Trolley 950

Once again failed on the morning circuit, in part because I had lentil to attend to a little later. But I did come across these Brussels sprouts from South Africa in M&S at £11.25 the kilo. £2.25 for a small packet sounded rather better. Air freight or refrigerated container in a bulk carrier? If the latter, why not just buy frozen and have done with? Not that I can recall ever doing such a thing.

6oz of lentils, rinsed and cooked separately. 200g of saucisson from Bastides, via Waitrose. Less than 90 minutes lentil jar to table.

Followed, I think, by the last of a batch of Victoria plums from Waitrose. Pretty good, but oddly, yellow seems to be the marker of ripe rather than red.

Rather better, as it turned out, than the Victoria plums I had bought from M&S earlier, much redder but with a curiously soggy texture and a curiously un-plummy taste. From Mark Gaskain of Kent.

I wondered whether all this named grower business was a bit of a marketing wheeze, with most of the growers selling their crops to the big aggregators who actually supplied the supermarkets. In which case, not an untruth, but not quite the whole truth either. Not exactly as if Farm'r Mark had been jogging along through the back lanes to Epsom, trees hanging overhead, along with his horse and plum-laden cart.

Better luck in the afternoon, when I picked up an M&S trolley from the top of the Kokoro Passage.

Half way to the end-year target of 1,000 trolleys. Should be plenty of time to knock off the last fifty, the slow-down of the past few days notwithstanding.

Heading home via the Screwfix underpass, I noticed that my favourite whitebeam was looking a bit water stressed. Hopefully we will come some serious rain before too long.

While this afternoon, I was reminded of Woolacombe Beach, possibly last visited in the off-season, many years ago, when we stayed in Georgeham, which I remember as being a modern housing estate, largely populated with the retired, second homes and holiday homes.

I think Woolacombe sported some serious para-surfing the day that we were there and land yachting comes to mind for some reason, so perhaps, rather unusually, there was some of that too. Plenty enough space. From somewhere, perhaps here, I remember a para-surfer explaining that hitting a wall of water at thirty miles an hour if there was a mishap was a serious business, possibly damaging. Helmets a good idea?

While at the much smaller Croyde Bay, the next one down, you got serious surfers. The sort of people who surf all year round and wear wetsuits. Much too dear a place for us to have stayed in.

Maybe I well get around to finding out what all the 'Morte's are about. Wrecks of ships heading for or out of Bristol? Fat pickings for the locals, much better than farming up on Exmoor?

References

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