Date fail

The swag

Following the successful outing earlier in the day, noticed in the last post, a second outing down to Epsom in the afternoon. The first purpose was to stock up at Grape Tree on brick dates, being down to the last two bricks, plus a few loose in the ready-jar. Failed on that one as the grills were down and there was no information pasted up about opening times.

Onto to Waitrose which was open, without queue and very quiet inside. I forget to check on the flour situation - perhaps because I don't actually need any at the moment - just for interest - but my luck was in in the kipper department as they had three left. And no idea when the next ones were coming in. Bought and scheduled for lunch tomorrow. Three kippers coming to about a fiver, so a cheap lunch. Bit of a puzzle why kippers are still so cheap, as the cheap cuts of meat we used when we were young are no longer cheap at all - like breast of lamb, oxtail and the ubiquitous slow roast pork belly.

The castle

Wrong year

Purchase rounded out with a bottle of fancier than usual red - a 2016 Pomerol - Château La Croix Taillefer. A name which seems to be a bit more than a whim of some marketing person, which really exists and which is known to Google maps. Been going for around 50 years now. But I wonder whether I have made the mistake - not for the first time - of buying at the bottom of a fancy range, rather than in the middle of a more ordinary one, but all will be revealed on Sunday. In the meantime, no web site that I could find, but plenty of wine chatter about it in both French and English.

Proceeded to check my balance on the machine outside HSBC, trying to touch it as little as possible, given my absence of gloves. Balance present and correct, healthy even, reflecting close to zero outside activity. When will the Chancellor get around to taking a slice so that he can pay all the furloughed hospitality people - people whom I might otherwise have been paying directly?

The cone

Proceeded onto the Ruxley Lane anti-clockwise. 

It so happened that against the possibility that a low-flying afternoon sun would cause problems, I was carrying my sun glasses in my jacket pocket. Sun glasses which fell onto the road about where the rightmost cone is in the snap above. At the time both lanes were in action and as luck would have a slug of vehicles was just arriving when I got back to my glasses, sitting in their case in the middle of the nearside lane. I stood back to the wall, pointing at the case and hoping that the vehicles - all cars and vans as it turned out - would avoid them. Which about 20 did - except the 15th which ran neatly over the case with his nearside wheels. I like to think that he didn't do it on purpose - while BH takes the optimistic view that he was just too tired after a day's work to notice or trouble with glasses' cases.

After the 20th vehicle (I didn't actually count them, surprising as that might seem to regular readers), there was a gap and I was able to retrieve the case, lightly crushed, not as badly as one might have thought.

Once home, opened them up, to find both arms badly twisted at the hinge and the two plastic nose grips snapped off. Lenses intact, but curiously crazed about the periphery, with the crazing suggesting some sort of plastic coating. Anti-smash coating? I tried to twist the arms back with a pair dental forceps, well suited to the task, but one of the arms couldn't take the strain and snapped off. In any event, I don't think the glasses would ever have been wearable again, one would never have got enough of the twist out.

So I have emailed the opticians to see if anything so simple as a repeat order is possible, in the way of Amazon. I doubt it - but we will see.

Rounded off the outing with a read of the Guardian, which left me even more depressed than usual. What is it about the Guardian, worthy newspaper though it is? Perhaps I will stick with my Financial Times digital subscription, premium class.

Reference 1: https://www.grapetree.co.uk/. Which suggests that the Ashley Centre shop might have shut at 1630, shortly before I arrived. Maybe try again today.