Tulip tree 1

The fake tulip tree which was doing very well. Flowers visible, although not brought out by this snap.

Group search key: sba.

FCH(W)

Despite scanning the horizon from beaches, downs and headlands, we have failed to spot an FCH (see reference 1), despite the regular sailings alleged by the local newspaper. So we thought the next best thing would be a gathering of the wheeled variety, one of the best places for which is Osborne House.

Started off at the church at Whippingham, where the coaches were already starting to herd by 1100. The church was rather busy with a rather loud retired gent. lecturing the contents of one of the buses on its marvels so we retreated to the WI stall across the road for tea and a cake. This last being something called a tray bake, a cake in flat format, rather good and, I should imagine, a lot easier to make than the round semi-sponge which it otherwise resembled. Semi because while light and spongy, it was certainly not a true sponge.

Parked up at the house proper, where the herding was well under way - and to be amused by one coach driver who brought his bicycle along so that he could pedal about while his charges did the house. We were reminded of the lady driver outside the Barbican, back in June. See reference 3. But I should add, in fairness, that some of the coaches contained school children rather than pensioners. Well behaved on the whole, despite it not being such a great place for children - or, at least, not the sort of place that I would think to bring young children to - although there was a playground attached to the picnic area.

The house itself was very full, and being operated on a one-way system was difficult to dip into, so we abandoned ship, despite the many things of interest there which we might otherwise have seen, and decided to devote our time to the gardens - starting off with a royal tulip tree which did not seem to be doing very well at all. Perhaps it was close to reaching its natural term.

Onto to the walled garden, now coming on well after its replanting, a few years ago now. And including a good variety of handsome rhubarb plants. Hot houses rather good too, Then down to the beach, past Queen Victoria's very large bathing hut on wheels. Back up to the house, through the fields of uncut grass (in the way of Nonsuch Park at home), all looking very well. As did the blue agapanthus border on the southern fringe of the formal garden, although the plants themselves were not as grand as those at Ventnor.

Into the terrace restaurant, a handsome room which might have been the orangery, but which they had not got quite right: they had clearly not laid out the money needed for a proper décor merchant - despite their (this being English Heritage) penchant for expensive reconstructions of ancient fabrics. See reference 4. But they could do us tea and two very fine slices of Battenberg cake, appropriately a favourite of the very Queen whose house we were visiting. Made on the premises.

On the way out through a courtyard, we came across a very good example of the sort of magnolia which I used to think was called the tulip tree. Several large flowers, all too high up to photograph without a proper camera. And so back to Brading, possibly to lentil soup with salami Milano. We certainly had such a soup on a couple of days last week.

PS: the rhubarb we bought on this day was finished for breakfast yesterday. Very good it had been too, and an excellent way of getting the sugar down. At a third of a cup of castor sugar to the stick, almost as good as cake. See reference 2.

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2016/07/a-windy-day.html.

Reference 2: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2016/07/royal-rhubarb.html.

Reference 3: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/brahms.html.

Reference 4: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/parasites.html.

Group search key: sba.

Church

A rather sumptuous shot taken from the web site of All Saints'. From which we deduce that despite the rather spartan feel of this large church as a whole, the place is quite high. There is also a rather high smell about the music, with lots of sung Eucharist.

I associate to the oddly large number of detective dramas - Morse, Lewis and Midsomer - which feature high Anglican and Catholic churches. One of the standard props of such stories, along with what one hopes are caricatures of life in Oxford colleges.

But this church would not do at all, being far too light and airy. Something much smaller and darker with lots of the chiaroscuro effects that the Catholics are so good at is needed for murder to fit in.

Group search key: rda.

Gutters

One of the gutters running up Newport Street, towards the church from High Street. A sort of junior version of the stone gutters you get in some of the streets in the centre of Cambridge. Which I remember as having been invented, hundreds of years ago, by Mayor Hobson, but google, for once, is silent on this point.

Later: memory slightly defective. Mayor Hobson was involved in the construction of the stone gutters that I remember in Cambridge, but they were not to do with the disposal of waste water, rather with the supply of fresh water. See reference 1. With thanks to a Romsey Town correspondent for the correction.

Reference 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobson%27s_Conduit.

Group search key: rda.

Stairs

The stairs inside the Ryde Co-op. Not a sort of stairs one comes across very often, with the only other example I can think of being the rather larger version in the Morrisons in Sutton.

Group search key: rda.

Ryde

Tuesday past to Ryde, not least to make sure that the island railway was still up and running, which it was. As bumpy and relaxed as ever: long may it last! Let's hope it survives the testing of the Southwest Trains franchise and does not, as a small loss making, appendix, drop out.

Left the train at the end of the line, that is to say Ryde Pierhead and walked back to the esplanade. From which we took a stroll on the beach, looping east and coming back through an old, sometimes smelly, passage into St. Thomas Street. Beach rather spectacular, including what appeared to be some young jellyfish, just about visible at the bottom of the illustration.

To Michelangelo's for lunch. Main course good, but a bit stingy as regards portion. Good job I had taken extra bread - which was warm, brown and ordinary - probably microwaved direct from the freezer. Dessert cheesecake very good, not one of those jello jobs so many places offer. Wine probably a Vipra Bianca Grechetto-Chardonnay from Umbria and reference 3. Quite satisfactory, and a reasonable getting on for three times what it would cost mail order. All in all a good meal, probably as good as one is going to get in Ryde.

Up through town to inspect the large church up on the hill, All Saints'. A grade two listed church, complete with a nest of derelicts in a shelter across the road. Handsome building, very large with some good stained glass, but one cannot but wonder what on earth they do with all the space. Ambience of the place much improved by the presence of somebody practising on the organ, a somebody who explained that having stopped playing for twenty years or more had done nothing for his technique. Sadly, I did not think to ask about the merits of the organ as an instrument for someone with one hand - I doubt whether such a good opportunity is going to come again any time soon. See reference 1.

Onto the bookshop towards the top of the High Street, where I was able to top up the supply of Chekov short stories with the first two volumes of the five volume edition of 1987 from Raduga of Moscow, alleged to be the successor of the Foreign Language Publishing House of Soviet times. Something over 1,000 pages in all, organised chronologically and hopefully there will not be too much overlap with the four small volumes from some rather larger number, bought by my father back in the thirties of the last century. Plus something from 1954 called 'the unknown Chekhov' from the Noonday Press of New York, described as more or less unknown works by the master. I had come across this one before I was shown where I should have been looking, but it seemed churlish to put it back. Not least because books from the US are often better made than those from the UK.

The point of the Chekov being that I had been much taken with his stories some years ago, perhaps twenty years ago now, and BH has been very much taken, very much more recently, going through our entire collection. So a topping up seemed appropriate and the stories may well provide a welcome variation to the diet of Maigret. Stories which seem to be pretty much invisible in blogland, where most of what little I can find about the man is scattered references to the plays. And completely invisible on the shelves of Epsom Library and on those of the various Epsom charity shops. Maybe people don't read foreign short stories from the end of the nineteenth century any more; as much as they can do to remember about the English classics of the same era.

And so to the station at St. John's Road for the train home, where the passengers on the train just arriving from the Pierhead were very puzzled to have to change trains. Perhaps it was the end of the driver's shift. Perhaps the train was being taken out of service - there being something of a yard at this station - for some routine maintenance or other.

PS: there may be some conflation with a visit to the Mother Goose bookshop in St. Helen's. But more on that in due course.

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/pianos.html.

Reference 2: http://www.rydeallsaints.org.uk/.

Reference 3: http://www.cantinebigi.it/it/.

Group search key: rda.

Richard II

Over the past few days we having been watching the version of Richard II produced for the BBC by Neal Street Productions and others in 2012. Starring the stage management department and no less a luminary than David Suchet, now retired from his role as Poirot.

What I mean by starring the stage management department is that somebody has had a lot of fun finding all kinds of interesting places in which to stage the play and sourcing all kinds of interesting clothes in which to put the actors, particularly the king. While somebody else thought it would be a good idea to really camp the  king up, just to make sure we got the idea that the king was a foppish twat being swept aside by the manly Bolingbroke.

With the result that the tournament scene, the landing from Ireland scene and the murder scene (with a stripped down Richard slaughtered with cross bow bolts, au Saint Sebastian) seemed particularly silly.

Occasional flashes of light from Bolingbroke, particularly when he paused to think about whether he was doing the right thing; a man of action inclined to be disturbed by reflection. And a man who really believed in the Lord in Heaven.

Which left me with the thought that it is hard enough to make films which are set in the middle ages, and even harder to make what starts as a play into a film which attempts realism, with real pigs being slaughtered and real knights in armour running about. Lots of distractions from the central drama of the king and his usurper, which was, for me, rather lost in it all. To use a mathematical analogy, there is no continuous map from the drama to the real world. You can only do it at all with lots of tears, mends and patches - with, in this case, a rather unsatisfactory result.

Checking in wikipedia, I was reminded that Shakespeare was a bit unkind about Richard. Being a child king in that rough age was not a good idea and Richard was clearly not strong enough to make good from that bad start, although he did manage more than twenty years on the job, getting on for twice as long as his usurper. Including a successful first campaign bashing the Irish.

Reference 1: http://nealstreetproductions.com/. The people who live near the famous Neal's Yard, once a dusty warehouse full of brown jute sacks of dried pulses and grains for sale to the advanced guard of the organic food movement, and now sophisticated retailer.