Amused at Epsom station to find groups of young people clustered around the ticket machines buying their tickets, rather than use either of the two ticket clerks, ready and waiting. One can only suppose that they were more comfortable interacting with machines than with people. The hypothesis that they were students of computer science reviewing the man-machine interface of said ticket machines seems most improbable.
Pulled my usual Bullingdon from the ramp at Waterloo and got myself to the great temple up Drury Lane without incident.
Passing through Shelton Street on the way to Shorts Gardens, I thought of the people at reference 2, but the only open door that I could find took me to a young lady who told me that she knew of no tree hugging people but she did say that a lot of the people using the address only wanted it for show, to show that they had an address in a fashionable part of London. Their real offices were somewhere else entirely - or sometimes even, nowhere else. Not having the post to hand, the matter had to rest there.
On to the cheese shop, where in addition to the usual Poacher, I also fell for half a Gubbeen, from the people at reference 1. I see that they do pork products as well as dairy products, but it seem unlikely that we are ever going to get to Cork to find out if they are as good as their eponymous cheese.
From there, a quick look at the busts lining a gallery of the National Portrait Gallery, a gallery which also contained some fine portraits by Millais. All of which led me to wonder what sort of a person might want to be celebrated or commemorated in limestone or oil-paint these days. I certainly would not want a large & expensive bust or portrait of anyone cluttering up our house, never mind one depicting myself. Maybe people like Zuckerberg and Gates go in for such things? Maybe Dyson and Sugar? Archer has a big flat which might do for such things and he certainly has - or at least had - the necessary outsize ego.
From there, to Terroirs for a spot of lunch. To find that their £10 lunch billed as sausage with lentils was actually a dollop of lentils with a few bits of sausage scattered therein. Perfectly satisfactory, but not quite what I was expecting. Topped up with some interesting vegetables and their reliably excellent bread. Plus drops of the now traditional Pierre Précieuse Pouilly-Fumé from Alexander Bain and bottom of the range Calvados.
I noticed along the way that they carried the very wine that we had had a few days previously at Caldesi (reference 3), but charging rather less than we paid there. So not only do Terroirs have a good range of wine, they do not charge as much as some, most of whom have nothing like the range.
A dose of smoking nostalgia, taking the form of the discussing the various ways to give up and the various ways the craving can sneak back, prompted by all kinds of odds and ends. Sometimes I think that I might resume if I make it to 75 or 80 - with the catch that I might not enjoy it by then. While I am fairly sure that I would now.
Out to inspect the market next to the Festival Hall, a market where I have in the past bought good cheese and where I have bought good kabanosi. Sadly none of the latter on this occasion, but I did buy five small cakes from a very cheerful north African stall.
On from there to Le Cabin at Waterloo, where I thought a spot of Monkey Shoulder would be the thing. I was given a generous portion, which was good in itself, but may have been the reason why I left the small cakes there, which I did not notice until the train following was in motion. Very irritating. But they were in a box and fairly obviously untouched, so I hope that someone got some pleasure from them. We have eaten cakes found in such circumstances before now.
Out to collect the trolleys noticed previously at reference 4.
PS: maybe I abandoned the cakes in the course of taking the snap included above, while seeing if there was a spot of red that I fancied. Prompted by the similarity of some of the labels to the prize winning label noticed at reference 5. For the avoidance of doubt, I note that the problem with the snap is reflections rather than shakes.
Reference 1: http://gubbeen.com/.
Reference 2: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/09/tree-bathing.html.
Reference 3: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/09/beethoven-250.html.
Reference 4: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/09/trolley-301.html.
Reference 5: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/09/celebration.html.
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