Removal day

Last week saw a stocking up with kabanos, which meant that it was convenient to move a large book from Epsom to Tooting. A large art book, actually two books in a case fancy enough to include cardboard slips to stop the pages of the books drooping between their boards when stored upright.

To get some idea of the weight before posting this, I weighed one of our Phaidon old master series, the one, as it happens, about Raphael, which was entirely appropriate. It weighed 3lbs 9oz and I thought six of them to the big books, which thus weighed in at around 10kg, rather less than a half of one of those feebly modern bags of cement. The point of all this being that it was quite heavy and awkward.

Digressing, I was interested to see that the Raphael, a book roughly A3 portrait in size, about an inch thick and with plenty of illustrations, some in colour, had been published in 1943, and so while this particular copy may not have dated from exactly that year, there was clearly house room for art book activity at the height of the second world war. Mobilisation, which I understand to have been more total in this country than it was in Germany (where Hitler had to buy off all those working classes who had voted left rather than for him), had clearly not been totally total.

Back at the heavy and awkward, I was not going to manage to carry the thing very far at all and some kind of apparatus was indicated and a circuit around the Horton Clockwise came up with that illustrated. It worked well, with the only error being the tendency of the wooden handle to tip over sideways as one was holding it well below the weight bearing holes. And on any future occasion I would do a neater job on the knots, those illustrated not being a credit to my scouting days.

Note also the trusty bag from TKMaxx, first noticed at reference 1 and still going strong. Also a corner of the substantial fence separating customers for Waterloo at Earlsfield from the main line platform, generally host to main line trains at speed. From which one deduces that a jumper at Earlsfield, as well as being a tragedy, must also be a major pain for Southwest Trains for them to have spent so much money on fence.

From Earlsfield onto the bus, where I noticed that the grab rails were exactly the same shade of yellow as those on the newer District Line trains out of Wimbledon. Perhaps a job lot of paint from Health & Safety people on a hi-vis binge.

Needing a googlefix, I next looked into the recently refurbished Tooting library, to find that there was no room at the inn. Downstairs was not intended for study or sitting, and upstairs, which was, was very full of young adults beavering away on their assignments. Presumably young adults who, for one reason or another, had difficulty getting any work done at home.

So I carried on to Maciek's (see reference 2 for the last visit), well stocked on this occasion with a lot of very gooey looking cakes. So gooey, that some care was needed to get them from the display into a box without visible damage. Perhaps like Canadians, Poles are into high energy snacks in the winter. The kabanos stock had changed, including some which were short and very thin. Maybe six inches long and a quarter of an inch fat. I settled some of more regular size which were entirely satisfactory, if a little dry to my taste. But one does not seem to be able to get the bigger, fresher ones any more, the ones which are a paler brown outside and maybe three quarters of an inch thick. And you could bend rather than snap them.

Rounded out the visit with a visit to the little bar near Amen Corner where I took half a litre of some quite acceptable white wine. Rumanian with the zest of a ripe gooseberry. The bar was quite busy at 1730 on a Friday, with rather different clientèle to that at the Wetherspoons up the road, the place with the other library.

Feeling a touch lazy, I took another bus back to Earlsfield - I usually walk at least one way - on which I happened to be next to two Muslim ladies, both in hijabs, and both (guessing) late twenties but otherwise quite different. One was dressed entirely in black which made her face (no make-up as far as I could tell) look very pale and very plain. Her personality had been almost completely obscured, not to say flattened, by her uniform. The other had dressed up to go out, and while she might have been hooded, she was quite flamboyantly turned out and there was no question of hiding her personality. Which made me wonder about how much observant Muslim ladies are missing out on, stuff which most western ladies take for granted, in this case the right to dress up to go out, to catch the eyes of passing males, to have a bit of fun with your mates. It is all very well keeping yourself for your husband (if you have one) in the privacy of your own home, but a bit of variety, of the eye catching variety that is, is well too.

PS: and come to think of it, the Canadians are quite good at sausage too. See references 3 and 4.

Reference 1: http://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=69.99.

Reference 2: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/bill-fail-1.html.

Reference 3: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/home-cooking.html.

Reference 4: http://www.sausagekitchen.ca/index.html.