Trolleys 976, 977, 978 and 979

A day that started late, with the first half being concerned with bread batch No.756, with the cold start to the oven continuing to work well. Two large, dark loaves.

A circuit which started with a few small clumps of dwarf cyclamen on Fair Green. Presumably from now until next Spring there is little enough grass cutting for them to survive, to put something back into their corms.

Followed, for a change, by a trolley from Waitrose. A trolley which looked to come from Wanzl, but which did not have one of their plates, rather one from Trolley Maintenance Services of Cricklade. A company last noticed more than 200 trolleys ago, in February, on a trolley from B&M, at reference 2. Clearly been a busy year, with trolley 800 being captured in March and trolley 900 in July. A run not interrupted so far by an incursion of my own trolley, which puts a stop to other peoples'.

Followed by a medium large trolley from M&S in the Kokoro Passage.

And another on Station Approach.

Picking up a non-scorer from the entrance to the Ashley Centre on the way over. From the food hall, I headed to East Street in the usual way, more a place for Sainsbury's trolleys, if anything, rather than trolleys from town.

Taking in what I remember as being the sumac outside the telephone exchange, not the staghorn sort. A middle size tree.

A detail.

But first, an image of the bark for Google Images. What, if anything, will he make of it? Tree identification books often include pictures of the bark, pictures which I have rarely found to be helpful.

Google Images turns up lots of bark, from all kinds of trees, with a lot of oak. None of it with the softening of the ridges visible above. But no sumac, and he remains unconvinced when I tell him that it is a sumac. And I see from reference 3, just about a year ago now, that I was a bit wobbly myself.

Next, I give him the leaves, for which he offers lots of similar images from Reddit, one of which talks of the tree of heaven, Ailanthus altissima, which cropped up recently at reference 5, and looks, from reference 4, to be likely here. The missing flowers of reference 3 look right. Talk of a distinctive smell of peanuts at reference 4, which is something I could check. But why has this tree not cropped up before?

Giving Google Images this clue, he is more cooperative, offering the above. I think we are making progress. 

I then try him with the image of the bark again, together with the clue that it is the tree of heaven. He turns up plenty of images of same and tells me, despite appearances, that it is much more likely to be oak. I then try the image of the tree trunk, which he can't do much with, which is fair enough. But I then tell him that is is a tree of heaven, whereupon I get:

The tree in the image is likely a Chinese Pistache, Ash (Fraxinus), or Tree of Heaven (Ailanthus altissima). These species are suggested by the visual analysis of the tree and its foliage in the image, which aligns with the characteristics of these trees, including their leaves. 

Perhaps Google Images, contrary to what I had thought, does maintain some context from one image search to the next. What would he do if I made up a three panel image?

I need to take yet another look. Am I absolutely sure that the suckers around really do come from the roots of the tree?

And having done the tree, I captured another trolley from M&S, unusual for the location. With the hollyhock that I have been noticing finally running out of puff in the background.

On the way back to town, I noticed a bad infestation of Union Jacks on lamp posts, an infestation which continued into the High Street. All rather unpleasant, but I suppose making a great old fuss about flying the Union Jack, which is, after all, our national flag, would seem a bit heavy handed and only make things worse. Let's hope that it is just a social media fuelled, passing fad.

And then in the Ashley Centre, for once in a while, a clear shot of brown wood fakery in the ceiling. I have been seeing quite of lot of this brown wood ceiling cladding recently, for example at Wisley, and I convinced myself that at least some of it (at London Bridge) was real timber. At least it is clear that this is not.

But I might say, that where the ends are much more prominent, that they are very neatly capped with matching brown wood caps. Push in, I suppose, a bit like Lego. You buy them in packs of 50?

PS 1: BH tells me that she came across a trolley man from M&S underneath Hudson House the other day. So, as I suspected, they do send someone out from time to time to take a look around.

PS 2: Gemini a bit waffly on what Google Images would do with a three part image. I shall have to give it a go.

PS 3: a little later. I try with the composite, three panel image above.

Maybe it really is a tree of heaven. And yes, at least when prompted, Google Images can deal with composite images. Also, given his shifting line on the bark, maybe the same tendency to agree with one as Gemini exhibits?

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/09/trolleys-974-and-975.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/02/trolley-771.html.

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/08/sumac-revisited.html.

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

Reference 5: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/09/trolleys-968-969-970-and-971.html.

Group search keys: trolleysk, 20250904.

Trolleys 998, 999 and 1,000

The first trolley of the day, a large M&S trolley was captured coming into town off West Hill.

The second was a medium small, again from M&S, captured outside T K Maxx.

My third, and the long sought after No.1000, was captured underneath Hudson House, another medium small from M&S. Appropriate given how M&S have dominated the run to the finish line.

From March of this year, so not very old at all.

With a news flash concerning the delivery of No.1000 to be found at reference 2.

The fish van was not present in the market, as expected, but I was able to buy some fish as noticed at that same reference 2 and I was able to make progress on the odd pinnate front, kicked off at reference 3. The wannabee tree of heaven outside the old telephone exchange on East Street. I dare say the new one still occupies a corner of the building, which I suppose is now much too large.

Doesn't look very odd in this first snap, with the pairs just keeping on coming until they run out of puff.

But then, this one does. Plus the small terminal leaflet is more strongly serrated than the others. A function of leaflet size?

With the leaflets clearly being alternate rather than opposite in this zoom of another snap.

While at the tip of another leaf, viewed from underneath, the rachis continues as a fragile lead. I think one would need to dissect it, under a microscope, to be able to say whether there was a pair of leaves on the way, or just the one.

Then more odd pinnate. 

So all grist to the mill, but I did not regard this as finished business. It still seems odd for a fast growing rachis pushing out pairs of leaflets suddenly stopping with a single leaflet.

Out again in the afternoon, to notice my first trolley of the new era on Station Approach, near the entrance to the station. A medium small from the M&S food hall. Zoom onto the maker's plate does not quite reveal the date, but a forced guess would be this very September - so more or less brand new - this despite the scratches on the legs.

With a friend hard by, by the letter box. Both left in-situ for some other trolley collector to deal with.

On round Court Recreation Ground, to find serious demolition underway at the town end of the Waterloo Road parade, at the top of the passage. With the fencing around the demolition having been rather sloppily erected and occupying a good part of the passage.

But I was able to resume matters odd-pinnate with the sumac like tree at the start of the recreation ground, noticed at the end of reference 3. The first couple of groups, including the one above, looked odd-pinnate.

Then the next groups were more mixed, both odd-pinnate and even-pinnate. I am now not at all clear that this distinction is a very good one. Perhaps a bit of digging on the botanical front - as opposed to the plant spotting one - is called for.

But none of the delicate, feathery growth of the shoots in East Street that I started the day with. Is that enough to make them different species. The first the tree of heaven, the second some kind of sumac?

Regarding the former, on the snap of the underside a bit above, Google Images now offers the above, along with lots of very similar young shoots labelled tree of heaven, a lot of them from the USA. But maybe we have a consensus building here.

PS 1: there was something of a muddle on the No.1000 front. A couple of days ago, I thought that I had miscounted, but this turns out to have been result of clerical error during transfer of the relevant snaps from telephone to laptop. A slightly more reliable business in the days when I had a Microsoft telephone and it all plugged into OneDrive. Not perfect, with Microsoft dropping the odd ball, but better.

PS 2: with this post being honoured, after a fashion, by the visit of POTUS to the posh housing estate a little to the west of our own, possibly visible from the top of our downs on a clear day. Our king has several beefeaters on hand to guard his life, one of whom is visible top left. But where are the troopers from the Life Guards proper? Or from the First Battalion of one of the regiments of Foot Guards, housed down in Windsor town? Then who is the serious looking chap standing right behind him? And where is the US Secret Service? Does Melania insist on her taster being allowed into the royal kitchens?

I hope it all turns out to have been worth it. But read all about it at reference 4.

PS 3: I wonder today if you still need a private income to manage as an officer in said First Battalion. Mess bills and all that.

PS 4: a stray: on a number of occasions recently I have done something unimportant, without knowing why, without there being any conscious reason, only to realise later that there was a perfectly good reason, but one which had not been in my (conscious) mind at the time. Not the sort of of dodgy reason that Freud believed the id was hiding from the ego (if I had got the jargon right), just a perfectly ordinary reason that might have appeared on one's whiteboard if one had whiteboarded the activity in question.

In any event, an example of how conscious and unconscious processing are sometimes intertwined. I associate to a slightly different example which sometimes crops up in connection with my sequential collection of car registration plates. I catch myself looking at one without knowing why, then suddenly realise that the number on the plate is, or is near to, the one that I am looking for. Presently No.39, on which I have been stuck for some time now. Getting on for two years to be precise: maybe the chap at FLR (the owner of FLR being another chap who is keen on registration plates) was right and I am never going to spot one. See reference 5 for No.38.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/09/trolleys-996-and-997.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/09/more-breaking-news.html.

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/09/trolleys-988-and-989.html.

Reference 4: Donald Trump soaks up the glory of his second UK state visit: But after spending time with the King, the US president may face a tricky final day as he holds talks with Sir Keir Starmer - James Politi, David Sheppard, George Parker, Financial Times - 2025.

Reference 5: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/01/no38.html.

Group search keys: trolleysk, 20250913.

Cross dressed Hamlet

A week or so ago to see a cross dressed Hamlet, held over from the first summer of the plague: tickets bought in June 2019 for August 2020. Don't usually book things that far in advance, but I got sent an advertisement, tickets were on sale and I must have thought it best to book while the going was good. With Cush Jumbo - best known to us for a supporting role in Vera - playing Hamlet. As it turned out, playing Hamlet as a prince, rather than as a princess.

So, train to Waterloo to open proceedings with a picnic on Waterloo Millennium Green, fairly quiet on this occasion. Including some art you could sit on and something called a rain garden, where we actually sat. A pleasant spot it was too.

The green is operated by the Bankside Open Spaces Trust, to be found at reference 3. Where I am told that there is a rain garden and that the idea is to get heavy rain into the ground, diverting it away from storm drains. While at reference 4 you are told a bit more about how this is done.

We thought that, had one some small boys in charge, they could be tasked with finding as many different kinds of beer bottle tops as they could manage. We managed half a dozen in the immediate vicinity of our picnic, so maybe a couple of dozen if you worked at it?

And at some point we scored the fake noticed at reference 2.

And so onto a busy Young Vic, with a fair bit of plague management in place - with the result that just one man of middle years declined to wear a mask in the auditorium, say three quarters full if you included upstairs. A much better result than the Wigmore Hall manage.

In the bar area outside the auditorium a hen party was getting under way, by the looks of it a hen party on the occasion of the wedding of one of the hens. We also had a lone cock, but a correspondent explained to me afterwards that these days it is quite normal and natural for gay friends of a bridal pair to chose whether they wanted to be stags or hens. This cock went as far as sporting the sash, but was otherwise in civvies, certainly not dress up in the way that the girls were.

I liked the set, not much more than three blocks, maybe four feet by three feet by eight feet high. Fairly limited movement but there were lighting effects. The snap above, the gravedigger scene, lifted from the Young Vic website, gives something of the idea. And while I think of it, the closing Fortinbras scene vanished the day we were there. Perhaps running time was a problem - but at least I have learned from the interesting editor's note provided in the programme that Hamlet is the longest play in the canon.

A modern dress production, but not one that particularly irritated on that account. But I don't like large plastic machine guns and I don't like duel scenes with daggers. Sword fighting was a serious business for gentlemen at the time the play was written: playwriters might get stabbed in brawls in taverns, but gentlemen learned to fight properly, with rapiers.

Some inappropriate tittering from the audience, who perhaps did not understand, for example, that dying at prayer got you a free pass to heaven, an important matter for someone with serious stuff on his charge sheet. From where I associate to the Carolingian noble practise of getting baptised very late in life: such an important & cleansing sacrament was not one to be wasted.

I thought the casting, which included a lot of people of colour, was rather mixed.

Adrian Dunbar, known to us from ITV3, possibly from his 1992 appearance in Morse (which we watched many years later), was a plausible king - but he was not a plausible murderous adulterer. Nor did he fit in very well with the rest of the cast.

Taz Skylar was irritating as Marcellus and Rosencrantz. While Guildenstern was cast as a girl, Joanna Borja, who was not much better. Entertaining enough in herself, but not in this role. The various attempts to translate scenes involving young people into the argot and behaviour of young people today did not work for me. Furthermore, I have long thought that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern get a rather rough deal: it wasn't their fault that they were carrying a sealed order for Hamlet's execution. But then, perhaps it was still the practise to shoot the messenger in Elizabethan times.

Norah Holden was good as Ophelia - and her grief scene was terrific.

Joseph Marcell was good as Polonius.

While Cush Jumbo had her moments as Hamlet.

So, all in all, an interesting production. We were glad to have been. Will I be back for more? That is to say another three hour slug.

We settled on Earlsfield for eating. The Half Way House was far too busy with what appeared to be boisterous young men. Perhaps there had been sport on the box. Denied entry at the former public house now called 'Open Page' despite there appearing to be lots of empty tables. Which meant that we wound up across the road at 'Chichetti and Wine' where, as it turned out, we did very well. Even though it does not appear to run to a website, not even a page on Facebook.

Olives and goat's cheese to start. Followed by ravioli for her, followed by gnocci followed by ravioli for him. Served on some of those white enamel plates with blue trim - stuff which seems to have got everywhere in the last few years. Plus some white wine, to be found at reference 5, plus some grappa. Zonin looks, from the website, to be a big operation, all over Italy, but I do not recall coming across them before.

Quite a decent tiramisu, served in a jam jar, perhaps the second time such a thing has happened to us - with the first occasion being noticed at reference 6. It was just as well that BH was game to help as I would have found it a bit much single handed.

The place was quite busy, this being early evening on a Saturday, with quite a mix of people, including some families with young children. One, with very cute young child very near us, so we got talking and learned about the delights of trying to make ends meet in Earlsfield, where a terraced house with a small garden appears to fetch much the same as our rather larger house with a much larger garden in Epsom. So beyond the reach of most young families, who settle for half a house in consequence.

All in all, an excellent meal, very reasonably priced.

PS: we must have been to quite a few Hamlets over the years, although search of the blog does not reveal that many. With the one which sprang to mind first being the two man show at the Oval, noticed at reference 8. And then we own three or four film versions. Perhaps the next stop is the Branagh one - sold as the only full text version - a concept made rather difficult by the editor's note already referred to.

References

Reference 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cush_Jumbo. Born, as it happens, on the very hospital complex where FIL trained after the second world war.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2021/10/fake-131.html.

Reference 3: https://www.bost.org.uk/.

Reference 4: https://www.wwt.org.uk/discover-wetlands/gardening-for-wetlands/how-to-make-a-rain-garden/#.

Reference 5: https://www.zonin.co.uk/.

Reference 6: https://www.zonin.co.uk/wine/lugana-doc-zonin/. 'Immediately after picking the grapes are destemmed and undergo soft pressing. The clear must is left to ferment for ten days at a controlled 18°C in order to exalt its primary aromas and organoleptic qualities. The wine stays in contact with its own yeast for at least three months'.

Reference 7: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2021/05/buckfast-abbey-with-inn.html.

Reference 8: http://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.com/2010/11/replication.html.

Orchids

This being about the two orchids in our downstairs front room, plants which have been there for some years now, taking the occasional holiday away from the morning sun.

Yesterday, it struck me that that leaves were long lived and wide - and that they were getting wider relative to their length - the former being much easier to measure than the latter.

Search of the archive - psmv5 and psmv4 on the keys 'triffid' and 'orchid' - did turn up some pictures, but they were either about the orchid flowers or the aloe, the occasionally flowering plant right in the snap above. I did not come across anything very leafy.

So this morning, I take a more careful look at the plants themselves.

Both plants are in the more or less in the standard plant format. Bunch of fleshy roots below, many of them out in the air, presumably reflecting a very damp native land and parasitic habit - more accurately epiphytic, for which see reference 1. A fat central stem above, supporting a small number of alternate, fleshy leaves. There may not be a regular stem which can be distinguished from the leaves, in the way, for example, of the supposed tree of heaven noticed at reference 2, but it would take dissection to find out about that. Occasional flower stems in the axils of leaves.

The left hand plant, that left above, has six leaves, with the two largest being 11cm by 16cm and 9cm by 21cm. A sense that the newer leaves are bigger than the older leaves. No idea how old the leaves are and I do not remember losing one.

The right hand plant, above, also has six leaves, with the largest being 9cm by 17cm.

The end of the flower stem of the left hand plant is visible top left. The flowers last for quite a long time too - certainly months - but they do eventually drop off. I believe that BH cuts out old flower stems from time to time, leaving a stump of around 3cm to wither away.

Arrangements which presumably reflect absence of dangers to leaves. No need to make elaborate arrangements to cope with the loss of leaves, in the way, for example, of our deciduous trees.

Maybe time to take a look at reference 3: Thomas won't tell me about orchids, but he may tell me something relevant about the growth of leaves and about their life cycle.

PS: two survivors of the chair cull noticed at reference 4, present left and right in the snaps above. Both visible, right more so than left. Not quite the same shaped backs as those at reference 4, so they must have arrived at a different time, from a different source. Mostly Ercol though, a company which still exists at reference 5, and which looks to be still be producing chairs from the same stable as of old. A survivor - unlike, for example, the once grand and imposing ICI. Not a very woke name though, starting with the word 'imperial'. Just as well that it was mostly hidden in the initialised form.

References

Reference 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epiphyte.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/10/exchange-again.html.

Reference 3: Trees: Their natural history - Peter A. Thomas - 2014.

Reference 4: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/10/chair-disposal.html.

Reference 5: https://www.ercol.com/en-gb.

Group search keys: botanicsk, 20251014.

A busy day

A two circuit day, with the first event being what I imagine the floor being poured at the self storage place coming on in East Street, where Majestic used to be. And a long time before them Texas Homecare. A brand I had almost forgotten about when I consulted Bing this morning. See reference 1.

Not really visible in the snap above are the concrete blocks used to hold the posts holding the hoarding. The second site I have noticed in Epsom in the past few months where they found it easier to use concrete blocks to hold the posts, rather than sinking them into the ground, as was normal in the olden days.

The superstructure, coming on fast.

Passing the supposed tree of heaven in East Street, rather than examining the terminal buds, I thought to count the leaflets.

At first I thought it was going well, with there always being 13 pairs followed by a terminal bud or leaf. Odd-pinnate. 

Persisting though, this broke down and things got much more varied, with the one snapped above being mostly twelve pairs. But were they all the same on any one primary stem or sucker? Despite being more or less identical genetically speaking?

Perhaps I need to commission a sucker census project in some primary school.

While a heritage Ferrari, a 1981 Mondial - FCC 81X - was not making much speed at all. Although quite fast enough for me not to be able to snap it. The snap above was taken from reference 3, and my Ferrari was white rather than red.

It must be mild as the fungus last noticed at reference 2 was coming on well at the top of Stones Road. Not quite as shapely, but a lot bigger.

Time for another snap of the Screwfix whitebeam. Starting to visibly thin out now.

Back home to some tree ripened, neighbourly figs. Pretty much the same as the real thing, at least as far as we could tell. The only niggle being that my memory of dessert figs in Turkish restaurants was that they were green. Maybe memory playing tricks again. But then this morning, I think that you have green olives and black olives, so why not green figs and purple figs?

Over the hill in the afternoon to catch a 2015 McLaren Spider, N88 OLS. Not as handsome as the morning's Ferrari, but then, it was not heritage.

This was followed by a scattered procession of trotters coming over the hill from town. Was there some travelling family festivity, or were they just out for a spin? The Holmwood Chase trotting chapter?

And more.

And more.

And more. Is he texting or snapping? At least he is not driving at the same time. Plenty more but that is probably enough for here. All brings a bit of colour to the town.

After the crusher at Waterloo Road, noticed at reference 4, the augur, complete with attendant grout machine. Clearly getting through the surface rubble OK - or someone cleared it away before the off.

Passing down Court Rec I was picked up by two young ladies, perhaps as old as fifteen, one very forwardly dressed. They chatted for a few minutes, then passed on. No idea what was going on at all.

They were also taking an interest in another older gentleman, who turned out to be Italian, who knew all about Alio's grocery, late of Chase Road, killed off, he told me, by the likes of Sainsbury's muscling into the foreign grocery business.

He told me he came from a town between Milan and Turin, the centre of the Italian rice industry, now in danger of being killed off by global warming and the loss of spring melt waters from the glaciers to the west and north. Possibly the Vercelli of reference 5. He also seemed to know a lot more about Italian history than the average English older gentleman would know about English history. But maybe that is what comes of Italy only having been invented in the mid 19th century. And he knew as much about rice as some Irishmen know about potatoes. More to the stuff than you think. See reference 6.

Was he a refugee from the falling need for labour in the paddy fields? Part of some agricultural unemployment problem? Or was he left over from the second war?

He reminisced about the summer heat and the winter cold of his homeland - and the very thick mists. Not fogs he assured me. Not like the last pea-souper that I remember, from outside Wood Green tube station, one evening in the late 1970s. Clean mists, nothing to do with industrial or domestic pollution.

Action continued at the all weather football pitch. Action which had being going on for quite some time and was all much more complicated than one might have thought.

References

Reference 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Homecare. A brand which wound up with 'The Range', a version of B&M, of present interest for their range of shopping trolleys, possibly in-store, unlike some other stores.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/10/wigmore-late.html.

Reference 3: https://momentcar.com/ferrari/1981/ferrari-mondial/.

Reference 4: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/10/crusher.html.

Reference 5: https://festivaldelriso.it/en/home-eng/. 'In the heart of Vercelli’s gentle plain, the Risò – the International Rice Festival – comes to life. It is a celebration of a symbol which has shaped landscapes, communities, and local identity. An event that relates rice as a heritage and a resource for the future'.

Reference 6: https://www.sustainableeurice.eu/european-rice/rice-production-in-italy/.

Group search key: botanicsk.