Satellite delay to the brain, flowers, gentrification and designer dogs

Woke up marginally groggy this morning, with a vague feeling that I should be somewhere other than horizontal in bed, listening to Sunday Service (one of only 2 hours per week that I can't bear to listen to Radio 4. The other hour is "any answers" when it feels like all the really annoying people in the world phone up R4 to share their Daily-Mail inspired bigotry). The thought process went something like this...

1. Ah, Sunday....
2. Eek, God on the Radio.
3. OK, snooze for a bit till the interesting news-thingy comes on at 9. Then the Archers at 10.
4. Snooze.
5. News thingy at 9
6. Faintly unsettling feeling of "shouldn't I be somewhere else?"
7. F*uckety f*ck f*ck. yes I should be an hour across town at Columbia Road meeting Helen.

So, leap out of bed, perform morning abolutions, stumble down stairs just as adorable husband (yep, still adorable) climbs stairs bearing boiled egg and soldiers for the good lady wife. Fully engage brain, eat breakfast. Remember that arrangement was to ring Helen at 9 to arrange meet-up, rather than actually *be* in east london at 9. Recover from indigestion of hurried breakfast and enjoy coffee and sight of husband in bathrobe. Even after all these years, I can almost purr when I look at him !

Anyways, lovely morning at Columbia Road flower market with Helen. A good opportunity to buy flowers, enjoy the ambience of the market traders yelling out the various merits of their goods, have a coffee and a catch up on the gossip. I bought a *huge* pile of rather garish bright pink flowers called "celosia brains" for the princely sum of a fiver - and they're looking just great in front of the fire place.

Helen and I have been frequenting Columbia Road for a good 6 years or so I'd guess, and we observed today how much it's changed - it's become v chi-chi ! It's still great fun, and I do enjoy browsing (and buying) in the shops that line the market, but it's really the flowers and the market characters that are the stars. During that time though, the little quirky arty shops have become a bit more upmarket (still quirky though) and I'm guessing the socio-economic grouping is firmly ABC1.

My first ever trip to Columbia Road must have been when I first moved to London in 1998, and I remember marvelling that the pub was open at 10am, so we went in for a coffee (it just wouldn't be right to a beer before noon) - and to my amazement there were loads of, well, frankly p*ssed people. I hadn't heard of a market licence before! Still plenty of merry folks around today - a particularly splendid pair of clubbers returning home looking a little the worse for wear at 10:30am... I'm only jealous that my energy wouldn't make it past midnight these days!

Today though, seemed to be "designer dog day". Whilst we slurped our coffees outside the Jones dairy, we noticed a number of hounds (and their people) walk by... but none of them was a heinz-mutt, they were all rather *fabulous darhling* fancy-shmanzy dogs. I saw a Weirmerama, an Afghan, two Standard Poodles (in chocolate brown - v lovely), a Chow-Chow, a Westie and a Old English Sheep dog.

All in all, a good day out, and getting to feel more at home in East London. Which is good thing, as I'm going to be spending more time there from July. New job, new environs... but more about that later !

What a glorious day

It started gently enough, with a cup of coffee in bed, a few chapters of my current book (The Islamist - Ed Hussein) and listening to the Archers. Then it dawned on me that I had no excuses - it was one of those gloriously bright sunny winter days - it's time for the training programme to start.

Together with a couple of friends, I've signed up for a charity 5 kilometre run, race for life, on 18th May. So, contrary to my usual habit of leaving things to the last minute, I figured I'd try to get with the programme early doors. It was a surprisingly pleasant experience. Sid and I walked up the road (warm up, warm up) to the entrance to the park that borders onto the canal. Once through the stile and into the park, we ran (OK, jogged) down to the canal and along the tow-path to Brentford. We estimate it's about 5km in total, and made to the destination with a couple of breathers at about 3km and 4km. The tow-path is lively place on a Sunday morning : the good burghers of Ealing go out jogging and cycling with their children and dogs. And there's a great cafe when you reach Brentford lock. By 18th May I need to do it in one stretch, and I guess I better set a target time to aim for.

After the exertions of the run, I was planning a quiet hour on the allotment, doing a bit of tidying up, then back to the homestead for quality time on the sofa with the Sunday papers. However, we had such fun on the allotment we didn't stop till it got dark. There was lots of dried up vegetation, hedge-clippings and chopped up hazel-nut tree to dispose of. One incinator, one match and a pile of cardboard later, we had a roaring fire going. I'd forgotten just how hypnotic a bonfire can be. I popped out to get coffee and cake from the cafe near the allotments. It's a lovely example of demographic change in london - it's now a polish-food cafe - and I can vouch for the traditional polish apple pie being fabulous.

Perfect Sunday methinks.

J