Paused?

A restaurant - first Italian flavoured then Spanish flavoured - we used to use in Ebbisham Square was closed to make way for a new cinema, presumably hoping to get an audience from students from the art college up the road. Work has been going on for some time now, but this morning it had a distinctly paused look about it. This despite still being described as coming soon at reference 1.

From there to the library to return a book, ending up by taking out another, reference 2, the first time out for a library book in mint condition by one Keggie Carew of whom I had not previously heard, but who is known for having written a memoir - Dadland - about her father, covering both his time as a war hero on missions behind enemy lines and his much later decline into dementia. I find from the Guardian review of same that on one occasion he fell down the stairs - but still managed a proper parachutist's landing when he got to the bottom. We shall see if either BH or I take to this new book.

In the margins, in the large fiction section, I noticed that while they still had a front card saying where Tom Sharpe (of reference 10) was to be found, the books themselves had been displaced by a lady author whose name also started with 'sh'. Perhaps all those bodily functions are no longer quite the thing. I wondered also whether his sort of gross, coarse humour is only funny against a backdrop of a generally benign world, which we do not have just at present. But then I remembered about 'The Good Soldier Švejk', also fairly coarse, although well short of Sharpe gross, set against a first world war backdrop, so not so benign at all. BH thought that the relevant books being out on loan was a much simpler explanation.

A bit further on intrigued by a small tree, perhaps self-seeded, growing in front of the old telephone exchange in East Street. I must have walked past it hundreds of times, but never paid it any attention before.

I thought perhaps a variety of sumac, last noticed at reference 3 and described at reference 4, but I am not yet convinced. Perhaps the easy thing to do would be to take another look as the flowers ripen.

Round the Screwfix tunnel to take a drop of fizzy water from the newly reopened TB, where I found that the segregation into saloon bar and public bar has been reinstated after an absence of some thirty years. The new dividing wall being snapped above.

Two customers, including myself, at around 12:15. Restricted opening hours during the week for the present and no food for the present - kitchen refurbishment being underway. It does not seem that long since it was last done, but I suppose that it must be more than 15 years. From which we deduce that the fairly serious refurbishment of the building as a whole carried out by Greene King's contractors did not include the kitchen: that must be down to the tenant. Serious in the sense that there were a lot of vans there for what seemed liked weeks: I am sure I noticed them at the time, but have yet to track that notice down, with reference 5 being the best that I can do for now.

Last up, more holes being dug for the water board by a lorry mounted pump, such a thing having first been noticed back in March at reference 6. This one from Carney (of reference 7) rather than Pier, so either Thames Water have changed their suction contractor or they have more than one of them. 

Not clear what was going on today, it looking as if all the hole digging part of this operation was long done, but the pump and its driver were still on the case. Perhaps they were on-call and waiting on the next call from Thames Water.

PS 1: no trolleys to be had in town or one the way to Kiln Lane. Not even with the East Street creationists, whom the concierge must have taken in hand. Someone other than me is clearly on the case.

PS 2: the next morning: I have now tracked down the vans and their affiliation to reference 8. It was the search key 'tb vans' which did the trick. I was amused to find that Vidette will do you a rat job as well as a paint job.

References

Reference 1: https://www.picturehouses.com/cinema/epsom-picturehouse.

Reference 2: Beastly: A new history of animals and us - Keggie Carew - 2023.

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/06/trolley-518.html.

Reference 4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumac.

Reference 5: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/03/made-it.html.

Reference 6: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/03/new-pump.html.

Reference 7: https://www.carneyplant.com/.

Reference 8: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/03/trolley-559.html. 

Reference 9: https://vidette.co.uk/. The affiliation.

Reference 10: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/06/wilt.html.