Main picture: Pembroke Lodge – a wet February with some sunshine at the end. Photograph: Sarah Travers
Work starts on the Roehampton Restored project
After many years of planning, we are starting to see physical work on the Roehampton Restored project. The plans include a new café at Roehampton to replace the present ‘temporary’ café, which dates from 2004 when a fire destroyed the previous cricket‑pavilion type building.
The initial work is to enable the installation of a new electricity sub-station (to supply the proposed new café, toilets and cycle hire buildings). This has required temporary closure of a small section of the Tamsin Trail at Roehampton. There is a lot of work to be done for this project, but it is encouraging to see the first physical signs on site of work underway.
Preview of spring
Photograph: Nigel Jackman
After disappointing weeks of cloud and rain, the last week of February finally produced a day of exceptional cheer. Blue skies and a high of eighteen degrees memorably gave us a preview of Spring and they were enough to bring out the first Peacock and Brimstone butterflies of the year from their hibernation, while bumblebees could be seen busily pollinating the early flowering and fragrant Edgeworthia shrubs at Pembroke Lodge, Isabella Plantation and Thatched House Lodge. Buzzards were on the move too and showing well in the clear sky, with twenty-five recorded in the course of the day, together with nine Red Kites.