psmv5: 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.