Placey

Otherwise a visit to Polesden Lacey, the first of the year, having last been around Christmas time and noticed at reference 1.

Bright, sunny day and the car park was fairly full by the time that we got there at around 1100. To have our first two rounds with the new ticket machine. We won the second round. The lurking trusty thought that the few thousand pounds it probably cost to put the thing in would probably be recouped soon enough from the parking fees of non-member dog walkers, of whom there were plenty. While the likes of us just fed it our membership number rather than money, plastic or otherwise.

First stop the peony bed which we caught in fine form, with the blue onions full on and the crimson peonies well on the way.

General view of onions

We made full use of the seat at the back, with our modest presence deterring all but the most determined.

Particular view of a peony

The lavender and thyme garden was shut for some reason but the iris garden was open and looking fairly well. I think I like the dark blue irises better than the pale blue ones they had here, and I have lost my taste for their blue and gold ones. Just one proper rose out in the rose garden, which snapped rather better than the peony above. Clearly need to go back for more roses before too long.

Rose

Back along the herbaceous border in front of the front of the walled gardens, on the way but not at full throttle quite yet.

Crocosmia

One of the trusties had clearly had a happy afternoon making this fine heritage frame for the crocosmia. Not that I would have known that, but as luck would have it the label is legible. BH thought to support the flower stems, rather than to keep the pigeons off, but I am not so sure, with the flowers being turned up by Bing not seeming to have stalks long enough to need support of this sort.

Aerial view

Next stop a snooze on the lawn in the noonday sun, just below the house in the snap above. Click to enlarge to get the deck chairs, some of them two seaters - only of sentimental value these days. Followed by a stroll from left to right along the inside of what looks like a castle wall in the snap above but which actually a yew hedge. Protected by an anti-sheep fence on the down side. Possibly called Admiral's Walk, but I have not been able to confirm that.

Back through what turned out to be a yew tunnel, just above the yew hedge in the snap above. Something I do not remember having done before, although we must have visited the place dozens of times over the years.

Yew tunnel

Followed by a glimpse of what we thought was the back of the stage where we shall be seeing an al fresco 'Marry Wives of Windsor' at the end of next month. I am not keen on outdoor culture of this sort, finding the outdoors all to likely to be uncomfortable, wet or otherwise distracting. But we shall see.

Exit stage rear

Fungus one

Presumably not a sign of good health for the host yew. But the mobile clearly had trouble keeping the fungus attached to the host, it looking rather like a flying yellow blob, rather than a fungus.

Fungus two

Another unhealthy tree.

Wound up the proceedings by taking our picnic on the tables provided outside the lesser coffee bar, shut at the time. But the first coach had arrived in the car park: I did not think to go and find out how far they had travelled, but FIL & Co. used to do well over a hundred miles round trip for one of their day trips on a coach from Exminster.

On the tweet front, scored just the one chaffinch. Otherwise, just pigeons, crows and such.

Over the yew hedge

With the point of this last snap, taken over the long yew hedge, being that the field beyond was full of crows, but you could only see them when something disturbed them and they all flew up to come down again a few yards further on. All the grass we saw was quite long and we saw no sheep, let alone cows. Maybe it is all down for hay this year.

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.com/2017/12/festive-fare.html.