Cheese day

Cheese came around again at the end of last month, so off to London Bridge on the train.

The scaffolding at the Station Approach corner, as mentioned at reference 2. It has got rather bigger since this snap was taken, with a sort of canopy over what is left of the pavement to catch anything that might fall.

Bought cheese, pulled a Bullingdon opposite the old Hop Exchange and pedaled off to Clapham Junction. For part of the journey on the A3 heading west, more or less directly under the flight path down to Heathrow. Good viewing conditions and I managed two twos without needing to turn my head very much. Good have done much better had I stopped.

It was bright and warm by the time I got to Clapham Common, so plenty of young people there, a lot of them in skimpy sports gear. To land at the splendidly named Lavender Sweep, my first visit for a while. Soif, of reference 3, up and running. More customers than on previous visits too - including a couple of gents. of middle years speaking French. Several bottles on their table.

Impressed by there being real napkins and the bread had improved since last time - improved in the sense that it was more my sort of bread. A hint of a fizz in the carafe of white, which I rather like. A 2022 Clos du Tue Boeuf, Buisson Pouillex, Touraine. Not sure that we would call our prize wine 'Slaughterhouse Wbite', although, to be fair, there is a holiday cottage a few yards down the street from the one that we take in Brading (on the Isle of Wight) called 'The Old Slaughterhouse'. We don't take it because although it has off-street parking, we don't fancy the spiral stairs to the facilities upstairs.

Bing turns up plenty of people selling the stuff, while Google also manages reference 4, from the snap above is taken. Makes a change from rolling hills of vines, with mist rising above. I liked the picture of a fish. According to Google Images, a coley, a fish we used to eat when we were students and for a while after, until our earnings picked up. Still have it now, although only very occasionally.

'The fish in the image is a Coalfish, also known as Saithe or Coley. It is a member of the cod family. Coalfish are found around the rocky coastlines of the Atlantic and North Sea. They are typically a dark grey or green with a lighter belly. They are known for their streamlined bodies and can be found near the surface or on the seabed. They are often caught by anglers'. He needed a prompt to tell me what sort of fish it was, rather than it being a collectible painting of a fish on a board.

I'm no expert on fish, but it does look like the images for coley turned up by Bing.

I never knew that 'coley' was short for coalfish or that it was the same as pollock, a name one comes across in fishmongers and chippers. See reference 5.

A good bit of skate to follow the bread, a little more highly flavoured than if BH had cooked it at home. Just about visible in the snap above, underneath the flavour!

Wound up with a spot of Calva, after which, with permission, I snapped the poster above, which reminded me of the sort of posters which were around in the late 1960s. An amusing take on same.

Out to stroll up St. John's Road, where the clutch of antique cars was all present and correct. Finding previous notice of which is left as an exercise for the reader.

A branch of Prezzemolo & Vitale has opened up on the ground floor of what was Arding & Hobbs, people I know from Borough and which a correspondent tells me is a big chain of grocers in Italy. I was able to buy a couple of the spiral sausages which we like. I suppose that there are shops to go with the online shopping site Bing turned up at reference 6.

While above this shop, one now has commercial lets and apartments - including, I was told, a private members gym. Fancy atrium with lots of shiny brown wood and a well spoken chap behind the desk.

And so onto Epsom to capture the trolleys and so forth noticed at reference 7. And substantial lunch notwithstanding, a substantial tea of torpedoes - that is to say the first courgettes of the season - potato pie and fresh pineapple to follow. Probably the pineapple with the curious aftertaste, as noticed at the end of reference 10. All very good.

Picking up a fat paperback from RPPL on the way, snapped above with the lurid bag supplied to carry my sausages. Which turned out to be a French translation from Lumen of 'The original life of Addie LaRue' by one Victoria Schwab. Near 700 pages of it. According to reference 8, a successful writer of fantasy from Nashville. Not the sort of thing that I would read in the original, so will I read it in the French? Likely that I would find the modern French a lot harder going than Simenon.

Bing does not offer a website for Lumen, but he does offer reference 9.

PS 1: on my first attempt, Bing turned up all kinds of unusual entry points for TFL, rather than the one at reference 1 and snapped above. I got the right, familiar one second time around. But then, curiously, when I tried again, Bing put the right entry point at the top of his list. At least here, it will serve as a book mark of sorts, without further cluttering up my favourites list.

PS 2: the word from OED on coalfish. I do vaguely recall the black edges to the scales, although I do not recall the staining. Clearly time to buy some more.  I think that, most recently, BH used it to make fish cakes, made by blending the cooked fish with cooked potatoes, then frying cakes of same.

Gemini gets quite enthusiastic explaining all about the '70-2' at the bottom, so enthusiastic that I had to go and get the book back from the bookcase downstairs. More precisely, Volume II, part I: C-Comm. Published and printed in 1893. A lot more information than can be digested for present purposes. One quite forgets that one is talking to a machine.

References

Reference 1: https://tfl.gov.uk/.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/06/trolley-874.html.

Reference 3: https://www.soif.co/.

Reference 4: http://www.puzelat.com/home-page/.

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

Reference 6: https://www.prezzemoloevitale.it/.

Reference 7: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/06/trolleys-862-and-863.html.

Reference 8: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V._E._Schwab.

Reference 9: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89ditions_Lumen. 

Reference 10: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/05/trolley-859.html.