High speed return

I slept quite well in a strange bed, and only woke up once during the night, after five hours asleep. That's a welcome improvement. I did some more computer trouble shooting, to minimise annoying pop-ups that Windows 10 presumes are helpful to users when they are no more than a distraction. It took quite a while to disable the desktop news feed, one problem being as it's not evident what the function is called in order to target it, for instance.

I walked to Sainsbury's at the far end of the row of shops on Bellevue Road, facing Wandsworth Common. The store used to house a branch of NatWest bank and the architecture still advertises its history. It's rather cramped, but quite well stocked. I had to use the self-checkout till, as only one staff member was on till duty, dealing with tobacco and lottery ticket sales, and overseeing the tills at a distance. Unfortunately for him I needed help as I picked up several loose bananas and couldn't work out how to add them to the bill. It was a matter of counting and paying for them at a fixed price for each. When it came to paying, I had trouble using the card's contactless device, I think because of a latency issue with the payment network. Inserting the card led to a read error calling for a second human intervention to reset the payment routine. No matter how cleverly designed they are, I still hate auto-checkouts!

After lunch, June's weekly on-line grocery order from Tesco's was delivered, four bag-fulls, deposited at the door of her flat. It normally takes her an age to unload and carry the content indoors, but as I was there, I carried them in sorted the content and stocked most of them in the fridge, or in her store. Then the doorbell rang again for another delivery of an on-line order. Neither of us were sure that the courier had heard and was responding to the answerphone button, or if it was working - it's temperamental - so I ran downstairs and found the courier putting the parcel into June's dustbin enclosure. Confusion avoided.

I made some hummous sandwiches for the journey home, and parted company with June about six, to take the train back to Victoria and the Circle Line underground to Paddington. At seven I stepped on to the 19.18 train for Cardiff, and ate my sandwiches while I waited for departure. With four stops, the journey to Cardiff took one hour and fifty nine minutes. Non-stop, if would take one hour forty five. The upgrade of Brunel's GWR line to new Hitachi electric trains is most welcome. It reminded me of train travel in France and Switzerland, and in a way compensates for not being able to travel freely in Europe at the moment.

Thankfully the weather was fine, so I walked home from the station savouring the experience, and the peace and quiet of late evening streets. June worries about me getting mugged in the dark. It happens here in Cardiff too, but less often than in the metropolis, so it's not a common anxiety. What a blessing to live a quiet and safe provincial life.