Lidl

A week ago, I had business with Ben the Butcher and the Odeon in Upper High Street. Then, thinking to complete my morning circuit by continuing up and then hanging left, rather than heading back down, I came to the large new-to-me branch of Lidl. The people who built their headquarters in Jubilee Way, as noticed at reference 2.

On this occasion, I did not pay much attention to the building as a whole, which looks from Street View to feature flats above, but I was intrigued by the ramp, which led up to the shop over the car park, perhaps for residents rather than shoppers. How would my trolley - aka rollator - fare on the ramp?

I associate to the middle class ladies one used to come across in Lidl (or perhaps Aldi) in Leatherhead who used to volunteer elaborate excuses for their being there - anything rather than admit that it was cheap and cheerful.

Up the ramp without incident and into the shop which seemed bright and cheerful enough, with a good range of stuff on offer. I selected a pair of Polish sausages and a bottle of Argentinian wine and proceeded to the rather crowded checkout area, mostly DIY.

While I was waiting, a young man removed his purchases from the checkout nearest me, and rather than going out the way intended, pushed back through the short queue of us waiting. I did not think anything of it at the time, but when I went to use the checkout he had used, it eventually dawned on me that he had left without paying. He must have waited for a moment when neither of the two attendants were looking his way and sneaked out. Perhaps opportunistic, perhaps planned. Leaving one of the attendants to sort out his checkout, which was by now demanding payment. Leaving me a little cross, first for not having noticed and second for having to pay for his groceries (as it were).

Having paid for my groceries, I headed for the down ramp, which I found a little challenging, with one's trolley all for charging on ahead. How do they stop small boys having (possibly dangerous) fun of this sort?

Back to East Street via Church Road, where I found that the church in question is being repurposed. Difficult thing to carry off with any verve. Slightly puzzled that the road was named for what looked like a relatively new church.

My purchases. The sausages were quite like French garlic sausage and I thought good value for £2.99. the wine was rather dearer and it yet to be tasted.

According to reference 3, apart from its many lakes, Masuria is a place with a complicated history. Lots of talk of Old Prussian (a Baltic language, not particularly closely related to German) and you even had some Prots there at one point. But I have not been able to find out much about its sausage, apart from the face that lots of supermarkets - places like Iceland - sell it. Maybe it is an umbrella term covering a range of smoked, pink sausages?

PS 1: another case this morning of my hands remembering a password when the brain, for some reason or other, was not sure.

PS 2: the first frost that I have noticed on the extension roof this morning. Not a hard frost, but frost nonetheless.

PS 3: Old Prussian does not make it to the chart at reference 4, but investigation with Ruhlen at reference 5, snapped above, suggests that it belongs in the green, Slav section.

References

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

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2021/12/collecting.html.

Reference 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masuria.

Reference 4: https://psmv2.blogspot.com/2015/08/aryans.html.

Reference 5: A guide to the world's languages. Vol. 1: Classification – Merritt Ruhlen – 1987.