26 February, Columbia Road

I think perhaps that there is no better way to spend a sunny Sunday morning than wandering through Columbia Road flower market.

Especially when there are fat bunches of Dutch tulips to be had.

Norfolk, August

Norfolk last weekend. Heavy rain that made rivulets down the aged glass of the conservatory. Blazing sunshine that allowed us to eat outdoors and walk barefoot on the grass. Double yolked eggs for breakfast cooked by my sister. Roses, sweetpeas, in mugs, vases, jugs all over the house. In the garden, dahlias, in sunrise colours, hiding coyly behind fronds of the asparagus plants. A half-collapsed apple tree, collecting the sour cookers early, packing into boxes. Ladybirds, everywhere. Picking tiny alpine strawberries at dusk, clambering between the young raspberry canes for the first of the season. Digging up potatoes, earth under my nails. Blackberry picking, which always makes me think of the Seamus Heaney poem in my GCSE English anthology. Gorging on peaches.

After the week that was, it did feel good to get out of the city.

Jam

And after all the London-ness of the last few weeks (I forgot to mention Afghanistan at the British Musuem, the most beautiful, goldest of gold jewellery, and Cria Cuervos at the BFI, a wonderful film, that lingered), there was last Saturday and Sunday in Norfolk. Cheese from the market, tiny, fiery home grown radishes. A much needed haircut. Ladybird books and china flower brooches from charity shops. Bursts of bright sunshine blanketed between thunderstorms, over-flowing water butts (welcome after the drought status that East Anglia had just been given), sowing carrot seeds in the damp earth after the rain. Agatha Christie's Miss Marple in the evening, a repeat, but I like the chance to ogle the costumes rather than focus on plot twists. A father's day lunch in various shades of early summer greens and creams; broad bean (from the garden) risotto made by my sister, elderflower fizz, gem lettuce, followed by the most heavenly gooseberry and elderflower fool. Sweetpeas on the dining room table, roses in the kitchen, hydrangeas on the drive. Somehow the rain-damp air makes everything smell so much more divine.

And jam. Lots of jam. So much jam making, all in anticipation of the upcoming Big Feastival and our Women's Institute tent. Sterilising of jars, boiling of fruit, bag after bag of sugar. Strawberry jam, strawberry and vanilla, peach and raspberry, strawberry and redcurrant, gooseberry and elderflower. Phew.

This weekend coming is my last free one for an age before festivals and weddings and trips away kick in, so I'm planning on taking it easy, dinner at some friends' Saturday evening, Emin at the Hayward on Sunday, a pub quiz Sunday night.

What are your plans?

Elderflower, Strawberries, Piebald Mares

Oh my little pinto beans, I have neglected you. I have not read any blogs, I am another week behind on this one, have hardly tweeted on my newly set up Twitter account. But, I had an interview I was preparing for, and now that is out the way, I can write.

The Bank Holiday weekend. Black beans and rice on the Thursday night, Mexico and The Lacuna and Frida are still inspiring me. Too many parties on Friday night - goodbye drinks for a colleague at work, darling Anna's birthday party, to which I take peanut butter cupcakes, peonies wrapped in brown paper, Saipua soap, a copy of The Lacuna for her to get lost in. East London line up to Highbury and Islington, third party in Finsbury Park, housewarming. Nightbuses home, witnessing a fight in Camden opposite The Lock Tavern, police cars, torn t-shirts, glad M is with me.

Up to Norfolk, to celebrate my sister's birthday, present unwrapping and Italian food. Elderflower hunting in hedgerows, making bottles of elderflower cordial, elderflower fizz, hoping against explosions. Punnets and punnets of strawberries, all to be hulled in preparation for jam making for our WI tent at The Big Feastival. Following a caravan down twisting lanes. A visit to some friends and their chickens again, eggs, freshly laid, stuck with bits of straw. Honey from their bees in my Bircher muesli each morning, I can taste the honeycomb. The Mellis Common, prolific daisies, piebald ponies and their foals. In the garden, the ground is hard, dry, but the poppies are still blooming, petals like crumpled skirts. I take some home with me to London, peonies and roses too, put them in vases on my bedside table and dressing table, wish I had a garden.

Monday night, it rains, M and I take our brollies and head to Spuntino, no queue, because of the time, perhaps, and the weather, perch ourselves at the bar (on the 'lovers' seat we're told - a double width barstool), eat all things deep fried and delicious from enamel dishes (deep fried stuffed olives, SO mind blowingly tasty), sip at cocktails (Clover Club, wow), watch the umbrellas go by outside.

New York Part IV

And so the sun comes out. We meet up with a colleague of M's who was also evacuated from Japan, head to the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens, contemplate what has brought us here, under the cherry trees which are blossoming in abundance. Clouds of pink and white above green grass, beneath blue skies. Magnolias with creamy white petals, black branches. An exhibition of bonsai, small, perfect. Humid hothouses, stone pools with orange goldfish, terrapins basking in the sunshine. Walking and walking through Brooklyn, soaking it in. Pizza, later, in the shadow of the Brooklyn Bridge, red and white checked tablecloths. Afterwards, we say goodbye to K, and M and I walk together over the bridge, back towards the lights of Manhattan.