Wednesday, November 28, 2012

mulberry

A friend left these on my desk at work a little while back.

I didn't know it but there was a mulberry tree just across the road. I ran outside to get more. There was something totally magical about plucking those ripe berries from the tree, having the vivid, juice run down my arms. I was back in childhood land, to red-stained faces and keeping silkworms.

I've been trying to feel more connected to nature in recent months. There is something about bare feet on grass, touching the leaves on my little rescued crab-apple tree, watering a gifted money plant.

Not many berries on the tree now, they've all fallen off, but the memories remain.

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Sunday, November 18, 2012

off to market


The London trip seems a million miles away these days but every now and then I get a little pop of memory and something I ate or saw from our travels leaps into mind.

In particular one day keeps coming back.  It was a Saturday when I went to the Borough Market and then met up with a new friend Gigi at the Bermondsey street fair in South London. It was just an all round brilliant day. The sun was shining, the markets were booming and bustling, tables piled high with loaves of bread and wheels of cheese. Brownies, cakes and turkish delight were in bacchanalian abundance, as well as tables of heirloom tomatoes and other wonderful produce.

I was a little overwhelmed by it all at first until I had an epiphany a few minutes in when I realised I didn't have to eat everything then and there, I could buy food to be enjoyed later. So I bought some brownies and cakes to take to Kristian and his mate Nick, who were working hard at the design fair in Earl's Court, and ate figs and cheese as I wandered round the stalls.

Luckily I didn't indulge too much at the market because Bermondsey Street was a whole other experience of Hog Roasts, country style fare and curiosities. Gigi and I met up with some of her friends, who had two of the cutest kids I've ever seen and proceeded to enjoy the most surreal few hours at the fair. There was a dog show, a kid show, a street performer dressed up in the manner of an extremely pregnant Victorian woman, who would periodically scream as if in labour and then launch at people to "give birth to them" through her dress. If that sounds weird, it's because it was. Luckily by this point Gigi and I had consumed a few beers so it was sort of bearable/ entertaining.

Quite a day indeed. The photos don't do it justice really but then again I think some of it is probably best left to the imagination.

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