Bright lights on the Parade

Estate Agents everywhere have discovered illuminated frames (the inventor must be very rich) and now there is a battle of lights on Ham Parade between Mervyn Smith facing off to Gascoigne-Pees on the opposite side of the Parade. I think that Mervyn Smith's are the brighter, which is why I chose to feature them here.

Gordon House revisited

There was no particular reason for me taking another picture of Gordon House, other than I thought that it was about time that I did so.

The house has not changed since I first photographed it but my cameras have (twice) and so has the on-line space available to store photos so the technical quality of the pictures has been getting better even if the artistic quality has not.

High water on Ham Pond

The recently extended island in Ham Pond is suffering in the wettest recorded Winter that we have had. The banks and the posts there to protect them are now submerged and the nesting sites that the island was meant to provide have been lost.

I presume that the water will drain away before too long and it will be interesting to see what state the island is in when it does.

Flooding in Petersham Lodge Woods

These will be my last pictures of the floods for a while, unless something else dramatic happens to the weather. This is one of the main ways in to Petersham Lodge Woods and the line of water follows the route from the towpath to the little gate in to the garden at Petersham Lodge, which you can just about see if you look at the picture at full size.

This is the view from River Lane next to the other main entrance and this is no good either as that entire corner is flooded.

Still wet and muddy

Even when it is not raining it is still very wet along the towpath and this puddle is typical of the obstacles that I faced the last time that I walked along there.

In the distance is the debris from at least one recently fallen tree. The current practice is to cut up these trees and to leave them in piles by the side of the path to decompose naturally.  This means that there will be piles of logs, like cairns, along the path for years to come.

Alongside the towpath, Ham Lands has flooded in places that I have not seen it flooded in before. Here the water has blocked one of the paths, which was enough to convince me to stay on the towpath.

New railings at Thames Young Mariners

I do not walk past Thames Young Mariners that often as I prefer to plough through the middle of Ham Lands pretending that I am in the countryside well away from people and buildings.

But I do take the long walk from Teddington Lock to Ham House along the towpath from time to time just to see if anything has changed. And it has.

There is a new fence by Thames Young Mariners. It's simple and I like it.

Another felled tree

This has been a particularly brutal Winter for trees, and there is the promise of more storms to come, so I am only going to post pictures of the more spectacular examples. Like this one.

This is one of the more substantial trees to fall victim to the hostile weather and, like many others along the towpath, the main problem here is the sodden ground being unable to support the tree which simply fell over taking a large lump of ground with it.

Gathering debris

With the protracted works going on at Teddington Lock the main lock is out of action and a still corner has been created where debris and rubbish is gradually collecting.

I took the picture at dusk and that has given it a washed look that I rather like.

Valentine's Day approaches

I have posted lots of pictures of flood and storm damage recently, and there are more to come,so it is nice to break the sombre mood with something pretty and uplifting.

Wendy's Workshop on Ham Parade is always a jolly sight and I like the way that they paint seasonal designs on one of the windows. With Valentine's Day approaching they have gone for falling hearts that seem to drip from the line of paint at the top like happy rain.

Early daffodils

Walking along Riverside Drive this morning I saw my first daffodils of the year, sheltered under a tree in the little open area in the corner of the junction with Ashburnham Road.It may be very wet but it has not been cold, we have had no snow this Winter (so far!), and so it is no surprise that flowers are in the Spring mood.

A season of rain, wind and floods

Ham is accustomed to floods but this Winter's rain, wind and high tides have conspired to make conditions much worse that usual. The ground is consistently wet and and many trees have fallen in the battle.

The towpath is under the water somewhere. Luckily the tide had been going our for a few minutes by the time that I got to this stretch, by Douglas Footpath, so I was able to make progress by clambering through the trees and bushes on the slightly raised edge of the path.

 

The water had been around for a while and had filled up the ditches on the far side of the towpath. The newish bridge sits above it all allowing me to disappear along Douglas Footpath.

Ham Parade in the wet and dark

This is the south-east corner of Ham Parade looking across the expanse of tarmac formed by the junction of Richmond Road and Tudor Drive. The shop with the bright lights still on is Lords Estate Agents.