Cheese

Cheese came around again last week and I opted for London Bridge, rather than Covent Garden. A cold day as it turned out, so the full duffel.

The chap in front of me at the cheese shop, a smartly dressed Brit living in Paris, was making a considerable purchase, a three kilo wedge of proper English cheddar. This by way of a semi-joke birthday present for a friend in France who needed educating about the virtues of English cheese and who had too much money to be buying him regular presents. He also had a couple of bottles of authentic London gin, possibly sourced from one of the shops in Borough Market.

I bought my more modest kilo and set off, against a modest westerly breeze. Up Southwark Street, round Waterloo Station and past Archbishop's Park, which looked well worth a visit, if not a likely place for a Wellingtonia.

For a change, I decided to take lunch in the Tea House in Vauxhall Gardens, where the trees seem to be much large than when I used to walk past on my way to the Home Office. On the way, passing what used to be the Myer's bed factory, which caught my eye as I thought that they were the people who had made our bed, a fact which I failed to confirm this morning. If there is a maker's label, you need to take the mattress off to see it, so that will have to wait.

My memory says that we bought this fine bedstead from a junk furniture shop in Myddleton Road in Wood Green for the sum of £2, not much even then. Various mattresses since, which cost vastly more. Nothing that I remember on Street View this morning, but there is a stretch which is busy with shops, so the memory remains plausible.

On to the tea house, where steak and kidney pie and bacon sandwich had both vanished from the menu, so I opted for a shepherd's pie, which turned out to be an entirely adequate replacement for the earlier pie. Unusually, the meat was not regular mince, rather small lumps, but none the worse for that. And it was a good portion of pie. Vegetables pretty good. As was the bottle of Proper Job, from St. Austell of reference 3. A regional outfit which has been very successful over recent years at projecting itself onto the national scene.

Picked up a jar of marmalade on the way out. Where I was preceded at the till by a couple of chaps moaning that they could not get the advertised discount for cash because the tea house did not have enough change. OK, so it was a bit sloppy of them, but the amount of moaning was disproportionate. Top right in the snap above.

Whereas I thought my bill was a bit more than I was expecting, but thought nothing more of it. Whereupon the waitress came rushing out after me to refund the tenner she had overcharged. I did not think to wave it away as a cash tip for good behaviour. Clearly too full of lunch.

The road I used to take to the Home Office from Vauxhall railway station. A road sometimes featuring people left over from the night just past.

Some aeroplanes flying the wrong way at Earlsfield, that is to say not locked onto the flight path down to Heathrow.

Home to deal with the trolley noticed at reference 4.

The marmalade was sampled the following morning. Good, even if they had been a bit fierce with the pectin - that is to say the gelling agent.

PS 1: I have not heard what hospitality staff think of the demise of cash tipping after the plague. OK, so restaurants add 12% or so to the bill, but is that better for the staff? Certainly more convenient for me, even if I occasionally miss rewarding good service in the more personal, old fashioned way.

PS 2: the messages on BH's telephone suddenly started appearing in big this morning. I gave up trying to fix this myself and asked Gemini and one of his suggestions was to pinch them small again - which worked fine. Simple enough, but it took the power of Gemini get me there. But he did get me there, which is the main thing.

References

Reference 1: https://www.lambeth.gov.uk/parks/archbishops-park.

Reference 2: https://www.teahousetheatre.co.uk/.

Reference 3: https://staustellbrewery.co.uk/.

Reference 4: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/05/trolley-828.html.

Reference 5: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/12/granite.html. St. Austell last cropped up in connection with granite rather than beer.

Reference 6: https://www.ringdenfarm.co.uk/. They will press your fruit too.