Strawberries

It being the strawberry season, I thought it was time to visit M&S, the judgement being, for better or for worse, that they would be better than Waitrose at strawberries.

Taking in a trolley and a storage container along the way. I had noticed some cheap plywood being laid over a parking bay in the front garden of a house in Manor Green Road and it now turned out that it was mainly there as a base for the storage container being delivered in the snap above. About half the size of a regular shipping container, seemingly for the storage of household effects during some building works, rather than for the convenience of the builders. Presumably cheaper and simpler than going to the likes of Storage King (on Blenheim Road); fine it you have got the space. We await developments. In the meantime, you can read all about it at reference 1: 8, 9 or 10 feet?

Back home, the strawberries. Complete with the handy, nearly new bag from B&M which I had collected from the pavement in the margins of returning the trolley.

Despite the packet saying 'Countygrowers Kent Marion Regan', they came from the people at reference 2. There are Regans in the business, and I think that they use that name for supermarket sales.

Strawberries good. BH took hers dipped in castor sugar and single cream. I contented myself with just removing the vestigial hulls with one of my trusty oyster knives. Easier when I was young and hulls were real, and you could remove the sepal cluster and the hull in one go with one's fingers.

I wondered about the number of sepals, thinking at first ten, but then it seemed that there were sometimes two whorls, one large, one small, both five. But neither that nor the numbers were very consistent. But I think that the flower nearly always has five petals.

Rather to my surprise, Bing turns up lots of quite decent images on the clue 'strawberry sepals', but the numbers vary. Plus my confusion is illustrated in the snap above. Once again, I suppose dissection with the aid of a magnifying glass is the answer, but will I bother? Will I ask Gemini?

The day following, BH got some more strawberries, this time from Sainsbury's. 400g rather than 600g, larger and more uniform in size. Taken in the same way, and just as good as the day before.

The third occasion , a couple of days later, I came unstuck. I bought some more strawberries from M&S in the morning, well within their sell-by date, but popped them in the refrigerator for the day and we ate most of them in the evening. Not so good at all, having turned from bright and fresh looking to rather overripe in the interval. I had not taken them out of their package, on the grounds that it was perforated, but BH said that this was a mistake. Always decant!

I mashed the balance into a sort of jam with castor sugar - not enough to be worth getting out the blender - which would have done a better job - and BH took the jam with Greek-styled yoghurt with her breakfast the following morning.

But have I been put off? Will there be more?

But before that, there had been a day for bread and I had not got the rise quite right in the warming weather. I think the first rise was too long, leaving the dough too sticky for the second knead. How they manage with the very wet dough used for bread with big bubbles inside, like baguettes of the better sort, I do not know.

Despite the bubbles outside, the bread did very well, with well risen crumb, taken with butter, once it had cooled. The first loaf was, as it happens, finished today and I shall start the second in an hour or so. The second having passed through the freezer, which is not quite the thing, but I don't have the time or energy to bake twice a week.

A short turn around town after the bread came out of the oven, to find this fig coming down a railway embankment wall, for all the world like ivy. Very possibly some sucker from the fig trees we see across the tracks while waiting for the train to Waterloo. The road in question was called Waterloo Road and it occurred to me that it was probably named for the destination of the railway above. BH not convinced at all, reminding me of a (Scots) pine tree the other side of Epsom which we had been told had been planted to celebrate the Battle of Trafalgar.

Thinking about it now, not at all convinced. Scots pine trees do not live that long.

Gemini tells a nice story about the life span of Scots pines and weaves it all into a yarn about commemorative planting in Epsom, this despite 200 years being the upper bound for this part of the country. But I shall take a closer look next time I pass.

References

Reference 1: https://storageonsite.co.uk/.

Reference 2: https://www.hughlowefarms.com/.

Group search keys: 20260616, 20260617.