Wine Cellar

Sanderstead?! What?! Sandra said what? Where am I? I missed my stop. ‘What did Sandra say’? Where am I?
Oh no.
Dozing off on the train after a long day and I’ve ended up somewhere sounding like a line from Grease.
Nyaoooww! Fart cocktails.
Without another train for an hour, I headed out on to, oh? A rather charming street!
The wine cellar presents itself like a cosmopolitan bazaar on a quite village’s street with an array of exotic fruit and trad veg displayed outside to equal Whole Foods. I am not here however for the Ugandan Sweet potatoes or their bouquets of very verdant herbs.
I saw the word wine on the façade and after my debacle of a day, that’s what I’m here for.
Inside it’s like an Aladdin’s Cave of all things that only the Metropolis knows: The likes of Hackney Wick’s very own best bottled CRATE brewery pale ale, The Kernel India pale and many many more. Plus my god, they stock something that the burgeoning soon to be, can I bear to say it, ‘hipsterspot’ The CRONX’s, yes fabled CRONX brewery beer is here and on tap from an actual keg.
Oh my days. It’s like I fell asleep in zone three and woke up in [near-​station] libation heaven.
There are wall-​to-​walls of decent wine.
I’d like to safely say that by the time Croydon is branded ‘hipster’, being hip will be so passé that no one will ever be interested in trekking down to this little find and I will come across it again on a happier detour.
For now, you stay alert sports fans and make sure you make the right train and don’t fall asleep on the way back up to the big smoke. That’s it, set yourself back off to shoreditch. This is one little utopian treasure I want to keep for myself.
So I loaded up my tote with some ice cold Icelandic lager, some fresh (and rare to find unless you’re in North London) fresh dates, some Ugandan sweet potatoes, a quality Chianti, some holy basil and Holy Mary, I’d had the best time you could possibly have in a corner shop.
As I ate my Olives and drank an ice cold Brooklyn on my very alert route home, I can only pray, I hope this doesn’t make page of the day.