Beans with Polesden

Around a week or so ago, back to Polesden Lacey to see how their flowers were getting along. A warm enough day, despite the indifferent forecast. Quite warm enough, as it turned out, for a spot of bench life in the sun.

Lots of traffic heading north towards Malden Rushett - not clear why - but not a problem for us as we were heading south.

Got to Polesden a little before to find it busy with fellow-pensioners. Car park machine as temperamental over credit cards as ever, but, again, not a problem for us as we were members. Which also meant that I could not demonstrate my skill with my paybyphone app - an app which I might say is very little used as very few operators seem to work with them.

Their car park camassias were doing much better than ours.

As were the inside ones, set in another, more formal, bed of green. Having taken tea and a couple of their rather good fruit scones in between the two.

A spot of bench life in the rose garden, also looking well. Notice the National Trust oak leaf logo stamped into the corner of the heritage-style bench. Are they made to order or just personalised to order?

In the flesh, a perfect rose. And, for once, the telephone has done a reasonable job on it.

It also did rather well on what I take now to be a peony bud. Google Images, however, is not having it. It goes for giant scabious (Cephalaria gigantea) and does not take to my peony suggestion at all. And I must say his snaps of same do look rather like that above.

My evidence being the peony and onion bed, from where or in the vicinity of which I think my snap was taken - and where the peony buds might be the right size and shape but look under zoom to have the wrong pattern. Clearly need to go back for another look. And then there is the phyllotaxis of it all.

We actually caught some of their irises in flower, albeit a little sun bleached. Plus I was very much reminded of orchid flowers.

And a very handsome white foxglove. All the more jealous in that we don't seem to be able to get them up on our brown clay at Epsom. No trouble at all on the dark gray clay of Cambridge.

All very pretty, but I believe a bit fake in that it was the sort of fancy cottage rich people liked to put their senior retainers in. Not like a proper village slum at all.

The chickens had gone AWOL but there were some broad beans, albeit with purple flowers. I remember my broad bean flowers being more white. In any event, I used to grow them in large quantities, partly because I liked them, partly because they were very easy and reliable. No wonder that they have been a staple in many parts of the world.

A rose doing well on a south facing wall.

Some of the old chestnuts on the way back to the stable block, said to be hundreds of years old. 

Rather than eat properly at home, possibly visiting Fowler the fish man for the purpose, we decided to take lunch in the cafeteria. Where I took another fruit scone to keep me going while the hot stuff turned up, guided by the contraption in the middle - a contraption which we had come across back in 2018, as noticed at reference 5, presumably the last time we took hot food there. Since which time, the protocol seems to have changed as we didn't seem to get a two part thing, as we did then. It remains odd that we do not come across them elsewhere.

We had taken a chance, opting to eat in the elaborate tent erected in stable yard. A tent which appeared to have cross bracing for the roof but not for the walls - which puzzled me as there were no corner guys that I could see. Maybe, being in the yard, the wind doesn't catch it strongly enough to have it away. As it turned out, eating outside was fine.

My lunch was substantial and satisfactory, only let down by the quality of the bap around the sausages - a common enough failing.

Home to get excited by a large Wellingtonia on the way out of Leatherhead, taking sundry snaps of same. Which turned out to be No.74, captured three years previously. The church snapped on that occasion has now gone and the site looks set for assisted living from Birchgrove.

62 apartments where there used to be one modest United Reform church. The snap above being an artist's impression snapped out of reference 7.

A site which appears to have included tennis courts, now being repurposed for bowls and such like. Whatever were the URC people thinking of?

Once again, lots of traffic going the other way at Malden Rushett. Still not clear wby.

Later on, out again to capture trolley 852, as noticed at reference 8. Where I did not mention that the police helicopter was hovering over and around Court Recreation Ground more or less the whole time I was out. No sign of action on the ground and I never did get to find out what had been going on.

PS: as advertised at reference 1, I have been re-reading Heyer on Waterloo (reference 3), a book first noticed at reference 3. I finished this morning and have been surprised again by how readable it was, even if perhaps half the total was devoted to romance rather than battle. Heyer clearly has the knack of getting you going on both romance and battle, even though you know the outcomes. And the summary at reference 2 stands the test of time pretty well. All that I would add is that the carnage seemed to be up to First World War standards, with men being expected to stand in open ground under cannon fire for hours on end - while being ready to fight in good order when the time came. And mostly, they did.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/05/sunday-trivia.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv2.blogspot.com/2015/01/georgette-heyer.html.

Reference 3: Infamous army - Georgette Heyer - 1937.

Reference 4: https://tabletracker.co.uk/.

Reference 5: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2018/12/osberts-day.html.

Reference 6: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/04/wellingtonia-74.html.

Reference 7: https://www.birchgrove.life/.

Reference 8: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/05/trolley-852.html.