Country vandals

This being a report of various matter arising in the course of a short visit to Tunbridge Wells.

Grand bags

First stop the Pantiles to see what could be done about failing bread and cheese supplies. Clearly not the right part of town for cheese, the place being dominated by coffee and cake shops, but I was able to get two large white loaves for a pound each. They looked OK and I was assured that they were OK, it was just that business had been slow that day and they were about to shut. They also threw in a very grand carrier bag to put them in. They did wine as well as coffee and cake, but it was not clear why they would do such grand bags. But it was clear that it a bit mean, in the circumstances, not to buy something for real, so I took a couple of pastéis de nata, aka custard tarts at £2.50 each. Rather dear, but BH more than happy with them later.

The bread was pretty good too, well above average, but there was quite a lot of it, so most of it went for toast, with thick white, buttered toast being something of a treat in its own right.

Reject booze

Next stop the secret cellar, to see if they could do any more of the fine Gewürztraminer from Rolly Gassmann they had sold me on a previous occasion, for which see the end of the post at reference 3. And they could: one bottle of the 2013 vintage (not previously tried) and rather more of the 2016 vintage. We took one of the former and enjoyed it that very evening and two of the latter for stock. The shop man was concerned that mixing might not be a good plan, possibly mistaking me for the sort of person who might buy three bottles for the white course for a dinner party. And he was quite right, that mixing might not be good, although quite wrong in that this was not going to be a problem for us.

Passed on both the Chambertin and the Bâtard-Montrachet snapped above, both probably fine wines, but a bit strong for us. And when we have them at all, we go for some fake Chambertin and some other kind of Montrachet. For example that at reference 4 - a timely reminder as we shall be in range of that particular off-license shortly.

Gaviscon

Back the next day to show off my new found bread shop to the assembled party, coming across a heritage chemist's shop, complete with a large box of Gaviscon, as regularly advertised along with other senior persons' products on ITV3. Home from home.

Trolley one

Found the first Tunbridge Trolley in the band stand, but sadly there was no appetite for wheeling it back through town to the nearest Sainsbury's, so I was unable to score it. Furthermore, my telephone was not particularly good at telling me where the nearest Sainsbury's was: good enough for a local but not good enough for a stranger.

From there, headed out towards the rocks to find our second Tunbridge Trolley.

Trolley two

Still no appetite for return and in any event somebody had seen fit to cut the bottom of the trolley out. Extraordinary that in such a rich area as Tunbridge Wells, that someone should take the time and trouble to cut out the bottom of a shopping trolley - which I would have thought was a job for bolt cutters. What on earth was the point? Were the perpetrators drunk enough to think that such a stunt was funny? Do they have drunks?

Heritage bench

Pausing half way to the rocks to admire the bench recovered from the bushes by the Tunbridge version of the Chainsaw Volunteers of Epsom. Now a little fragile, and was probably not going to survive another year being climbed on.

Wellington Rocks

And so to the rocks, with clumps of rocks all over the place being one of the features of the town. Quite big enough to have a serious accident on, so we were surprised that there were no notices. Either forbidding climbing or explaining that any climbers did so at their own risk. Not even a notice forbidding the taking of picnics or the consumption of alcoholic drinks. As it happened, in due course, we were all able to move out in one piece. No damage sustained.

One member of the party just about visible, sat on the far side - who looked much bigger in real life - another quirk of the camera on my telephone.

Back to the house to a very satisfactory and new-to-us recipe for spaghetti Bolognese, taken from the booklet that came with our Creda cooker.

Reference 1: http://www.hattonsrtw.co.uk/.

Reference 2: https://www.thesecretcellar.co.uk/.

Reference 3: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2018/12/trolley-hunt-2.html.

Reference 4: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/10/dorset-wine.html.

Reference 5: https://www.visittunbridgewells.com/things-to-do/parks-and-lakes/the-rocks.