Shopping

We made it to Kingston on the second day of the grand reopening. With BH in the driver's seat.

Which meant that I had a fine view of the buttercups in the fields to the left of Hook Road, more or less opposite St. Ebba's. From my angle, sheets of yellow - sheets which might have been rape if one had not known better.

Hit just the one kerb on the way up into the Rose car park, not bad considering it was the first occasion for a while.

Fish present at their usual spot, if not numerous, in the Hogsmill, by the police station.

Coffee failed in the Rose theatre, the pleasant wet & dry refreshment shop there presumably closed for the duration. Coffee failed in the market square, not altogether sure why, so we gravitated to the coffee shop which has been set up in the main church next door. Smack in front of the important memorial to a once important burgher. Hopefully the line had died out and no-one remains to be annoyed by the lack of respect. A variety of lack of respect which I might say is all over Westminster Abbey, with all kinds of memorials, large and small, tucked away in odd corners like so much lumber.

A shop which comes with worthies who come and talk to anyone who looks likely or needy. We drew a gentleman, perhaps of about our age, an Armenian who had moved about the middle east in his time, with grandparents who fled the massacres at the beginning of the 20th century and including spells in Jerusalem and the US. A university teacher by profession. His mother tongue was Aramaic and he had a story about Hebrew being a bit exclusive at the time of our Lord, and so it came about that it was Aramaic which became the lingua franca in that part of the world, although one supposes that it has moved on a bit since then. For which see reference 2. He also showed us his crucifix, hung around his neck, purporting on sale to include a fragment of the true cross. The first time I have seen such a thing since visiting the pilgrimage church at Walsingham. For which see reference 1.

Into the Bentall centre to do our business, to find that there was a mix-up about dates, and the shop in question was in the middle of being moved from one side of the centre to the other. But we were able to make a new appointment and to do some orientating window shopping.

A little early for lunch, so we settled for bread and cheese at home, thinking about the North Star, the Bonesgate (now renamed) and various other places of that sort, but getting past them without stopping. This despite my now being in the drivers's seat (and, as it happens, not hitting any kerbs on my way out of the car park).

Bread and cheese - actually mushrooms rather than cheese in my case and corned beef rather than cheese in BH's case - done, moved onto planting out sunflowers (shift one). Then convincingly beaten at Scrabble, my third loss in three games. The shame of it. Then planting out sunflowers (shift two).

Interesting goings on on the compost heaped up behind the new daffodil bed.

Some kind of fungi on the other side of the path.

The day rounded out with pork chops, rather substantial affairs which we decided to bake rather than to grill - the grill on our otherwise excellent cooker being a bit basic. I couldn't manage the two allocated to me, so a modest portion left for breakfast the following day. Getting on for an hour at 180°C or something like that.

Reference 1: https://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.com/2012/07/church-visits-in-norfolk.html.

Reference 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aramaic.