pumpkinstrokemarrow

Very good they were too. Pastry spot on, not like that fatty fluffy stuff favoured by central London tourist pubs, pastry top and bottom, contents cubic inch meat lumps in a modest amount of gravy. Not padded out with vegetables or spices. Which is OK in pasties if they go easy on the spices but is not proper in pies. Two large pies a bit much for two, so part of one of the chicken pies served as a snack later on. I shall be back for more in due course.

Thus fortified, resumed the hunt for the occupant of the cycle shop in Pound Lane. Good shop but a little relaxed about attendance so I had to get rather fed up with the clicking noises coming from the bicycle transmission before I ran him down. Couldn't get the clicking noises when the bike was hung up in the garage. Clicking noises intermittent when on the road. Never get the clicking noises when not pedalling. Clicking noises appear to be independent of gear. From all of which we deduce there is a bearing problem at the crank wheel end. The business part of which was replaced not all that long ago to cure another clicking problem and which was clearly inscribed 'do not disassemble'. So I didn't. Luckily clicking noises were on when I did track the occupant down and after a certain amount of teeth sucking, trial pedallings and so on & so forth, he decided that the problem was the pedal bearings. Something that had not crossed my mind. So now have had shiny new pedals fitted, I managed to refit the toe straps (not being keen on the sort of pedals which lock onto the sole of your specialised shoe) and, so far, the clickings have not reappeared. Another satisfactory bit of shopping.

So while sailing along this morning on my newly silenced bicycle, got to thinking about the people who live in the Netherlands and who do not like their country to be described as Holland and do not like to be called Dutch. Now I can understand the first problem as I believe that Holland is one of the provinces of the Netherlands. So calling the Netherlands Holland is a bit like calling the British Isles Scotland. Those of us living in the south east of the country get a bit peeved. (See October 23, 2009. The tape must be running on an approximately 8 month cycle). But it dawned on me this morning that Dutch sounded quite like Deutsch and certainly had the same root. The Netherlanders spoke high German and the Germans spoke low German. Or vice-versa. And while the Netherlanders are a tolerant bunch, they perhaps do no care to be reminded of their close kindred with the Germans given what happened in the last war. So Dutch is out. All very plausible perhaps, but a line of reasoning which feels a bit stretched. I will have to find a Netherlander and get the story from the horse's mouth.

From the last war, moved onto heroes of the last war. And got to thinking about my father and my father-in-law, both of whom spent the war in the army medical services. Assuming, that is, that the army medical services subsumed the army dental services. So a rather unheroic, if entirely worthy and important part of the war effort. But then it struck me that with both of them doing a good bit of time in operating theatres, they probably had occasion to be up close and personal with a good many more mangled bodies than the average foot soldier would have had. Never mind aircrew. Father-in-law mostly in field hospitals in parts east, not that far removed from the front line, and father mostly in base hospitals in England, hospitals which probably took in casualties from the invasion of France. So while they missed out on both the trumpets and the terror, they had to cope with trauma of a different kind. I wonder if this is part of why father-in-law does not watch violent films and I do not recall my father doing so. Seen quite enough of the results of the real thing to want to watch fake perpetration.