psmv5: The interchange

A few days ago we were bright enough and the weather was bright enough for a visit to Wisley, the first since last August and noticed at reference 1 - although the Wisley Interchange did get a recent outing at reference 2. Bright enough that a flower pot on the patio shattered overnight - although to be fair not a proper plant pot, rather one of those plasticised versions of the terracotta flower pots of old. Plant now popped into a new pot, root ball undisturbed. We shall see how it gets on.

There was a lot going on at the junction, but it was hard to see anything while driving and trying to remember how to get into the right lane, that is to say a lane which was not queuing to get onto the M25. For some reason, the queue coming north up the A3 looked a lot longer than those on our side.

Found our way onto the new slip road to take us to Wisley, a new slip road which looked to have taken out a fair slice of countryside. No doubt some farmer - or perhaps some institutional investor in farm land - had done alright.

I took some snaps of the scene in the car park, in case we forget we were had left the car, easy enough in these sorts of places. Sector 'N' ought to be a good clue. Just got to remember the car park number?

Trolleys for the locomotionally diverse were not made by Wanzl, in the way of most supermarket trolleys.

Marsanz of Spain of reference 11. They look to be a substantial operation, so given that they have got to Wisley, odd that I have not come across them anywhere else. Perhaps won't now that my serious trolley hunting days seem to be over.

I chickened out of one of those grease-ball sausage rolls which are all the thing these days and settled for tea and rock cake. While I was waiting, I puzzled about the very long stretches of fake beam above. In the end, I could find the joins, the stuff did come in sensible lengths after all. But the joins were very neat and I thought that they must have used special sleeves glued inside to keep the joins nicely lined up.

Then there was the question of all the ladies quilted coats down to mid calf, while gents coats, like my duffel coat, barely reach my knees. Despite diligent search in men's departments. I associated to the much longer outdoor coats you see in old photographs, from the days when people dressed to be out , to be walking, in all weathers.

Getting into the gardens, there were plenty of snowdrops and BH explained that she had read that this name - one of a number once in common use - came from the German and that in early modern Germany they were also the name of a popular type of earring. The 'drop' bit of the name. Read all about them at reference 4. Icy herself is snapped above. Presumably her nom de plume.

Some of the flowers themselves.

Something green which was doing well and which I thought would be a good test for Google Image. Which I now find allows image qualifiers on my laptop, a feature which I thought had been confined to telephones. It seems to think that it is an evergreen fern of some sort, possibly Blechnum chilensee, the Chilean hard fern. Which looks about right, but I am not quite comfortable. The good news is that this fern is likely on sale in the Wisley plant shop.

Some camelias in flower to be seen.

I think a hellebore, of which there were quite a few to be seen. Google agrees, the only catch being that the best comparator it offers is in an RHS post on Facebook which I have not used for some years, for reasons of political correctness.

One of the various bamboos we came across, on our way to the big green house. Plus trolley, lower right. Wisley generally was trolley friendly.

Lots of interest, as ever, in the big green house. We started with the orchid display, left as you go in. Showy things and one could see why one might collect them. But would I give them the necessary time if we had a suitable conservatory or greenhouse? Never really been drawn to having such a thing, even back in the days of allotments - where I did not even go as far as a shed. Just a large compost heap, fenced in with pallets - which were not rodent proof. But then, given the allotment site and its proximity to common and green space, one was not going to get rid of them.

A fine specimen of a flower which we got to know in the days when we paid regular visits to the Canary Islands.

A plant I really like for some reason, although the really big ones have been thinned out. One now gets bigger ones, outdoors, at Ventnor Botanic Gardens, although there they are losing out to competition with some short, stout, palm trees.

A bit cold on exit, but we dived into the Glasshouse Kitchen, which seems to suit us well. Not usually crowded. Light meals. I took soup, pasta and a tin of something fizzy from Pellegrino. Probably lots of calories, but it set me up for the rest of the visit. BH went a bit lighter. Musak seemed a bit loud on this occasion, but I dare say the staff like it.

Some winter aconites. I think they will look better when they have spread and look a bit more wild and a bit less planted. They do them rather well at Hampton Court Palace, in the Wilderness.

Then a bit further on, these ones were a bit more like it.

Pushed on to a quick visit to the pinetum to see how the redwoods were getting on.

A good sized Wellingtonia.

A coastal.

The weeping Atlas cedar is starting to be a bit more impressive, slow growing though it is. The heap back left is just a small hay stack, one of several resulting from the autumn grass cut. And we, at first, had thought something more horticultural.

Probably the same cedar as that snapped more than five years ago at reference 5.

Another coastal.

Another Wellingtonia, a juvenile.

The car park was thinning out by 15:00. Back to our car to notice that we have a missing hub cap. Not yet replaced at the time of writing, but we are cranking up to it. Pay through the nose at Ford or go to Halfords?

It looks from the archive as if the last occasion was something over four years ago, at which time we went to Ford and from thence to their Partsplus operation in the shed across the road from the then posh new Ford Centre. See reference 6. Which was also the occasion on which I acquired Bentham & Hooker from the Raynes Park Platform Library - two volumes from which I have had good value. The two blue volumes of the top row of the last snap.

We tweeted a kite as we were coming up to the M25/A3 interchange, flying north. Also two very serious looking white telescopic cranes, at rest. So not the ones featured at reference 2, although I dare say they would turn up if one drilled down.

Rather more daffodils on the exit roundabout at the Esher end than we had come across at Wisley. There will be even more in a week or so's time. A roundabout which includes the Esher Manor Care Home of reference 8, a place which appears to sport a grand piano, although I was unable to stop the video and try to identify it. A place which used to have a name involving sunlight or sunshine: we used to think that 'sunset' would be more appropriate, but perhaps the customers would not like that. Any more than they would like 'ender homes' as the other side of the 'starter homes' coin. As it were.

I associate to the people who used to make kitchen scales and all kinds of other weighing machines. Now, it seems Avery Berkel of reference 9, from where the snap above is taken. Presumably a Soho in the West Midlands, not the one in London - or New York for that matter - where the word is short for south of Houston, this last being a road which runs east-west across Manhattan island.

A presume confirmed by reference 10, where I read that the place has a history.

And so home to the crab salad previously noticed at reference 7.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/08/back-to-library.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/02/surrey-affairs.html.

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/01/fake-172.html.

Reference 4: https://www.icysedgwick.com/snowdrops-folklore/.

Reference 5: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/08/wisley-themed.html.

Reference 6: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2021/08/cheese-time-again.html.

Reference 7: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/02/crabbed.html.

Reference 8: https://www.averyhealthcare.co.uk/care-homes/esher-manor/.

Reference 9: https://www.averyberkel.com/en/.