Started off to find one of the newish blocks of flats in station approach newly swathed in scaffolding. Not impressed that it needs that sort of attention so soon. Will it still be there at all in fifty years time? But then, the houses in our road are perhaps 75 years old, and few of them have not been the subject of major works in that time.
From there to a rather dilapidated Lambeth Cemetery, presumably first laid out when Garratt Lane was still in the country. The original railings, presumably cut out for scrap at the start of the second war (a practise which FIL believed was unnecessary & wasteful, except in that it gave people a sense of doing something to help at a time when it all looked a bit grim), had been replaced by something cheaper, now rusting away. Two cockerels were crowing from the garden of one of the keepers' cottages. Half a dozen new graves in a row by the railings. I associated to the rather grander and even older cemetery we came across in North London a few years ago. See reference 1.
Through the hospital car park to pass various people smoking. Either the managers are not inclined to be so stroppy about smoking as those at Epsom or they decided that enforcement of stroppier rules was going to cause more trouble than it was worth in this rather rougher area.
On into the discharge lounge, decorated with the art work illustrated, nicely judged for its place and position. According to the ticket it was digitally printed onto the canvas, maybe three and a half feet by five, so maybe one could print the thing to the size of the intended space. I thought this quiet, moderate abstract was well suited to the clinic in question; one would not have wanted the sort of noisy stuff one got down some of the corridors or, for example, in the nearby Wetherspoons. Hung on the wall by two wall plates, one more or less in the middle of each side, and which were screwed to the wall by cunning screws which one needed a special tool to turn, special enough that I did not own one. Perhaps it was policy for all attachments to be thus screwed, given the number of light fingered gentry about. The work was donated by the artist, one Brendan Neiland, trained in Birmingham and not much older than myself. The ticket claimed that he 'keeps the sense of light ... found in works by ... Vermeer'. See reference 2 for some noisier efforts.
On into Honest Burgers for refreshment, the menu amounting to a modest choice of burgers. Service good, wine good, burger good - but, as is often the case, a bit let down by the bun. Why is it that people put all this TLC into their burgers not to bother with the bun? Chips adequate, although you need to be careful to stop them covering them with salt. A new looking bicycle hanging on the wall. The sort of light fittings you get on building sites - a base which comes with two short copper spikes which make contact with the power when screwed into the (flat) 5 amp cable with the upper half which holds the lamp. Cable strung around whatever space it is you want to illuminate. A lot quicker and easier than proper wiring up. I have such a fitting in our garage, never used, a souvenir of my days on building sites.
Back via Earlsfield where I had an excellent game of aeroplanes, making an almost continuous 4 and nearly making a five. The light was just right (that is to say clear and dark), there was plenty of traffic (around 1900), and for once I found the right place to stand, much nearer the station entrance than I had thought to use before. I also learned that the aeroplanes appear on the eastern horizon to fly to the right, before looping up and round to fly left down the flight path down to Heathrow - having been expecting a simpler, left only flight.
Reference 1: http://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=abney+park+chapel.
Reference 2: http://www.brendanneiland.com/.
Reference 3: http://www.honestburgers.co.uk/.
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