Photo: South Vale this afternoon

South Vale, Harrow, London HA1, this afternoon

Burned out car, Cavendish Avenue, Harrow today

Badly burned out car viewed from the front, parked in an un-overlooked part of the street

Interior snapped through open side window

From another angle it's seen that the engine and front are burned but the rear is not.

From the rear it is seen to be a Toyota CH-R Hybrid. The Reg plate has partly torn off. "PE18 ----".

I reported this to Harrow Council today through their online abandoned car reports form. (Ed.)

Update 7/12/2023

The car is still there today. Noticed in the following photos that the missing part of the registration number plate is in the interior. It's possible to deduce from the photos that the reg is PE18 UXS and a check on the DVLA website shows that this car matches, i.e. a black Toyota hybrid etc. Harrow abandoned car reference: 723333.

Interior (rear). Note the part of the registration plate in the bottom left corner.

Another view of the interior today (front)

Autumn comes to South Vale

Tuesday afternoon: A few moments with hardly any traffic on a wet overcast street lined with trees, including magnificent old oaks with the leaves turned their autumn colour and a few other sorts still green. On the left side of the street, which has no footpath, are the trees and fence that form the southern boundary of Sir John Lyon School's playing fields known as Sudbury Fields. To the right on a little slope down from the road are some 1930s Metroland semi-detached houses. The verge in front of the houses is planted with newish Italian alders, some much older tall ash trees and further along some winter cherry. (South Vale, Harrow, HA1)

The Phone Book (final edition)

Cover of the last ever phone book

The Phone Book

We've been delivering it to you from 1880 to 2024.
Harrow, our last book has landed at your door.
Final edition. Hold on to it forever.

(From Royal Mail/BT this morning)

Back of the shops, Greenford Road, Sudbury, Harrow

Street drinkers' litter

 

Street drinkers' tidy

Back of Greenford Road, near Sudbury Hill station, Harrow, HA1. [Couldn't we have made them green bottles? I have a joke in mind. Never mind, there's eleven anyway. Ed.]

Unidentified wildflower - can you?

Spotted near Sudbury Hill, Harrow (18/10/2023)

The single flower is small but not tiny with four petals and inner layer of petals emerging. The petals are magenta with darker stripes a bit like Common Mallow and the leaves are oblong densely veined and with finely jagged edges. So far the Plantnet app and RHS online have failed to match this plant with any other. [It must be rare, no? Ed.]

Update

The same plant two days later (20/10/2023)

The flower has opened out and looks a bit different. Thanks to Anonymous for the comment below, which seems to have solved the mystery. Quote: "It looks like an Annual Clary (also known as Red Topped Sage) to me. Usually found around the Mediterranean and not Willesden Green." Of all our millions of readers, Anonymous was the first to come up with a sage answer to the query. [Ed.]

Harrow fly-tip marked "Closed" still there - Asbestos?

It's still there now, though marked "Closed" on the @Harrow_Council website (image below). The handwritten asbestos warning sign is dissolving in the rain. Still no safe way to walk around the corner from South Vale to Wood End Road. Incident number: 17753144. 

I reported the fly-tipping incident on advice from @Harrow_Council on Twitter. The fly-tipped rubbish is still there and cordoned-off on the path, despite the incident being marked "closed" on the Harrow Council website. There is presently no safe way to walk around the blind corner of South Vale and Wood End Road, as the footpath is only on one side of the road. (Ed.)

Asbestos(?) dumped on footpath in Harrow

I saw this pile of fly-tipped rubbish on Friday where it is on Wood End Road, HA1, 7/7/23 (Ed.)

 

As of today (8/7/23) someone has put added a warning label: "ASBESTOS do not touch"

Today the footpath at the junction of South Vale and Wood End Road has also been cordoned off.

Earlier picture of the sign seen in the background in the photo above.
It has been there for months. It says "Why are you dumping rubbish? ... Don't be a tosser." 

A rainy day in South Vale

South Vale, Harrow

Tuesday 28/3/2023. A rainy day in South Vale. The trees on the left are old English oaks on the boundary of Sir John Lyons School playing fields. The verge on the right has a mixture of young Italian alder and old ash trees.

It's 20mph for a reason

Not long ago replaced lamppost smashed again near a bend on Wood End Road

The scene is an S-bend where the road crosses the Chiltern Line. There's a blind bend at each end of the bridge. Here's hoping no one was badly injured. (Ed)

Crime scene: Wood End Road closed

The scene at 1pm 2/8/2021

One or two police cars have been parked in the driveway of the same house for the past few days. Today there are crime scene tents and the road has been completely closed, including to pedestrians. If you are on foot, and need to get to the other side of the closure, there is a very narrow, winding alleyway that connects South Hill Grove to South Vale.

Lifts being built at Sudbury Hill station (photo)

View from Greenford Road bridge

These lifts, when complete, will enable step-free access from the platforms to the ticket hall. From there to the street is already step-free. However, from platform to train is not.

Signs of the times?

Junction of Greenford Road and Cavendish Avenue, Harrow

This looks the way England feels, rundown, neglected, demoralised under Bodger Johnson, heading out of Europe to drift alone on an unpowered skiff in the middle of the Atlantic. "Global..."

Harrow West: Vote tactically to stop the Tories

Only a vote for Labour can stop the Tories in Harrow West. pic.twitter.com/DimufUPOJm

— Gareth Thomas for Harrow West (@GarethThomasMP) November 30, 2019

A vote for any candidate in Harrow West other than Labour's Gareth Hunt, the incumbent, is a vote for the Tories to continue their 9-year reign of chaos. It is not, in the words of the late Peter Cook, "time for a futile gesture at this stage of the war." Any vote that does not support the main challenger to the Conservative candidate in any constituency on December 12th, is a vote for at least another five years of HELL.

To find the candidate best-placed to defeat the Tory in your constituency, visit RemainUnited.org.

South Vale, Harrow this morning

Chestnut tree in bloom at the corner of South Vale and Wood End Road

Storm Eleanor damage, Harrow

Ancient oak felled in South Vale, Harrow

Uh-oh

The tree has already been cut into sections.

Some of the sections

Hard to count the rings where the saw's been

More than a hundred years?

Never noticed anything different about the tree they've felled, so the question now is what was wrong with this tree, and are the other oaks, along South Vale and trees elsewhere in Harrow, in danger now as well? It's been reported from other areas of the country that privatised contractors are felling trees and replacing them with saplings, because it's cheaper than maintaining the old trees. Could that be happening in Harrow?

Harrow in Leaf - 2014

Harrow in LEAF's 10th annual horticultural & craft show and family fun day is on Sunday and bank holiday Monday, from 12-5pm at Harrow Museum and Heritage Centre, HA2 6PX. Admission is £2.50, under 12's free and there is "ample free parking".  Link: http://harrowinleaf.org.uk

Here's a video from last year's one:

Ornamental Plum and Whitebeam, Harrow

Ornamental Plum. 2 June

Whitebeam. 3 June

South Vale, Harrow

Ash

Oak

Hawthorn

Laburnum