Yesterday, I decided that it was time to see if I could make it to Epsom, avoiding West Hill in the first instance and going via Court Recreation Ground.
Which meant that I learned that the butchers in Manor Green Road didn't only looked a bit quiet, it had shut up shop. The shop had been stripped out, only leaving things like the walk-in chiller room - left in the snap above.
There had been various attempts to keep the place going after the originating butcher retired - himself having started out when the place was a branch of Kingston's, at that time a modest chain of butchers (and graziers) in and around Epsom, and the latest attempt came from Appleford, who already had a couple of shops in Ashtead. A plus was the economies of scale involved, a minus was that Ashtead attracted a different kind of trade than a shop in Manor Green Road. A shop which had not been helped by the series of changes. But it had sold me some good pork over the years - as noticed, for example, at reference 1.
Perhaps the truth of the matter is that butchers are no longer part of the regular shoppers' round, along with the greengrocers and bakers of old. The only people who use butchers are posh people with plenty of money, willing and able to buy the fancy cuts needed to keep a small independent afloat. Quality rather than quantity. To think that when we bought our first flat, in Wood Green, back in the early 1980s, we had three or four butchers in easy walking distance, all heaving with both meat and customers at the weekend.
There were also some new-to-me people outside TB, so perhaps there has been change there too.
Then through the recreation ground and into Station Approach, where there was a regular festival of trolleys: I had clearly been missed. For old times' sake, I actually captured and returned the first of them, a medium small from the M&S food hall - aka Light 100 - dating back to March of last year, so still in pretty good condition.
Note the handle of the fine new NHS walking stick, a rather better length than my own bentwood stick. Good positive grip on the ground too.
Then there was a rare small trolley a bit further along. Then, at the top of the Kokoro Passage, a couple of large trolleys from Sainsbury's. Something one does not come across very often in Epsom, with the Kiln Lane Sainsbury's being a kilometre or so away up East Street.
Plus another trolley from M&S, visible above and slightly to the right.
Four from B&M at the bottom of the ramp. And closing with yet another from M&S outside the Rio Grill. A total of ten of them.
A modest amount of shopping for speciality items not usually to be found on BH's regular trips to Sainsbury's, including a new supply of lemon sherbets, a sweet I am fond of for keeping me going when I am driving, a sweet I have been eating on and off since I was a child, using my very modest pocket money to buy sweets from the village post office on the way home from school. A sweet which sweats in an unpleasant way if it gets hot, so best not to buy too many at once. The cheerful young girl in Hetty's (our local sweet shop, full of two litre jars of sweets, plastic now rather than glass) told me that they were one of their most popular items, so it was not just me.
Also including a TLS, something I don't recall buying for quite a while. And I did not recognise the format, with a Guardian sized page - but Gemini seems to know all about it. Stuff which should be easy enough to check, although I doubt whether I am going to bother. Very easy to get rather lazy about that sort of thing.
I might say that this particular number looks much more promising from my point of view than I was expecting. More general interest and less literary, less poetry. I learned, for example, that Afghanis do not do surnames in the European way, a matter of present interest and to which I shall be returning shortly.
But I guess the signs are bad. High brow weeklies are as much a thing of the past as butchers and bakers.
Discretion having the better of valour, this was followed by a taxi home. Maybe I shall work up to walking both ways next week.
The day outside closed with BH and I taking a stroll down to the Cricketers by Stamford Green pond, now under new management. A pub which one might have thought would do very well, with its fine position on the edge of the Common, but it never quite seems to have caught on since the last old-style mine-host and his wife retired, about the time we arrived in Epsom. Been a chain pub under management ever since.
On this occasion however, I was pleased to take a pint of Courage's Directors', a beer I was fond of as a student. A fine beer, but one which required some care in the keeping. I had not realised that it was still being brewed, Courage pubs having long gone.
Bing reveals that the brand name if not the brewer itself still exists, with the snap above being taken from reference 2. But the beer was fine for all that, if a little strong for session drinking - not that I do that any more.
The day inside closed with another bit of heritage in the form of a malt fruit loaf from Soreen, a larger version of the snack that we feed the granddaughters with. However, the loaf that I remember was a malt and fruit flavoured bread, good toasted and taken with butter. A relative of the Devon dough cake of which I also used to be fond, while this thing was far too sweet, sticky and rich. Notwithstanding which, serving suggestions included loading it up with still more stuff.
Maybe Gail's do something a bit more respectable? Or one of the bakers in Borough Market?
References
Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/01/festal-pork.html.
Reference 2: https://couragebeers.co.uk/beers/.
Reference 3: https://www.soreen.com/.
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