But neither Spanish omelette nor the egg and bacon flan - aka Quiche Lorraine - which BH makes occasionally. Cheese the one purchase, bacon and egg the second, some miles away from the first.
Opened the proceedings with a train to London Bridge, from which, at Forest Hill, I saw a wooded hill to the east. Failed to find it this afternoon on gmaps, although Bing does tell me about lots of places called Forest Hill or Forest Hills, a lot of them in North America. Next time I travel this way I shall have to try to get a firmer fix on the hill in question.
Bought my cheese at Park Street, next to Borough Market, and picked up a Bullingdon for the getting regular run along to Clapham Junction. Pretty much on the level the whole way and at about three quarters of an hour, a very suitable run.
Burst water main at St. Mary, Newington, with a stand pipe a bit further along taking off some of the pressure.
I learn from reference 1, that the church there is a place with an interesting history, so given that on the other side of the road there are two public houses, one chipper and a stand for Bullingdons, a place worth a stop on the next occasion. So, inter alia, avoiding the penalty fare incurred on the present occasion.
Various cycling infractions, all young men. Overtaken by a young lady pedalling a goods cycle. Very poor. Then my own infraction at Stockwell, where I dropped the blue thread of the cycle superhighway.
Parked up just off Lavender Sweep, on this occasion noticing the urban litter. Rather more of it and rather more unpleasant than you usually come across in Epsom. Including some white plastic bags which had been used for domestic waste, then left on someone else's pavement to burst. I don't suppose being near a street with night life helps.
And so to the Northcote, at the bottom of the St. John's Road which leads south from Clapham Junction. A house I have only used once before, and that a very long time ago. Barman did not seem to appreciate my comment on the poverty of the platinum decorations, not much more than a few white paper crowns in the vicinity of the beer pumps - and I only realised later that he was probably from the south of the other island, not too keen on English kings and queens. But he did lighten up.
Along with my wine, I took a bacon and egg roll. Bacon and egg very good - and the egg was freshly fried - but the ensemble was marred by the roll, one of those things usually used to wrap beefburger towers. Not a proper roll at all and no flexibility, which meant that I took the knife and fork provided to it. Wine quite good too.
A party of ladies upstairs, a few laptops and a few babies downstairs.
Thought about taking a 77 bus, from across the road, to Tooting, for old times sake, but having just missed one, settled for the Falcon up the junction.
My first visit to since before the plague, and where I was able to admire - but not touch - their whisky collection. Including something rather over proof. I almost took a glass of bitter, again for old times sake, but discretion had the better part of valour and I settled for wine.
Into the snug to amuse myself with an 1895 copy of the Cornhill Magazine, old and red from the top shelf in the snap above, something I don't think I have looked at before. Roughly A5 in format with small print and no pictures. Famous battles were part of the diet, so I started with the battle of Marston Moor, a hard fought battle which could easily have gone either way, but which actually ended with a decisive victory for Parliament. Also with the stripping of corpses - clothes and associated equipment being valuable, even when a bit damaged. In those days people could still make and mend. The practise certainly continued into the Napoleonic wars, but I don't know about after that - although I did read in a book called 'Birdsong' that you were apt to be stripped if you wound up at a casualty clearing station in the First World War - but I had thought that was more for the convenience of the medicos, rather than for the recovery of still useful clothes.
I noticed, but did not attempt 'In the Kedar's Tents', which I now know to be a novel by the successful Victorian novelist Hugh Stowell Scott, who wrote under the pseudonym Henry Seton Merriman. Plenty of copies of the book available from Abebooks and ebay and there were freebies from Google and Gutenburg, but no-one has thought to tell the Internet what the book is about. I suppose some whitey visiting the camp of a native chieftain. The text at Google looked a bit Buchan-ish. Which is probably the beginning and end of my involvement with Scott-Merriman.
Wound up with a visit to the Wetherspoon's across the road, once the only Yate's Wine Lodge that I knew of in the Home Counties. Busy, this Wednesday afternoon. With the advantage of huge corner windows overlooking the busy road junction. Rather like sitting on the terrace of a Parisian café. A wheeze that the Yates people had not thought of, rather dark as far as I remember the place.
One rather pretty young lady, just along from me, probably foreign, talking energetically into space, presumably her telephone. The arm she was showing me was fully tattooed and she appeared to be making use of an endless coffee pot. While another young lady cycled diagonally across the junction with no apparent regard for the traffic lights - but she did reach the other side unscathed.
A fastish train to Dorking via Sutton followed, so the Half Way House at Earlsfield was not an option.
On the other hand, I did pay a visit to the library at Epsom, taking in some festivities in Ebbisham Square on the way. The main attraction was a team of very young girls doing something in formation, to an audience of doting parents, but I was more taken with the stilt walkers.
Into the library, where I was able to buy, at a considerable discount, some cast-offs from Surrey's performing arts library, still camping out at Bourne Hall in Ewell, pending sorting out some new premises for it. Two volumes of Tovey's essays - having long since retired my father's complete copy of same - one volume about Restoration burlesque and a copy of Middleton's 'A Maid in Cheapside'. With, as it turns out, Middleton having been buried in the yard at the St. Mary's mentioned above. So far, an entertaining read, a lot more accessible to his near contemporary, Shakespeare. With the play done up very much in the style of the Arden editions of this last, with lots of helpful apparatus.
Decided to closed down the proceedings with a visit to TB, so a walk down the passage alongside Court Recreation Ground. Where I was pleased to come across what I thought was a second walnut tree, with the first having been noticed at reference 3. On the other side of the hedge at about this point was a small mixed group of young people, possibly in their late teens. A young man was jumping up and down on his bicycle, doing his best to trash it, and he had succeeded in getting a good bend into the front wheel. One of the young women asked what on earth he was doing and as far as I could make out, without stopping and without appearing to take any interest, it was that he was mad with some lady social worker who had been taking him to task for something or other. Maybe drugs related. I kept well out of it. What on earth do you do with such a person? Is he worth scarce resources?
And so on into TB where I was able to admire the hog roaster brought in for some festivity or other and where I was able to sit in the quiet and admire my purchases. And learn that a wittol was somewhere between a cuckolded husband and a pimp, being content to live on the pickings to be had from his wife's lover. A word which survives into Websters, where it gets a little more than five lines. That is to say, not very much.
References
Reference 1: https://lostcityoflondon.co.uk/2021/04/07/st-mary-newington/.
Reference 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Chaste_Maid_in_Cheapside.
Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2021/09/walnut-tree-confirmed.html.
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