The first trolley of the day was captured by the bus stop, outside Enterprise, at the town end of West Hill. Returned to the food hall in the usual way.
The red spot lower left is not finger trouble with the Snipping Tool, rather the end of what passes for a seat in a bus shelter. This confirmed by gmaps.
Followed by a B&M trolley at the bottom of the Kokoro Passage.
From B&M, through town and into East Street, where I captured a second M&S trolley from under the 'no cannabis' sign at the creationists. From M&S, back home over West Hill the short way, via Meadway.
A short circuit in the afternoon, trolley free, as I was on cooking duty. But I did come across this old and damaged oak on Court Recreation Ground. The consensus was that the long drought followed by the downpour was too much for the branch already much weakened by interior decay. Hopefully they will be able to leave the now rather lop-sided tree.
There was another large branch down on a willow tree at the southern corner of the recreation ground but I did not have time to inspect that.
Home to record the holiday rock haul. Left, a distinctive shell fused with a pebble. Centre, a lump of chalk from a cliff. Right, the curious red stone with the yellow streak already noticed, where I learned about streaks from the useful book at reference 7. More RPPL? Rocks to be added to my small collection of same.
The pork belly, salted and ready to go. Sourced from Ben the Butcher, where the meat is good but where they seem to have trouble cutting pork. I blame those six weeks' courses at technical colleges, which claim to convert school leavers into butchers: what they need is serious time spent with meat, under supervision. Lectures in a lecture hall about food safety are not enough.
A bit more than an hour and a half at 180°C. Basted at the one hour mark. Plated and oven turned right down at the hour and a quarter. Served with small potatoes and greens - which last seemed to need rather more than the usual five minutes. Maybe it was the change from Tesco's greens to Sainsbury's greens. Proper gravy, but knocked up in just an hour, making the necessary stock with onion, celery, carrot and - for a change - a dollop of dried sage. Sage and onion gravy, as it were.
We did three of the four slices. Very good they were too, despite the dodgy slicing.
Served with a new-to-us 2023 Fleurie from Waitrose, the stuff we had been buying having gone AWOL. Went down OK, having been delivered to our doorstep just about a day after I clicked on it.
Bottled in France at F71570-084 for Boutinot of reference 4, of Cheadle and London. I could not find this particular bottle there, but the notes for a relative said '... During the summer, chill lightly and serve with roasted or barbecued chicken or pork...' - so we were clearly more or less on message.
Bing finds this bottler all over the place, with all the big supermarkets, but it is not clear whether they are the Boutinot bottler or whether they are more independent. There is also the story according to HSBC at reference 6 - where there is talk of the Boutinot family of wine growers.
But my guess is more successful middle man than primary wine producer. Maybe a blender?
Some rather good, neighbourly plums for dessert, possibly cherry plums, Prunus cerasifera, which I thought tasted rather of gooseberry.
Gemini was quite fulsome about why this might be, without coming up with the simple answer he had managed for the curious back taste of pineapples, previously noticed. A small sample from near the end of his output is included below.
... Balance of Sugars and Acids: The overall taste of any fruit is a balance between its sugars (glucose, fructose, sucrose, sorbitol in plums) and its organic acids. If your specific cherry plums had a good amount of sugars, providing the "plum" sweetness, but also a significant level of acidity, that strong sweet-tart contrast could easily evoke the gooseberry experience...
To be fair, lots of simple questions do not have simple answers.
A dog collar picked up somewhere along the way. From Hugo & Hudson, a name with resonance, presumably dreamed up by some marketing type. Bing offers one for £19.99, but you can spend a lot more at reference 3. Dog fashions are clearly just as pricey as human ones.
I took the fourth rib cold yesterday - it going rather further cold than hot - then today, there still being some gravy left, we tried some rather cheaper pork belly from Sainsbury's, cooked in the same way. It turned out to be very inferior: a lot of fat, texture not very good and a strong taste of fish. But then, BH usually disguises the stuff with onions, potatoes and stock cube. Naked, not so clever.
Maybe this is why casual dining establishments smother their pork ribs in thick red, sweet n'sour sauces.
PS: Saturday morning: an advertisement from Alpha Romeo arrived in my gmail inbox this morning, from which the snap above is taken. I liked the golden accents; all terribly creative: the hired Cupra, recently noticed, did them too. I presume that because I clicked, Alpha Romeo have to pay Google something - but with cars being quite expensive items, is it pennies or pounds? Also that Alpha Romeo got into the game in the first place because Google told them that I had been taking an interest in cars. On all of which more in due course.
References
Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/07/trolleys-914-and-915.html.
Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2021/10/holne-one.html. Maybe they still do apprentices in darkest Devon.
Reference 3: https://www.hugoandhudson.com/collections/dog-collars.
Reference 4: https://boutinot.com/wines/la-reine-de-larenite-fleurie/.
Reference 5: https://boutinot.com/.
Reference 6: https://www.business.hsbc.uk/en-gb/insights/international/boutinot-the-english-wine-company-with-international-ambitions.
Reference 7: An introduction to the mineral kingdom – Richard Pearl, J. F. Kirkaldy – 1956, 1966.
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