About a fortnight ago, we kicked off the new season at the Wigmore with a couple of trios from the Trio Gaspard: Martinů No.2 and Dvořák Op.65. A trio we had heard before, as noticed at reference 2. Both pieces were, however, new.
A bright start to the day, parking at the Eclipse car park. We passed a small boy chattering with his father, from where I associated to the days when I used to cycle to the vegetable shop near Mitcham's Corner of a Saturday morning with a sprog on a small seat on the crossbar. Not that the sprog in question was a chatterer, not at least as I recall.
The shop in question has become a restaurant - greengrocers being a more or less extinct breed now - but Google turned up the image above from Facebook with very little trouble. Complete with bicycle. The public house adjacent survives, but not one I remember visiting.
I dare say he sold loose potatoes out of a large bin and white fenland celery, packed vertical in wooden slatted boxes, complete with a good ration of black fenland soil.
Back in Epsom, passed a trolley on the way into the station, in good time to catch one of the new trains to Waterloo. On which, I was interested to watch a young man busily writing into his note pad. Unusual to see people writing so much and so neatly these days. Probably foreign. Only let down by having his face very close to the paper, perhaps being too vain to wear glasses outdoors.
I was impressed by the original size of the Paine's premises at Raynes Park. An undertaker with a substantial, double fronted building, complete with carriage entrance in the middle. Presumably an undertaking who could do the full horse thing. Puzzled by the lack of symmetry of the two shop fronts, one, presumably, long lost to the funeral business. Wondered whether the wrought iron above the carriage entrance had lost some parts: there don't seem to be any words, which one commonly do get on such things.
Some ladies dressed for church on the train. A parson and his wife on the platform at Wimbledon. What were they up to, taking train away from the mother ship, as it were?
I couldn't find any name on the train and the driver was firm that it did not have one, contradictory to the story I had picked up and passed on at reference 3.
Carrying the stick produced seats on the tube in the way to which have now become accustomed.
A serious post outside the Marylebone Lane exit of Bond Street tube station. When tapped with a coin it felt and sounded very solid. Would probably make a serious mess of a regular car or van. Probably set in serious, subterranean, steel reinforced concrete.
Then what was the brown trim? Fake wood of the sort one sees quite a bit these days?
Zooming not conclusive, but my money is on artistically varied brown plastic extrusions.
Plenty of smart dressing in Wigmore Street, some of it Islamic.
Coffee machine moved again in Olle & Steen. Coffee cups had changed colour. New recipe, seemingly involving more sugar, for the buns we take. Did not recognise any of the staff. But a good supply of cute, small children outside.
Someone lit up a real fag outside, having taken their coffee and bun. Then, a few doors further along, a young couple lighting up. The gent with a regular fag, but the lady with the thinnest fag - bought, not ready made - that I recall seeing.
The clock in the Wigmore Hall was wrong again, although the usher assured me that the hands were still going wrong.
And the downstairs upright was not looked after as carefully as the upstairs grand. I dare say a furniture restorer could do an invisible mend, but I don't care to hazard a guess as to how much he might charge. £1,000 for a day's work?
Bright and cheerful sunflowers in the hall proper, back up with muted reds and greens. BH advanced the theory that the pots were half round, rather than fully round, the better to fit against the wall, an arrangement favoured by some Christmas trees. This turned out to be wrong when we came to inspect the pots later, and thinking about it, I would think a half pot would be a bit unstable. Would need a hook to keep it against its wall.
The concert was interesting enough, but did not really take off for, despite the caffeine and sugar fix beforehand. I had trouble keep track of what was going on and there seemed to be too many endings. Jolly Haydn encore though - the finale of his piano trio in D minor, HXV 23. This knowledge not being my own, rather gathered from reference 4.
Outside a serious staircase, a staircase which it might take me a while to climb these days. Did a chunk of the workforce have to climb and up down it each day, maybe more than once, or was it more by way of a fire escape?
Zooming still not conclusive. I need to see the interior whites of the extrusions.
We were not in full-on meal mode, but we did pass an advertisement for lobster rolls outside Pret. Inside the two baristas explained that this was a weekday promotion, not available on a Sunday. And anyway, all you got was a small baguette, mainly filled with mayo, with just a dash of lob.ster. Not worth the money at all. But then, I have always thought crab much better value for money than lobster, certainly in this country.
Onto a festival of Oxford Street, celebrating the power of the pedestrian and the coming pedestrianisation there. Various offerings on both the entertainment and the food front. This mainly potato roll was very good - and very filling. Kept us both affloat.
Headed for Waterloo with the idea of going home for lunch, but we found that we had just missed a train and settled for GKB just outside. I was a bit surprised this afternoon to find that my first visit was six months ago now, as noticed at reference 5.
The delivery boy counter is snapped above. Notice the ancient parquet, bottom left, which looked like oak to me. Presumably left over from some previous occupier of the (low ceiling'd) premises. What were they before?
No goo or mayo for me, an option which worked when I asked; veggie burger for her. All very satisfactory. I enjoyed my lemonade. Is junk food, after all these years of abstention, starting to creep up on us?
Interesting lady of middle years on the train, very highly dressed and perfumed. A good deal of thigh. Finger nails with embedded jewellery. Fancy jacket and large handbag, properly a tote bag, from Marc Jacobs - for which I see from reference 6 she might have paid more than £500 for. Assuming, that is, she didn't get it from T K Maxx. What had she got dressed up for? Or was she, despite it being past 15:00 by then, a left-over from the night before?
The trolley spotted in the morning was still there.
The corner site at the bottom of Station Approach. Now cleared and dormant. Will the augur for the piles get through the hard core? Has the hard core been compacted enough to take the weight of a building, such weight as is not carried by the piles?
I passed on both crab apples and quinces, but there were some more of the neighbourly apples that I have been eating. They are coming to an end, but they have been very good: probably not for those who don't like the sight of livestock.
Crab apples and quinces all good fun, but they take up a lot of time and sugar. The first of which I am short of and the latter of which I do not need.
And I had been able to top-up on conkers. Rather better conkers from the small trees by the Eclipse car park - and rather more of them - than from the larger trees up on Meadway.
PS: at some point in the day I learned about text effects in the Samsung note taking app and I can now turn them - things like bold and underline - on and off - and I dare say I will learn one day how to mark and reformat chunks of text which are already there, as you can in products like Microsoft's Word.
References
Reference 1: https://www.triogaspard.com/.
Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/11/trio-gaspard.html.
Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/08/poacher-day.html.
Reference 4: https://www.wigmore-hall.org.uk/.
Reference 5: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/04/gbk.html.
Reference 6: https://www.marcjacobs.com/.
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