Edible flowers!

One evening on the bus home I saw this woman with a huge bouquet. Two oblong buds fell off it and I picked them up getting off at the last stop, brought them home, put in a little vase with water and let them open to show the full glory!
Don't they look well in the kitchen window too?

They are called daylilies in English, I believe. There are many different kinds of these plants.
Can you believe that the flowers of some species of this plant are edible raw or dried and used in the Chinese cuisine in such dishes as: Buddha's delight, moo shu pork and daylily soup.

Acton Park and Maya's birds

Are you like me? Whenever possible I try to avoid the same route, try to find a new one. It's more fun and you never know what you may encounter. Besides, it makes sense to avoid the main throughfares when on a bicycle. Cycling home via Acton this evening I turned into Acton Park and stopped there for a few minutes. It was a welcome change after the busy street and all day's work.

 

Acton Park

 This building across the street north of the park is called The Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths:

 There is an obelisk in the park. It commemorates  James Radcliffe Earl of Derwentwater, one of the 1715 rebellion against the Anglo-Scottish Union.

Acton Park lawn reading a newspaper

I left the park through the north-western gate, turned left and soon stopped in front of my friend's Maya Stanic's workshop. Of course it was closed on the Sunday, but the low sun allowed me to take nice pictures of the building and of the little stained-glass birds made by Maya. I photographed them inside when I visited Maya some time ago.

Later, at home I opened a link my Polish friend sent me and I saw more birds. They were humming birds, painted by Philip Reinagle two hundred or more years ago.

Going back to the main road I stopped to photograph the house that stands out among all the Victorian red-brick dwellings like the one below.

And then I headed home without any more delays.

Sausages and politics in Sheen, palace site and bridges in Richmond

A kind Sheen butcher changed the notes into coins sparing me an expedition to the bank. After all time is money, they say.;-)  He knows I sometimes publish pictures of his shop front attractions, maybe this helped?

I took a picture inside as well this time:

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 Running between the two Sheen Octavia shops today I popped in the Polish grocer's and was treated to absolutely delicous biscuits. See them on the round tray?

These are the biscuits to look for! They come in rectangular boxes!
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To be frank with you, as a child I knew nothing of the sock monkey toys. However, they've been around for around a hundred years becoming extremely popular during The Great Depression in America! Yesterday a father bought one for his kid and let me take a picture (of the monkey, I'm sure you can tell!):

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It was on a cloudy Friday morning when I photographed Her Majesty in Upper Richmond Road:

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Two pictures caught my attention  in a coffee table book of black and white photographs of the 20th century Britain. Why these ones? Probably because of the parliamentary elections in Britain last Thursday and because of the recent Labour Day...

Coal miners working in terrible conditions...

Left: Christine Keeler. She gained 'fame' owing to a brief affair with a Consevative minister in the early 1960s.It brought about his downfall as she was having a relationship with a Russian diplomat at the same time, during The Cold War... Right: some famous man a decade or so later, in the same or similar chair. BTW, the scandal and the picture made these chairs famous.

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This Saturdy was May Fair Day in Richmond Green. I saw the end of it when I broke the commute in the picture-poscard suburbian town.:-)

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The less of the day was left, the sunnier it got so I decided to take a stroll via the site of the old royal palace by the river, and under the bridgest, along The Old Deer Park. Then my camera said: STOP, just like me when I add these pictures:

When I returned home, the friendly neighbours cat greeted me affectionately and we both came upstairs.

Twyford Abbey Ghost

Twyford Abbey grounds - ruins and local wildlife's oasis 

Cycling along Twyford Abbey Road yesterday I saw an Indian looking lady walking slowly with a young man, her son, as it later turned out. Later on I was walking with my bike on the pavement. and needed to overtake them. I wanted to  find a suitable place from which to photograph the ruins of a once splendid building known as Twyford Abbey. (You may remember that I had already taken pictures of this place last year.)

Many ancient trees surround Twyford Abbey

Anyway, somehow, we started talking and the woman told me that the abbey was haunted, and that she had visited it some years ago. Somebody had organised it for her and her friend. She thought the building was spectacular and agreed with me that it shouldn't be left to the elements. 

Twyford Abbey from St Mary's graveyard

However, I wanted to learn more about the ghost she had mentioned earlier. It took some persuasion to make her speak about it. Well... It is a big dog which can be seen in and around the building playing with a small ball. Apparently, it used to belong to the monks and when it died, they buried it in the garden. The dog loved that ball and played with it a lot. When somebody threw it to him from the upper floor, the dog would bounce it with its nose, I heard. 

I was also told that the canine ghost has always scared people away and that maybe this is why the building has remained empty for years. However, the woman said that there may be some bad karma there, maybe to do with the times when the building was used as a nursing home... Who knows...

Then we had to part as I needed to rush back and the two of them were heading towards the polling station.
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It is November 2022 now and the whole Twyford Abbey estate is about to change forever.. Sad times...

Twyford Abbey grounds from Twyford Abbey Road

Please, look what I read in a community message: 'Here's a link to a short film on the Twyford Abbey planning application made by a talented filmmaker, Dom Di Lillo.' Please watch it and if you agree with the local young people's plea, try to help in any way you can, even posting and talking about it. Will you?