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A deer in the hand
It may be that our Australian friend Ken has stopped talking to us as twice on Friday we ignored his instructions. Coming home from Richmond he tried to make us turn right after the Kew Bridge across the Thames and then onto the congested Northern Circular. Instead, we turned left, then turned right at the Waterman Centre, passed the Brentford Football ground and proceeded through South Ealing to home. After ignoring Ken’s strident commands to do an immediate U turn and go back the way we came, he stopped talking which just goes to show that SatNav’s digital voices have feelings too. We may have heard him muttering that a little local knowledge is a dangerous thing.
Living the dreams of past glory, we had returned to the scene of a previous crime, the former Richmond Hill home of Rolling Stone Mick Jagger. We had gone there at about 3.00am one morning years ago to be photographed on Mick’s doorstep, very much the worse for wear and dressed in silly outfits after a murder mystery party. Trouble was we got the neighbour’s place that night such was our state of befuddlement. We can report nevertheless that the Jagger house is still there, although now just occupied by Jerry Hall after kicking Mick out, and the neighbour’s big black door is still there too.
As would be expected of an area that is home to stars and models, Richmond, Surrey, is a very good address, albeit in that old-fashioned London way. Along the Thames towpath nice restaurants and pubs are intermingled with traditional artisans, a boat builder for instance hand making skiffs, and then there are rowboats for hire and a little art place selling “orgasmic” ice-cream (that’s sorbet). Kaelene would say that the shops are to die for.
Further up the hill is the 2,500 acre Richmond Park, the largest Royal Park in London within which around 650 red and fallow deer roam freely. Apparently royal parks were created by monarchs at various times to satisfy or indulge their predisposition for hunting without having to travel too far. Probably a little like the hunting lodges currently in New Zealand where pampered tourists can shoot hand-reared deer from the comfort of their own five star huts. These days the Richmond Park deer are protected from predatory royals and for a mere 50 pounds a year or 500 pounds for life, ordinary folk can adopt one. This amount will cover winter food supplements, vets bills and “tree cradles”, whatever they may be. If a deer is not to your liking, then also for adoption are stag beetles at 15 pound a year and green woodpeckers at 25 pound.
Our drive through the park did pose one interesting question about the difference between fern and bracken. Each of us suggested the extensive ground cover throughout was one or the other and a quick referral to the ultimate arbiter, Google, provided the answer. Bracken is a large, coarse fern commonly found on moorlands.
Later, the song Jerusalem sprang to mind as Aussie Ken guided us to the new Westfield shopping mall in White City, right across from the BBC film studios. The mall is huge and modern, has all the brand-name shops, and is a blot on the landscape. These malls, if the New Zealand example is anything to go by, are destined to rip the soul from the shopping villages which are such a feature of London, and trade along the suburban high streets will go into decline as shoppers opt for the free parking, air conditioned environment and the food halls of these ghastly places. And of course, given it was wet on Friday, we contributed to this deterioration by abandoning an intended visit to the Portobello Market in Nottinghill opting instead for the shelter of the mall. Such are the contradiction of life.
Back at home in Ealing, the four bird feeders hanging from trees in the backyard have proved to be a hit, each morning we watch little red breasted robins gorge themselves, at times sharing the feeders with big fat pigeons that fly in from the nature reserve. That is if they can get in ahead of the squirrel which hangs upside down from the tree and steals what it can.