psmv5: Trolley 871, 872 and 873

The Derby having come round again, we thought about going up the hill, one consideration being the bad weather forecast: we did not particularly wanted to get caught in a summer thunderstorm, which can be pretty fierce up there - although not something which would have bothered us in years gone part. All part of the Derby scene.

In the end, we opted to take a turn around town, keeping our option open. We were unlikely to walk, but we might take a bus. And we did walk over the hill, where once there would have been a steady stream of fancy cars containing fancy people. While this year we had a steady stream of cars but very few of them could be called posh. In fact, the best we could do was a clutch of Aston Martin SUVs, one red and two green, sporting some kind of sponsorship from the Jockey Club and presumably on some kind of sales outing.

Car Check a bit feeble on this occasion, telling me no more than that the car was a black 2024 Aston Martin. But presumably part of an effort by Aston Martin to move out of its niche luxury sports car business into the richer pastures of the mass market. Gone are the days when it was enough to be an exclusive, luxury brand: they want fancy profits too. Although, to be fair to Aston Martin, all the luxury brands seem to be at it these days.

Didn't see a Bentley or a Rolls Royce all day.

Town centre only moderately busy at 11:15. But it did seem appropriate to snap BH in front of our racing art.

McCafferty's - once the Albion favoured by racing people, now Epsom's 'wonderful, authentic Irish bar' - had decorated its door with a large number of pink balloons. The Marquis was quiet out front, Wetherspoon's was busy and the market stalls were quite thin.

Not raining, but there was the odd drip to remind one that there might be.

Into the Ashley Centre to inspect the plastic horse first noticed at reference 3, where we picked up our first trolley, an M&S trolley parked up outside Waitrose, which I thought meant that it qualified. There was also the consideration that I am not often allowed to take trolleys when out with BH.

The horse had acquired at least one more colour and I learned that the bunches of green were indeed fake. But quite clever fakes; clever enough that it would be wrong to score them as a fake this second time around.

And so onto the busy terrace at Wetherspoon's where I took another pint of Shere Drop, from the Surrey Hills brewery of reference 4, nothing to do with Adnam's as I had thought last time around. No idea where that could have come from. More or less instant service from a nice young barmaid, not by then too tired to be pleasant. BH went on to do battle with the coffee machine, emerging victorious with her cup of decaff.

Mainly gents in suits on the terrace, but there was plenty to see out on the market place, with a good sprinkling of silly hats.

All good fun, but we decided to go home for lunch and abandon both Wetherspoon's and the hill. A Wetherspoons which had more or less emptied out at around 12:30 or so. I might say in passing that I had taken a quick look at paying options and was a bit startled by how much it cost for a decent ticket in one of the main stands. A bit out of our league: we were 'on the hill' people. Aka the DSS enclosure.

A second circuit a bit later on, when I picked up another M&S trolley outside the station. Medium small I think. Don't know where the bucket came from or what it was doing there.

Cappadocia looked quite busy, although not with racing people. While there was a lady in a fancy hat in the Rio Grill - not the sort of place where one expects to see fancy hats at all. Rock Salt busier than it had been a few days previously.

In any event, the days when Epsom shut down on Derby Day afternoon were clearly long gone. I learned later that the crowd had been something more than 50,000 - a long way from the half million of the good old days.

And then, down East Street, a now rare trolley from Sainsbury's from the creationists' accommodation block. Which I managed to push with my right hand only, leaving the left hand free for the brolly. It had indeed rained, quite hard at times.

I left the large trolley further back for another day, but it had gone by the time that day came. As has had what I think were a couple more, by what used to be the smoking den. Noting aside, that now the smoking den out back has been dismantled, the creationists smoke sat on one of the walls out front.