Caught the 1649 from Epsom to Waterloo, more or less full by the time I got there, to pull a Bullingdon from Waterloo 2 to pedal off to the Hop Exchange, a trip which the recently refurbished TFL site tells me took 9 minutes and 4 seconds. A refurbishment which no doubt does all kinds of other good things, but also means that I have to take time out to find my way around - something which people who like to fiddle with their systems do not always take proper account of.
Got to London Bridge to find the plinth of the spire on the south eastern corner doing service as a makeshift memorial, with what looked like lots of little messages of condolence and support stuck onto it. Otherwise, normal life had resumed.
Barrowboy & Banker perhaps not quite as busy as usual, but busy enough and the staff as efficient as ever. New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc as good as ever. Two bouncers on the door.
I was able to admire the wooden boxes which were part of the decoration, once the property of a fruit or vegetable farm near Oxford. Rather larger than the ones noticed at reference 1.
I learn that one of the many things that the great British public does not want to pay a proper price for, along with public services, is third party motor insurance. Or at least the current administration has promised on their behalf that there will be no price rise, despite the escalating costs of serious claims. Also that third party motor insurance is not something that market forces are going to manage by themselves; one of the many things which we need in the modern world and with which we need our government to meddle. Maybe, even, to chip in some regulation and red-tape.
The return journey, maybe with a following wind, took a touch less than the outward journey at 8 minutes and 54 seconds. I had to settle for return to Waterloo 2, the pole position at the top of the ramp being taken. On the way, I noticed that the Stamford Street branch of Konditur & Cook, their cake school, was still up and running at 2100 or so, with some class or other in progress. Twenty somethings of both sexes by the look of them from the other side of the road. One assumes some silent hours cuddles course paid for by some corporate with offices in the area. Probably healthier than the pub.
Before jumping on the Epsom train, I stopped long enough to snap the once proud buffers at Platform 1, made by Ransomes of Ipswich, presumably the same people that my parents, having been Ipswich people for a while, used to buy their lawn mowers from. Or were lawn mowers the junior branch of the family, with the senior branch doing the serious engineering?
Sadly not so serious now, as the pistons have been wrapped in something black and the buffers are protected by a red steel frame, visible top right. Sadly also, I am slightly too young to have ever seen a steam locomotive gently running into such buffers, quietly pushing them to their half shut position amid great clouds of steam and the hissing of the hydraulic fluid.
Some racing detritus from Ascot to be seen milling around the station.
Reference 1: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/collecting.html.
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