Trolley 695

A medium sized trolley from the M&S food hall captured at the bottom of the ramp leading down to the Kokoro Passage as I was heading up the ramp, away from a minor festivity in the market square.

Or to be precise, a Betfred festivity involving the worshipful mayor (under the white umbrella) and Wetherspoon's, promoting the Derby festival up on the Downs. Not altogether clear what was going on, but I think the mayor was making some kind of a draw to do with the numbers of the horses in the big race. It may have even been the draw, although I did not think so at the time. Spectators such as myself were treated to a custom-made Betfred cup cake, very properly iced with a Betfred logo. Fresh and sweet.

Checking up on the rocket planters in the Passage, which turned out to be poppies. Poppies in all of them so presumably seeds put in by someone. A more deliberate planting than I had thought.

A quick look at the bacon in M&S, where I find they do do dry smoked back, but not the dry smoked streaky that I needed to the upcoming lentil soup, the first I have made for a while and on which I shall report in due course. Puzzling yet again at all the wealth that is swilling around this country, contrasting oddly with the present difficulty of buying proper bacon, freely and widely available when I was young. You could, as I recall, buy quite good bacon from Woolworths, sliced off the side on the spot if you so desired, perhaps a bit thicker or thinner than the regular offering for some reason. The days when bacon meat was red rather than a grey shade of pink, the fat was brilliant white and when the rind was brown and agreeably chewy.

Wound up buying a couple of packets of smoked streaky (grey shade of pink variety) from Ben the Butcher in Upper High Street, who has, to be fair to him, got me proper hocks in the past. For which, see reference 3.

On to a gas depot circuit, a shortened version of the Ewell Village anti-clockwise to find a smart new stretch of railing along the path which runs along the northeastern boundary of the Sainsbury's site at Kiln Lane, from Fairview Road to the footbridge over the railway.

And getting close to the footbridge, a scattering of foxgloves, a flower of which I am fond, going to far as to own at least one woodcut of same.

A flower which we had when we lived at Cambridge but which we have not, for some reason, managed here at Epsom.

While at the foot of the footbridge, a serious hole in the road to do with National Power. Zoom fails to find out anything more about the serious looking white plastic tank, other than that it had been tested. But I guess something to do with cooling the underground power cables. See reference 4.

Last up, a mutant blackberry flower with six petals rather than the usual five, having not thought to tap to get it into full focus. I had thought that the number of petals on flowers of this kind was very stable, not varied by local circumstances, so something to feed into my ongoing dalliance with merosity.

With evidence of this dalliance to be found at references 5 and 6. And, more bacon at reference 6. With another piece of the bacon puzzle mentioned above being the fact that a lot of bacon that you get from the hospitality sector is quite good, much better than the Sainsbury's offering.

PS 1: I have found that good causes to which I donate money are apt to come back for more. Wikipedia is good in this regard, the Labour Party seriously bad. I seem to be getting at least an email a day about money from them. OK, so they are a good cause and they need money now rather than tomorrow (or even mañana), but still and all...

PS 2: and I have just found that the snaps in this post are seriously degraded on my fancy but elderly HP screen downstairs. Curious, given that it remains in a good screen in other ways.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/05/trolleys-693-and-694.html.

Reference 2: https://www.betfred.com/.

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/12/festive-legumes.html.

Reference 4: https://electrical-engineering-portal.com/understanding-underground-electric-transmission-cables.

Reference 5: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/05/outgroups.html.

Reference 6: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/04/senior-moments.html.

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