Morden Hall Park – Page 2

The Folio Society

On this hot, humid, and overcast morning I set off by my usual route for lunch with Norman in Harlesden. I was very sticky by the time I reached Colliers Wood.

A heron landed in a tree in Morden Hall Park before taking off, no doubt aiming for the river Wandle. On the trail joggers were taking their exercise. One, a young mother, was, one-handed, pushing her toddler in a three-wheeled buggy; although I stood aside when approached by a couple, it was clear one would have to drop back. I speculated which it would be. I was right. It was the woman. She certainly looked the fitter of the two. I hoped this was the reason. A fisherman was unravelling his line. Deen City Farm (posted 16th. May) was filling up, probably because at last it wasn’t raining.

On the Underground there were constant announcements warning of the congestion expected during the forthcoming Olympic games. A busker (see 14th. June) was playing an accordion at Green Park.

Norman fed me with gammon, all the trimmings, and a fruit flan. We shared a bottle of Cona Sur 2008, a superb full-bodied Chilean pinot noir, purchased in Morrison’s, which I had given him for his birthday. He gave me a couple of CDs which I will unveil on Saturday, my birthday.

His pedestrian street, as many others in The London Borough of Brent’s NW10, now has allocated residential parking occupying exactly half of the not over-wide pavements. In 1966, when I learned to drive I had been taught that it was an offence to mount the kerb in a motor vehicle. The kerbs in these roads have not been dropped, so, at least in Brent, this is apparently now legal. An elderly Somali gentleman was feeding a vast flock of pigeons in Preston Gardens (that’s a tiny street, not a park). Fortunately Flo has grown out of breeding several generations of them on her Mitcham balcony. On the way up to Neasden underground station two cyclists sped past me on the footway, one displaying the crack in his bum.

On the tube I finished reading J. Meade Falkner’s novel Moonfleet. This late nineteenth century work is a marvellous tale well told. It is at least equally good as those of the better known Robert Louis Stevenson. When she knew I was about to read it, my friend Heather commended it. She did not exaggerate. The theme of smuggling features as a decoration to the front cover binding of my Folio Society edition, and the header photograph above displays the spine of the book in its customary slipcase. The description of Elzevir Block and John Trenchard’s, albeit brief, ordeal in the hold of a Dutch prisoner ship bound for transportation and a life of slavery, reminded me of the horrors of Alex Hayley’s ‘Roots’ and Robert Hughes’ ‘The Fatal Shore’. This latter volume is a history of the origins of modern Australia and desperate plight of those transported in the convict ships.

Had I had more confidence in my teenage abilities, and had my parents been able to send me to art school, I may well have taken up book illustration. As it was, I needed, on leaving school, to go straight to work. I also thought I’d never make a Charles Keeping, a John Bratby, or even a Beryl Cook, all of whom have illustrated Folio books. My first annual salary was about £340, the bulk of which I handed over to my mother. I kept enough back, however, to be able, upon seeing an advertisement for The Folio Society, to sublimate my desire to illustrate by joining this book club. Fifty two years later I have a large collection of beautifully illustrated, imaginatively bound hardback books, printed on good paper which doesn’t turn brown, with suitable typeface and font. All these elements are carefully selected to be in keeping with the original writing. Younger, budding, illustrators are encouraged by an annual competition. Michael Manomivibul illustrated ‘Moonfleet’. Maybe he is one of those. I have the Society to thank for many works of which I may otherwise have no knowledge, and for pleasurable editions of numerous others.

I finished reading the abovementioned ‘The Fatal Shore’ on Christmas day 2007, on the plane to Perth, where I spent a couple of days with Holly’s delightful and most hospitable parents and brothers before being driven to a winery in the Margaret River area of South West Australia for the wedding she shared with Sam. I had a far more comfortable journey than had the early transported convicts.

This is a copy of the solution to an Independent cryptic crossword I designed to commemorate the event. Read the highlighted perimeter letters clockwise from top left.

By coincidence, just after his own birthday this March, Norman shared with me an excellent bottle of wine his niece in Queensland had sent him. This had originated in Margaret River.

Self-seeded Poppies

Although it brightened up a bit later, this morning was dull, heavy and overcast; almost as if it hadn’t slept well. I took a turn round Morden Hall Park then decided to go in search of a tortoise around the Hillcross Avenue area. (see yesterday’s post), and reward myself with a Martin Cafe fry-up. I didn’t find Brendan, but the breakfast was as good as ever.

On the way to the park I saw a man pick up a fallen branch from the street and stick it in the shrubbery in the garden of a woman who, although working on her beds, had not seen this happening. I extracted the branch and, as she was looking at me rather strangely, thought I’d better explain what was going on. We then got talking about gardening. She was an elderly woman suffering from asthma and was unable to get out into her small plot as much as she’d like. Her children kept trying to persuade her to get a gardener, but she was determined to do it herself. She was interested to learn about our activities in The Firs. Pointing out her California poppies, of which she was clearly proud, she said they were all self-seeded. When I asked her if I could photograph them she looked at me with an even more puzzled expression but had no objection. The Icelandic poppies in the picture above were growing on a path between two houses in Hillcross Avenue.

The park itself was quite quiet this morning, although the meadows were peppered with junior schoolchildren on a field trip.

This afternoon was spent writing clues for The Independent Crossword.

A liver casserole Jackie made earlier (some months earlier) provided our evening sustenance. Hardy’s of Australia produced the 2011 Shiraz/Cabernet to accompany mine, whilst Jackie drank her customary Hoegaarden Blanche.

A Professional Clean

Last night I began reading ‘Moonfleet’ by J. Meade Falkner.

On this fine June day I took the same walk, with amendments, as yesterday. Following on from one of that day’s themes, I was only a few yards into Crown Lane when a cyclist rushed past me on the pavement, spurning the allocated cycle lane alongside her in the road.

This time I went through Morden Hall Park, turning right at Phipps Bridge tram stop and coming out onto Morden Road. As I passed through the garden centre I saw a couple of notices proclaiming A RIVER RUNS THROUGH THIS SITE PLEASE SUPERVISE YOUR CHILDREN. I gave some thought to little Kate Brown who is remembered in the eponymous post of 23rd. May. Mowing was in progress in the park, creating that sweet smell which had originally alerted me to the presence of the water meadow at Colliers Wood on that same day.

Walking down Mitcham Park, in the Cricket Green preservation area, I stopped and spoke to a couple working in their garden. The woman was fiercely protective of her home town’s reputation, whilst her husband expressed the view that it deserved its current negative one. He referred me to Google where I would find a site describing Mitcham’s chavs. She said his glass was always half empty.

Having been guided by Becky, much more of the final stretch was through Mitcham Common. On passing the lake I encountered a man, having discarded his bicycle, sitting on a wonderfully naturally smoothly moulded tree trunk. I quipped: ‘If that were in a West End shop it would be very expensive.’ ‘I know,’ he replied, ‘that’s why I’m enjoying every minute of it.’ It is perhaps a measure of how bucolic a journey it is possible to make across 5 miles of S.W. London that I was carrying a letter to post and did not pass one pillar box en route.

Our daughter continues to do remarkably well. Despite having just endured a major operation she expresses some embarrassment at the cleaning of the flat we have undertaken. By ‘we’ I mean Jackie with some minor assistance from me, the sous-cleaner. She does not know that her flat’s needs are nothing compared to the one we rented on The Ridgway in Wimbledon Village.

As a child, I had always dreamed of living in Wimbledon Village, so when Jackie and I sought a second time around home together it was natural that I should seek a flat there. The estate agent had insisted on a professional clean of this furnished property. The owner kept delaying occupation, saying she would clean it herself. I once visited and found our landlady standing with a limp rag in her hand indicating black discolouration on the ceiling which she said had been caused by a previous tenant’s joss sticks. On the morning of the moving day she phoned me saying that the professional cleaners had delayed and asking me yet again to defer taking up residence. I refused. That meant we (the same ‘we’ as mentioned above) had to knuckle down and fumigate the place.

The curtains were filthy and hanging unevenly from crooked curtain rails. When Jackie washed these the colours were revealed. The fridge contained mould in abundance, the ice cubes being full of indescribable matter including hair; the cooker was rusty, greasy, and rancid. It took all Jackie’s considerable skills to make it usable. At one point I dropped something down behind the cooker and had to move that to extract whatever it was. I regretted it immediately, because there was a long-standing oily mass underneath, including a number of cigarette filters. The elderly kitchen cabinet doors didn’t fit and were streaked with unpleasant looking matter. The washing machine didn’t work but a new one was on order. When the new one was delivered one of the men moaned all the way about having to cart it up three flights of stairs. He did not get a tip, despite my having once been a furniture remover and knowing how important are these earnings supplements.

The dining table had a glass top laid into a groove glued tight by decaying food. The unmatched chairs had cigarette burns in the seats. All the carpets in the flat bore similar tell-tale round holes. An ashtray contained a couple of stubs, and underneath the sofa there were piles of rubbish, mostly cigarette filters. The sofa covers had suffered at the claws of cats.

A reproduction chest of drawers in the bedroom did not close properly. This was because, although each drawer was numbered, they had not been fitted in the correct order. The antique brass bed had two missing corner post knobs. The owner had assured me that they would be replaced. They weren’t, so Jackie used tennis balls to fill the vacuum. Stains on both sides of the mattress caused very unsavoury speculation. The wardrobes were full of the owner’s own clothes which stank of cats, with whose hairs they were liberally threaded. The doors would not close and the free-standing one threatened to fall apart. Most of the apartment’s windows were insecure, but you’d have to be a very determined rock climber to scale the walls of this large Victorian building. They were also caked in grime and no way was either of us going to sit on the crumbling cills at such a scary height to attempt to scrape that off.

We did manage to get our landlady to remove her clothing (from the wardrobes, not herself), but she left some of her belongings in the loft and in a well on the approach to the flat. This meant that she would want to visit to collect stuff. She would make appointments and not turn up, or arrive unannounced. After a while the lavatory seat split and provision of a replacement was delayed because the owner wanted to inspect the break before authorising the purchase of a new one. She failed three appointments to do that before the agent advised us to buy own own and submit the bill to him for reimbursement. On a cold winter’s day we duly went off to buy an undamaged loo seat. Returning with our purchase who did we find sitting, wrapped in furs and wearing a scarf and boots, surrounded by shopping bags and cigarette ends, smoking a fag on the broad steps up to the front door, but our landlady. Having made and not kept an appointment to collect them from the loft, she had come for her ski boots. I asked her where she was going skiing. She told me that she wasn’t, implying that the question was rather stupid. She hadn’t been able to get into the loft because she hadn’t got a ladder. When I offered to help she said she didn’t want them now. I think you’d say she was somewhat eccentric.

Who cares? I had arrived in Wimbledon Village.

After one of Jackie’s tender lamb casseroles we drove home and disturbed the peace of Mother Fox in the front garden.

‘Leave It!’

Yesterday morning I finished W. Somerset Maugham’s novel ‘Catalina’. Maugham is an excellent story-teller and this literally miraculous tale involving the machinations of a scheming prioress made very good light reading, perhaps especially because the characterisation lacked complexity. There was a cameo appearance by Don Quixote and Sancho Panza.

This morning I walked through Morden Hall Park, along the Wandle Trail, and across Colliers Wood High Street to the Wandle Bank Water Meadow which I explored before retracing my steps. On the outward journey there was a familiar after the storm sense all around. Slugs and snails were in evidence. This had me reflecting that thrushes are a seriously endangered species. I am told that slug pellets have killed off these birds because their source of food is poisoned. In Newark we enjoyed an acre of pellet-free garden. So did the thrushes. We had no slugs or snails, except those whose shells we could hear the thrushes bashing on the stone paths. I saw no snails on the way back, perhaps because the sun had given up its unequal struggle with the clouds lowering overhead, or maybe because thrushes are alive and well in Morden.

Brambles and nettles were burgeoning and often difficult to avoid along the Wandle Trail, especially when slaloming around the puddles on the footpath. Along the Merton Abbey Mills stretch I had plenty of cause to be grateful for the work of Payback (see post of 24th. May). I noticed a few fallen trees, at least two of which now made primitive bridges across the river. Fishermen were stationed at intervals, particularly where the water was fast-flowing, as at Abbey Mills.

The Water Meadow had of course not been mown since the sweet smell which had alerted me to its presence as described in my post of 23rd. May. The Wandle itself runs alongside the small park which contains a serpentine stream, perhaps a tributary, currently choked with fallen cow parsley. As I was passing a group of dog walkers exchanging the usual tales of their pets, whilst the said pets were play-fighting, one of the animals which looked just like a wolf detatched itself from the others and, wet-nosing my hand attempted to frolic with me. ‘Leave it’ said it’s seemingly Korean woman owner. ‘Leave it!’. With what I hoped was a humorous expression, pointing at myself, I said: ‘I like the it in leave it.’ I’m not completely sure she got the joke.

In the late afternoon we collected Becky from hospital and drove her home. She is very well. As you approach the estate on which she lives there are frequent ‘sleeping policemen’, being humps in the road designed to force speed reduction. Jackie seemed to be leading a convoy of extremely patient cars who had to follow her driving very slowly out of consideration for Becky’s comfort. I don’t know about Becky but I certainly appreciated riding over the bumps more gently than usual.

After a takeaway curry from Deshi Spice in Mitcham Road and a bit of tidying up we left Becky and Flo to their own devices. Becky’s repast was tinned tomato soup.

‘A Girl!’

In the ten days I had been away the streams in Morden Hall Park had swollen and the coot family were thriving. The roses were now in full bloom and groups of schoolchildren accompanied, I guessed, by intrepid teaching assistants were on a field trip. Those plumbing the depths of the fast-moving water were able to plunge their sticks in a bit deeper than the boy I had seen a while back assuring his Dad that it was ok to do what he was doing. As I did a turn round the Park the wind was blowing up a gale just as it had done almost 42 years ago the night Rebekah was born. Twigs were flying around like a disintegrating witches broomstick and rose petals were strewn around like confetti.

This could not have been more appropriate, since our daughter had been born in a thunderstorm. Insisting that she wanted another boy Jackie went into labour that August with the backdrop of a truly Gothic sky. Becky is the third of my children, but the first of the daughters whose births I witnessed. I still retain the image of that chubby, sleepy, head, with eyes clenched shut like a dormouse having been disturbed from hibernation, crowned with thick, black, damped down hair. Even more indelibly etched on my memory is her mother’s reaction to being told she had a little girl. When Jackie expresses joy her smile illuminates the room. She gave just such a dazzling smile on that occasion, but it is her voice which will ring in my ears as long as I live. Lingering ever so slightly, lovingly, over the last letter, ‘A girl!’, she cried. She had expressed a wish for another boy because she dared not hope for a girl.

That little girl has always been a determined, caring, and courageous decision maker. Perhaps it was consideration for her Dad that caused her to wait more than thirty years to change the spelling of her name to that which both she and Jackie preferred. I had registered the birth not realising that I had not spelt the name in the way her mother had wanted.

Whilst I was walking in the park Rebekah was on the operating table in St. George’s Hospital undergoing potentially life-enhancing treatment which is not without its risks. The spelling of her name had been a decision which changed her signature. Today’s implementation of a far more courageous one may change and extend her life. That is why my thoughts were of her, not of what I began this post with.

Jackie and I collected our granddaughter from school in Mitcham in a raging tempest and drove her to visit her mother in St. George’s Hospital, Tooting. By the time we arrived at the hospital the rain had ceased for the day, but the powerful wind continued so as to put the World Cup supporters’ flags flying from Mitcham’s bedroom windows seriously at risk.

A drugged and drowsy post-operative Becky largely dozed through our visit but still managed to display flashes of her trademark witty humour, such as fixing her mother with one eye when she disapproved of what had been said, or placing her small cardboard sick repository on her head as a makeshift hat. When a pharmacist with a foreign accent was trying to find out from the rest of us what, if any, medication she was on and whether she had any allergies she opened both eyes, removed her oxygen mask and pronounced something unpronounceable followed by ‘and no’, thus quite lucidly answering both questions. We stayed a couple of hours.

It was with relief and exhaustion that Jackie, Flo, and I ate at ‘The George’ on London Road, Morden. This is a Harvester pub offering perfectly good yet very cheap basic pub food offering a wide menu (largely grills, burgers and pasta) with a vast range of unlimited salad and dressings to which you help yourself, and similarly available bread rolls. Tetleys or Old Speckled Hen were the beers on offer, or you could have a variety of wines, juices, etc. Flo and I had fish and chips which neither of us could finish. My beverage was ‘the hen’. All this is served with friendliness and efficiency.

Nettle Rash

The air this morning was full of agonised screeches. Otherwise, silence. We couldn’t actually see anything, but suspected the magpies or foxes were doing their stuff. The magpies were certainly about later. Parent birds were offering strong resistance.

On my usual route through Morden Hall Park to Colliers Wood, for a change, I took a less trodden path between the back of a factory estate and what seemed to be an almost dry tributory of the Wandle. This turned out to be a rash decision as it was overrun with stinging nettles and I was wearing shorts. The similarly clad German hiker entering this path from the far end, near Deen City Farm, had no interest in my nettle warning.

The lingering stinging in my legs reminded me of a similar situation in 2003. In March 2004 my son Sam completed a solo row of the Atlantic, covering 3,000 miles in 59 days. In doing so, at the age of 23, he became the youngest person ever to have rowed any ocean and won the solo race. The previous summer he had taken delivery of his specially crafted boat at Henley and, with his friend James on board, rowed it to Newark along the linked canals and rivers. I had walked alongside collecting sponsorship. This was an 11 day trek over a distance of 215 miles.

En route Mum telephoned me. As often when someone rings a mobile phone her first question was: ‘where are you?’. Now, Mum didn’t realise what we were doing, so she was somewhat surprised when I replied: ‘well Mum, I’m in the middle of a field of head high thistles and stinging nettles – and I’ve got a dustbin on my back’. I then went on to explain that what I had thought was a simple matter of a stroll along towpaths involved some pretty scary diversions, one of which I was in; and the dustbin was meant to collect donations from all the people we would encounter en route. Unsurprisingly there were no donors in this field. I had got myself into this predicament as it had seemed a better option than a field with a bull in it. Upon encountering the bull I had crawled under a barbed wire fence, chucking the dustbin over first, and come to this. I then had to waste more precious minutes ferreting around for those few coins that had been in the dustbin. As I couldn’t see above the undergrowth to gather how far it stretched there seemed nothing else but to press on. Going back would have meant more of the same. Of course, I hadn’t got a clue where I was when I eventually emerged, so I knocked at the nearest house for directions. The woman who answered the door took one look at me, dashed inside, and bolted the door. When I reflected that, quite apart from wearing nothing but sandals and a pair of shorts, and being covered in bleeding scratches, I was sporting a dustbin, I began to see her point. Just to add insult to injury, t-shirt-and-shorts-clad Louisa and her friends, in a couple of hours outside Nottingham’s waterfront pubs, collected far more money than I had managed on my magnificent effort.

Today’s destination was Waterloo Station where I met my friend Tony with whom I went for coffee at The Archduke. As I entered the tube I tripped over the crossed legs of a seated woman. She was very apologetic. It was not until I had sat down myself that I realised I had stumbled across a rather splendid pair of pins. I leaned across the respectful empty seat between us and said ‘I could think of worse legs to have tripped over’. Fortunately she was rather amused. It’s always a bit risky making such a gesture as it is so easily open to misinterpretation. This was accepted in the spirit intended.

It was so hot and humid that this evening’s meal was a salad accompanied by a rather nice Sancerre.

The Scent Of A Squirrel

Last night I finished reading the National Trust guide to Chartwell which, as they say, is synonymous with Churchill.

Reading of the country’s reaction to his death took me back to 1965 when I was working for Mobil Shipping Company in a building nicknamed The Pill Box, situated outside Waterloo Station near the end of Westminster Bridge. Close to where St. Thomas’ hospital is now. From there it was possible to see the growing queues snaking along The Embankment waiting for some hours to pay their respects at his lying in state.

I still have the colour slides I took of these people in their ’60s coats.

The Pill Box was so named because of its hexagonal shape. Highly modern then, today it no longer exists, having been far too small and therefore insufficient investment for such a profitable site.

Such a warm, cloudless day as this demanded a walk in Morden Hall Park. This it got, not just by me, but also by mothers and toddlers, some of whom were settling themselves on the grass, in anticipation of spending some time there on the first such day we have had since that freak one week spring in March. A group of schoolchildren were having an alfresco lesson. No longer was the park the sole province of hardy dog-walkers and intrepid old men.

The coot family has arrived. This morning there were some chicks squeaking in the nest with their mouths open waiting to be fed, while two were trailing their parents and being given the first of the goodies that were being fished out of the water. These two were not so daft. By far the most plentiful birds at the moment, both in the park and Morden’s gardens, are magpies. At one point I saw six together. If, like me, you can’t get beyond two in the nursery rhyme, Google it to find out what I’m in for. This, of course, is bad news for this year’s avian parents. They can be heard in the gardens attempting to scare off the predators who are certain to reduce this summer’s dawn choruses.

The stream bore masses of yellow irises, and clover had arrived to join the now really profuse buttercups.

Those of you who may be puzzled by Louisa’s response to the squirrels in the loft are entitled to an explanation. Some years ago, when Louisa and I were still living in Lindum House, and I was down in London working for a couple of days, she telephoned me to say there was something wrong with the shower water. It had an horrible smell. I said I would sort it out when I got home. Thinking that Louisa (although that was never her wont) may have been being a bit fussy, I climbed into the shower cubicle to sample it…… No way was I going to shower in that! I instantly recognised the most unsavoury stench as that of a dead rodent. Before Louisa had existed we’d had a dead rat in Soho and that smell, once experienced, is never forgotten.

I ventured into the loft and, sure enough, floating in the albeit securely covered water tank, were the putrid remains of an adventurous squirrel. How it got in there is a mystery. Removal of the corpse was an extremely delicate task. Imagine trying to scoop up a furry jelly which hasn’t properly set. Having drained the tank several times the water was still nauseous. Knowing that Matthew would be able to advise on the problem I telephoned him. He suggested a trip to the local swimming baths – not for a shower, but for a solution. I just had time to get there before they closed, and a very kind young man, at some risk, he assured me, to his job, provided me with a bag of stuff. This was to be applied to the water and subsequently drained off. I had to do this three times before either of us dared contemplate a shower. I hope the young man has risen up the ranks.

Our evening meal today consisted of fish and chips courtesy of Messrs. Young and McCain, Sainsbury’s Basic Mushy Peas and Hayward’s pickled onions washed down with a Shepherd Neame brew from Lidl at £1 a bottle.

Rabbits On The Roof

Listening to the squirrels scampering on our roof this morning reminded me of those in the loft of Lindum House in Newark who sounded as if they were wearing hob-nailed boots. It is amazing how much noise they make. This also gives me an excuse to tell a Soho story.

During the middle years of the 1970s we lived in Horse and Dolphin Yard in Soho. Between Gerrard Street and Shaftsbury Avenue, this was a little-known mews where we had a flat in a Westminster City Council property. Michael, in his early teens decided to keep and breed rabbits. Now, there isn’t much room in Chinatown, so there was nothing for it but a rooftop farm. Michael, always inventive, built a runway across the roofs in the Yard, using ladders to circumvent the different heights of the various roofs he had to pass before reaching his chosen site. This was the flat roof of a music publisher’s offices. The staff there, incredibly, had no problem with what was happening. In those days produce for the myriad of chinese restaurants in Gerrard Street came in wooden boxes which were discarded and left for the binmen. These boxes made good firewood, but Michael had other uses for them. He used them to build rabbit hutches and to make a safety barrier for his pets around the perimeter of the roof.

An elderly woman in an upper floor of a block of flats overlooking the area got so much pleasure from watching the rabbits frolicking in the sunlight that she took to leaving vegetable scraps on our doorstep to supplement their diet.

One of the ladders reaching from our roof to the next one spanned a skylight which was so begrimed as to be invisible. That is why, when one of Michael’s friends decided to jump instead of using the ladder which Michael had carefully placed to avoid such an eventuality, he went clean through it. I was summoned, peered through the window, and saw Simon in the clutches of a gentleman who had no intention of letting him go. I rushed round into Gerrard Street, managed to work out in which building the boy was being held, searched through the warren of rooms until I came to the right one, and persuaded the man to release him.

I kid you not. Every word of this is true.

Later in the morning, getting back in good time for a supervision session at midday, I made a long tour of Morden Hall Park. In one of the areas where the heady scent of cow parsley is all pervading I stopped and chatted to a National Trust volunteer, armed with a grabber and a black bag, ‘litter-picking’. He told me that there is a team of ‘litter-pickers each allocated a different area of the park. We were standing in The North Meadow. This explains why there is a marked difference litter-wise once one crosses the tramline into the local authority managed area of The Wandle Trail. He suggested I needed a little dog for my daily walks. I said I was quite satisfied with the Jack Russells belonging to my son and daughter. Further on I met one of his colleagues.

The aroma in the rose garden was of horse shit.

This evening we had a wonderful steak pie by The Real Pie Shop of Crawley, bought at The Greens Farm Shop in Ockley. As one of the vegetables I made my first ever braised red cabbage. As Delia’s recipes are sometimes rather bland for me I may have been a bit heavy handed with the spices. This might explain why Jackie said it tasted more like apple pie than red cabbage.

The Deen City Farm

This morning having been the one for bin collection, the foxes had created their usual mayhem on the lawn. I do wish our neighbours would double-wrap or rinse their waste food products. Before I could get to the rubbish someone had again cleared it up. Was it our helpful stranger and her toddler assistant? Or perhaps helpful fairies?

I spent some little time revising a couple of clues for next week’s Independent cryptic crossword, and so went out later than usual for my walk. I met Jackie coming to pick up the car for a visit to a client. Again an encounter with her determined the direction of my walk. She was going to the Phipp’s Bridge Estate in Mitcham. I therefore travelled with her there and she dropped me on that side of Morden Hall Park so I could walk from there. I took the path onto the Wandle trail and soon realised that I was close to the Deen City Farm which is situated alongside the trail. I had often noticed the farm on my trips to Colliers Wood. Today I decided to visit it. It is a charitable community project and a godsend to the residents of Mitcham’s estates and beyond.

Passing the magnificent chickens and flamboyant turkeys, the visitor encounters preening waterfowl and sprawling rabbits, all huge specimens. There are sheep, goats, llamas, cattle and horses. Indeed, the farm also has a riding school. The community garden is well stocked with flowers and a number of vegetables.

Those children there today were all pre-school and mostly accompanied by their mothers who had walked the same path from Phipp’s Bridge. There is an ample car park for those who come from further afield.

There are a number of these community projects in our cities, ensuring that children who otherwise would have no experience of country life have the opportunity to gain such pleasure. Some of my own grandchildren, who do eat well from natural produce and do visit the countryside, were once amazed to see me shelling peas. They had never had any but frozen ones. Not that there is anything wrong with Bird’s Eye, which are often fresher than those that have been in the shops or on the market stalls for a while.

Louisa and Errol, near their home in Nottingham, have the White Posts Farm, to which Jessica and I took her and Sam when they were little; and Malachi had his third birthday party in the city farm in Hackney.

I made a beef curry this evening. This went down well, especially accompanied by Cobra beer.

Susan’s Chicken

After another wet, wintry start to the day, by just before mid-day it had brightened up and I set off to the Civic Centre to take Jackie her lunch which she had left in the fridge. This decided the direction in which I would take my walk today and I headed on through Morden for Morden Hall Park. Such apparently insignificant events often determine our paths through life. Although it was now sunny it was very cold and I had to step it out to get warm.

Ragged robin surrounding the entrances and a coot incubating eggs in a nest in the middle of a stream welcomed visitors to this National Trust park. Buttercups and daisies sparkled in the lawns, everything having that post-rain clarity. Roses were in bud. May and horse chestnut trees were blossoming and cow parsley was abundant.

This evening we dined on Susan’s chicken. No, there is no grief-stricken child mourning the loss of her pet. The recipe for this dish is contained in Lizzie Collingham’s book ‘Curry: a biography’. The author has this to say: ‘This recipe was given to me by an Indian lady from Madras who had spent much of her life in Zambia.’ The book was given to me by Louisa several Christmases ago.

It is a tasy dish, a fusion between African and Indian cooking. It is the only recipe I have ever seen which calls for powdered aniseed. For a long time I had to make do without the aniseed, until I tracked it down in the wonderful, comprehensive, Spice Shop in Blenheim Crescent off the famous Portobello Road in W2.

I washed my meal down with some Marques de Montina 2007 reserve rioja while Jackie had her customary Hoegarten Blanche.