Trolley 522

Trolley 522 was gathered up at the Meadway roundabout, on return from the capture of No.521. Too hot to march it off to Kiln Lane on the spot, but there were vague thoughts of an early evening delivery. Vague thoughts which stayed vague, and return had to wait until this morning. Cool enough start, pleasant even, at around 09:30.

Headed down to Blenheim Road and from there into the underpass by Screwfix. Where at least two trees in the stand of Scots Pine behind Screwfix have now expired, the present drought finishing off what some previous drought had started. And the tree on the right does not look too clever either.

Dropped the trolley off at the entrance to Sainsbury's and headed into the fruit & veg department to top up materials for lunch. Two packets of mange tout, one packet of small potatoes, both entirely satisfactory. Three small cucumbers: OK, but not much like the smaller cucumbers sold by other stores, particularly foreign convenience stores. One net of four oranges for £1.90, which looked OK but we shall see tomorrow - the appearance of oranges being a poor guide to the quality of the interior. 

Two packets of English cherries. This was taking a chance as it is a bit late in the season and Sainsbury's is not too hot in the fruit department. So by lunchtime they were overripe but eatable, with a sprinkling of duds. The balance, about 1lb 6oz was stewed in a little water and 3oz of sugar. 

Our last effort at stewing overripe cherries did not turn out at all that well, as noticed at reference 2, so we shall see how I have done with this lot. Warm syrup tastes OK in the meantime. I forgot all about the cinnamon, probably no great loss.

On exit from Sainsbury's, posted my cut up expiring driving license back to DVLC, as per renewal instructions. I wonder if they bother to check them back in, or whether they go straight into waste?

Back under the railway and onto Pound Lane School, where they are taking the opportunity afforded by the summer holiday to do work on the playground out front. Work which includes taking down most of the not very old perimeter fence. At a guess, given that there are half a dozen or more men there for a couple or weeks or so, of the order of £100,000 plus. It would be interesting to know why the governing body thought that this was good value for money. Not clear from the website (reference 3) what the status of this particular school is, but I had thought that it had escaped from those dreadful bureaucrats of the LEA - to replace them with some other kind of bureaucrats, rather better paid and with fancier job titles. Too hot to check this afternoon.

Back past the butcher, where Thames Water have finally got around to doing something about the meter leak there, going for some weeks now. 

And then, as I approached our house, a council road sweeping lorry turned up to sweep up the dried-up outwash of silt and sand left over from the recent, more or less instant, replacement of our water meter. But it didn't bring enough water to the mix, and one pass was far from finishing the job. Maybe they are conserving water too.

Back by about 11:00, by which time I was getting hot and had walked far enough. Maybe half of what I normally expect to do.

PS: the cherry challenge being my memory of bottled Morello cherries from childhood, something of a favourite at the time, along with bottled (white) peaches. These last being reserved for state occasions.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/08/trolley-521.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2021/09/oxtail.html.

Reference 3: https://www.epsomprimaryschool.co.uk/.

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