Cheese time again

A week or so ago, back to the Neal's Yard Dairy shop next to Borough Market to pick up some more cheese. 

Weather did not look too steady, so took the folding umbrella with me, the one bought more than seven years ago in the Hudson's Bay store in Rideau in Ottawa. Clearly built to stand the serious weather of Hudson's Bay. While I had forgotten about the bridge in - which I now think was there when I was there.

I dozed a bit on the train, noticing, not for the first time, how in that state between waking and sleeping, all kinds of stuff can get bound together which does not belong together. So all kinds of bits and pieces of imagery, created at different times and places, get bound together into a coherent image which is very wrong. Faked even.

Out at Waterloo to collect a Bullingdon, to be overtaken on the wrong side by a motor bike on the roundabout outside the station. No damage done but a careless and bad mannered bit of road work from what I assumed was an impatient young man. There was also a fair bit of bad behaviour from pedal cyclists in the course of the day, mainly taking the form of jumping red lights.

Getting to hear about a variation on cheese scone which happened to be available from the cheese shop that day, engaged in a cheese scone discussion - something which I feel I know a fair bit about, having been making them for more than sixty years - which got me through to the end of the sharp shower which was just starting when I arrived at the shop. I got one of these buns, still warn from the oven, by way of a sample for BH to try when I got home. As it turned out, one of those foreign buns, probably involving sugar and eggs, not a proper cheese scone at all. But BH rather liked it, so that was alright.

The plot at this point had been to cycle across to Vauxhall, roughly top right to bottom left in the snap above, skirting the northern side of the Imperial War Museum, the green square in the middle, rather than getting mixed up with Elephant & Castle, not much fun on a rather slow bicycle like a Bullingdon.

But things went rather awry, with my getting a little lost. But I did find some interesting streets and buildings, even managing to continue the Canadian theme by coming across an Ontario Street. Making it to South Lambeth road with just under four minutes to spare before the £2 surcharge kicked in. I might also say that I sometimes felt that the road planners had been too enthusiastic about providing special facilities for cyclists. Some of it was just too complicated for this long service cyclist.

Took a glass at a house now called 'The Bell', the 'Vauxhall Griffin' the last time I used it (see reference 1) and the 'Builders' Arms' before that. A house that now doubles as a hotel with some rooms above. And has a rather larger hotel next door, butting right up against what used to be the smoking den. I thought my glass of white was a bit dear at £12.50, but to be fair it was a decent drop of wine. And there were still ash trays for those who still puffed. And an extension across the road, behind the white fence, presumably by arrangement with the tenants of that building.

Clientele might have moved up a bit, but not so far up as there was not still the occasional stumble - or perhaps skirmish - to judge by the state of the upper rail of the fence on my side.

From there to the Estrela Bar (reference 2) to take one of their specials of the day, a pork stew - which turned out to be a very substantial affair, filling all of an old-style dinner plate. Taken with a little more white. And a cake. And at least one of the waiters was still there from the last time I was there, a long service man.

Once again, I had trouble calling the name of Davidoff to mind, the cigar and tourist shop in St. James' Street, a shop I had thought I would visit again when I was next in that area. Have another go at some of their house Havanas. Fortunately, when the booze wore off, I had second thoughts and my return will have to wait for a bit longer. But for some reason, I have trouble with the name. I remember the place itself and roughly where it is - but I usually have to work to get the name back. Maybe if I can link cigars with Russia and Russians that will do the trick.

Took the first train to Raynes Park, where I found a stack of books in the platform library about plants and their classification. One of them was the George Green's School's Clarkson Prefect's Prize, awarded to one D. Field in 1955. Clearly someone had been clearing out some older person's treasures - and I am pleased to be able to say that they have found a good home.

While I learn this afternoon that George Green's School is very old school on the Isle of Dogs, and we may well have been past it when we were last there. Good that people who went to school in the Isle of Dogs in the 1950's, when it must have been a very mixed area, to say the least of it, could progress to serious interest in botany and systematics. See references 4 and 5.

And by the time I got home, BH had picked up the hub cap noticed at reference 3. Top left in the snap above. So all in all, a good day.

PS: on a plumbing note, I found that I needed a toilet as I approached Vauxhall Station, not a good place for such things. So I called in at the Vauxhall Leisure Centre (the new looking place with the red trim above), where the chap minding the turnstiles very decently let me through to the members' zone, which came with all the necessary.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/search?q=griffin.

Reference 2: http://www.estrelabar.com/.

Reference 3: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2021/08/car-maintenance.html.

Reference 4: https://www.georgegreens.com/.

Reference 5: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Green's_School.