Bad start with the secondhand bookshop which opened recently - maybe near Brandon Tools, on the other side of the road from the 'Leather Bottle' and a bit towards Earlsfield - was firmly shut at around 1630 in the afternoon. Maybe the owner was at a sale but not a good sign. He probably lost a sale as I generally manage to buy something, despite his rather fierce pricing, thinking that, with their numbers shrinking fast, we need to do our bit to help such places stay alive.
On to the development which was the 'Fountain', once an interesting public house. Eight of the small units facing onto Garrett Lane have been full of a Polish flavoured car tyre operation for some time now, the two remaining small units look a bit quiet and the two prime corner units, where the pub itself used to be, have never been occupied. But on this day they had a let sign up so we watch and wait. We will see if the lettee's surveyor is alarmed by the alarming horizontal crack in the left most (in the illustration) or southeastern most (on the map) brick pier. Not the same structure but probably the same builder, so one might wonder about all the stuff that one can't see.
Further on, 'Mixed Blessings' was full of people buying their stuff for Easter and not being good at queues I passed them up. Maciak was also full of people buying their stuff for Easter, which was a pity as they sell good kabanos.
And so to the Library at Wetherspoon's where I struck lucky. Stock generally a bit tired with Georgette Heyer a touch over-represented, but I chanced upon two interesting items, without dust jacket but more or less new. First, the volume 1 of the diary of one Colonel Peter Hawker for 1802-1853, a light dragoon eventually invalided out by a severe wound received at the Battle of Talavera in 1809. Notable as a hunting & fishing enthusiast and a mine of information about same. By way of a taster I offer the snippet that out with his gun one day he came across a large trout in a ditch, which he promptly snared with a stick and a bit of whipcord. Mind boggles. I shall report further in due course. Second, 'Faces in the Crowd' by one Valeria Luiselli, picked out by me as it was published by Granta, whom I associate with the better class of book. A good hunch as I subsequently learned from the Guardian web site that 'with this debut novel an exciting female voice joins a new wave of Latin American authors'. Once again, I shall report further in due course. How on earth did these two items come to be mixed up with the Georgette Heyers? Also true that I must have taken a lot more books from this library than I have deposited, which ought to be easy enough to rectify given the number of books which BH takes to the Oxfam skip in the Sainsbury's car park these days.
Back on the bus to Earlsfield, on which I learned that telephones are not infallible. A cheerful young chap had been convinced by his telephone that there was a micro brewery more or less next to the station, whereas I thought it was much nearer Tooting. Pleased this morning to find that memory served and the place the chap was almost certainly looking for was the 'By the Horns Brewing Company' in Summerstown. At least the second person that has asked me where this place is and I have walked past it at least once - but being off the beer these days did not try to enter. See reference 1.
A quick two aeroplanes at Earlsfield, much harder now it is light when I go through, and so home to Epsom. For previous aeroplanes see, for example, the end of reference 2, which, now I come to think about it, might have been the occasion when I last came across the brewery mentioned above.
Reference 1: http://www.bythehorns.co.uk/.
Reference 2: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/discharge-lounge-art.html.
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