Ewell Village

On Friday evening to Ewell Village to pay our first visit to the 'Famous Green Man' for some time, a pub which may well be named for the sort of green men which are to be found in places such as Ely Cathedral (see, for example, December 2nd, 2007 in the other place). I am pleased to report that it seemed to doing very well, a very good trade early this Friday evening, well supported by a bevy of pretty young barmaids. Quite possible that some of those there were people in the building trade on the way home with their vans, a feature shared with both TB and the 'Jolly Coopers'. It was still busy when we went past it on our way home, rather later on, although we forbore from making a second visit in the one evening,

In between whiles we had been for a meal at the nearby 'Neapolitan Kitchen', which also seemed to be doing very well, with the original Italian staffing having expanded into other parts of Europe. A white meat and fish occasion with none of the party straying into red meat. The apple pie was a little sweet, but they had managed to omit the cream and otherwise the food was good. Washed down with two bottles of their 'Greco di Tufo', rather better than the version which is occasionally to be had from Waitrose.

Feeling a bit fresh in the morning, I succumbed to collecting the shopping trolley mentioned in the second post of 25th July, still stationed under the tree on the western verge of Manor Green Road at about 51.336921, -0.280005. What on earth was it doing there? One might have thought that most of the houses in the vicinity costed far too much for their owners to be dumping shopping trolleys - although that said some of them are pretty slow to do their bit at keeping the road free of litter. Quite happy to leave that to the council. As it turned out the trolley was green, not from Waitrose, rather from Marks & Spencer, but not being being that particular I still wheeled it over West Hill, back to its proper home, taking it to the pond to have its picture taken on the way. There were some young moorhens on the pond and it occurred to me that a half submerged but upright shopping trolley would make an admirable foundation for a nest for a water bird - but I was able to restrain myself and I did not shove the thing into the pond.

References: http://www.clivelaneltd.co.uk/greenman/ and http://www.theneapolitankitchen.co.uk/. Also, by way of an experiment:

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/51%C2%B020'12.9%22N+0%C2%B016'48.0%22W/@51.3369204,-0.280005,15z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m2!3m1!1s0x0:0x0