More dumplings

The rare dumpling outing noticed at reference 1, came again the following Sunday.

But the day started with a half Horton, this on the grounds that it was too cold, wet and late for a spin around Jubilee Way.

The honeysuckle box first noticed at reference 2 was still there, although it was under rear attack by the brambles. My guess is that, if things are allowed to take their natural course, that the brambles will win. We shall see.

I wondered about the gate snapped above, on the road side of the old moat investigated at reference 3. Was it contemporary with the shrubbery still visible around the old moat? Quickly decided that it was not, partly because the gate post was not very old at all, partly because I thought that this sort of tubular steel is also fairly modern, even when rusted. Consultation required.

The Old Moat garden centre was alive and well, open for Christmas trees and other festive materials.

While the Horton Heights estate, the last thing in suburban luxury and noticed for the first time over four years ago at reference 4, is now 60% reserved. Which is where I think it has been for some time now. Perhaps I am not the only one to think the name rather silly and the location less than very appealing.

Some cyclists out, all male. Rather fewer joggers, also all male. The ladies clearly fair weather types.

Starlings in full voice in their trees at the bottom of Southfield Park. Fairly sure that I have seen them there before. The trees in question having been snapped, as above, by the Street View people a few summers ago. As it happens, the year before they last visited our own road, so we are doing alright.

Back to the second edition of dumplings. 50 seconds late (as can be seen from the time stamp on the snap above) and not as tastefully arranged as last time.

But they looked well enough on the plate, with the usual selection of boiled vegetables. Taken with a bottle of  shell hole from Tracy-sur-Loire, first noticed at reference 5. A wine which I quite like, and which BH has come to like, but there is no doubt that it keels over very fast, ending rather dark and cloudy. So probably not much good sold by the glass in a restaurant. And Tracy-sur-Loire, well south of Paris, still seems an odd place to be turning up shell cases. Perhaps I have got hold of the wrong end of the stick, yet again.

Dark and cloudy as above, just about an hour from the off. But it still tasted OK. Stump of Lincolnshire Poacher from Neal's Yard Dairy, who have been sending me the stuff at two or three week intervals, more or less for the duration. Very reliable people. Table Water biscuits from Carr's. Grapes from Sainsbury's. OK, but being small, there was quite a lot of chewy skin. And they were a little past their best, four days after purchase. 

All in all, a very satisfactory meal. Probably wound down with a spot of Calvados, to accompany a discussion about the amenity of having one's own front door and one's own space generally. The Soviet custom of having several families in a large flat with shared facilities did not appeal at all. An issue touched on in the film noticed at reference 6. I also remembered about a chap telling me how grand it was to finally have his own (housing association) flat at the grand old age of fifty or so, after many years in rooming houses. Choosing curtains for what was perhaps the very first time.

Although, all that said, I spent some time in a bed-sit in Balham, on the occasion of our move back to the London area, about thirty years ago now, and that didn't seem too bad at the time, albeit on the basis of three days a week. Part timer. A bed-sit very handy to the Bedford Arms, at that time still a fairly serious drinking house. Guinness all round.

It is not recorded who went on to win at Scrabble.

Reference 1: psmv4: Dumplings.

Reference 2: psmv3: Honeysuckle box.

Reference 3: psmv4: The hunt for the old moat.

Reference 4: psmv3: Trust again.

Reference 5: psmv4: Shell hole.

Reference 6: psmv4: Brooklyn.