J'aime le pain

Don’t tell Biroco but the French Market was back at the weekend. And this time it was bigger with added soap and knock off designer hats which were neither trés chic nor very French. Nary a beret in sight. Poor BB is starting her teething and so was not in tip top form but we took her for some fresh air. I forgot the big grown up camera so have resorted to using my mobile pone which only has 17 pixels and save things as bitmap files. I ask you.

Anyway, it was much the same as last time, except busier, and all the youth that had come over from the other side of the bus garage had obviously frightened all the Queens Park ignorati away. My mother would have called them, the youth, Common. Although Sunday is overpriced organic farmers market on Salusbury Road so they, the ignorati, would have all been there; crammed in between the cranberry and rosemary foccacia and the herd of four by four child killing machines. Best place for them.

The market is outside the Library Centre in Willesden Green. They are trying to get more of these events on, the last one was the African Market and Something, which I would have like to have gone to but I was entertaining that day and thus not allowed out.

Aren’t ordinary everyday items fascinating when in a foreign language? Moutard. Marvellous. And some other things to make cassoulet with. Cracking.

You could smell the cheese a mile off. Not a literal mile, a nasal mile. We had some brie and some smoked raclette which is as stinky as I am prepared to get in the cheese department.

And there was hardly any bread left but the mound of biscuits eased the pain. I have accidentally been very funny and clever there. Pain. It’s rude to point out your own haphazard genius, isn’t it? Pain though. Or lack of pain. It’s a good job I’ve got a blog or that would have been wasted. Wasted.

And I thought there was fruit but it was soap. Thankfully I don’t often do fruit so I was spared the embarrassment of taking a huge bit from a lavender and mimosa scented apple. I was a close run thing though. I have been known to fall upon delicious market stalls with an open mouth and a hopeful heart.

This is clearly soap. I do soap daily.

Paraskevidekatriaphobia

Imagine I posted this picture on Friday the 13th when I took it. Yes?


I came out of my Shorthand mock exam on Throgmorton Street, round the back of Threadneedle Street, and the Gherkin was either in the process of lifting off, falling down or shrouded in paraskevidekatriaphobia. Either way it was quite a sight. I galloped around the corner to see what was happening but when I got there it had gone.

Crab Apples

I went to a new café on Saturday for lunch. There seem to be a number of new little cafes and delicatessens popping up in Kensal Rise at the moment. This is probably because, in the manner of an odorous backed up toilet Queen Park is over spilling into NW10. The most hilarious example of this is the deli/café next to Kensal Rise station which is an ultra moderne glass structure not unlike a very grand bus shelter. It’s full of the very expensive tat that people who think they can cook fill their kitchens with to hide the fact that they don’t know the difference between button and chestnut mushrooms never mind which end of the mushroom brush to apply to them.

Not at all like this monstrosity of middle class disparation (like aspiration but totally without value or meaning being all about money and status rather than anything important) is The Brilliant Kids Café and Art Centre. We fit right in because we have a brilliant kid and is certainly a welcome addition the short list of places you can easily take a baby younger than 6 months old. Also, independent of BB, I am so weary of the gastro pub. I don’t think it has been open for very long but it is cracking, I hope it lasts and doesn’t become one of those good places that is open for five minutes and then closes.

One half of Brilliant Kids is the café where an impossibly posh, yet very hearty, woman cooks in an open kitchen. She whipped tD up some Hollandaise sauce for her Eggs Florentine which tD reported as the best sauce she had ever had (even better than my Mediterranean vegetable pasta sauce apparently, damn it all). I had Shepherd’s Pie and steamed broccoli which was magnificent. It was a huge portion, and I thought I wouldn’t be able to tuck it all away, but when I polished it off it was so lovely I could have eaten it all over again. But this is terribly uncouth, I understand, so I contented myself with just the one portion. It is also very reasonably priced with my homemade, organic and delicious shepherds pie coming in at £6.50.

The Gods of Impending Birthday sorted the weather out so we could sit outside. The garden is a little oasis of peace and tranquillity. Once you have got the buggy beside your table. Up to that point it is an oasis of why in the name of god is this garden covered in posh grey gravel that the wheels won’t work on.

We sat underneath a crab apple tree, an upward glance looking much like this:


Next door is the other half of Brilliant Kids – the Art Centre. They do all kinds of workshops for kids; from music and movement, storytelling to knitting. There is a little club afternoon with a DJ called The Crib, where they can learn street dance, and The Popcorn Club on a Saturday morning where the little angels can watch classic children’s films. They also do children’s parties which I imagine are marvellous but hideously expensive.

And you can leave your heap of car parts outside to lower the tone without paying a penny. Joyous. Did I mention the crab apples?

Little baby tree hugger

My daughter, who is now 15 weeks old or three months and a bit in old money, is obsessed with trees. Her granny said that 'most babies usually are'. Stupid granny. If she carries on like that she will never be called grandma, no matter how much she hates being called granny. As if my daughter does anything usual – she only does incredibly gifted or stupendously talented. Obviously.

We took her, daughter not granny, to Roundwood Park at the weekend and she gazed up at one tree for ages. She is particularly fond of oak trees for some reason. So, I took a picture of it for her. This was a complicated procedure which involved lying on the ground exactly where she had been in her buggy to get the view right, then wrestling with my conscience to reconcile aesthetic sense with parental responsibility. Neither won in the end – as you can tell from the photo.

Yesterday, she was very unsettled and as it was pouring with rain and we couldn’t go in the garden to look at the real trees, I whipped out the photo.

I spent twenty whole minutes wafting the photo as if in a restful breeze and making a remarkably realistic noise like said breeze rustling leaves peacefully. Nothing. No content sighs, no smiles, no falling asleep. At least there was no grizzling, but still. She’s a tough crowd; my kid.

Then I cracked and went; ‘brrrrrrrr’. With extra spittle and everything.

And for the first time she did it back. (I’d put an exclamation mark here if I weren’t so pathologically opposed to them – imagine one if you like.)

I have not been so excited since she passed her linking ring from one hand to the other and shoved it in her mouth.

‘Well,’ said the Divinity watching from the sofa and being no help. ‘You can certainly tell she’s your daughter.’

‘BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR,’ we said.

But she merely smirked.

Market, mais oui.

A (very) little bit of France came to Willesden Green this weekend and parked itself outside the Library Centre, right next to the wall the drunks like to sit on. My, they were in their element - crepes and diamond white all round. I took some photos for those of you unlucky enough to live in places other then Willesden Green. Poor you.

French Market outside library centre, exhibit A. See, told you so.

Onions and garlic. The garlic was not on strings but in nice bunches, so I was foiled in my attempt to hang garlic around my neck and pedal my bicylcle happily up to the bus garage and back. Oh well, at least it saved me from stealing a bicycle.

Flesh.

Sausages. Including ostrich. My friend bought some venison ones so I made her walk five paces behind me. She muttered quite a bit about that I can tell you.

Bread or pain as they say. We were on much safer territory with the baked produce. Especially the biscuits which we all agreed were delicious.

That ends the photo montage - bring back the elephant.

It would be lovely if we could have more of this in Willesden Green. Evil Queens Park, lousy with Orlandos and Jocastas, has a farmers market every Sunday. We need a market. And not one of those like the one outside Argos on Kilburn High Road. I would start a local campaign but last time I tried anything like that the squirrels wrote obscenities on my placards.

I am full of cheese today, and shallots also. I smell a treat. Apparently. People can be so cruel, can’t they?

A Surfeit of (Stealth) Squirrels

Squirrels send in crack team on surveillance mission

A Surfeit of Squirrels (Hey!)

Hey! That's my sandwich!

Sultan's Elephant : Part 1

As I walked from Westminster tube I did wonder how I was going to find the Elephant because the map and itinerary (I never realised elephants were so organised whilst travelling) were a bit vague. And then I turned into Horse Guards Road and there was the distant sound of an incredibly loud live band playing that specific brand of French pop music. I knew I was in the right place. And there were to crowds too, they were a bit of a give away.

I was brave and went on my own. I decided that I would go to the finale as I couldn’t go for long and wanted to make sure that I spent that time well. We are, at Froosh Towers, awaiting the transformation of bump to baby so we don’t like to stray too far from the nest for too long. It turned out to be a great decision.

Just as I arrived at the parade, which was full of people the Little Girl and the Elephant were making their way round the corner from the Mall. I managed to wriggle my way quite near the front as they came past.

It was awesome. It made me feel a bit tearful, actually. There were lots of small children on people’s shoulders (it was the must-have accessory) and I thought I wish I’d seen this when I was a kid and then I realised that it didn’t matter that I wasn’t a kid because it was working the same old magic. It’s nice sometimes to realise that life hasn’t got you trapped in its icy grip quite as tightly as you thought.

Its the Royal Court's fifieth anniversary this year and there are lots of events and galas celebrating fifty years of one of the great british theatres. The Sultan's Elephant goes to show that we, in this country, know nothing about theatre. Timely bit of Arts Council funding there.

Anyway, here are some photos.

And then Elephant squirted water out of its trunk over the crowd and I was so amazed that I forgot to duck like the rest of the crowd and got a bit wet.

See the tiny, tiny people on top of the elephant - that's how big the elephant was. The sultan is the guy in the red hat, I think.

Here's the Elephant, here's his steeple (trunk) look inside and here are the people. That's how it works! I get it. Oh, no actually I don't. Its still amazing.

Sultan's Elephant : Part 2

For some reason, my being a muppet I expect, blogger won't let me do this in one continuous post. So, here it the next exciting instalment of Froosh and the Elephant's city break:

She was the hugest Little Girl ever.

The Elephant and the Little (huge) Girl congregated in the parade ground near the rocket. I think the Elephant was a bit sad because it was nearly all over. As we all were. On the balcony, near the windows, there were two dancers, which goes to show how enormous the Elephant was. The music was great too. It was so loud that it was making the ground vibrate with the bass.

The tiny tiny men lowered the Little (huge) Girl in the rocket after they had put her helmet and goggles on. Safety first.

Clunk click every trip

And then the Elephant blew water into the rocket to fuel the Little (huge) Girl on her journey home. Then all this smoke and orange light filled the parade and when they lifted the lid off the rocket – she had gone. We all gasped because it was amazing. Where did she go? I don’t know. That’s the magic of theatre, people.

I crawled through the legs of people thronged ten, even twelve, deep to bring you these pictures of the elephant in repose. Because as every Roy Castle fan knows - dedication's what it takes.

Bye bye Elephant - come back soon. And bring friends, let's make a really huge party of it. You can stay in my garden, the squirrels said its okay.

My best side