It is a rainy, oily, greasy Saturday and no one is feeling like getting up from the couch. Duck Tales has been on for what seems like 8 hours, and the baby keeps trying to steal Noah’s blanket and whinging. Mark is at work. I am trying to put away clothes but it is like the little bodysuits and the mismatched socks are playing a game with me where they breed and then go and scrunch themselves up and hide. Everywhere I look there is stuff, mostly little-boy-related, and unfortunately mostly My Problem.

This morning, when we all still felt that there was some promise in the day and it could maybe not rain, we took the car to Portobello. Really just for this:

That, dear Reader, is curry from Ghana. From the Spinach & Agushi stall, anyway. The curries are so good, I am nearly weeping with anticipation. Actually wobbling with anticipation, in fact. The best curry is the coconut chicken one, closely followed by the lamb and leek, beef and pepper, then the spinach and agushi. The rice is jollof, which is sticky and dense and tomato-y and slightly spicy. It is absolutely my favourite thing in the world to eat, especially when pregnant and attacked by unassailable bouts of piggy hunger. There is a very nice husband and wife team who run the company, and the stall fellows are chatty and always ask after the kids. Which is always a plus. 

The cake and bread stall is just a cake and bread stall, but looked kind of tasty and so worth a picture.

Alternative Lives Space

Often, I find myself aponderin’ about what kind of life I would like to have, if I wasn’t living in the current one. Today, when I neglectfully gave Custard a portuguese tart and practically poisoned him with the eggs and butter (I should know not to do this by now!) and he came out in such terrible immediate hives that he scratched his skin off, I was hankering after another, alternative life. Mostly as a way to avoid my shame.  Anyway, this usually involves me thinking up implausible and terribly cliched scenarios whereby I find myself in a New York Loft, with a streamline body, fabulous job in TV and a nice set of Korean-lady-cultivated nails. I would definitely live next door to a jewish deli, where the big friendly  son of the owner would give me extra salt beef and the best gherkin. I would not fall in love with him though. He would be my wise friend (who maybe grossed me out a little bit – in my mind right now, his hands are quite dirty – so no love there). I think I would not have time to fall in love with anyone, in any case, because Job would be Totally Fulfilling. And I would eat takeout in little cardboard asian-y containers. Yes. That’s the best one.