a boundary, that boundary appears as a white line.

I have not been able to make my own image of this effect, but Holman Hunt clearly knew all about it. As can be seen, for example, on the top boundaries of some of the sheep and in the glow around the cliff dropping down to the left.

Will I be prompted to take a proper look at reference 4, picked up from somewhere years ago, and not much looked at since?

Is this something that the creationists of Epsom get into, or are they too busy with their big power tools being conceptual? I don't suppose that this is a matter on which reference 5 would be helpful.

[The CMS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider. Credit: Piotr Traczyk/CERN]

PS: not relevant here, but interested to read over breakfast, in yesterday's Observer, about the upcoming collider battle, for which see reference 6. And for some old news see reference 7. Is it just the CERN people wanting to build their empire, or is it really worth taking out the particle physics budget for the next half century? Has the large hadron collider (LHC) done well enough for it to be right to throw a lot of money at more of the same? How on earth will Leader Starmer come to decide how to cast his vote, assuming that is, that he has one?

I guess delegation has to be the answer, with the Leader usually just ticking through whatever recommendation eventually emerges. Hopefully the delegates will not have arrived in Downing Street with too many of their own axes to grind.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/search?q=gill.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/search?q=mondrian.

Reference 3: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/hunt-our-english-coasts-1852-strayed-sheep-n05665.

Reference 4: The elements of drawing - John Ruskin - 1857.

Reference 5: https://www.uca.ac.uk/campuses/epsom/.

Reference 6: The biggest machine in science: inside the fight to build the next giant particle collider: The European physics laboratory CERN is planning to build a mega collider by 2070. Critics say the plan could lead to its ruin - Davide Castelvecchi, Nature - 2025.

Reference 7: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/03/the-next-supercollider.html.

Fishy Polesden

It was a warm, sunny day and we thought about paying a visit to Painshill, a place not visited for coming up for five years, a place to be found at reference 1. But in the end we opted for the familiar Polesden Lacey. Was it Fowler the fish man who tipped the balance?

A fine display of daffodils on the drive up to the house. Lots of flowers at the entrance to the car park - where BH had some problem with the parking machine - a machine which we learned when we were on the way out could be brought to accept cards with a bit of trickery. BH, however, resorted to the other machine.

Started off with tea and fruit scone, declining the cheese scone on offer, as not looking quite like the Epsom home-brew. The fruit scone was pretty fresh and pretty good, despite a rather hard crust.

Inside, lots more spring flowers and lots of benches in sunny spots. We took good advantage of them. The flowers included some unusual yellow crown imperials, a change from the more usual ones, which followed shortly after.

On the way taking in this familiar plant, one which we see a good deal of on the Isle of Wight and which seems to be spreading. Neither of us could bring the name to mind and I decided against cheating and asking the telephone. I thought something beginning with the letter 'a', while BH thought something long, like aspidistra or liriodendron. The name came back to me just before we got to Ashtead on the way home, Echium pininana, or echium for short. Aka giant viper's-bugloss, a sort of borage. Apparently an endangered species in its native Canary Islands, despite being quite common in this country, at least in our part of it.

We did think about taking the Long Walk, but it was still shut for the winter, to give the grass time to recover. A courtesy not extended to the rather tired grass right in front of the house.

The thought today being that while Mrs Greville might have been very rich (from beer from up north), she was not rich enough to level the walk - which I feel sure that an oligarch or tech titan of our time would manage.

Decided that the fine, freshly baked bread of home beckoned, rather than the canteen food offered by the National Trust. Taking in Fowlers on the way, where I spent rather more than expected, starting with the rather cold prawns snapped above. 500g or so of them. Cold enough that the eggs underneath came away in a clean lump. The flesh, while cold, was not frozen. Cold from the ice covering the bottom of the display counter.

A short, local circuit in the afternoon, taking in a shiny new electric van from Sainsbury's. It seems that our Sainsbury's is one of three pilot sites to have taken the plunge into electric delivery vans. There was also the matter of a large, dark blue BMW in Manor Green Road, which I felt sure had been black last time I had seen it. A shiny new model for the new year? But I was not at all sure that my memory was not playing tricks and I have not yet been able to resolve the matter.

Followed up with the second round of sea food. Taken with the odd glass of our fine Racines from Guildford, and with the salad served with our antique crab serving spoons. I drew the line at pressing the accompanying salad bowl into service, it being busy with bananas.

1250g or so of claws. Plus the ball pein hammer and the serving board to go with it. This last not having had an outing for a while.

Lower grade preparation of which had not included taking out the machine marks. Quite difficult to do with hand tools on a board of this size without making things worse.

An opened claw.

Some debris.

All rounded off with some foreign plums.

A bit of an extravagance, but a good feed, and not something that we do very often. And not much like the crab, also good in its own, rather more delicate way, taken a month or so previous. Colbert's crab, as noticed at reference 4.

PS: Google Image Search does not quite manage to find the spoons on the snap above, he failed to make the connection to crab - and I failed to make the connection for him, which did seem to be an option.

But he did come with these shell salad servers from India, to be found at reference 5. So not a bad effort.

PS: finding the bowl is left as an exercise for the reader.

References

Reference 1: https://www.painshill.co.uk/.

Reference 2: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/09/painshill.html.

Reference 3: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2017/07/echium-pininana.html.

Reference 4: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/03/cadogan.html.

Reference 5: https://www.indiamart.com/bkp-enterprises/salad-servers.html.