under another sun

To Hampstead this morning. A smooth journey, did a little writing on the train, and read a couple of entertaining chapters of Headlong Hall by Thomas Love Peacock. A star spot: Romy Madley Croft (of the group The XX) getting up from a seat near me as the train pulled into St Pancras.  Walked up from West Hampstead tube to to meet Toby and Mum in the cafe in Waterstones in Hampstead proper. After a coffee we decided to hop up the hill to The Holly Bush, a pub I've not been to since deep in the twentieth century. We had some lunch there and a drink, and it was all very pleasant. First time we three had been together since August 23. Toby bought us lunch there which was kind of him. We walked back to Hampstead Station, but the trains were kaput, so we had to bus to Swiss Cottage where Mum went north to Stanmore, and Toby went south to see Mike Sassarini. I had a smooth journey from West Hampstead to Seaford -- with no wait between trains longer than five minutes. Home and Lorrain...

Now that the schools are going back, the weather was warm and sunny. After Lorraine had eaten breakfast with Sam, I went off a-foraging. Armed with Tupperware, I went to the first of the places I identified the day before -- but did not need to go further afield, as I managed to get just over a kilo of blackberries from the first of my sites. Blackberries accomplished I found the crab apple tree on the side of the hill, and picked up early fallen but fine apples. Their sourness shrivels your face into a repulsive puckering but they are bursting with apple flavour.  Walking home I thought how a small but judicious addition or small crab apple pieces would add not only pectin, but a welcome note of tartness to the sweet niceness of the blackberry. This would be a jam that didn't mutter hi to you as you ate it, but bellow a full blown Howdy ! on your tastebuds .    As I approached home, I noticed how tingly my hands were with all the nettle stings on my hands, not to mentio...

Lorraine and I up and about late and after breakfast walked down to London Road caught a train and went for a wander around Lewes. Lurking in the lovely Southover Grange Gardens, and then nosing about in a few shops. I bought a couple of teeshirts on sale from Fatface, and then a booklet for a £1 about Guernsey published in 1964, featuring for me nostalgic colour pictures of The Sarnia mailboat, that we travelled on many times, as well a photo of BEA Vickers Viscounts in the airport. Back home briefly where we joined forces with Beth and caught a bus into town, where we met Rachel and Andrew, and their daughters Hattie and Libby by the pier, and had an Indian meal with them. Lorraine is Hattie's Godmother. I liked Rachel and Andrew a good deal, having only met them briefly before, and the girls were full of personality. Rachel had taught both Sam and Beth when they were little. Hattie had recently been to China, and told us about seeing pandas, staying with a family there, and th...