Trolleys 926, 927 and 928

This afternoon circuit started with the scar of a hole next to our new water meter. BH tells me it was drilled by men in a van from Surrey County Council who were concerned about voids and subsidence in and around our water meter. Concerns which are entirely reasonable given the long running leak in this meter, but how did the Council get involved? Surely it is a mater for Thames Water?

And why is the meter cover wet? Is the hole underneath flooded again?

The men said they were coming back to inject sand into the voids - that, at least, is the story which has reached me.

A quick look at my account, suggests no change regarding the large bill - but nothing untoward regarding usage. Still a bit on the high side and I need to get the gas people in to look at our taps. While the zero readings when the stopcock inside the house was turned off suggest that there is no leak between the meter and the house, which is good news.

I suppose I could phone up Surrey and ask them what they are up to, but I doubt whether I will find the energy and patience to sit on the phone for hours.

On the way into town, I noticed a line of posts across the front of Amber, previously noticed. Are they on the way to getting rid of their tatty orange ribbon of closure?

My first trolley was a medium trolley from M&S, captured in the Kokoro Passage. Returned to a stack containing a right jumble of trolleys, of three or four different sizes or shapes.

My second was a medium small.

My third, captured in the bit of rough ground which used to be the back of the indoor market, was, for a change, from Waitrose. I managed to get it out without damaging either the buddleia left or the car right. To return it to a nice tidy stack, much the same size as that at M&S. But the management at Waitrose had the wit to stick to just two sizes of trolley, making mess much less likely.

On exit from the Ashley Centre, water works outside Café1 opposite. Water works involving water men, this being quite late in the afternoon. Perhaps the proprietor was making a fuss about his water supply.

There had been something of a hiatus in DIY bread supply, so home to sample the second of two 800g white bloomers that I have bought from M&S recently. Not bad for supermarket bread and not sour dough either - but not up to the standard, for example, of the baker at the top of Warwick Road in Thornton Heath, never mind the one at the top of Crouch Hall Road in Crouch End.

I think the Warwick Road baker was on the left, although it is hard to be sure after more than fifty years. But no baker on either side now.

PS 1: over breakfast this morning, I was interested to read in Wednesday's Guardian about our viewing habits, in particular that on average we watched more than 4 hours a day television - a figure which I think includes telephone viewing. The report from which the piece was drawn is to be found at reference 3. A quick peek suggests a longer peek might be the thing, although it is a bit low on sources and methods by the standards of government statistics. Where does all this information come from? The people at YouGov? That said, some of the information about radio is derived from the people at reference 4, snapped above. I have yet to find a credit for either the snap or the model.

'Individuals (aged 4+) spent on average 4 hours 30 minutes per day watching video content at home in 2024, only one minute less than in 2023. The TV set remains central to video viewing in the home; in 2024 84% of in-home video viewing was through the TV set'

The quote above is taken from very near the beginning of reference 3. And it seems like an awful lot of time: I am retired and have all the time in the world (you might think), but I would not like to lose that large a slice of it to television. I wonder how much further into the 94 pages of report the writer for the Guardian managed?

PS 2: now booked HomeCare to come and look at our taps. A British Gas service. Booking is easy; a website which works.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/07/trolley-925.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/06/thames-water-more-progress.html.

Reference 3: https://www.ofcom.org.uk/siteassets/resources/documents/research-and-data/multi-sector/media-nations/2025/media-nations-2025-uk-report.pdf?v=401287. 'Media Nations: UK 2025 - Ofcom - 2025'.

Reference 4: https://www.rajar.co.uk/.

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