Off to the Estrela a week or so ago, an expedition which was to have involved cycling from either Clapham Junction or London Bridge. Or possibly, for a change, from Victoria, perhaps taking in Westminster Cathedral on the way, following up the visit noticed at reference 1.
In the event, a rather wet day and given that I no longer care to cycle in the rain, a certain amount of flexibility was called for.
The day started with the purchase of stamps from the Tesco's at Epsom Station, with a booklet of eight having got alarmingly large. At the present rate, it won't be long before the booklets no longer fit conveniently in one's wallet. One might even be reduced to cutting them up so that they do fit. I was also rather irritated by the unnecessarily large size of the stamps, not helped by the QR codes which now come with them. According to reference 2, if I had a QR code capable telephone I could point it at the stamp and then get it to play an exclusive video of someone called Shaun the Sheep. Is it any wonder that the Post Office is in trouble when it is reduced to antics of this sort?
I opted for a Victoria train with a view to getting out at Clapham Junction and taking a Bullingdon tour through Battersea Park, maybe to inspect their spring flowers.
First item, a possibly new-to-me Wellingtonia at Carshalton, to the west of the railway line. Street View was not a good way to try and find it this morning, despite the presence of some promising looking parks and schools, so it will have to wait. Perhaps taking my cycle on the train would be the way ahead.
Thought it had stopped raining at Clapham Junction and got off and got onto Grant Road before I decided that it hadn't. My Travelcard failed to get me back into the station, but fortunately the gates were manned. To find that the next Victoria train was at least 10 minutes away, so settled for Vauxhall and walked from there.
To be reminded that I did not like walking with a hood up, which restricted the view more than I cared for. But on this occasion I did not care for a wet head either.
And my Travelcard continued to fail for the rest of the day, it seeming that it is a 'one strike and you are out' sort of product. At least on this occasion I think the strike was going back into the station you have just left from without leaving enough time. Which I suppose is a rather crude - if effective - device to stop me attempting to use one card for two people.
Travelcards from Epsom seem to fail quite often, perhaps not quite as often as every other trip, and usually one has no idea why.
One of the information panels which seem to be popping up in central parts of the Southwestern Trains network. I am starting to get the hang of how they are updated and how to read them. This one on a town platform at Clapham Junction.
At the Estrela, started with the usual trimmings: white bread, butter and fish paste. Black olives. A half of white wine, as noticed at reference 3. From where we moved onto the dish of the day, roast lamb. Which turned out to be a very substantial portion, thick sliced, served with rice, roast potatoes and green salad. Plus a thick gravy of an orangey-brown colour. Not bad at all, although I think I would have done better had I thought to ask for the gravy on the side.
Far too full for dessert, although I did manage a spot of their brown aguardente.
Some aeroplanes heading west down the flight path, although I this occasion I was not counting.
Some of the conversation revolved around the merits, or otherwise, of the new smart meters for gas and electricity, we now having one for each, with the electricity smart meter snapped above, installed by a young lady electrician from Romania when EDF suggested it, and not having caused any problems since, not that I check my bills very carefully.
But checking up when I got home, I find that we have two gadgets which we can sit on a mantlepiece which tell us all about our consumption of gas and electricity in real time. They live inside a drawer somewhere, in their boxes. But I take a closer look at the meters in their cupboard, and both, as I had thought, come with a little screen, rather like the one on the Honeywell boiler control unit. Together with some buttons which appear to control the display. But without bothering with buttons, by shining by trusty Maglite at the electrical display, I found that I could read the meter, in this case 19630, which was consistent with the meter reading included on my latest bill. I also found that I could download from my EDF account a daily reading as a CSV file, that is to say one accessible to Excel, with the only catch being that it only did the current month. I did not find a way to download the readings for the last year or anything like that. Although if I had persisted...
Which is probably all that I am ever going to know about my smart meters.
And so to Raynes Park, where they had still failed to stock up the platform library. Not even something to read while I was waiting for the train to Epsom.
A day of showers, on and off more or less all day.
PS: in the margins, I learned how to do text effects at word level in Notepad on my telephone. A product I must now have been using for ten years or so. Next step groups of words - easy enough on the laptop.
References
Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/02/a-busy-day.html.
Reference 2: https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/60201018. The source of the stamp above.
Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/03/cheese.html.
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