petal power

Gratuitous picture of some lovely flowers I bought at Columbia Rd flower market the other day. I'm afraid I can't remember what they're called though...

A furry love affair

There's a new family in town and I think I'm a wee bit in love with them. The mother is tall and slender with rusty brown-coloured hair and her two little ones are fuzzy and orange. I'm pretty sure that they are living behind/under the ivy-clad air raid shelter in nextdoor's garden, which must be an ideal spot for them as no one really tends that garden. The little ones gamboled out into the garden briefly but still seem quite shy – I imagine it's quite rare for them all to be out in the middle of the day. I think that they must be related to the same little family I saw dancing around in the snow last year, as over-excited as J and I.
Random wildlife sightings in the city always tickle me, perhaps even more so than in the countryside as they're so unexpected. They always remind me of this poem...

THE THOUGHT-FOX

I imagine this midnight moment’s forest:
Something else is alive
Beside the clock’s loneliness
And this blank page where my fingers move.

Through the window I see no star:
Something more near
Though deeper within darkness
Is entering the loneliness:

Cold, delicately as the dark snow,
A fox’s nose touches twig, leaf;
Two eyes serve a movement, that now
And again now, and now, and now

Sets neat prints into the snow
Between trees, and warily a lame
Shadow lags by stump and in hollow
Of a body that is bold to come

Across clearings, an eye,
A widening deepening greenness,
Brilliantly, concentratedly,
Coming about its own business

Till, with a sudden sharp hot stink of fox
It enters the dark hole of the head.
The window is starless still; the clock ticks,
The page is printed.

Ted Hughes

New Year's day 2010

J and I headed up to Hampstead Heath to welcome in the err, teenies. Unfortunately the rest of North London had the same ideas but it was still beautiful as ever. We saw lots of sweet little robins, some pretty jays, parrots, and a shaggy grey dog the size of a small lion (I think it was a lurcher). No sign of the goose with broken wings we spotted the other day though. I hope he didn't come a'cropper on the ice...

Rush hour on Parliament Hill.

Gorgeous sunset views from the hill.

Had a good chuckle at these Christmas lights in Kentish Town.

Nigel Slater's coffee cake recipe...

As if my gut hasn't expanded enough over the festive season I decided to welcome in the New Year by baking an enormous coronary-inducing coffee cake...  I found an excellent recipe by the venerable Nigel Slater: www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2003/sep/28/foodanddrink.shopping. Tempted to agree that it's the best coffee and walnut cake ever!