Trolleys

Thursday last week saw another batch of bread, which meant that I was late for my stroll around town. It was also a market day (only of sorts, these days), so perhaps the combination accounted for the large number of trolleys scattered about town centre, mostly from M&S. I did return one of the others, from B&M.

After my various errands, I tried Wetherspoon's, where I was not best pleased to discover that their warm beer section, still hanging in there despite what I imagine must be falling sales, had been colonised by all kinds of strange beers that I had never heard of. To the point of not leaving a single regular beer, Greene King IPA or something of that sort. But I was still game, just.

However, it was fairly busy and there was just the one barman on counter service. He was cheerful and efficient, but it was still the case that I did not get served for what seemed like a long time. In the end, I gave up and went across the road to the Marquis, where the warm beer was twice the price and not particularly well kept. I don't suppose they sell so much either. Doombar. But at least it was there and I got served, more or less immediately. They were also fairly busy, including quite a lot of young people, some probably still at school - or at least, not long left school. No real boozers, with a lot of lingering over pints. So I fitted in as far as that went.

I reminisced about the long time that I had been an occasional customer, more or less ever since we moved to Epsom. The game on the bar of 'shut the box' - although I can no longer remember why it was called that. Maybe it will come back to me without having to ask Google.

I discovered that while Wetherspoon's had provided the rather pretentiously titled 'tasting notes' for a huge number of strange beers, the ones that had actually been on offer did not seem to appear. Perhaps it was all a bit tongue in cheek, cocking a snook at all those CAMRA types in duffel coats talking earnestly about jazz.

On the way out, three large trolleys from Sainsbury's in the Kokoro Passage. Why on earth were they there, given the long walk from Kiln Lane? Why three? In any event, I was no longer going to do anything about it.

Not obvious how best to deal with them. Expensive for Sainsbury's to send a van for them, but if it is only really Sainsbury's which generates these long-range strays, a co-operative venture does not really work either.

I passed on this one too.

First loaf of bread in fine condition by the time I got home.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv6.blogspot.com/2026/01/pork-sausages.html. Recent notice of the Marquis. Its days as a racing pub on race days - including the occasional 08:00 start - long gone.