Crushed by the wheels of (local) industry

The 'rents are down for the weekend -- our first visitors -- so we've taken advantage of their good nature and car to head out and about in Hampshire. This is a very pretty county. Yesterday, we zoomed over to Alresford to check out the village (very nice), the Watercress Line (very cute), and the shopping (pretty damn fine). We are trying to support local stores and businesses, so we ended up with: 5 salmon steaks from a fishmonger, a lavender plant, a rosemary plant, some eco-friendly washing-up liquid and brushes from the Long Barn (lovely store), as well as a buckwheat-filled doorstop. We did balk at the highly expensive cushions made from Hungarian grain sacks from 1910-1930, appealing though they were; we're not quite that middle class (yet). Then it was off to our local provision store to buy ice cream to go with the home-made organic carrot cake -- and in the choice between Ben & Jerry's and Jude's, the local option won. And very good it was, too. This morning, we headed up the hill to buy bikes from Hargroves Cycles, the local alternative to Halfords. It's all getting quite expensive, but I'm sure is well worth it. Well, feeling smug is, at least.