Trolley 859

A two circuit day, with the first circuit around Horton Country Park being trolley free. And tadpole free: despite careful inspection, the pond contained no tadpoles - or anything much else of the animal variety - that we could see.

A pond which is not visible in gmaps, with the pond shown inside the wood top left in terrain view being, to my mind, the wrong one.

Turn to OS which does show a pond in what I think is the right place, to the right of the orange spot. But I suppose they do have the advantage of boots on the ground - or at least they did have, back in the 1970s. Think surveyor of reference 2.

So my pond is in the little stand of trees, below the much larger wood top left in the first snap. While their pond just gets a mention in the form of the name of the wood on the second snap, on OS. Maybe it is a seasonal pond?

A bit further round, this fine dog rose, the sort of thing that I used to see plenty of in Hook Road, back in the days of the spin around Jubilee Way. BH thought it was perhaps what Shakespeare called an eglantine, but Gemini, impressively erudite on the matter, says that if we are being picky the eglantine is the Rosa rubiginosa and the leaves smell of apple when wet or squeezed, while the dog rose is Rosa canina. But he allows that popular usage might conflate the two.

The resemblance of this flower to that at reference 1 is misleading, as the rose hip is not compound, rather a fruit containing lots of seeds. Gemini is also quite knowledgeable about making jelly from both hips and haws. We did try haws a few years back, but were not sufficiently impressed to bother again.

With the separation of the petals, and the lobes to the petals, I am going for dog rose rather than eglantine aka sweet briar.

Gemini continues to impress, although at the end of the conversation, just a hint of his old behaviour of agreeing with you rather fulsomely to keep you happy. Rather than informing you, or putting you right.

On the start of my second circuit, rather later in the day, this new-to-me plant, new despite it clearly having been there for a while. I thought it looked rather attractive - and a good space filler.

On the plant as a whole, Google Images put lavender at the top of the list, which I had not thought of, while not being very definite about it. Zooming in to show the leaf structure and the immature flowers, he was much more firm about lavender. I shall try rubbing some leaves between my fingers, maybe that will be the proof of this particular pudding.

Then over the hill to the first and only trolley of the day, a medium small trolley from the M&S food hall outside the entrance to Epsom Station. Can't think what might have happened to the post box behind.

The plant called a hollyhock by Google Images and noticed at reference 3. Flower buds are starting to form and I think he might well have been right. Let's hope it survives to flower.

In the alley behind the Sainsbury's store at Kiln Lane. Sweet briar or dog rose?

Google Images votes fairly strongly for dog rose, but does hedge its bets a bit, with the sweet briar at the top of the reserve list. I vote for dog rose for the lobed petals.

The hedging plants put in by the new man in TB, to replace the arty but untidy planters of the people before, look to be doing well, presently in full flower. Google Images seems clear that they are cherry laurel (Prunus laurocerasus).

The black blog is a dead balloon, snagged on a telephone wire from the flats above Costcutter aka Co-op right.

Later on, I gave the last of the lucky dips from Les Caves de Pyrene a go. A Plaisance Penavayre 'Cruchinet' and rather good. Maybe I will buy some more - although I will probably stick with Les Caves rather than going to reference 5, where it is to be had for €14, presumably plus P&P. Despite the pretty pictures of vines and so forth.

PS 1: in the middle of posting this, we took some pineapple from Marks & Spencer. Very ripe, juicy and sweet, but with an odd, not very pleasant aftertaste. An aftertaste which I have noticed before - and one which you don't get with tinned pineapple. Gemini offers a nice little essay all about it, putting it down to something called bromelain. The funny aftertaste being entirely consistent with pineapples being used as meat tenderizers, as explained at reference 6. I don't think I need to check any further.

PS 2: there is also the question of the Nigerian authorities getting in a lather about the widespread habit of spraying money about, particularly at parties. As reported at reference 7. What puzzles me is why are they bothered? Surely people destroying bank notes is good for a currency, good for the central bank? I associate to a story I once read, perhaps from the same part of the world, about chiefs getting themselves rowed out to the middle of a lake, then ceremoniously throwing large denomination banknotes into the water. Partly to flash their wealth, partly to propitiate some god or spirit or other. With the advantage that the money vanishes, and you don't have greedy, disrespectful people scrabbling about in the dust for it.

I did do a bit of this myself, chopping up a few ten pound notes and putting them in the compost heap, or something of that sort. But a quick search this evening fails to turn anything up. I shall try again.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/05/trolley-858.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/10/trolley-732.html.

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/05/trolleys-837-and-838.html.

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

Reference 5: https://www.plaisancepenavayre.fr/products/vin-blanc.

Reference 6: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bromelain.

Reference 7: Nigeria cracks down on ‘spraying’ money at parties to defend currency: Authorities are jailing people for throwing cash at parties after 70% fall in naira’s value over two years - Aanu Adeoye, Financial Times - 2025.

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