Retail Ventures Of Ill Repute

The second day of my course and we’re ripping through the material at a rate of knots, which means the tutor starts to cover additional areas with us, which is very good of him. The sandwiches are slightly posher today, pretty much the same range but they must have heard my mutterings because they cut the crusts off and sliced the sandwiches into finger strips. Completely unnecessary of course but posher.

When I finish and head for home, L is already on her way back from work. On the way we both go in and out of retail ventures of ill repute, you know, Mr Booze, Booze Are Us, Boozerbuster, etc etc. We’re looking for Le Piat D’Or because we’re going to a wine tasting tonight and it would be nice to take something classy with us and L says it’s where her red wine habit started.

I pop into the Tales of Robin Tescos, formerly an attraction dedicated to Mr RH, now it’s... yep, what else. Surely Lidl must sell Le Piat D’Or? Nope, not even a Blue Nun. I find a multitude of dodgy wines in Londis but still no Le Piat D’Or.

Then I think I’ve possibly found the next best thing in 'The Booze Stop' when I stumble across a dusty bottle of Black Tower, hardly cheap at £7 a bottle.

Then though L trumps that by finding the genuine article, also not cheap at £6. So we’re sorted. Our hosts tonight will be so impressed.

The wine tasting consists of eight red wines, one for each guest, all disguised in brown paper to hide their dodgy (or not so dodgy) origins. We then all taste each one and give them marks out of ten.

As well as Le Piat D’Or we also take what looks to be a rather nice Malbec but isn’t. In fact the Le Piat D’Or beats it in the scoring as both wines finish sort of mid-table. Bottom is a wine someone reckons they paid £18 for. Ouch. Top are a couple of homebrew jobs, brewed by our hosts... So it could all have been a fix or it could just be a fair indication of the quality of supermarket wine.

An interesting evening though and our hosts also put on a terrific cheeseboard.

(Friday 25th November)

It Would Make A Nice Bookshop

I was hoping today would start warmer than yesterday so that I could cycle. Nope. -3 yesterday, -5.5 this morning. Ouch. Cold. Nothing for it but to run. Later. I'll run after work. I put on my kit and go for the bus but I end up running to the bus stop because I was late. I still missed the first bus, the second one was late and then it got stuck in traffic, so I then had to run to work from Derby and I was still late. So I’ve had quite a workout today already.

Nottingham’s ‘Tales Of Robin Hood’ which has been closed for some time is to become a Tescos.



Wonderful. Just what we need is another Tescos. As L is fond of saying, ‘If I stood still for long enough I'd become a Tesco’ or a Sainsburys... The old Dillons/Waterstones building in the centre of Nottingham is now going to become a Sainsburys. It’s a lovely old building. It would make a nice bookshop.

I run home, partly, and then walk up with the dogs to meet L from the gym. Then we dump the boys and revisit one of our locals, the Wheelhouse, that we ventured into for the first time for ages on Boxing Day. It now has bouncers on the door. Odd for a suburban local, though it’s clientèle perhaps aren’t the most salubrious. Well, we're in there for start. Pleasant evening, even if the Special Reserve is no longer on. At 6.5% it was probably for the best.

(Friday 21st January)