Two visits

This being notice of a day of two visits: first, to the recreation round behind The Mall at Brading. The orange spot marks the entrance. What used to be the surgery to the left as you go in. I have had warfarin tests done there in the past, but now I would have to go to Sandown. Fortunately my current thinners do not need the same kind of regular testing. Second, to the theatre at Shanklin. A place which we last visited back in 2016, but which does put on proper shows very often.

The motivation for the visit to the recreation ground was to see if we could find any pyramid orchids, noticed there previously, for example, at references 1 and 2.

Google Images had no trouble identifying this bit of field maple, captured shortly after arrival. A tree which, I believe, figures in the Brading tree walk, but never previously identified.

Possibly home to some equipment belonging to the local water board? In among the south-north line of ornamental trees to the immediate left of the brown trapezium in the snap at the head of this post.

But what about the grid of pale lines on a dark background above the trapezium. The pale green above the equipment in the snap above. Possibly the relic of some obscure grass management technique. Any idea out there? 

At least, in gmaps, on a strong zoom, it is clearly pale lines on a dark background. On a weak zoom my brain gets confused and can sometimes see dark lines on a pale background.

No pyramid orchids to be found on this occasion, but plenty of this delicately coloured field convolvulus, aka Convolvulus arvensis. No grasshoppers to be heard in the plentiful long grass either.

Some of the grass. The same style of grass management - of which I very much approve - as can be seen below and to the left of the orange spot on opening snap from gmaps. Green there, rather than brown.

One of the clump of three X, to the right as you come into the ground. I would have like to have grown one myself and it might have done alright on the allotment - had I not given it up. Too big for our garden.

A close up of some of the flowers. Where Google Images says X = Phormium tenax, aka New Zealand flax or New Zealand hemp. This despite the fibre in flax coming from stems, while the fibre here comes from the leaves, making them quite different from a botanical point of view. See reference 3 for more.

Regarding the purple flowers, BH held out for clover, while Google Images says Prunella vulgaris on the zoom below. Not bothered by the confusing view from vertically above.

Oddly enough, she made the very same mistake just about a year ago on an open garden jaunt, for which see reference 4.

There were half or dozen or so wrought iron, two-seater benches of an unusual pattern, rather light-weight, scattered about the place, all the same and all painted white. Perhaps the work of a local blacksmith?

On the way back to our cottage. Doves presumably not for the pot. Plus a chimney which looks very like the one which used to ventilate the stove which used to heat our extension, apt to be cold in the winter. Cost much the same money as the stove itself, as I recall. Double skinned and possibly filled with asbestos wool by way of insulation. Furthermore, it might have been stainless steel, but the power fumes from the anthracite caused plenty of unsightly corrosion at the margins. Not very eco at all.

Telephone on form with this lily.

And this one.

And round the back of the first one, for avoidance of doubt about petal, sepal and tepal counts.

Earlier in the day, we had noticed that there was a show called 'Footloose' being put on in the theatre at Shanklin, put on by some people called Theatretrain. Having scored at this theatre with the 'Mikado' getting on for ten years previously, we thought we would give it another go and after a light lunch headed off to Shanklin in our hire car.

Parked up satisfactorily and headed up the High Street, to find that 'Keat's Cottage' was long past its days of glory, noticed at reference 5. Although the name can still be picked out from the top of the long-empty menu case in the middle of the snap above.

I did rather well at Vernon's tea rooms, an elaborate cottage with lots of fancy teapots inside and a complicated garden outside. It was also licensed, although I did not take advantage of this, settling for one of their cream teas, complete with some quite decent fresh strawberries. The scone was pretty good too, with a point of importance being that it had been shaped roughly like the island. BH went for something much more modest. But she was allowed to hold a very young baby, something she has not done for a while.

In the margins of which there was some serious ladies' plumbing talk, not minding me at all. I pretended to study one of the teapots.

There was also an elaborate fire place, vertically below the bow window in the snap above, presumably served by one of the battery of chimneys to the left. This being part of the motivation for the digression at reference 7.

At the theatre around the corner, lots of older front of house people, possibly volunteers. It was pretty full and we were fairly near the back - it being that or at the side. I had a head waver in front of me and a sweet rattler behind - which further detracted from a show which did not do much for us. The cast was very young, the show was perhaps too much for them - and the sound system was poor. I imagine that our own school of theatre and dramatic arts at Epsom - Laine's of reference 11 - would have done rather better.

With Footloose being a musical drama set in a biblical part of the US, probably full of the sort of people who later voted for Trump. Banning dancing and rubbing along with Epstein seem to co-exist OK, with, according to reference 10, 88% of Republicans still thinking that Trump is going a good job. While I think that our decent but dull Starmer languishes at well under half that, if not less. I have not checked. The snap above is lifted from reference 8: democracy at work.

We sneaked out at half time, pleased not to have to grapple with public transport. Just jumping into the car had its points.

Signs of drought in Doctor's Lane on arrival at Brading. While the blackberries seemed a long way behind those back at Epsom - which is odd considering that the Island is a warm place and before the invention of polytunnels used to specialise in things like tomatoes, strawberries and cherries.

Home to cheese and onion sandwiches - with the power of the cheese (Lincolnshire Poacher) and the onion combining to knock out the sour taste of the white sour dough from Tesco's. Who would have thought a sensible store like Tesco's would go for a fad like sour dough? A fad for the chattering classes?

On to Scrabble on the elaborate board provided with the cottage. We went back to our own, proper board for the next. But I did wonder why, in both versions, the tiles were slightly too small to fill their squares on the board. If you wanted them tidy you needed to space them out by around half a millimetre: but why?

Whatever the case, it brought me luck as I won by a substantial margin on a low scoring game, with a combined score only just scraping through to 500.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/07/pyramid-orchids.html. 

Reference 2: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/07/epsom-to-firestone-copse-to-brading.html.

Reference 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phormium_tenax.

Reference 4: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/07/self-heal.html.

Reference 5: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2016/07/keats-kitchen.html.

Reference 6: http://www.vernoncottage.co.uk/.

Reference 7: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/07/an-evening-digression.html.

Reference 8: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Footloose.

Reference 9: https://theatretrain.co.uk/.

Reference 10: Donald Trump’s lawsuit against Rupert Murdoch ruptures bond that has shaped the US right: The alliance has been beneficial to both men but has often been fractious -  Anna Nicolaou, Daniel Thomas, Lauren Fedor, Christopher Grimes, Financial Times - 2025.

Reference 11: https://www.laine-theatre-arts.co.uk/.

Reference 12: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betty_Laine. Retired from the fray in 2022 - but the show goes on.