New bag

Lunch being delayed by an hour and my needing to buy some bread, there having been a glitch in the bread making cycle, there was much cogitation about my route to Vauxhall, settling on the Battersea Park option with the black rucksack. I should say that I have two small rucksacks, both hanging in the garage, but the red one must have got damp at some point and the interior had become quite mouldy. Brought inside to dry out, but I am a bit dubious about washing it, being nervous about destroying the waterproofing of its mainly woven material.

The snag with either of the bags was the large number of pockets, straps and fastenings, which took a bit of getting used to. There were so many of them, one had a job to remember where one had put things. I could see that if you were doing a serious bit of solo backpacking, you might want lots of pockets in which to pack away all your worldly possessions, and you would get to know the pockets and what was in them, but for occasional use maybe not so clever.

First stop was the International (Turkish) store at Falcon Road, where I was able to buy some of their fine flat bread, some sausage from Kosovo and what I thought was a lump of bacon from Poland. Current thinking being that part of the attraction of this particular bread being the amount of salt in it, our regular diet being low salt. With my having coming across the sausage a bit less than a year ago, as noticed at reference 1. While the lump of bacon turned out to be reconstituted, that is to say spam dressed up as streaky bacon, complete with rind and substantial amounts of fat. Called pressed bacon and it was intended to be eaten out of the packet; no cooking required. I shall report further in due course.

Next up, past the Asparagus, still open and still sailing under Wetherspoon's colours, so they have not managed to sell it yet. See reference 2 - but it remains a puzzle how some cuddly independent will make a go of a large place like this, in a mixed area like this, if Wetherspoon can't.

The second stop was to have been the the public library in Battersea Park Road, but the attendant stand for my Bullingdon was full, so in the absence of the forgotten bicycle lock, that was not an option.

Into Battersea Park instead, which was busy with young mums with babies and with joggers. Some spring flowers. Temple by the river looking rather well.

Back onto the main road, past the dogs' home and right into Thessaly Road to be intrigued by the carefully screened Powerleague operation at the edge of the vegetable market. I thought perhaps the American version of football, with professional players, with the screening there to stop free-loading, but inspection today reveals a substantial five-a-side operation, to be found at references 3 and 4 and as snapped above.

No problem parking the Bullingdon in South Lambeth Road, in the stand between the marble shop (in front, left) and the new branch of Gail's (behind the telephone). Not for the first time, I wondered how much of one's original marble block ended up as rock dust when you sawed the block up into sheets that, from memory, were less than an inch thick.

And so to the Tate Library, just a few steps along the road. All the computers were vacant, reminding me of the days when libraries first took to providing computers in a big way, when they were often full up, more or less all day. Whereas now, they don't seem to do much business at all, with laptops and telephones having taken over the world. I suppose these computers will be thinned out over time, hopefully not too much, as I still use them from time to time, when on my travels. Can't beat a real screen when it comes to doing real work.

Once again impressed by the Internet, which was able to deliver the paper I wanted to take a quick look at in short order. A look which resulted, a day or so later, in the post about classifications at reference 5.

Also impressed by the large letter keyboard that came with the computer, which, given that I did not have my reading glasses about me, made things much easier.

Onto the Estrela where I took one of their dishes of the day, spare rib, Portuguese style. So spare rib, black pudding, white pudding and a lightly spiced version of the Spanish Chorizo. Plus potatoes, plus proper greens, something which is not available in most restaurants. The now traditional wine being visible behind. A substantial and satisfying meal.

Another option was something called wreck fish, which came in the form of large steaks, perhaps six inches deep by two or three wide. So probably not the conger eel which first came to mind, a fish which is to be found in wrecks. It turns out from reference 6 that it is a regular, deep water fish, present but not much fished in British waters. While I read somewhere else that it will sometimes take crabs and lobsters, presumably swallowed whole - which suggests plenty of acid in the stomach. The specimen above is from a tank in Monaco.

There was a selection of vaguely trifle-like desserts in glasses available, left over from Valentine's, but I settled for the almond tart. Which was good, but which would have been better had I asked them to replace the ice cream, which was too sweet, with regular cream or yoghurt. I think in the past that I have taken the same tart dry, but current thinking is that you need something wet by way of complement. Or perhaps compliment.

Out to catch a decorative pump lorry heading towards Stockwell, which I thought might be from the people at reference 8, first noticed at reference 7. Except that their elaborate paint jobs appear to be based on orange, while I remember this one in Vauxhall to have been based on green. Sadly I was not quick enough to get the telephone out for the record, so I make do with one lifted from reference 8.

The new bag, snapped on the way home.

Along with a rather messy looking inspection plate. Maybe it had been put back in too much of a hurry and is now leaking.

PS 1: it took me a while to trace Hydro Cleansing, not being able to find the pump lorry on the blog itself. But Bing turned it up on an open search, that is to say the wrong drain cleaning company together with the original blog post at reference 7. Proof that the blog is still being indexed by at least one of the big search engines, even if it only rarely turns up in search results. I suspect that declining to carry advertisements may have something to do with this, at least in so far as Google is concerned.

PS 2: curiously, there is talk at the very end reference 9 of remembering base green rather than the base orange at references 7 and 8. So either there is more than one pump lorry company out there doing fancy paint jobs, or my memory is playing tricks again.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/04/kosova-suxhuk.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/02/a-mystery-solved.html.

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

Reference 4: https://www.powerleague.co.uk/5aside/london/nineelms.

Reference 5: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/02/in-praise-of-classifications.html.

Reference 6: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_wreckfish.

Reference 7: https://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-finest-drain-pump-in-surrey.html.

Reference 8: https://hydro-cleansing.com/.

Reference 9: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2021/07/a-tale-of-tyre.html.