G20

Tomorrow the G20 summit kicks off in London. I am not sure if these summits ever achieve much other than mutual back slapping and general sage-like scratching of chins. The protests are always the spectacle... and London is braced.

The targets listed are innumerable and as a public sector employee I was emailed a comprehensive map produced by protest organisers showing targets and recommendations to work at home, or dress down.

I love protest and strongly believe in the right to do so. I marched against the war in Iraq (for all the good it did) and I used to go to the Reclaim the Streets too. However, if the violence and unrest forecast tomorrow manifest the only thing that will be achieved is justification for those who think that an Orwellian CCTV society is right and will tar all those who protest peaceably (and with good will for change for better world) with the same brush as that of those who want to cause destruction and unrest. Everyone will be seen as a bunch of lefty, soap-dodging anarchists. Protest is also the right of ordinary people with the same concerns as most of us about the future.

I am not sure what all the protesters are marching against as there are many disparate views on-line, but largely against those who allowed the financial system and the greed to those running it to cripple so many people. Banks are an easy target, their avarice encouraged people who couldn't afford loans to embark on one. Estate agents and greedy vendors who turned homes into profit. The bubble had to burst. As stupid, greedy and naive consumers whacking holidays and designer garb on to credit cards we are all to blame to a degree. But the people who pay the price are not the few who made money while it was there to be made, or who had a D&G handbag, but those at the bottom who never really benefited from the "good times". Woolworths staff for example. Those who produced the £4 tee shirts - how can they be so cheap without someone being exploited or undercut?

Hopefully my town won't get trashed tomorrow but we all need to look at consumerism as a model (against government advice to spend our way out of recession) and the impact this has had on the poor and the climate. What model can take it's place for a better world?

jerusalem tavern

Another Friday night, another fiasco. Dialling the chap from cab with request that he fetch my £2 piggy bank for cashless cow en route. I have raided this so often in the last few weeks that piggy is bled dry and each day-after I find withdrawal slips and cash in bag. My booze befuddled brain completely losing the trip to cash machine immediately prior to getting in cab. Truly pathetic. Anyway I am on final warning so best I behave... for now. No more nights of not remembering the getting-home bit, drink-and-dial shenanigans and losing possessions (yes, again last night).

But this self flagellation is a digression from the purpose of this post; to wax lyrical about the delightful Jerusalem Tavern. In a quiet street in Clerkenwell this is a former coffee house, built in 1720 and with the original fixtures, fittings and furniture in situ. A real gem, lovely service and knowing that many a soul has gotten far more boozed there than the lovely C and I did last night.

excursion 2 - out west

The next day we tootled out to Royal Berkshire to see my aunt, was treated to one of uncle Gerry's G&Ts (he uses the measure for the tonic) a fab lunch in Windsor.

There goes my Wednesdays

In my office every year the topic conversation turns to The Apprentice and for 12 weeks we are hooked on watching utter idiots with the common sense of a satsuma. We even have weekly sweepstakes (that I never win although the chap just won £4) and every Wednesday I sit there with a glass of Rioja barking at the TV " I can't believe they are doing that!" and "I could do that myself ten times better, doh!"

Why do they go on this? anyone with talent would not need to lay themselves bare to public ridicule to get a job with Alan Sugar. But hang on... do they want one? Are the former Apprentices still there? Is it just good telly? Enough with the naval gazing. You're fired!

weekend excursion 1

Hired a van for the weekend and headed eastwards to the delightful Saffron Walden (following a 7.30 swim and trip to IKEA). a large town with a Tudor heart, and the oldest lawn maze in the UK. there was a strange wee market which included a man selling old tools from the days when all craft was done by hand and a tradesman even made his own tools. Fascinating. We bought a scythe.

Was supposed to have gone to Audley End and the miniature railway but as yours truly didn't check first, nothing was open till the following week! Still, we had a drive around the grounds and it all looked amazing and now we know when it is open and that trains from London stop there so worth a trip when madre arrives.

green fingers

Here is the next generation growing salad. Awwww.

food for thought

My agency wined and dined me yesterday, twas whisked off to the fabulous J. Sheekey for a three course lunch. A real treat.

I'd like to dispel the myth commonly circulated in Antipodean food circles here in London: that you don't get good seafood in England. You do. Go to Sheekey's if you don't believe me. Over lunch of Arbroath Smokies with poached quails eggs and endive (starter), Stone Bass with Artichoke (main) and a cheese platter I chatted with my NZ host and fellow guest who has just returned from a trip to NZ about British vs Kiwi fare. The view being that NZ does wonderful fresh locally sourced food. Seafood, fresh cuts of meat, seasonal fruit. But where Europe has the advantage is the legacy of processing and curing food.

NZ cheese is rubbery and bland. Possibly this is due to the restrictive food regulations regarding pasteurisation of dairy? Sausages: pork or beef flavour. Que? They are textureless and chock full of things that aren't meat (Sizzlers!?), you can't get a coarse, herby, rustic sausage for love nor money. Salami no Italian would recognise. Bacon? Ham? Chicken bacon!? A lot of bakery items also leave something to be desired and I get sick of milk chocolate. Processing food in Europe is an artisan craft with a long and proud heritage. In NZ it still usually means factory as such I miss European food when out there as much as I enjoy a snapper on the BBQ, a flat white, great white wines and inventive salads when here.

The stereotype of British food being grey overcooked and stale is largely out dated. Sure you can can bad food anywhere and if one buys fish and chips pre-cooked a busy road in Earls Court it may be as bad as the stuff I had last summer in the Coromandel. But in the last 15 years the sourcing and production of high quality fresh local and seasonal British produce has taken a huge step in the right direction. As demonstrated in the proliferation of farmers markets, box deliveries and British restaurants. In turn I notice more European produce arriving in NZ - problem being that it is expensive due to import controls and distance and is niche and not common outside large centres, and prohibitively expensive for most family budgets. It shouldn't be. Surely European settlers took with them their food heritage? And get past the stifling regulation there really is no reason why NZers can't be making fabulous artisan processed foods, in supermarkets at fair price for the average kiwi to enjoy. Production of products such as oils are taking off.... It should be illegal to sell Colby.

Culinary comparisons aside, we also did a spot of celeb spotting (Timothy Spall and nearby Derek Jacobi and Pete Postelthwaite) and noted that we may be in a recession but every table of the somewhat pricey J Sheekey was taken and groaning under the weight of food and drink.

little sh*ts

Spring is quietly making her way across the gardens.

Just been down the allotment and the wilderness is full of primroses, daffs and bluebells poking out the soil.

Even this muddly lawn and bare borders is heaving with more life than a couple weeks ago (note the emerging green where it was only horse manure in Feb???). I can no longer plant anything in the borders as everytime I do I severe a root or slice in half a bulb from a beloved plant - usually gladioli or alium. Last week I popped in my last attempt to grow sea holly (if it won't grow for me this year I wave the white flag), lupins (which remind me of Stoney Creek Road), Japanese anenome, dahlias and more gladioli.

One thing about spring that really winds me up is these little bastards making themselves known. I've got a job lot of nemaslug on the way... consider this your first and only warning.

the power of positive thinking

I am determined to be a winner.

Observer woman: that £500 of shoes has my name on it. I don't ask for much, but I ask for shoes.

Fashion is skin deep but style is from the heart

and there is nothing stylish what so ever about going out five consecutive Fridays and getting trollied. One can look as fabulous as one likes in front mirrors (in the office loos) but if the night ends with a lost coat and bag, cocktails (two for one at Volupte) slopped down the front of a favourite jacket, and in a bowling alley doing karaoke then really there is no style at all. I am a 37 year old mother of one for heavens sake. Enough! At least until possessions are recovered and dignity rebuilt.