Pleasant bright, week day morning, butterfly festival not long started, so although we arrived quite early, say 1030, we were already onto Visitor Car Park 2 and the ex-Ghurkas who provide management were being kept busy.
Made our way direct to the large green house, already throbbing with camera buffs snappng away at the butterflies with impressively sized cameras. A plus of which was that the easiest way to spot an interesting butterfly was to follow the converging lines of sight of a bunch of them.
There were also lots of aloes and a lot of them were in flower. Illustrations to follow.
One small boy was extremely excited by the waterfall, the main one with a two feet wide sheet of water sailing over the five metre drop. He couldn't contain himself and every adult in range was enjoined to come and see this wonder. His parents pleased rather than otherwise.
Out to make our way up to the alphine houses to see how they were doing. One quiet, but the other, the one usually stocked with pots, was very colourful with small daffodils, crocuses and other stuff. A very handsome display.
Outside there were a small number of snowdrops out. Other bulbs, hellebores and camelias on the move.
Back down to the cafeteria to find it in a bit of a state due to impending rebuilding. The handsome display of pampas grass and such like outside dug up for the same reason. Reduced to a meal which was not up to their usual standard and, to add insult to injury, was served on paper plates. Not very good value. But there was some compensation in that it was warm and sunny enough to eat it outside, away from the crowds of children, cute enough in small numbers, but there are limits.
Quick visit to the library where the sell-off continues and I managed a book about South African flowers for a fiver. But we left with a vague sense of nostalgia for the passing of the old order. A sense that perhaps Wisley had become a victim of its own success and was in danger of losing an important part of what had made it one.
On exit we came across a couple of US style school buses. We were told that they had indeed been imported from the US and were part of a small herd which operated out of Chertsey. I had thought that this is a taste of the future: a public service contracted by Runnymede Council to the UK arm of a US bus operation - one which looks to include Greyhound among its brands. But closer inspection suggests that perhaps the parent is actually the UK operation, rather than the other way around, so not quite as bad as it had looked.
No doubt the new president will be keen to promote proper US companies getting a fair crack at this sort of thing as a quid pro quo for our PM getting a twice yearly photo opportunity with him. Anything less and she will have to settle for the waxwork set up around the back, rather than the real thing.
On the roundabout below our (Esher Common) exit from the A3, we found our first daffodils out of the season.
PS: last recorded visit mid November and noticed at reference 3.
Reference 1: https://www.firstgroup.com/ (the UK operation).
Reference 2: http://www.firsttransit.com/ (the US operation).
Reference 3: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/hall-of-fame.html.
Group search key: tfa (for home aloe)
Group search key: tfb (for away aloe)
No comments:
Post a Comment