A cold morning

 A cold start to Saturday just past, with our micro-ponds offering an interesting ice show, some of which is captured by the snap above. Much crisper in real life.

While further down the garden, the No.1 compost heap was dominated by citrus. Plus a fresh pineapple in the foreground and an old pineapple just poking out at the right. I was surprised that there were no obvious signs of decay after what must be several weeks now. Checking turns up reference 1 which says four weeks.

And back outside the extension, a frosty juniper. Again, not as crisp here as it was in real life. 

From there over West Hill into town, being passed by a pink Range Rover with registration plate '912'. Or possibly '9I2', '9IZ' or '91Z'. And carcheck isn't having any of it. Pity I was not quick enough to get a snap of the plate.

Very quiet in the market with just the two stalls, one selling eggs and one selling slices of Brazilian cake. Plus an older man who was clearly collecting trolleys, as he was pushing two from the M&S food hall. We should have swapped collecting stories, but I was too slow to think of that.

From there to Kiln Lane, where I tweeted a common wagtail. I also noticed, I think for the first time, a side entrance to Sainsbury's. Must have been past it lots of times, maybe hundreds.

Now as it happens, I was counting plastic boards, the sort faking wood, on a floor in front of me a little earlier, and finding it quite easy. Getting to 37.5 on three consecutive occasions. Maybe helped by the boards occupying a good angle and one was conscious of the eyes shifting for each board. Certainly helped by getting a rhythm going. Much easier than the cherry counting noticed at reference 3.

This prompted me to try the bricks above, on the full screen version, which I found quite hard, getting various numbers in the low forties, Using the cursor gave a reliable 42, made easier if one went up the wall with a zig-zag motion.

A large sign advertising a small bee hotel. All part of the boundary refurbishment previously noticed.

Not much action that I could see. Then the similar contraption we have had for some years now at the bottom of our garden does not attract much action either. Cobwebs yes, things with wings and legs, no. Not into QR codes, so I can't say what this one is all about.

The large leaved ivy has survived the refurbishment - the large leaves being the subject of an inconclusive inquiry last year.

A sign of things to come? A house in a road mostly of bungalows, but which started life as I what I think is called a chalet bungalow, that is to say with rooms built into the roof from the word go. I wonder if it will soon be open season for people to lift their ordinary bungalows? Which older neighbours might well not be too happy about.

Lots of what I took to be starlings twittering in the tops of these trees. I have seen them there before.

And since it was my first visit to the footbridge for a while, a snap from the top, looking back towards Epsom Station. Street art below. The Hookfield Wellingtonia is just visible, immediately to the right of the telephone mast visible above the white shed roof. A rather better snap of it is to be found at reference 4.

Just past the tip, a new to me bit of signage. Rather put out to find this afternoon that I must have passed it many times over the past few years. 

According to the image capture dates on Street View, which change abruptly as you pass the entrance to the tip, back in 2012 it was the Technical Workshop for a company with an illegible logo but with the telephone number of the defunct Epsom Motor Co Ltd. And then there was something Suzuki occupying the sheds to the immediate right of the workshop. With the workshop itself now being the Epsom branch of the Motest group and the sheds to the right having given way to yet another builders' merchant, Buildbase, just opposite what is now Travis Perkins, but lately the HQ of Roy Richmond's Epsom Coaches. People with whom FIL once took a couple of trips: 'if you can get up the steps into the coach, you're fit to travel'. Now gobbled up by the (state owned) French group RATP. 

The present Motest signage appears to have been in place since at least 2018 - so it has taken me at least six years to notice. Hard for the older brain to keep up.

The registration plate was alive and well on the other end. Is it an offence to have such a vehicle on the road, even with the engine turned off?

Down to what is now the Padel shed, lately the Tchibo shed, where there were suitable noises to be heard. People were playing. But I have yet to have a poke around inside.

And so to Manor Green Road, where what used to be the café next to the butcher, is being fitted out as a nail bar. Seems an odd site for such a thing, but there are plenty of chimney pots (as they used to say in TB), so perhaps that will be enough.

Later in the day out to see what could be seen of the important conjunction of the Moon with Venus, which must have kept the astrologers and their friends busy for a day or two, last noticed at reference 3. Sadly, overcast, and all that could be seen was a pale blotch where the moon was. Monocular no help at all. And not much consolation that the moon, now half full, was visible to the south, over Epsom town centre, around lunch time today.

Later still, a rare draw (on penalty points against me) at Scrabble.

PS 1: Gemini still looking out for the Cranley, but without much progress to report yet. See reference 5.

PS 2: interested to read at reference 6 that Farage might have got into Musk's bad books by refusing to allow the rabid right into his tent. At least the man has some principles: principles which might have cost him a big fat cheque. And having learned recently that Trump is TT, which Farage is famously not, I wondered about Musk - but he does not make the cut at reference 7. Putin yes, Musk no.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/12/pineapple.html.

Reference 2: https://www.carcheck.co.uk/.

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/01/a-quiet-day.html.

Reference 4: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/12/wellingtonia-19.html.

Reference 5: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/01/kensington-business.html.

Reference 6: Elon Musk and the red lines of rightwing politics: Tory calls for new national probe into child rape gangs - that it did not make in government - expose opposition anxieties - Steven Bush, Financial Times - 2025.

Reference 7: https://www.sobrietyhacker.com/fact-sheet/billionaires-who-dont-drink-alcohol/.