Another failure?

We took a gentle stroll across the common yesterday, past the attempts of the eco-warriers to restore the Ashstead river, which once used to trickle across the common, to the 'Woodman' at Lower Ashstead. At least the efforts of the eco-warriers are less irritating than those of the chain saw volunteers. We also passed some unsightly white ribbons of electric fence strung around the place, although, thankfully, no cows spewing methane into the upper atmosphere. But there were a lot of shiny new oaken signposts, so perhaps the chain saw volunteers have been given new duties with hand saws.

The Woodman is, I believe, a public house on the second of the three tiers of food offered by its owners, on the middle ground between pub grub and fine dining. We got an entirely acceptable lunch of fish and chips, with a good sized portion of beer battered cod, although the flesh was a trifle soggy. Rounded off by something described as a twice baked vanilla cheesecake, less the butterscotch sauce, chocolate shavings and whipped cream which were on offer with it, the twice baked suggesting something more like a cheesecake that BH might make rather than the biscuit topped with sweet cheese jelly that one is usually offered in such places. The cheesecake turned out to be quite good, probably a hybrid of the jelly and BH cultivars, earning its twice baked descriptor with a thin layer of meringue on the top. The base seemed to be biscuit rather than pastry so it was not entirely clear where the first baking came in. Perhaps just a light baking to dry out the crushed soggy biscuit base before adding the still liquid jelly, thus turning the biscuit into fourscuit.

Washed down with a bottle of Chablis, the remains of which we were allowed to carry home, discretely wrapped in a small black dustbin bag provided by the kitchen. However, it had by then started to rain so we legged it to the shiny new Ashstead Station, now near complete, where we found another charity book recycling operation (see 15th May for the last such), from which I lifted a copy of 'As If By Magic' by Angus Wilson, holding over my donation until our next visit as I had done all my change in the pub.

I attempted to read the book that afternoon, the Chablis meaning that I was not too much good for anything else. I do not think that I have read anything by this Wilson before, but this book starts off very heavy going. A 60 year old author, more or less from another age, desperately trying to prove that he has kept up with the times, the swinging sixties and worse seventies (if the continuing drip feed of celebrity abuse stories is a fair commentary on those times). Plus the conceit of a sub plot about a part time author trying to pump out his next book. I shall keep going for a bit but I think it likely that the book will join the short but growing list of failures (see 20th May for the last such). In which event, would it be more proper to destroy it, perhaps by burial in the compost heap, or to return it whence it came, together with the missing contribution to charity?

Time will tell whether the cheesecake violated the bar noted on 21st May. Not exactly cream but not exactly cheese either.