It’s been a while since I was able to get to the Hope Café, to enjoy a relaxing coffee and catch up with whoever’s there. Tuesday was a busy day; after our obligatory 90 minutes of hot yoga, an hour of a new sequence called ‘Shape Shifting’ (Note 1) and lunch, we both went to the Hove Skin Clinic for our annual Mole Mapping. Having had a ‘malignant Melanoma In-situ’ removed in November 2023 and a ‘Basal Cell Carcinoma’ taken off last year, I can’t be too careful, so have an annual check-up. On Wednesday I had lunch with my best friend Stewart in Bill’s in Reigate.
On Thursday I found both Sami and Mo, sitting at different tables but to all intense and purposes alone; we got together at a table near the Brazilian deli counter. You may remember Mo’s mother died earlier in the year and I was pleased she was back to her chatty, urbane self.
“I was thinking of you the other day Richard, as I waited to pay for some fruit from Dean’s. I think you wrote about him in one of your postcards. Hang on ……”
Dean’s fruit and vegetable stall on the north end of George Street
…. and Mo dives into her iPhone and somehow pulls up my postcards from 2017!! (PC 103)
“Here it is. You wrote how …….
“…… having picked up four egg cartons from the side of Dean’s stall, I come around to the front. It’s become such a regular occurrence that it goes something like:
Dean: “Hello! How are you? Just your usual? ….. How many have we got? …. Remind me, it’s the £1.09s, isn’t it?….. So that’ll be £4.36 ….
(another regular appears)
Good morning, Doris! How are you?……. Sorry! Be with you in a minute.
……. So, is that everything? These strawberries are the first of the season. No! We had the Spanish ones but these are from the Netherlands.”
“Smell good an’ all” says Jim standing beside the stall from where he’s been talking to Dean about the football when there aren’t any customers ….
“I don’t want to smell ‘em, Jim, I want to know how they taste.”
Dean: “Sorry Doris, two secs! ….” turning to me … .“So, two dozen eggs and a punnet of strawberries; £7.35 call it £7. Thanks for that …. three pounds change then ….. See you next week ……
“Now, Doris what did you want? Yes, the beetroot are cooked, real sweet, I can tell, had some for my tea yesterday.”
“Not sure how you managed to find that, Mo, but let me give you another little vignette into life on Dean’s stall.”
“Go on ..”
“On Monday I went there to buy a Fennel, such a versatile vegetable ….. and there was a large cardboard box of cherries on the trestle table. A woman is waiting to be served.
“How much are the cherries, Dean?” she asks.
“£15 a kilo …..
The woman’s face says it all; she can’t get her head around £15 a kilo, all she wants is a handful and now she’s not sure whether they are expensive or not.
“I don’t want a kilo, Dean. How much is a handful?”
“Oh! OK!” and reaching for a paper bag, picks up a handful, tips them into the bag, puts the bag on the scales and says “£3.25”
She pays …. and walks off.
As Dean’s weighing my Fennel, I say: “Why didn’t you say to the woman ‘They’re about £3 a handful’….. and not confuse her with how much you paid?”
“Because they’re £15 a kilo ……”
I was about to say something and thought, you know what, best left alone!! Life huh! Gorgeous!”
Both Mo and Sami are laughing. “That’s funny, isn’t it. Anything else?” asks Mo.
“Well, there was a lovely letter in The Times the other day from a Susie Marwood. She wrote about going to buy a pair of shoe trees in a huge, local, home improvements superstore. “Unable to find any, I asked the young assistant who, momentarily discombobulated, then led me into the garden and patios section and gestured proudly towards a large selection of shrubs and saplings.”
Love the word ‘discombobulated’ – so expressive! Actually, many people simply wear some form of trainers and don’t need shoe trees.”
“Ah! Not true” exclaims Sami. “I have some very expensive trainers and always put a pair of shoe trees in them.”
“I live and learn! Sami, you and Lisa went to Dubai, no, Sicily last month, didn’t you?”
“Yup! Lisa and I had a wonderful time, not too hot, not too crowded, as it was before the summer holidays. We flew to Palermo, picked up a hire car and drove to Marsala. Three days later we drove to Agrigento for a couple of nights, as we wanted to visit the Valley of the Temples.”
“These are …..?”
“An UNESCO World Heritage site featuring some of the best-preserved Greek ruins outside of Greece. Really enjoyed strolling around these ancient stones and, staying locally, one could see them illuminated at night. Stunning! The local beaches were disgusting, covered in litter and detritus, but we didn’t go there to sit on the beach!!”
“You may remember my postcard about our time in Sicily – “The Largest Mediterranean Island (PC 134 October 2018)”. We were just south of Syracuse.”
“God, that was ages ago, but I do remember little snippets – something about the difficulties of trying to return your Avis hire car to the depot at Catania airport. Do you realise that was before Covid?”
“There was life before Covid! But listen you two, back in 2020 I recounted a dream I had had about a UK shortage of Smarties (PC 178 April 2020), drawing heavily from my experience of working in the MOD Procurement Executive 1980 – 1982 and its committees! I noted that a tube of 32 Smarties in 2020 cost 60 pence. I rather gave up chocolate, especially my favourite Cadbury’s Whole Nut, last year after my severe food poisoning on a flight with TAP from Rio de Janeiro to Lisbon. Time is always the healer and now I buy the occasional tube of Smarties from Rahmi Gurgur’s convenience store on Hove Street. In six years, the cost has gone up 50% and I only counted 31; 2.9 pence per smartie!
(To be continued)
Richard 12th June 2026
Hove
PS Three foxes enjoyed playing in Amber House’s garden early on Sunday Morning.
Note 1 In theory ‘Shape Shifting’ is ‘the ability to physically transform one’s body usually through magic, inherent power, or divine intervention. In practice Mary Jarvis chose a series of Hatha Yoga postures specifically to move one’s own yoga practice to another level.
postcards 