Episode 3

Episode 3
Back again. Haven’t really been doing much since we came to Arundel: Been going for walks along the river bank in the mornings whenever I can, that’s about it. Often I would meet only one or two others who were usually walking their dogs, but mostly I only had the swans on the river for company. These swans must be used to people feeding them as whenever I speak to them they swim over to me and swim along beside me until they realize I don’t have anything for them then they go about their business. I still have not seen any cygnets, most odd!
In fact for mid summer there seems to be very little activity on the river. I remember when I used to live here and work in the tea hut, there was always some people in boats out and about quite early. Now at 11am there is little activity.
One day I visited the tea hut, it’s changed quite a lot since Heather and I used to work in it. Been modernized inside to meet new health requirements, but the basic building is still the same. The tea garden now has a log cabin in it to provide shelter for customers during inclement weather. Much used this summer I should think. The wall behind the tea garden separating it form the car park used to be covered in climbing roses that flowered all summer and the ruins and little park between the tea garden and the bridge also used to have gardens full of pink and red roses. I am sure I must have some old photos of them some where. Now all I could find was one lonely rose bush beside the ruins. None any where else:
During the summer holidays Heather and I used to be very busy in a morning. Busses bringing loads of tourists to visit the castle would park in the car park and people would rush over for a cup of tea before entering the castle grounds and come again when they’d finished there. Well, the castle still seems to get plenty of visitors but the tea hut doesn’t seem to get business from the busses like they used to. I had Heathers 7 year old granddaughter, Madeline, with me and we sat and ate an ice-cream in the tea garden one morning, it was lovely and sunny and warm. There was a crowd about the ruins and watching the swans, but we were the only ones at the tea garden. The couple who owned it years ago have both passed on to the big tea garden in the sky and there are new people running the show. The boat shed beside the tea hut that was once an Aladdin’s cave of gear that Andre (the owner) acquired from all sorts of people, some a bit dubious, and sell on: It is also the place from where the hire boat business was run. There were about 12 little hire boats in those days, I could only see 9 now.
After we got the car sorted and ourselves, whoops, don’t suppose I have told you about the car have I? We got it through a friend of Heathers whom we have met previously when he used to live next door to Heather and John. The car is a white citreon, something or other, about 1991 I think and a diesel. Used cars are not as cheap this year as they were last year but this one should do us ok for 250 pounds. David had got himself a satellite navigation system for the car, then we set out for Cornwall on a sunny Wednesday morning. We tried to get an early start but it didn’t happen. We did have a good run along the A27 past Portsmouth and the motorway around Southampton, then on westward through the new forest. After we passed around Dorchester the country became more hilly and picturesque. Many of the fields of wheat and barley have been harvested leaving the fields a straw colour. Add to that the fawn and browns of the ploughed fields, the bright, lush green of the pastures with black and white cows (Friesian/Holsteins) or white sheep (woolly things) grazing. Then there are the deep greens of the trees and hedges along fence lines and in small and large copses of trees. It made quite a kaleidoscope of colours. Just so pretty: God! I love to see the green, after so much drought its just so great to see.
We came to a lovely rest area where we sat and ate a late lunch. It was so hot we had to park in the shade. We set out heading for the Eden Project near St Austell but when we got past Exeter we thought we might make a detour to Launceston and see if David’s cousin Josephine was home. We had tried to phone her earlier but the phone had not been answered. When we arrived on her doorstep her husband Allen was home but shortly after Jo arrived. They made us very welcome so we didn’t get to the Eden Project that day.
The Eden Project is something we had heard quite a lot of people talk about. Everyone here seems very enthusiastic about it. I had decided we should visit it to see what all the fuss was about. After looking it up on the internet I found that as from this week it was open on a Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday evening till 9.30pm and after 4pm it has a reduced entrance fee. With things very expensive over here saving 4 pounds each seems like a good idea.
The concept for the project came about in the early 1990’s but the place wasn’t started to be built until 1998 and it was opened to the public in the spring of 2001. What was desired of the project was that it would be totally self-sufficient eventually and to have a neutral impact on the environment. It is still a work in progress and heading towards that goal: Sufficient water is caught to water all the plants in the two large biospheres (called biomes) and to use in the restaurants and cafes and the toilets. That would be a huge amount I should imagine. Everything is either reusable or recyclable, especially all the items used in the restaurants and cafes. The disposable knives and forks are made of a wood that grows quickly and so is an easily renewable source. No polystyrene cups and plates, all china that can be washed. It is also the aim of the project to produce all its own electricity from waste.
It is built in an old china clay pit, steep sided and 60m deep, so that it had to be started right from scratch because there was not even any soil in which vegetation could grow. The bottom was also several metres below the water table. Heavy equipment landscaped the sides and flattened the bottom, 83,000 tonnes of soil made from recycled waste was brought in and spread about before anything could be planted. There are two large biospheres, they look white from the outside and as if they are made of bubble wrap. The material they are made from is (try pronouncing this after a few drinks) ethylenetetrafluoroethylenecopolymer, ETFE for short. It is 3 layers thick and filled with air to form pillows. This material weights only 1% of the same area of glass, it lets in sunlight and UV light, but is slightly opaque to look out of from inside. Its insulation qualities are very good too and this is really important in the one biome that is filled with tropical rain forest or jungle. These biomes seems much bigger on the inside than they do from outside.
We did eventually get here the following afternoon late enough to get the discounted entrance. This seemed to be a good idea as most people were leaving and not many entering. We set off along the paths that meander down the hillside towards the big biomes. All along the way there are masses of plants with small signs here and there to describe the type of vegetation in each area or a particular plant. Unfortunately it was not always possible to work out just which plant was being described. The sign gave the common name, the Latin name and either something about where it grows or a special use that might be made of it. It is really very interesting for me but I fear that David got rather bored with it, especially as I take much longer than most people to read the signs. There is even a large area of tea plants growing. For those of you who don’t know this plant is one member of the camellia family. The tea plants here have not yet grown large enough to be pruned into the neat hedges that you see where it is grown commercially. Along one fence there is a display of many different ropes made from hemp, it makes extremely good rope but unfortunately due to its narcotic qualities it can only be grown under licence in most countries, thus we are encouraged to use the synthetic stuff that is not biodegradable and causes damage to the wildlife and the environment.
Just outside the building known as ‘the link’, it joins the two biomes together, and there are some restaurants and amenities here, we saw some lovely runner beans growing. They were loaded with ready to eat beans, and covered in scarlet flowers. It surprised me that no-one had picked the larger beans. A large patch nearby had a wide variety of small lettuce growing. Everything grown here is supposedly used in the restaurants.
The first biome we entered was the tropical rainforest/jungle one. It was just like arriving back in Brunei, humid and warm. Considering that the majority of plants in this biome have been grown from seeds or seedlings they have done well over the years. It really is just like a jungle all that seems to be missing is the monkeys. There are some small birds in here. It is the long term aim of the project to make each dome a sustainable environment, or at least that is my understanding. We spotted a number of plants we were familiar with, like most of the types of palm trees, some mango trees and other tropical fruit. They had monsterios but none that we could see had fruit, the bananas on the other hand appear to being fruiting well. There are some big stands of bamboo and a couple of huts built of bamboo to show its uses. In here we also saw some rice growing in a paddy field and some millet on a dryer slope. One of the ponds had the giant lily pads that we had seen growing in Vietnam, they are over a metre in diameter.
Many of the plants here are endangered species that are grown so that they can be used to propagate more of their species. One is so rare that all the remaining seeds are numbered. The plants used in this dome are mainly from Asia and central Africa. There may be just one or two from the jungles of central or South America but I don’t think I saw any.
The other biome is designed for plants from Mediterranean climates. The plants in it come from the Med area itself and South Africa and California mainly though I did see just one or two from Australia.
This dome was much cooler and drier; the temperature was equal to that outside. In here as we walked along the higher paths we could look down on the Mediterranean gardens full of stone fruit trees and citrus trees, just as you would see them growing in Greece or someplace similar. We were up amongst the agaves and aloes, proteas, prairie grasses and daisies. The plants here have been selected from those that grow along the Med, in South Africa and California mainly. There are also a great variety of bulbs here, but mostly they have finished flowering, many of these come from South Africa, apparently the coastal strip of vegetation in the Cape area has a massive range of native bulbs that are now cultivated and found in gardens all over the world. A wide range of herbs are growing here too and some of their uses are described, medicinal as well as culinary.
By the time we’d finished in this dome it was almost closing time and we had to make our way back to the exit/entrance and catch a bus back to the car park. It was getting dark outside, 9.30pm. I would love to go back another time and look some more but I think David has had enough.
© Lynette Regan 4th August 2007