home

It was midnight before we reached (Sarah's) home last night, after a bus and two trains from Heathrow. That was 17 hours of travelling since we left our hotel on Poros after breakfast yesterday!

This morning Sarah needed to do some shopping so we walked up Garratt Lane past Tooting Market to Bhavin's. Arun (on the right) is always pleased to see Sarah. It was he who taught us how to make lime pickle (D's speciality). The shop is full of interesting ingredients, and all kinds of fruit and veg which you can't get in Lidl. Sarah was asking about one which looked like a large nut - it turned out to be a wood apple which is used to make a kind of pickle. Today he gave us both chai and we tried some fresh yellow dates (much nicer than dried). The extra is Sarah's shopping basket (limes are for D's next batch of preserves and fenugreek for a recipe I want to try when I get back to Scotland).

Back to Tooting Market and Sarah went to say hello to the proprietor of Unwined who gave me a cool food magazine. We went for a juice at GetJuiced and had a nice chat with Leon, the owner. You can hear him talking in this short film about his work and community.

For me, it's great that Sarah feels part of this community. Yes, London's a big city, expensive, busy, noisy and polluted, but it's full of interesting and friendly people, too.

Tonight I'm at my parents' home in Sussex. Have a good weekend, everyone!