Books and sky

We went to North Yorkshire for a week, and camped on the edge of Dalby Forest on the North York Moors.  I realised that one of the most important reasons I love camping is because it forces me to slow down and do nothing.  

We went for long walks during the day, and in the late afternoon and evening I passed the time by reading (four and a half novels in five days - what a treat!) and gazing at the sky.

That's it - books and sky.  

But honestly - what more do you need?

10 things

The nice thing about getting an exciting new job in ITU, is that nothing really changes:

• I made a new top.  It was meant to be a dress, but I failed to adjust for the fact that I am much taller than most Japanese women.

• I love it though, and have bought more fabric so I can make myself a dress version.

• I discovered that the best place to take a full legth photo of myself without balancing on the arm of a sofa or having to tidy an entire room first, is the changing room at work. 

• Basil is back in the kitchen - I run my hands through it when I stand at the sink.

• I like these tiles at Aldgate station.

• Graham is listening to James Brown and treating us all to funk.

• I have been running - but not enough.  I miss it.

• I baked brioche rolls, and Graham made a tarte au citron. 

• The washing machine couldn't read the label that said the pillow was washable.

• When it's sunny, and I am not at work, I cycle over to the Olympic park with a quilt and sunbathe.    

Well looked after

Friends old and new came out to the pub with me and we laughed, chatted and drank for hours.  Olivia drew me pictures and baked me a cake.  Cam let me have control over the TV remote so I could watch endless Glastonbury and athletics. My Mum and Dad phoned me at breakfast time for a chat.  Graham roasted a chicken and baked pommes dauphinoise.  The sun even shone for me.  It has been a great birthday weekend, and I have been very well looked after.
   

Seen on the streets

Seen on the streets of Soho, in central London, on the first sunny Saturday afternoon of spring:

•  Hundreds of people, standing outside pubs, drinking wine and pints and turning their faces towards the sky, like sunflowers.
• Two little girls, pony-galloping up Carnaby Street doing a complicated hand-clapping game together.
• Three young dudes, zooming past on longboards.
• A pretty young lady, wrapped in a gold pashmina, photographing her boyfriend's pint of beer with the biggest Nikon camera I've ever seen.
• Three teenage girls, all wearing very high-heeled turquoise pumps, and with huge Primark bags hooked over their arms, teetering along the road singing Abba tunes together.
• Three German tourists, wondering how many millilitres were in a pint.  Nobody could tell them.
• Bubbles in my prosecco, as I enjoyed an afternoon out with some of my nursing friends.

 

Springtime in London

The London 2012 Olympics are here

Although there's another day to go until the London 2012 Olympics is officially declared open, for us and many others living so close to the Olympic Park it has already begun. 

Inside the Olympic Stadium last night

• Living in a big city, we are used to the Metropolitan Police helicopter hovering above us from time to time, but since last week there have been helicopters circling the skies each afternoon and evening.
• The purple-and-orange clad volunteers for the Games can be seen everywhere - at bus stops, on the tube, in local shops, in the park and walking down the street.  There are tens of thousands of them - all volunteers and all enthusiastic about the Games.  It is heartwarming to see.
• They know their stuff too - they've all been able to answer my questions so far.
• Not that I'm testing them or anything.
• For years there has been endless discussion and speculation locally about just how bad the traffic would be during the Games.
• On Monday - the first day of restrictions - I drove five and a half miles to Tottenham, to buy a sack of hen feed, with no problems whatsoever.
• Yesterday, emboldened by my success, I attempted to drive a mile and a half to Wanstead.
• I made it 600 metres and then had to abandon my car in a residents' parking bay because the roads were gridlocked and we weren't going anywhere.
• Luckily I was only 600 metres from home, so my own Olympic residents' parking permit was still valid.
• I have learnt my lesson.  I shall not be taking the car out again until 9th September, when the Paralympics finishes.
• A favourite local pub is opening a festival style Pop Up Pub in Leyton town hall for the duration of the summer.  Seeing as I can't drive, I reason that I might as well make the most of it.
• Olivia and I are festooning the house with bunting and flags today.
• Last night Cam and I went to the penultimate dress rehearsal of the Opening Ceremony.  It was utterly amazing and magical.  But I can't tell you any more than that because Danny Boyle swore us to secrecy.
• When Danny Boyle came on stage, Cam piped up "Oh look! It's the really strict choreographer who kept us back late on our last rehearsal."
• It turns out that Danny Boyle has been rehearsing the children for the Closing Ceremony in person.  I thought he would have delegated that job.  Cam and the other teenagers from his school just shrugged when I exclaimed "But he's not a 'strict choreographer', he's an iconic Oscar winning film director!".  There's nothing like a world-weary teenager for keeping it real.
• They were all still very excited to be in the stadium and to get an idea of what the atmosphere will be like when they perform at the Closing Ceremony in just over two weeks' time.
• Athletes and coaches from all over the world are here.  Yesterday I saw a pack of Australian coaches waiting at Leytonstone station, smiling and chatting in the sunshine.  Then today, on his run to work, Graham saw a flock of Kenyan runners enjoying a leisurely jog through Victoria Park at an eyewateringly fast pace.
• The USA judo, volleyball and boxing teams are training at the Score sports complex next to Leyton Orient stadium, just around the corner from us.
• I don't think you could live here and not be excited about all this.  East London feels like the centre of the world at the moment.

Stuck in Westfield at Stratford for an hour last night, waiting for tube platofrms to clear.

Anish Kapoor's Orbit sculpture in the Olympic Park

Extreme

I've never known a year when I've thought more about the weather, talked more about the weather, or watched the weather forecasts more closely, than 2012.  Everything about the weather has seemed so extreme this year - in a part of the country, and indeed the world, that generally has such very unremarkable middle-of-the-road weather.

After a dry, bitingly cold winter which triggered an official drought, we moved into record-breaking high temperatures in March, followed by some of the most persistant and heavy rain I have ever experienced in April.  May started off very cold indeed; just last week I still had the central heating on once a day, and Olivia was going to school in thick black tights and her winter uniform.

And now...now it seems to be set fair.  There is sunshine all day long, and the temperatures are soaring towards the high 20s.  Olivia is wearing summer dresses to school and the hens lie panting in their dust baths.  The flowers in the garden are burning with colour.

Bee lavender

Fuschia

Geraniums

It is these prolonged extremes of weather that I find so un-British.  Most of the time in East London we bumble along with mild, dry-ish weather, punctuated by occasional scorching days in summer and icy days in winter.  The distinct, and extreme, phases to the weather that we've had this year feel new. 

Mostly I suspect that these extremes are the result of climate change.  But then I look at the children, and they just don't care about the weather in the same way I do.  Cam moans when it's hot and his hayfever is bad, and Olivia likes being able to wear hats that Granny has knitted her when it's cold - but mostly they just ignore it.  Could it be that rather than climate change I am just getting middle-aged and like nothing more than a good chat about the weather?

Set fair

September sunshine

September is such a wonderful month in London.  We are in autumn - my favourite season of the year.  The clocks haven't moved, so the days are still long.  The temperature is balmy and breezy - cool enough for cardigans but not yet cold enough for coats. 

O finds conkers on the way to her ballet lesson

And the sunlight just seems so bright.  It always seems that there is plenty of it in September too.  We soak it all up, knowing that the dark and damp of the winter months is not too far away.  September feels like a treat for the senses.

A cat, writhing on a hot patch of pavement, down the street

Shadow railings

Sunshine pouring through our front door

Shadow Nancy in the garden

Shadow Nancy doing the school run

Dazzling autumn sunshine

Sunshine baking on a grey day

The endless sunshine we had a month ago has become a little more elusive over the past ten days.  But on a grey morning there is sunshine in the kitchen, as I bake and bake in order to try and tame the abundance of eggs.

This morning I've made lemon buns, which will be topped later with lemon icing, and cheese gougères (little savoury choux pastry puffs, flavoured with strong cheese and mustard).  I managed to use up four eggs altogether, but the hens have laid three this morning, so my glut has only decreased by one.

The gougères come out of the oven beautifully puffed up and smelling incredible, but they deflate very quickly, like soufflés.  If you want to photograph them in their full glory, you have to be quick!

Cheese gougères, straight from the oven. Recipe from Harry Eastwood's Skinny French Kitchen

The buns and the gougères are both destined for packed lunches and after-school snacks for C and O this week.  Little, easy things to eat, and sometimes share with friends.  The last time O had an iced bun in her lunchbox she managed to trade the empty bun case (for scraping off with a fingernail) for one whole finger of a twix, which I think was a very unequal trade indeed.

Midweek colour

Seen on the tube:

• a tall, willowy young woman with bleached-white hair cut in a thick fringe, carrying an enormous pink leopard-print bag
• a man in open-toed sandals, trying not to sneeze
• 3 men with brown, soft-leather messenger bags
• a young woman with bright purple tights and 3 inch heels poking out from under her black burqa
• a man wearing a beautifully cut brown suit

Seen (and smelt) at Kew Gardens:

• pink roses
• red roses
• peachy roses
• yellow roses
• big blowsy roses
• white roses
• and a small selection of aphids and ladybirds - because nobody's perfect, not even the roses at Kew Gardens.