Trolley 779

A Sainsbury's trolley, unusually, captured in the Kokoro Passage. Assuming that it had come from Kiln Lane, someone had walked it a fair way. And I was to walk it back again.

On the way, I got the idea that the gas works at the foot of Station Approach had turned the corner, it looking that they were starting to stuff new yellow pipes down the old cast iron ones. Given the big loss of diameter, I presume that one needs less natural gas than town gas of old. Then do the stopcocks visible left just get buried, or do they wind up in some cavity, inspectable or otherwise?

Moving on onto the market place, pleased to find that I was not the only person in town with Karrimor carriers. I had thought that I had seen these very panniers before, but search of the archive has failed to turn then up, with the best I could do being reference 3, from more than a decade ago.

Passing along the High Street, I spotted a No.42 and a No.44 - but No.39 remains missing.

From thence along East Street, where the site once occupied by the building part occupied by the Epsom branch of Majestic Wine, is now into ground work, with a good sized pile driver in action. With a new to me outfit called Curo in the chair. Their website, at reference 4, is pretty but not particularly complicated. Some kind of niche operation?

Notice the old way of rhyming from the front to make the tagline underneath more memorable. Having forgotten what this wheeze was called, I asked Bing who did not understand the question. Google did much better, leading me to 'alliterative verse', which led me in turn to reference 6. Didn't need to resort to Gemini on this occasion.

Checking, I find that Majestic Epsom, which I used to use reasonably regularly, has been shut now for more than six months, with closure recorded at reference 8. In that time, we have not felt the need to visit one of the other Majestic branches in the vicinity - nor have I been making much use of the supermarkets instead. I think that at the time of the closure, I thought that there would have been such visits.

Signs of life along the path leading to the footbridge behind Sainsbury's. All sorts of stuff on the move - including celandines which were just about in flower, but not quite enough sun to tempt them out on this morning.

More signs of life coming down the footbridge. After which there were plenty of catkins.

Google Images suggests shining cranesbill, aka shining geranium (Geranium lucidum), which from reference 5 looks right. Vigorous looking plant.

To close nearer home, some of the small daffodils that BH calls tête-à-tête. Maybe six inches high.

While to close this morning, I tried to contact the DWP (PIP division), by telephone, as email did not seem to be an option. After a couple of minutes of soothing computer talk about how much they cared about absolutely everything, 10-15 waiting in their call stack before I responded to the more important call for lunch. At least I could prop the Samsung on the desk and get on with something else, at least up to a point, trusting to my noticing that the musak had stopped in the unlikely event of an operator - human or otherwise - turning up.

They did not offer the call back option of some call centres. Perhaps they tried that and had other problems.

While from over in France, I got news of the fusion guys taking another step along the road to useful fusion: 'World record fusion plasma in Europe: 1,337 seconds or more than 22 minutes: that was how long WEST, a tokamak run from the CEA Cadarache site in southern France and one of the EUROfusion consortium medium size Tokamak facilities, was able to maintain a plasma for on 12 February'. Cadarache being on the Durance, a tributary of the Rhone, to the northeast of Marseilles. Confluence at Avignon. The EAST team operates from China. See reference 7.

[Final inspection of the lower divertor before starting a WEST tokamak plasma campaign, Credit: CEA]

Good job that we were not all so entranced by cheap gas that we paused work on nuclear.

PS: the phrase 'call back' above reminds me that the British Museum have not replied to my query in connection with reference 9 about access to their carved balls. But then it is only a week and the ball man there may be on leave - or on a dig somewhere. Watch this space.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/02/trolleys-776-777-and-778.html.

Reference 2: https://www.karrimor.com/.

Reference 3: https://psmv2.blogspot.com/2013/11/kingston.html.

Reference 4: https://www.curoconstruction.com/. 'Curo Construction is owned and managed by Darren Pettitt and Steve Conlin'.

Reference 5: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geranium_lucidum.

Reference 6: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/07/more-trivia.html.

Reference 7: https://euro-fusion.org/member-news/cea/world-record-fusion-plasma-in-europe/.

Reference 8: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/07/out-and-about.html.

Reference 9: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/02/the-carved-stone-balls-of-aberdeen.html.

Group search key: trolleysk.

The Porch

‘The Porch’ being a novel by Richard Church, the chap whose three volumes of autobiography have been keeping me busy these last months. Reference 1. A second, cheap edition, from Dent, Church’s regular publishers. A rather shabby and battered dust jacket. Two different (ink) hands in the front, one a name and one a dated place. Plus a theatre ticket. I might add that I didn’t pay £15.00 for it – although I suppose I might have done.

The language of this novel strikes me as a bit crude compared to that of the overtly autobiographical work. Which was, however, around twenty years later. Church was born in 1893, the three volumes of autobiography appeared in 1955, 1957 and 1964, with this book of 1937 falling between the first two dates. A book which is also very autobiographical, and which fills in some of the gaps, particularly in regard to his mother and her final illness, in the later books.

The first half of the book covers the hero’s start in life in the lower reaches of the Civil Service and his attempt to break out into the world above of educated men and women, his ambition to be a doctor. The second half is a triangular romance, concerning the sister of the wife of the couple who live in the lower part of his house and a sick colleague. A sick colleague who eventually dies of the same TB which carried off his mother in the novel, his mother and brother in real life. At various places, you get the strong feeling that Church was a man who – for a civilian who was not medical and could not serve in the first war – was intimately acquainted with illness, dying and death.

For some reason, I did not get on very well with the first half, and only really got going in the second half. Which is much the same as in my yet to be reported first reading of David Copperfield, which also only really got going for me in the second half.

Much preoccupation with the tempestuous – but seemingly likeable – character of the hero. His colleagues, high and low, really do try to help. And with all the problems of the autodidact; the man from the slums with little formal education – but with talent and with burning ambition to better himself.

From where I associate once again to FIL, born twenty five years later, born in similarly decent but modest circumstances, but still stuck on the path that leaving school at 14 put him. In his case, it seems that there was no question of his training to be a doctor, despite his extensive experience in the war time Army Medical Corps, and had to settle for being a nurse, albeit a successful one, winding up as a principal tutor at a large mental hospital. My own father, ten years older, was luckier in that his family managed to scrape together the money to put him through dental school. He escaped – along with his extensive if unworldly interests.

The hero is not a poet, unlike the author, but his friend Mouncer is and we do get the odd bit of poetry – which, as this reading has interacted with my reading of references 3 and 4, I did try to engage with. Reading aloud does help, but I am still some way off lift-off. Maybe Pope’s heroic couplets will turn out to be the way in. In the meantime, I was struck by the steely judgement in the poem offered on page 318.

The hero’s mother – a lady with a past who went on to lose her husband young and who had to teach to live – died shortly before the opening of the book and he is living upstairs in what was their house, sleeping in what was her deathbed, having let downstairs to a very decent couple. This, plus the insurance money, plus his very modest entry-level salary from the Civil Service, is what he lives on. Not quite on the breadline, but not far off.

In the second half, as the relationship between the Sonnier girl (from Dartmoor) and the two men – John and Mouncer – intensifies, the novel seems to come alive. There are glimpses of the mature prose of the autobiography. A relationship which presumably draws on the early but doomed romance of Church that we learn of from reference 7, the romance involving his friend the cellist and the singer from the seaside. While Mouncer himself draws on a difficult poet whom Church got to know much later. We learn of him from reference 8.

[Holne is to be found to the northwest of Buckfastleigh, on the edge of Dartmoor proper]

This romance moves to Devon and Church’s description of the train running down the Exe south of Exeter seemed to be drawn from personal knowledge. As did the description of the Dart in its steep wooded valley which followed. I got the idea, fantasy perhaps, that Church was drawing on a visit to the very village, Holne, that we have visited a number of times, from where you can indeed climb down through the woods to the Dart at Newbridge. The only catch was that he talked of trout, which we have never seen there – although their presence seems likely enough. Did Church stay in the Church House Inn there, the very place visited later by Archbishop Ramsey? For which see reference 9.

Impressions and oddments

We get the odd pop at the perils of matrimony for the man who wants to do art. Seemingly a live issue for the thrice married Church.

We get quite a lot on the tedium of the examinations that a boy who left school at 14 had to push himself through if he wanted to get on. Examinations in a lot of stuff which he was unlikely to make further use of – but I suppose it was training of a sort – and it did sort the wheat from the chaff. You had to be very driven to get through it.

There is the tension between opting for the security of low grade but secure work in the Civil Service – with a pension – and doing something more daring. The hero’s opening gambit was to secure his back, as it were, with such secure work, which left him maybe six hours a day for private study. A hard, lonely choice which I dare say, in real life, often ended in tears. There had been plenty of this in the autobiographical books. Tension which had not vanished in my own day, with a chap whom I used to know well being full of these problems and it might have been interesting to have had his take on this part of the book.

On page 23, we get a passing mention of niggers. Not particularly offensive, nor unusual for the time of writing, but it would not do now.

There were lots of pianos at references 5 and 7, but not many here, notably his mother’s Lipp, preserved but now rarely used. Not a brand I had come across before in my piano collecting travels.

The pastiche of a Milton sonnet offered at page 232 of the present book, is the very same as that at page 190 of the second volume of autobiography, noticed at reference 5. The wrapping, however, is rather different.

We get diggings again on page 258, an old word for digs which I first came across in the roughly contemporary Agatha Christie, perhaps as long as fifteen years ago. And scheming landladies with daughters. Church is not above a touch of smut! This not being the first hint of this sort either.

Some of the hero’s colleagues started in the slums and we are told of how bad parts of Camden Town were at that time, say the first decade of the twentieth century. From where I associate to the Kentish Town where BH started out as a teacher in the early 1970s, at that time still a fairly slummy area. Still with a working street market which, inter alia, sold real Finnan haddock, at that time not a luxury item. Gentrification was only just getting under way.

Probably elsewhere, Church has commented on the advantages of an author sticking to his publisher, of not shopping around for the better deal. In his view, these advantages are apt to be more valuable than any short-term improvement in the cash flow. That said, all three volumes of his autobiography were published by Heinemann rather than Dent. Another puzzle.

Trivia

Microsoft want it both ways. The twenty five above spelt as one word is a spelling error, spelt as two is a grammatical error.

While all this was going on I had a telephone conversation with a very pleasant young lady who wanted to visit me in about a fortnight’s time. Arrangements were all made and we were about to end the call, when I thought to mention that parking outside the house was not a problem. At which point it transpired, rather to my surprise, that what the pleasant young lady had in mind was a telephonic visit: given her location a real visit might have been awkward. A usage which came with the invasion of Zoom at the time of the plague? A usage of the very young?

Conclusions

Not without interest, but I don’t suppose I shall read it again. We shall see how BH gets on with it – if at all.

More positively, reading this book has prompted much thought. It was not like reading one of those novels which just carry you along for a few hours, after which you emerge refreshed, but untouched and unscathed. A bit like taking a few drinks, but without the hangover. Inter alia, one thinks about how the lives and events portrayed (or imagined) touch one’s own. About all the common threads which bind us together. A throw back to the days before radios and televisions, when people talked about the books they were reading rather more than they do now?

I am reminded of my schooldays when one of the teachers explained that the point of education was to teach one to think, to think for oneself. A corollary of which is that thinking is an autonomous activity, going on in the head, somewhat detached from whatever it is that its owner might appear to be doing – if anything – from the outside.

From where I branch to my longstanding interest in the nature of consciousness. When did thinking start on the evolutionary tree? Before or after we became recognisably human? Does conscious thought have to involve language? As things stand, on a forced choice, I would answer after we split off from the apes, after and yes. But that is very much work in progress. 

References

Reference 1: The porch – Richard Church – 1937.

Reference 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Church_(poet). 

Reference 3: Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word – Walter J. Ong – 1982.

Reference 4: The Muse Learns to Write: Reflections on Orality and Literacy from Antiquity to the Present – Eric A Havelock – 1986.

Reference 5: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/09/church-two.html. Concerning reference 7.

Reference 6: Over the bridge – Richard Church – 1955. The child – closing with the death of his mother.

Reference 7: The golden sovereign – Richard Church – 1957. The young man – closing with the birth of a baby daughter.

Reference 8: The voyage home – Richard Church – 1964. In retrospect.

Reference 9: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/09/the-church-house.html. 

Trolleys 776, 777 and 778

The expedition had started by noticing the continuing gas works at the bottom of Station Approach: a serious affair; they had been going some days and looked to be going for some more yet, this being Wednesday afternoon. The various holes in the road were spreading rather than otherwise. Several vehicles and more than several men. Lots of those yellow plastic covers, about a metre square, which they put over difficulties in the pavement. Rather a nuisance with a trolley - one's own or anyone else's - as the front wheels catch on the leading edge. Lots of cars backing up on West Hill, waiting to get through.

My first trolley of the day was from B&M, taken in the Kokoro Passage.

I failed to find a maker's plate, but I did find a plate which was not the same as the last one, snapped at reference 2. Made in somewhere anonymous in China, but sourced by 'Storage and Handling Equipment Ltd, SNZ House, Macklin Avenue, Cowpen Industrial Estate, Billingham, TS23 4BY'. Similar name but a Teesside industrial estate rather than a converted farmyard near Cricklade.

Companies House know about a shell company called SNZ Ltd with an address in Birmingham, which does not help much. While Google turns up a MEC100 at reference 3, not quite the same as the present trolley and seemingly made in Poland. So who knows what is going on?

My second was from the M&S food hall, taken at a bus stop in the High Street.

On my way to M&S, I took the opportunity to look more closely at the menu of the juice bar which was part of the 'outdoor' café by the lifts in the Ashley Centre. This had caught my eye because I had been indulging in bottles of tomato juice from the Waitrose nearby and I had wondered how much like that juice tomatoes passed through a blender would be. Was this something to try at home?

It turned out that the only regular juice on offer was orange juice, and everything else was some kind of cocktail involving exotica like mangoes and passion fruit; DIY versions of the sort of thing offered by J2O at reference 4. No straight apple, pineapple or grapefruit, in the way of a hotel breakfast bar. There were tomatoes there, but they were not part of the juice operation.

My third was from Sainsbury's in East Street. Just past the creationists, where I had passed on a sizeable stack of trolleys, starting where the smoking den, now dismantled, used to be. Far too many for me to push, even if I had thought it proper to penetrate so far onto their property.

Home from Kiln Lane via Middle Lane and the Screwfix underpass.

Rewarded myself for all this effort by taking the kippers noticed the other day. Simmered for ten minutes and spot on. 1.5 kippers each, Greens and rice spot on too.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/02/trolley-775.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/02/trolley-771.html.

Reference 3: https://kifato.pl/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/katalog-wozkow-mec-1-1-1.pdf.

Reference 4: https://j2o.co.uk/.

Group search key: trolleysk.

Ben's beef

Beef time came around again ten days ago.

Ordered a few days prior to that, being careful to specify that I wanted all the bones left in the fore-rib and that I did not want it chined, which can result in the finished joint sagging in an unsightly way. In the event, I got three bones weighing in at 4.244kg plus around a kilo of someone else's rib bones to make gravy with.

From there proceeded into the Co-op at the bottom of the High Street, which turned out to be very trolley friendly, with a quality ramp over the threshold and space to move inside. Where I found a very grumpy middle aged lady holding forth about the absence of attendance. I think she was having trouble with the self-checkout.

Followed by a very tame wagtail outside the butcher in Manor Green Road. 

First action was to boil up the bones with some carrots and onions, straining off the liquor after about four hours. There had been good smells upstairs while this was going on.

Nibbled at the bones later: not for the squeamish, let alone veggies. The sort of thing that FIL would have enjoyed, livening up the proceedings by naming all the parts.

The liquor set overnight, underneath maybe an eighth of an inch of fat, lifted off to roux up in due course.

Too big a joint for our scales, so settled for the online convertor which said 9lbs 7oz. I consulted the various precedents and settled for three hours at 190°C, not far of Radiation Cookbook slow roast at 20 minutes to the pound. 10:00 for 13:00, but allowing a bit of flexibility at the far end. No need for the tie of ownership on this occasion: Ben (or one of his colleagues) had done enough.

In the event, oiled and into the pre-heated oven at 10:05.

At which point, BH moved into gear, knocking up something called an Apple Charlotte, which turned out rather well. She did not attempt to remove it from its tin. Something one might possibly attempt with a loose bottomed tin, perhaps just before the off, but not with this one.

A confection assembled from slices of bread and cooking apples, I thought from a Mary Berry recipe, but the dessert we had did not look much like that at reference 1. Nor did we bother with cream, which was not necessary. Not to my taste, anyway. But we did bother with custard for some.

I attended to the brick compost heap, dominated by ancient pineapple heads and banana skins. The various pineapple heads are still there, but not, for some reason, visible.

Back in the kitchen, preparations continue. This being about the point that my assistant turned up to help me with the gravy. Very well she did too, earning a modest amount of gravy dipping, with brown bread on this occasion, rather than the usual white. It was fine.

Plus mash, swede and greens.

Shortly after start of carving operations (on the blind side).

And the blind side.

On the plate. Plus the odd bottle of the red wine previously noticed at reference 2.

In due course, the Charlotte did us very well, even if I should have snapped it before getting stuck in.

Time to crack out the sealing gadget promoted by the Half Way House, as noticed at reference 3. It did very well. Not drinking in multiples of bottles sounds like a very good plan - but we have yet to see if the idea catches on in a regular way.

Proceedings livened up at this point by a lost fingernail drama. It did not turn up then, despite our best efforts on the floor, and has not turned up since. Hopefully forgotten about, rather than held against us for years and years.

As it was, the plan for non-lethal Cluedo had to be suspended.

I may have taken a little meat with my supper that same day, but otherwise there was a pause for a couple of days. The scene after the second outing being snapped above.

The cold meat was taken with potato & parsnip mash, beans and gravy. I did not notice the parsnips at the time, but they did make for an improved mash. Just the thing for the gravy. The remains being polished off on bread a few hours later.

The beef finally expired a couple of days after that.

Or at least, down to a bit of poking around with small sharp knives and gnawing. More FIL action. So all in all, eight adult portions, two children's portions and some snacking - out of the 9kg or so we started with.

Ben had, once again, done us proud.

PS 1: It helps that we actually rather like cold roast meat with boiled vegetables.

PS 2: signs of spring in the verge after the second outing. Last noticed, rather less than a year ago, at reference 5. I think it has been in flower, more or less continuously, ever since. So maybe not a sign of spring at all!

PS 3: further to the tail end of reference 6, a snap of the real thing, from a correspondent.

References

Reference 1: https://britishbakingrecipes.co.uk/mary-berry-apple-charlotte/.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/02/shoulder.html.

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/02/sonatas.html.

Reference 4: https://bensbutchery.co.uk/.

Reference 5: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/04/candytuft.html.

Reference 6: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/02/a-good-programme.html.

Group search keys: Delft, Mauritshuis. 

Some precedents

Beef without backbone: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/04/beef-without-backbone.html. Two ribs. Half the bone had been removed. Part of the celebrations around trolley No.500.

Sirloin: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/08/sirloin.html. Two ribs. Just managed to stop the butcher taking the bones out.

New beef: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/09/new-beef.html. Two ribs. A first visit to Ben the Butcher. Some ties of ownership on this occasion.

Festal beef: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/09/festal-beef.html. Three ribs, much trimmed, from Waitrose. Despite which, it turned out rather well.

Beef: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/02/beef.html. Three ribs from Ben, somewhat trimmed. Also chined, despite instruction. But a good looking piece of meat with a good blanket of fat.

Trimmed beef: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/06/trimmed-beef.html. Three ribs, much trimmed, from Ginger Pig, Borough Market. Turned out pretty well.

Beef: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/08/beef.html. Three ribs, pretty much bone free. Ginger Pig, staffed for the occasion by ladies. Taken with curly kale.

On the bone: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/09/on-bone.html. Two ribs from Ben. Lots of bone, almost up to Florentine standards. But with all the bone, not as much meat as I was expecting. Point to watch.

Trolley 775

Left the B&M trolleys, but I did return from M&S to capture the one from Waitrose.

Where I was impressed by the meat counter. Some of it may have looked a little tired, perhaps reflecting a low turnover, but there was plenty of choice. Shoulder of lamb, complete with all its bones. Ox kidney. Lambs' hearts. I wonder how many of these last they had, after the two on show?

In the event I settled for three Craster kippers, the full smoke, for about £5.50. Not as cheap as haggis from Sainsbury's but not bad by the standard of my shopping.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/02/trolley-774.html.

Group search key: trolleysk.

Trolley 774

An M&S food hall trolley recovered yesterday afternoon from the middle of a nest of B&M trolleys in the Kokoro Passage. Returned to an empty stack in a reasonably busy shop.

In the margins of this post, I was moved to investigate one Weinrebe of the Dorset Foundation, recorded on a tablet hung up in the Wigmore Hall as one of their more generous donors. Was he some banker from the City who retired to some country mansion in the west country, in the way of the Robert Williams of what became Williams & Glynn, buying Bridehead House in Dorset?

He seems to have made his money in Hong Kong and to have had musical connections. He crops up quite a lot as a donor to various good causes in the UK. According to reference 2 he was married in Dorchester, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston, which may account for the name of the foundation - which would make it nothing to do with our west country. But I can find out little about him and nothing about the foundation.

However, along the way, I did find that Denise Coates, the lady who had made a fortune out of online betting, has put her name to the Denise Coates Foundation, a charity which admits to a lot more income than expenditure. This thanks to a feature of charity search at the Charity Commission whereby you can rank your search results by income - with all kinds of odd outfits floating to the top of the heap. Where I did not notice Eton but I did notice my own secondary school. Along with Denise Coates.

Moving on from Weinrebe (aka Weinreb?), I moved onto wax tablets, which I now know often came in the form of a folded pair, a diptych, as snapped from Wikipedia above. Known to Greece from at least 500BC and to the near east for longer than that.

I was very struck by what a nifty contraption this was. Inter alia, it could be used for important or private documents and sealed shut with wax, using the signet ring (or seal ring) of the writer. And was, it seems, used for the famous suicide note written by Phaedra, the Cretan princess, the subject of plays by both Euripides and Racine, amongst others. For whom see reference 4.

[The Great Seal of England attached to the document allowing de Cleseby free warren over his land: Edward I 'in Majesty' with sceptre and orb. Edward II's Great Seal was identical to his father's. Warwickshire County Record Office reference CR341/2]

While for those too important to trouble with writing, they could simply entrust their oral message to a messenger, and authenticate the messenger by lending him their signet ring, known to the recipient. Or going further, entrusting the seal to a keeper, perhaps called the Keeper of the Seal or the Garde des sceaux.

This being another spin-off from reference 5.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/02/trolley-773.html.

Reference 2: https://jhshk.org/community/the-jewish-cemetery/burial-list/weinrebe-harry-morgan/.

Reference 3: https://www.asil.org/event/harry-weinrebe-memorial-event-2024-judge-joan-donoghue-challenges-and-future-international.

Reference 4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phaedra_(mythology).

Reference 5: The Muse Learns to Write: Reflections on Orality and Literacy from Antiquity to the Present – Eric A Havelock – 1986. 

Group search key: trolleysk.

Trolley 773

I had thought that trolleys were over for the day, but I could not resist this large one from Sainsbury's, just past Pets at Home in East Street. Which I had thought this evening to be called Pets R'Us or something of that sort. Bing put me right.

The place which was called Dagenham Motors and from where we bought our 09 C-max. How many more years will we get out of it, given that we had to replace the radiator last year? Will we jump to electric when the time comes, as we ought?

Returned the trolley, then back down Middle Lane and through the Screwfix passage, to find this lorry mounted crane, over the roundabout at the exit to Blenheim Road. Presumably a builders' merchant delivering something or other. Perhaps a steel or concrete beam for an extension? I was too tired or too lazy to move in for a closer look, impressive though it was.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/02/trolley-772.html.

Reference 2: https://www.petsathome.com/.

Group search key: trolleysk.

Trolley 772

Trolley 772 being a couple of trolleys from B&M, together with a very modest amount of litter. Returned to B&M where the small stack out front was full right up, and I had to improvise. Decided against pushing my luck with any more on this occasion.

However, following the failure to find a proper maker's mark on trolley No.771, I did have another look, and failed again. Do I have the brass to conduct a more thorough search in the middle of the High Street, where B&M trolleys are usually to be found? I suppose I could carry one off to the private depths of the car park.

Stop press: the noodlarium in Lower Marsh is still there and seems to be more or less unchanged - with the last visit noticed more than ten years ago at reference 2. It has survived the onslaught of street food. Full report in due course.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/02/trolley-771.html.

Reference 2: https://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.com/2012/10/hedda-gabler.html.

Group search keys: trolleysk, noodlearium, noodlarium.

Marmalade

A correspondent recently gave us a present from Seville, to wit some marmalade, presumably made with genuine Seville oranges. Concerning which, I remember reading that in some parts of the town they are something of a nuisance, with lots of damaged and rotting oranges littering the streets at the wrong time of year.

Not quite the proper recipe, involving figs as well as oranges, cane sugar and pectin. But at least 40g of fruit to the 100g of jam.

But rather good, taken without butter on my own brown bread. Not the stuff which got cooked for rather a long time and was noticed at reference 2, as I had at first thought this morning, rather the stump of the previous batch. A little dry, but well matched to the marmalade. The relevant clue being the time stamp on the snap.

All kinds of other orange flavoured stuff to be had from reference 1. Including, according to my rudimentary Spanish, olive oil flavoured with just oranges, oranges and chocolate or oranges, lemon and Jamaican pepper. From all of which I associate to our landlady, back at Bury Lodge of Hambledon, many years ago now, who made her marmalade from Seville oranges grown in her own greenhouse. Also to something about orange blossom being the just the thing for wedding flowers. A something which reference 3, turned up by Bing, appears to corroborate.

I think we may have made marmalade ourselves, perhaps once or twice, but one does end up with rather a lot of it. But I never did try growing oranges on the allotment.

A bit later in the day, over West Hill, to catch a fine sky scape as the sun went down in the west. For which the hill is named.

PS 1: the earlier slip of Butler Lodge from Bury Lodge has been corrected. Butler is the name of the family; Bury is where they lived. The same two first letters, I suppose, going some way to accounting for the swap. We had the first floor flat, in the extension back right in the snap above. From where, I cycled to work, across the hills, to Titchfield.

Grade II listed building, No.1095548. Furnishings included an elaborate punch bowl set, presented by Charles II to mark the family's help in his escape after the battle of Worcester in.1651. I believe, one of a number of such sets.

The best Google can do is the bowl above, from Bonhams, commemorating the same escape - but the stand is Victorian and the bowl is not what I remember at all. But it was a long time ago.

PS 2: I have now consulted BH. Her memory of the bowl is a lot nearer the snap above than mine. On the other hand, I have remembered that at the time of the escape, the Butlers lived in a cottage below what is now Bury Lodge, a cottage which is now called 'King's Rest'. A cottage which ran to a fine display of spring flowers out front in our time up at the lodge. While down the road, I used to use 'The Vine', which still seems to be alive and well - and still selling beer. Some of the houses in the vicinity have gone very foodie.

References

Reference 1: https://orangetreesevilla.com/.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/02/painter-on-proust.html. On the substance of which, cogitations continue.

Reference 3: https://citrusindustry.net/2020/07/30/pieces-of-the-past-orange-blossoms-and-brides/.

Reference 4: https://media.onthemarket.com/properties/11302034/1380994444/document-0.pdf. 'A magnificent Grade II listed Regency country house, that has been fully restored externally and has internally been prepared for a personal internal design concept, set in an elevated parkland position of 50 acres'. Well...

Supplementary cello

An extra visit to the Wigmore Hall for some cello and piano: Sol Gabetta cello and Kristian Bezuidenhout piano. Brahms Op,99, Mendelssohn Op.58 and, for the encore, an arrangement of the Chopin Étude Op.25, No.7. Not my usual thing at all. But a concert which was more or less sold out when I booked my ticket a couple of days before hand. I was lucky to get a good seat on the right hand side, almost certainly a return, again not my usual thing at all. 

It turned out to be another cold and dreary day and I opted for a lift to the station with my stick, but without my trolley.

Niketown seemed to be closed for refurbishment by Coffey, possibly of reference 4. Who seem to be more civil engineers than builders, big in the water works business. But they do claim to do other stuff, and Bing is not offering any other Coffeys.

Back to the little coffee bar opposite All Bar One in Regent Street, where, once again, I happened to turn up in a gap in the queue. What Street View calls the Mustard Cafê but I am not so sure. Once again, salami toastie and coffee, this past from Carraro of reference 2. Good coffee, but you also get an expensive looking, syrupy video at reference 3.

I puzzled about the position of what appeared to be windows to the outside world, perhaps a light well? Outside world visible middle right, beyond the counter.

Satellite View leaves me none the wiser. One of those fancy, hundred year old, red brick buildings of which there are plenty in the area. The impressive line of chimney pots visible to the right belongs to the corner building, the ground floor at least, of which, is occupied by SpaceNK, the people at reference 1.

A bargain pouffe opposite the hall. Now less than £1,000! I wonder how long it would take BH and I to knock something of the sort up? I dare say we could get something near enough for less than £100 in materials, although we would have trouble matching the smooth finish to the thing.

On into the hall, where two chaps behind me were discussing the business of booking returns. It seems that one of them was very keen on it for some reason - presumably one of those people who does not like to book himself up in advance. I learn that you might have to go into the website several times over a couple of hours or so, but that you almost invariably get there. I associate to a friend who seemed to like queuing for returns at theatres, in person. He never failed either.

Interesting cello part in the Brahms, although I found the Mendelssohn more accessible. I liked the encore, slight thing though it was.

An impressively tall mobile concrete pump at the site by the funny little church at Henrietta Street, now the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity.

The way of Jesus, lifted from reference 5. We actually got inside back in 2011, as noticed at reference 6. Where I am also reminded of the late lamented Toucan. The Soho Square branch may still survive.

More of same.

On to the Half Way House at Earlsfield, noticing on the way that Lime Bicycles seem to be cleaning up their act. Not so many heaps of them littering the pavements, more lines of them outside places like railway and tube stations.

Some fake tiles, presumably in the washroom. They looked like tiles and did not feel hollow to the tap, but I think they must have been put up in sheets. Not very carefully: a more careful worker would have taken more trouble to line things up properly at the corner and would have avoided the short ends.

The barmaid, perhaps the manageress, knew her business, striking just the right note with both customers and others. Customers which she referred to as guests. From where I sat with my glass of Valpolicella, looking back towards the railway station, I could see four fast food outlets and four estate agents - and not much else.

Grey and wet outside, useless for aeroplanes. But I was impressed by the monster step up into the train from the town end of the platform. I also noticed that it was easy enough for one's winter-gloved hand to slip on the handrails provided. Care needed!

A good haul at Raynes Park, the first such for a while. A selection from a much larger selection of numbers of 'The Linguist', which did not turn out to be as interesting as I thought it might be. More a talking shop for the day to day affairs of working translators. I learned that literary translators do not do very well and that computer game translation is a whole new speciality. Secret Services very visible, but then, I suppose, they are the biggest single employer of linguists.

A piece which told me how some languages have odd strengths and weaknesses. The Spaniards to not have a good word for our 'silly', while English is well endowed with words about medical matters, with, for example, a rich pain vocabulary.

The fishy atlas, from the US, appeared to be directed at amateur aquarium enthusiasts. In particular, the people who keep sponges and other marine obscurities as pets. I think Volume 1 did fishes while volumes 2, 3 and eventually 4 did the invertebrates. This volume 3 does molluscs (Mollusca), segmented worms (Annelida) and echinoderms (Echinodermata) - some of which are very rum looking animals altogether. A German company, published in the USA, printed in Singapore. 500 or so small pages on shiny white paper. This last presumably to carry all the photographs.

From Mergus Verlag of Osnabrück, seemingly at a private address, 'Wilhelmstraße 19, 49078 Osnabrück, Germany'. No website, just lots of listings on other people's. The present book looks quite expensive, £30 or more.

All very odd. Also that there are enough people around with this particular collecting bug to justify publishing a glossy book of this sort.

PS: in the margins of this post, I noticed half a dozen or so comic pigeons bouncing around in the plum tree, just about visible behind the leylandii. Breakfasting off the flowers and buds. Three of them still present, one still visible, after my telephone scared the others away. Birds were a major pest of stone fruit in the garden of my childhood - but it was tits and finches at that time rather than pigeons. 

Maybe this year, back much improved, I will get around to finishing the leylandii's haircut.

Reflection of study table lamp lower left.

References

Reference 1: https://www.spacenk.com/uk/home.

Reference 2: https://www.carraro.uk/.

Reference 3: https://youtu.be/C5y1UPAxwxs.

Reference 4: http://coffeyconstruction.co.uk/.

Reference 5: https://licc.org.uk/.

Reference 6: https://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.com/2011/02/mubaraks.html.