pumpkinstrokemarrow

We get there to find that this bank holiday Monday was a partnership day with Chessington World of Adventures and that, under their expert supervision, the palace had hired a mixed herd of luvvies to dress up in Tudor gear and prance about shouting. Some of them on horses. Even the lady doing a hawk display was dressed up. We understand that she can offer shows for as many as 7 periods of hawking - but only one at any one show. Iranian, Caucasian, Arabian (north or south), Angevin and so on. Wan't clear whether the harris hawks she was using instead of the more authentic (but more temperamental or more endangered species) goshawks she should have been using came from A. M. Hawks, headquartered near our very own road (http://www.aandmhawkuk.co.uk/) or not. His vans advertise themselves as rodent control but it is always possible he does shows as a side line. And some of the luvvies made use of radio mikes connected to rather large loudspeakers which meant that you got the benefit of their shouting whether you were interested or not. Which I was not, so not best pleased.

And to make matters worse, BH draws my attention to a front page piece in today's Guardian which explains that the National Trust is going in for talking seats for their palaces (not the same as the palace group of which Hampton Court is part). You sit down for a quiet snooze in the sun to be woken up by some luvvy or other droning on about how much he (or she) loves roses, dogs, heritage hot-dogs or whatever. I had not thought that they would sink so low.

But the rose garden was very good, just as good as on our last visit (see May 15th). Starting to see the point of some of the roses which I was not too keen on first time around. To the point where there were very few roses which did not have something to offer. And some of the bushes has an added piquancy in that they carried roses at all stages of the life cycle, from closed bud to sun-bleached and weathered hulk. A reminder of the transience of most good things. I think that this might well have been something that Elizabethan and Jacobean poets would have been into - as well as people of a certain age more generally. Much scent. Some rather like pinks or carnations; some rather like dahlias. And some which made one wonder how many generations of careful breeding it took to get from the five pink petals of the aboriginal dog rose to the whopping great things we can have now.

Having done the roses, a quick scoot around the herbaceous borders and other flower beds which are coming on nicely. Some very handsome fox gloves dotted about, a flower we used to grow when we lived at Cambridge but have not managed since.

For lunch, over the road for our second visit of the year to Brubeckers, filed under Blubeckers on the last occasion, the 22nd March. Completely failed to work out what we had last time, a detail which I forgot to record. But this time went for pea & potato soup followed by chicken ceasar salad. FIL went for the ribs with red goo. Waitress very concerned & helpful about whether the goo contained gluten or not, which was good and it didn't. All washed down with Strathallan water. Which on further investigation back home turns out to have only a very faint web presence so perhaps it was Strathmore water, which BH thinks fits in because this last comes from the same place as the late Queen Mother was born, a place visited by FIL last week and about which we were talking over lunch. Strathmore water turns out to have a rather more substantial web presence, being one of the products of A. G. Barr PLC (http://www.agbarr.co.uk) with the product site at http://www.strathmore-water.co.uk/ being very like the sort of thing you would expect from someone selling recreational drugs - rather than a bottler of still water. Clearly more money in still water than I had thought.

All of which being as it may, an entirely satisfactory visit. Did what we wanted on the day. Only marred by the odd flavour which had been added to the chicken in the chicken ceasar by overdose of some herb, possibly thyme. BH thought it OK, I did not.