Cheese time

Cheese came round again about a fortnight ago. A mild, bright day with no rain anticipated, so rolling down from London Bridge to Stockwell was clearly indicated. So off to catch a train to London Bridge.

For the first time, I noticed the Southern Train depot, just south of Norwood Junction. It seemed much larger than the comparable Southwestern Trains depot, just south of Earlsfield. One that I have both passed and noticed many times.

Ditto, the football stadium, just north of New Cross Gate. Which I now know to be the home of Millwall Football Club, once, I think, known to me for the rowdiness of its fans on match days, knowledge probably gleaned from a broadsheet rather than a red top. Perhaps even a solemn editorial.

Borough Market very busy, mainly with tourists rather than shoppers. And what seem to be a lot of restaurants and takeaway outlets. So probably going the way of places like Tooting Market, where there are not many old-style market traders left. All foodie places, although probably more used by gentrifiers than by tourists.

Near the cheese shop, I was treated to a display of a Roho wheelchair, seemingly stable on its two main wheels, thanks, I was told, to a giro down the bottom. Unfortunately, Roho seems to be the name of the cushion which came with it, rather than the thing itself. Bing was no help on this occasion, but Google turned up something which looks right at reference 2. Which meant that the occupant could be at eye level with me while eating his ice cream. I was also told that it could climb kerbs and stairs and that if I was rude enough to give him a push, he would just sway a bit, then come back to vertical. Apparently Segway uses much the same technology in some of their products. The only catch was the £40,000 price tag - but then, if you take care, you do get 20 years out of them. 

I don't recall the one that I saw looking anything like as big as that snapped above, but I think it, if not the same thing, must be from the same family.

Cheese done, onto Southwark Street to snap the rather threatening clouds above and beyond the Shard.

But also the Genie Z-135/70 cherry picker, a brand last noticed towards the end of the post at reference 3. Read all about them at reference 4, where some rather better snaps are to be found.

Onto the Bullingdon stand, where, after about four attempts, I decided that something was wrong. Luckily I had the right TFL number in my phone and fairly quickly established that it was a bank problem, my card having been blocked since I left Epsom, where I had used it to buy my ticket. Which meant a long conversation with an HSBC call centre while standing by the side of a busy and noisy road. Rather to my surprise, their computer recognised my voice, despite all the noise from the road, never mind the noise added by transmission to the call centre. And after that, the long conversation consisted mainly of my trying to remember about all my credit card transactions for the past few days. After about 15 minute of this, my card was unblocked, but I was told several times to wait the two minutes it would take for the unblocking to percolate through to Southwark Street. Which, to be fair, it did, and I was on my way. The view of a correspondent was that all this was the result of MIT, for some reason to do with their Technology Review, trying to deduct nil dollars from my account. Both foreign and a funny amount. Clearly need to flag it up. I couldn't see anything else out of the ordinary when I checked on return to Epsom.

Onto the Estrela, in South Lambeth Road, rather busier than the previous occasion, noticed at reference 5. Bread gone a bit downhill again. Vegetable soup the sort of thing you might get from Heinz; warm and mushy. Roast pork substantial, with plenty of pork. But there was also plenty of interesting gravy and the roast pork was some way removed from the sort of thing we might serve as roast pork at home. That is to say, presentation and cooking, rather than cut. Back on the Deu Deu, visible top right. And behind that a sort of flan, but made with cod rather than bacon. It looked rather good.

Followed by a good tiramisu, my only mistake being forgetting to tell them to hold the extras. A use of 'hold' learned from the 'Mildred Pierce' series, found in a box in some charity shop or other - or perhaps in CeX - and which we rather liked. We even went so far as to get the original book and film. Rounded off by some excellent white aguardiente.

The conversation turned to scooters at one point and I had trouble turning up the one noticed at reference 6, other than by going to reference 6, where there was not much in the way of pictures. Search results probably swamped by the sort of scooters you stand on. But adding the word 'retro' to the search term sorted that one out. Although now, some days later, it seems odd that if I included 'Scomadi' in the first place, why it would not work, and odd if I had not included it. All very puzzling. Maybe too much Deu Deu. I also managed to get tangled up in message history which, quite a few months into Samsung and Android, I still find confusing.

Presumably a very special vehicle.

More late winter afternoon skyscape over Vauxhall. A time of day with a special quality of light.

On the train home a family situation which I failed to decode at the time. A mum, a dad and a boy, presumably their son, perhaps eight or nine years old. He was signing energetically with both hands, the parents with one each. All having a fine old time. But when they got out at Epsom, the mum and the boy were talking as they went down the steps from the platform. But the solution seems clear enough now: it was the dad, a big chap, who did not speak. So what I don't see now is why I was puzzled at the time. Maybe I assumed that the fluency of the boy meant that it was him who did not speak: maybe I was locked onto that and couldn't move on.

PS: search turns up plenty of cod-fish quiche, but most of them don't look much like what I remember of the one above. But the one at reference 7 looks about right, even though it involves sausage, which I did not see on the day. Maybe we will get to give it a try, perhaps substituting regular cod for salt cod. Furthermore, BH puts just two eggs in her bacon flan (aka Quiche Lorraine) rather than six and she does not use cream at all, doubled or otherwise.

References

Reference 1: https://www.millwallfc.co.uk/.

Reference 2a: https://www.2kerr.com/en/.

Reference 2b: https://www.2kerr.com/en/products/scewo-bro-power-wheelchair/.

Reference 2c: https://youtu.be/2V840pepcm8.

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/01/in-transition.html.

Reference 4: https://www.genielift.com/en-gb/aerial-lift-products/articulated-boom-lifts/zx13570.

Reference 5: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/02/via-carshalton.html.

Reference 6: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/02/trolley-634.html.

Reference 7: https://modernyum.com/bacalhau-chourico-quiche-keto/.