Fellow Wine Lovers,
How is the gardening going? Had any ripe strawberries yet? Our agapanthus look like they’ll soon be in flower and we’ve already used more charcoal than last year!
This week, as with so many lately, we’ve looked back for some inspiration. Working on the basis that if it’s ok for Lineker and Shearer its ok for Blomfield and Roberts, we note that we might normally mention the likelihood of traffic and the thunder of horses hooves around Epsom with the arrival of The Derby. The race has been run at Epsom every year since 1780 with the exception of the two World Wars, when Newmarket muscled in on the action. This year we will discuss it later on, as the race will be held behind closed doors on July 4th – our tips over the years should certainly have been kept behind closed doors!
In 2016, the Euros were about to start in Paris, Rio’s Velodrome had no track and Djokovic had played every day this week in the French Open. In 2018, we took to some very unscientific extrapolation to prove that a glass of wine a day would lead to a return to greatness of British Industry. Clearly, we have just included this item as a shameless self-plug to be invited as experts to the relevant government committee, when the time comes!
There is definitely a feeling of going round and round on the news stories though. As figures were released showing unemployment heading for similar numbers to the 1980’s, three former chancellors come out and say “Unemployment is heading for numbers seen in the 1980’s”. I’m sure we don’t need to point out to you dear reader, only one of these predictors of the screamingly obvious was even an MP in the 1980’s. But if Groundhog Day really needed any proving beyond a picture of Bill Murray, then reading this headline on the BBC website possibly nails it “Ed Davey launches bid for Lib Dem leadership”. To be fair to the man, he’s definitely played the long game! If the question came up in this evenings zoom quiz to name all eleven LibDem MPs, who would get to even four? We probably have better chance of naming the eight James Bond actors.
Whilst we’re on the subject of fictional characters, were any of you a fan of Thunderbirds, Joe 90 or Stingray? There is an absolute treat for you on YouTube, newly filmed too. Check out Nebula 75, should you find the time.
How we got from Lineker to space in such a short email I’ll never know? We’ll push on nonetheless. When we all watched the Space X Dragon dock with the International Space Station orbiting the earth did we reflect do you think? Wayne reflected upon being woken by his dad to see a man step on the moon, whilst Alex reflected upon how small the world is. Do you think Dominic Cummings reflected upon the fact that the International Space Station orbiting at 220 miles above the earth is closer to his house than Durham?
Whilst we seem to have alighted on adventures in driving, news reaches us that F1 is to start up again, beginning in Austria with races on 5th & 12th July, a quick spin around the Hungaroring on 19th July before a double header at Silverstone on the 2nd and 9th August. All these races will be behind closed doors, so I wonder who’ll get sprayed with the bubbly at the end.
Now that we’ve arrived at fast cars and closed doors, it seems a suitable time for a reminder that we are still operating as a closed shop (not in a union sense!). Send us an email to shop@parkvintners.co.uk with an idea of what you’d like, and your budget and we’ll get back to you with some suitable suggestions, pop them in the Volvo and bring them to your doorstep.
We have been pushing on getting the shop more welcoming to visitors but aren’t quite ready yet. We’re still not quite sure how keen we are to open if we’re honest, we know some of you would like us to, and some not. The problem for us is that we have been operating as a self-contained bubble but once we open again that bubble is burst and then if one of us becomes ill, we will have to close completely for two weeks. Currently, we envisage opening initially for limited hours, with only two customers in the shop at any time. We would like everybody to use of hand sanitiser on entry to the shop to ensure everyone has as safe a shopping experience as possible. If you have any feedback, advice, or thoughts on this we would love to hear from you.
Well that’s probably enough from us for this week, we’ve discussed horse races and car races but don’t really feel qualified to comment on this week’s other race news except to say there is but one.