pumpkinstrokemarrow

The other day we pushed out beyond Stoneleigh, all the way to Worcester Park, not a place that we visit terribly often, with a blog search revealing various mentions of Worcester but nothing relevant. I remember perhaps four visits in the 25 years or so that we have lived in Epsom: say once every 5 years - for a place only two or three miles up the road. Once when the morning train got stuck and I elected to get off and make my way to Morden and catch the tube. Once when I wanted to visit the offices of the Epsom Guardian. Once to have a meal at 'La Mamma' and lastly to buy a new three piece suite in a clearance sale at Goslett's, an establishment which closed a year later, in 2009.

The kind of high street which one used to see all over the suburbs of London at one time, a lot of this one having been built between the wars. One supposes it had all the usual day-to-day stuff - butchers, bakers and candlestick makers - plus, being big enough, undertakers, builders, clothes shops and jewellers, to name a few. Some of it still survives, for example a gents. outfitter which still has one of those old style shop fronts designed to maximise the size of the display at the front of the shops. Not something one sees very often these days, with virtually all shop fronts being a simple sheet of glass, so much cheaper than fancy. When did I last see a shop front with glass cunningly curved to eliminate reflection and, in consequence, to be more or less invisible? The sort of thing that a fancy department store might have run to and which might well have been included in the optics part of the O level physics syllabus. At least it was in mine. Lots of gaps in this high street, with at least eight of them plugged with charity shops. But, given that none of these last had anything suitable, I was pleased to be able to buy a replacement for the bent wood walking stick left on a train (see April 14). £15 rather than the £10 estimate.

Lunch at Pizza Express. Usual contemporary format with cheerful (foreign) staff. Slightly non-plussed to find that all the pizzas seemed to involve lots of meat or spice or both but eventually worked out that regular pizzas had survived the menu refurb. down at the bottom right. Which seemed to be fine but I suspect that the pizza that I had had been cooked some time previous and reheated. Eatable but not great, the first time I have noticed such a thing in the usually reliable Pizza Express - but then it was also the first time that I had been in one at the end of a quiet lunch time. Good tiramisu though, the firm, factory made variety which I prefer. None of your soggy home made stuff awash with sherry or some such.

Then this morning amused to read a Jenkins piece in the Guardian about the refurb. of local democracy which would flow from the direct election of mayors. From the removal of powers from faceless and arthritic central bureaucracies. Which occasioned two thoughts. First, I wondered what the foot soldiers' take on local democracy is in the National Trust, of which Jenkins is chair. Does the trust go in for a faceless and arthritic central bureaucracy? Second, I got to thinking about how those other big institutions, the mental hospitals, used to look after people before they invented care in the community. Mental hospitals which were in themselves communities, with laundries, ball rooms, farms, workshops and all the rest of it. Or at least the better ones had these sorts of facilities. And there was a career for the staff who wanted one, social clubs for those that didn't. How many of the suburban houses from which retired nurses offer care in the community can match it?