Securing the cheese supplies

Neal's Yard Dairy seem to be having a problem keeping up with online demand, despite their warehouse full of cheese in Bermondsey, with a visit there noticed at reference 1. A problem which might have resulted in my running out of cheese to take with my brown bread, most mornings and evenings. A disaster in the offing.

The company at Borough

In these circumstances, I turned to the nearby Comté supplier, the people at reference 2. They have a stall or barrow in Borough Market proper, used from time to time in the past, but they also look to have at least at office in nearby Stoney Street. I also suspect them of supplying a stall in the weekend food market underneath the Royal Festival Hall and an occasional stall in the twice weekly market here at Epsom. With their contact page usefully reminding me of the operating theatre museum in the margins of Guy's Hospital, first noticed at reference 3. Maybe I will get around to visiting one day.

The parcel

My order was processed in short order and despatched, and I was expecting delivery in a couple of days or so. But this stretched out, I started to worry about the condition of my cheese and I was moved to check with Interparcel, the people with whom my cheese had been entrusted, snapped after the event above. The cheese turned up on Monday, after the Bank Holiday weekend, just short of a week after purchase.

The cheese

It turned up in excellent condition in a van with a very cheerful driver - at a time when I just happened to be on the outward leg of a brick walk. I think the driver thought I was looking out for him. But the cheese was well wrapped, in an insulating bag supplemented with a couple of sachets of something which presumably started very cold. It made a pleasant change from my usual diet of Lincolnshire Poacher, although I still think that this last is more suited for use as an every day cheese. Not that that has stopped me ordering some more Comté, just to be on the safe side. In case Neal's Yard Dairy continues to slow down.

The map

One of the places on its route to me was a place called Stanford-le-Hope of which I had never heard, but which was to be found in Wikipedia, which told me that it was on the Essex coast, on the River Hope and that its main claim to fame was having been the home of Joseph Conrad. Clearly a place which I need to visit at some point. But although Ordnance Survey had a stretch of the Thames called The Lower Hope and a place called Lower Hope Point, the very small river in Stanford was not labelled. For that I had to turn to a reference in the Wikipedia article, a compendium dating from 1815.

The gift

The title page

The relevant page. See top left for the relevant entry

A compendium which turns out to be available from the Internet Archive, based in San Francisco, and which is snapped above. There really is a River Hope in Stanford-le-Hope. A tribute to the power of the Internet and the generosity of charitable foundations in the US. See reference 4.

PS: I prefer the least mature Comté, having tried and not particularly liked the more expensive, older cheese. As it happens, I am the same with Emmenthaler. Fresh is best!

Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/08/east-pole.html.

Reference 2: http://www.thefrenchcomte.co.uk/.

Reference 3: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/01/not-for-squeamish.html.

Reference 4: https://archive.org/index.php.