The day started with some striking caterpillars on a rather unhealthy buddleia cutting on our back patio, with two of them being snapped above. Perhaps two inches long. Google Images seems rather keen on the caterpillar of the mullein moth (Cucullia verbasci) of reference 2, a caterpillar which is to be found on buddleia plants, amongst others. Named for being particularly fond of great mullein (Verbascum thapsus) of reference 4. The culling of a specimen of same was noticed at reference 5. Probably named for the Sicilian Thapsus, rather than the Tunisian one, the one of the big Caesarean battle.
More of same.
The first trolley of the day was a medium small trolley from the M&S food hall, captured by a busy bus stop on the north side of the High Street, so moved across to the clocktower for the purposes of record.
While returning it, I got to chatting with an acquaintance, in the course of which I wanted the name of the headmaster of Glyn School at the time the sprogs were there. A name which seemed to be completely blocked by the name of the headmaster of my secondary school, one Sidney Stubbs. I was not completely convinced about the Sidney, but yesterday I remembered that that was his school nick-name, so is probably right. But before that, perhaps 24 hours after the conversation, the right name, Stuart Turner, had become available.
A name which is confirmed by the rather messy story snapped above, nestling in the advertisements to be found at reference 6. Curious how a memory indexing failure can cause a blockage of this sort, an error which is not corrected just by knowing about it.
Out in the Ashley Centre proper, I found this celebration of the upcoming Derby: a life size horse, quite impressive close up, presumably made out of some kind of plastic. Was it the work of the creationists down the road, to be found at reference 7 - the people responsible for many a trolley captured in East Street in the past. Is creation of this sort part of their curriculum?
However, the instructions were more about sharing than provenance. I puzzle this morning about the bunches of green, which look real enough - but if they are, how long will they last in the warm & dry without any water?
My second trolley was picked up a bit further along. Still in the Ashley Centre, but a decent distance from M&S, so scorable. A medium trolley.
Then, in connection with reference 8, I thought that an elementary statistics text book might be a useful supplement to Wikipedia, my own having been culled many years ago. But at least, this morning, memory served and the book in question was probably a paperback edition of that snapped from the archive above, retrieved on the key 'mood graybill'. I don't remember Boes (of Colorado), so perhaps he was not on board for my copy.
Epsom Library, strong in some areas, did not seem to have anything suitable at all. Waterstones neither. But Smiths had a good selection of school text books, including a small number on or including statistics - which does not seem to be a mainstream subject for schools - which is fair enough, I don't think it was in my day. But these text books were too elementary to be helpful and so I have to rest content with Wikipedia - and Fisher.
The circuit closed with another trolley from M&S, captured from outside B&M. Unfortunately, I am confused this morning by the difference between medium and medium small, but sorting that out will have to wait. All I can say for sure now is that there are small trolleys, but not very many of them.
Home to knock up a fine pork soup, made with 6oz of pearl barley and half a rather small tenderloin. Plus some celery, some onions, a stump of white cabbage and about half a chou pointu. This last being added only a few minutes before the off.
Perhaps 90 minutes start to plate. We did around half of it and very good it was too.
The second circuit of the day produced just the one trolley, another medium small from M&S, captured in the car park underneath Hudson House.
Plus the customary snap of the Screwfix whitebeam.
These look like fruits to come to me, rather than flowers to come. Odd how I managed to miss them: perhaps they are not as conspicuous as I had remembered them to be. Must do better next year.
PS 1: a bit later this Derby Day morning, BH is able to rehearse a version of the Glynn expulsion story mentioned above on the basis of attending a parents' evening at the time (2002). It seems that the whole business went on for quite some time, causing quite a lot of distress along the way. After which, for some reason, I remembered about the search key at reference 9, which I found by poking about in the archive, in an attempt not to provide either Google or Bing with prompts. Google continues to decline to play, while Bing continues to do much better, not only turning up the posts in questions, but also turning up a whole lot of material about how to find blog posts generally.
PS 2: for some reason, the Italian clothes people snapped above have just popped up in my email. They clearly don't know that I am not big into clothes, but maybe why will come to me later this morning.
References
Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/06/trolleys-864-and-865.html.
Reference 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mullein_moth.
Reference 3: https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/wildlife-explorer/invertebrates/moths/mullein.
Reference 4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verbascum_thapsus.
Reference 5: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/04/to-market.html.
Reference 6: https://www.thisislocallondon.co.uk/news/230818.death-threat-pupils-still-without-a-school/.
Reference 7: https://www.uca.ac.uk/campuses/epsom/.
Reference 8: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/06/unlikely-crimes.html.
Reference 9: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/09/his-and-hers.html.
Reference 10: https://lucafaloni.com/en/gb. Luca Faloni.
Group search key: trolleysk, longsearchkeysk, 20250602.
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