Summer in SW London

As mentioned in the last post, things have been pretty quiet on the wargaming front at the Schloß in recent months. Partly this was due to trips and fluctuations in the population of the Schloß. Most of the time the household consisted of just 3 of us since #4 was at uni.

In May the eldest decided his sojourn in Liverpool was over and he agreed with his boss that he could work remotely from London pending a possible transfer to another office. The most obvious option for his temporary accommodation was ruled out for reasons I'll pass over, so the second most obvious option was chosen. Yours truly dutifully drove to Liverpool to bring #1 and his stuff back down south. As #4 was still away at uni he was able to use her room for a few weeks. So population increased to 4. A period extended by #3 and #4 joining us in Spain once uni was over. Once we returned the population was up to 5 for a few weeks.

Then when #1 had secured a room in a shared house, we were down to 4. Until the BF of #4 turned up from darkest Yarkshire. Population briefly back up to 5. Then when they tootled back up north to move their gear into their respective new digs (digses?) we were back to 3 for a few days. Now back to 4 since she returned.

Phew!

Now I've been doing a bit of pootling about during this time, with the odd park walk, lunchtime strolls whilst on office days and a trip to the local museum. Not forgetting wasting time in the garden. And last but not least, a sporting excursion that I've not got around to doing in my previous plenty-two years.

Entrance to an old canal by Chelsea Waterworks. I believe the canal once went up to where Victoria station is. But in my mind's eye this looks like Early Modern artillery fortification.

Slightly further upstream it distinctly looks like a bastion has sprouted on Chelsea Embankment.

Nearer to home I went to the Kingston Museum for the first time. 31 years after moving to the area. I wasn't expecting much beyond a collection of buttons or some such things, and hoped for some old photographs so I could get an idea of what the specific area I live in looked like before being built up in the early 20th century. It was much better than I expected. And free to enter.

'Wasting time' in the garden one evening after eating outdoors I started looking closely at some plants which were covered in a wide variety of insects. These ones were tiny as the flowers in question are on mint. It's been a great year for pollinators. The Margravina has made a conscious effort to attract them, showing her concern for the betterment of agriculture and the lot of the peasantry. 

Lots of time spent photographing the lavender. And failing to get good close-up video footage of the bees.

Stained glass windows at the museum

Thames Watermen uniforms

Model of Kingston town c 1820 I think

Another model, similar period, with town centre pubs shown. More than there are today with a much bigger population!

A section on the aero-engineering industry that was formerly in the town. Sopwith and then Hawker being the main names. 

Not sure how much this had to do with the military preparations of both sides in the run-up to civil war, but it looks like it could be part of developments which led to Parliament trying to exert control over the Trained Bands.

There was a section on Eadweard Muybridge, local chap who developed some of the first moving pictures technology. I'm sure he took these pictures of a nudey lady purely in the interests of science.

Upstairs had an exhibition on the Interwar period when much of the suburban development occurred 

Slightly later: Noel Coward waxing lyrical about the Kingston Bypass1

The 'motoring culture' referred to included a piece about John Cooper (another local lad, motor racer and car designer) of Mini Cooper fame.

And my little sporting trip was to watch cricket for the first time (not counting village games).  The T20 match at the Oval for the game between Surrey and Glamorgan.

The famous gasometer is off to the left. I didn't get a good shot of it.

As the floodlights came on it was possible to see that they were designed to look like the Prince of Wales feathers. (The ground was built on land owned by the PoW).

An exciting game that started off very badly for Surrey. Glamorgan batted first and ran up a decent score, and then when Surrey came in they quickly lost 3 wickets with, more importantly, a very low run rate. But they managed to stabilise things and with needing 5 runs off the last over, they got a 6 with the first ball.

I must say, I didn't enjoy the very random selection of music clips played by the 'DJ' whenever there was a boundary or wicket or halt in play. But we had a good time. I might look into going to a 'proper' county game sometime.