Green Fingers

I have a little outdoor space (patio) in my apartment and I have always wanted to grow a vegetable patch and a little tropical urban garden. I love plants in urban spaces, it softens harsh architecture and generally brings a little cheer to a drab place. Everyone at work has been bringing in apples and berries from their gardens, all this has made me want to get into this very British past time. However, I also have a previous history of killing house plants. Sigh!.

So despite lofty aspirations of a tropical paradise in my little patio, I decided to start on a small scale, with a few veggies, that can grow indoor and survive the fast approaching autumn and winter months.

A few weeks ago I set of to homebase and picked up a few seeds, a germinator box, some compost and pots. I spent an entire Sunday afternoon planting my herbs, in the germinator box and re- potting my old house plants that looked close to death. If I can nurture this lot for a few months without too many disasters I will venture into increasing my brood of plants.

As the weeks passed my little seeds grew into shoots, stems and leaves. I now have a thriving box of basil, spinach, chillies, carrot and coriander saplings that will shortly need potting. Lets hope my fingers are slowly turning green.If they do the next step will be guerilla gardening.

Mid- August Lunch

This bank holiday weekend we decided to take it easy, put our feet up and spend a little us time together. S had already charted out our itinerary for the day. So Saturday morning was spent heading into London. I stopped at Heal's to pick up a very cute little 2 person tea pot with an infuser. As I am the only one in our household of two that drinks tea, this was perfectly sized for my daily cuppa. I picked a bright red one and used it over the weekend to have real adrak chai, complete with tea leaves that I picked up from Bombay.


After a quick lunch at Benito's we headed to the Renoir at Brunswick Square, to catch the Mid- August Lunch (Pranzo di Ferragosto) . This sweet Italian film is actor/director Gianni Di Gregorio's debut film. He plays the role of a cash-strapped son, looking after his ageing mother in Trastavere, a suburb of Rome. Over a 24 hour period, he is coerced into taking on temporary care of three more elderly women. The movie is an observation into the care of the elderly with a little charm and wit. It is an effortless 75 minute journey into the life of three elderly woman who bicker over television rights but over a period of two days become friends. They bond over Gianni's patiently prepared food, palm reading and life in general. Gianni is an inherent soft-hearted rogue whose cure to every problem in his life is a swig of Chablis. I left the movie with a little grin inside me.

We spent the evening by Vauxhall at the Riverside pub. It is located at a beautiful spot by the river bank at St George's Wharf looking across Vauxhall bridge. The buildings by this pub, however, are an eyesore. They are stern, lifeless and almost cardboard-box like in their appearance. Not one of my favourite developments in this city.

As the evening passed we were both quite famished and headed to Myungga at Soho for dinner. This little restaurant churns out delicious Korean fare. We had some yummy Khimchi- pickled cabbage with chilli and I tried some Gui twigim- deep fried oysters, which were not to my taste. For our mains we went straight to the barbecue menu and had Bulgogi- marinated beef strips and Jumul luk- sliced tenderloin seasoned with sesame oil and garlic. Both our mains were delicious, what I loved about this meal is the little grill on our table, and the fact that our meal was cooked in front of me. It's a smaller version of a Mongolian barbecue. It was plenty of theatre, but I loved it.



We walked all the way back to Victoria, taking in the sights and sounds of London on a Saturday night. It had been a day well spent.