Concrete wash basins at Chai Ki

After our trip around Canary Wharf admiring the lit up trees and other installations as part of this year’s Winter Lights, we needed feeding. And watering. This year, learning from our last visit, we’d planned ahead and booked at table. MOH chose Chai Ki a restaurant neither of us have been to before, and one that serves “modern Indian fare” and as it turned out, great decor too.

And with great decor - and good food - I was hopeful for the loos. I wasn’t disappointed.

They had a modern feel to them, with concrete grey and an unusually-for-a-ladies-loo blue scheme for the decor, and had a kind of railway carriage feel too. I’m not quite sure what makes me think that, and I can’t quite describe it, perhaps my brain works in a mysterious way (no need to answer that), or maybe there’s something in it.

The blue on the doors continued through onto the tiles which had a less than uniform feel to them, in direct contrast to the symmetry of sinks and mirrors above them. The soap dispensers too, added a touch of personality, and have quite obviously been chosen for the detail they add.

Actually, I think it’s the mirrors that have prompted the railway carriage feel - either way, they’re pretty stylish aren’t they? I think that’s enhanced by repeating them along the wall, not something that many of us have the luxury to do at home though.

So, this is quite possibly the first Indian loo in the series, what did you think?

The Silent Pool Gin Garden at Chelsea

Now I’m sure you won’t be surprised that I stopped by this garden, but like me you’re probably wondering why it’s taken until now - and during dry January at that - to share it here. And for the record, my January hasn’t been dry, as the meme goes I don’t need that kind of negativity in my life, but if you’ve been doing it, well done, you’re nearly there - and sorry for this post. Although there’s no actual gin in the garden, unless they’ve used it to fill the pond, but that would just be wasteful and I’m sure we’d have heard about that if it was the case…

It’s the copper features that provide reference to the gin distillation process of the garden’s sponsor, and the space aims to provide a contemporary, but relaxing urban haven for a professional couple to unwind in. And, you’ll understand when you get to the photos, I hope we’re not all expected to unwind like the couple in the last few photos, who were being choreographed while I was there. They were certainly elegant, almost as elegant as I feel after a gin or two (although sadly I think the results in real life aren’t quite the same, whatever I think).

The garden combines water, dappled shade and the copper in a space that could easily be replicated in many domestic gardens. It won a Silver Gilt medal and was voted the Best Space to Grow Garden in the People’s Choice vote, and it’s easy to see why isn’t it?

And as with many of the Chelsea gardens there’s more to it than first meets the eye. The delicate blue of the meconopsis (or blue poppy) - there’s one peeking out to the right of the Y in the tree trunk - hints at the colour of the gin bottles produced by Silent Pool Distillers. This wasn’t the only garden to have the unusual flowers in either, there was also meconopsis in the garden to celebrate the British Council’s 70th anniversary in India, in the ‘billion dreams’ garden, with its giant cricket stumps.

The planting with its blues, whites, greens and copper contributes to the calming space and five of Silent Pool Gin’s 24 botanicals are included in the garden including angelica, iris (the water loving Iris fulva is in the pale green water of the main pool) and rose.

Oh, and look - there’s that professional couple relaxing!

I’m teasing of course, this couple were clearly dancers. She moved in such a balletic way that was entrancing, and both were so supple and each were trusting and strong too, they were beautiful to watch.

So that’s another of the Chelsea gardens shown, and one that provides a welcome blast of sun just when we could do with a hint of warmth. I’m not sure what the weather forecast is for you where you are, but in London there’s threats of snow - let’s hope they stay just that, let’s think hot and warm thoughts to help keep them away!

Reflecting on my week #68

Brrrr. I’ve pretty much hibernated this weekend just gone and it’s been lovely, work has been pretty full on again and it was nice to just potter about for a bit on Saturday. MOH's work is also full on and he was back at work on Saturday, which is never good, but that said it meant my pottering was pretty much uninterrupted.

By the time he arrived home I was already preparing dinner, a slow cooked lamb shank with cannellini beans. It’s funny how things turn out, all week I’d been saying I’d a few tins of cannellini beans and what could we have. Then I spied lamb shanks in the butchers, after popping in for a haggis for Friday evening, and so one of our favourite dinners was on the menu. I planned to put them in the freezer, but, those cannellini beans were nagging at me…

For a change MOH wasn’t out on his bike Sunday, although there was some time spent cleaning it, so just as it sleeted here we set out to the farmers market in Blackheath village. Our aim was to leave with cakes and it was mission well accomplished with a giant size millionaire shortbread and equally large bakewell slice. In the shock of it all, there were no photos, but they were both very nice.

While there some goats cheese, sourdough, squash and apples also made their way into our shopping bag, and as I’m sure Nigel Slater would agree, they had the making of some very nice meals. In fact the goats cheese and sourdough provided an impromptu lunch, and the squash went very well with a butter bean curry. Although I’ll apologise to anyone who knows MOH in real life, as not only has there been two lots of beans, there’s been hummus and grains in the past week for lunches. I think our fibre consumption must be way above the average, but of course I’m way too lazy to work it out for real.

In other news I’m on the seventh packet (of twelve) of that vitamin D boost, so I’m definitely on the home straight. Do I have more energy? I guess so, I’m definitely less exhausted, although as you’ll know I do like to pack it all in. My hips are generally aching less, so that’s good too, so I’m hopefully that by the time my next blood test comes around my body will have remembered how to hang onto its vitamin D. I’ve also made some diet changes in the past few weeks, not just the pulses, there’s been more nuts (to eat, although I’ve encountered a fair few too) and the kefir yogurt, which I actually quite like, and will keep on with.

Having finally completed my tax return - yay! - my other task for the weekend was to complete one of the three photo books I’d promised myself I would, to bring my year books up to date. That was organised me, but organised me failed to realise that I still have unedited photos from 2016, 2017 and 2018 - oops.

I had fewest photos to edit from 2017, or so I thought - I discovered a batch of unedited photos outside of iPhoto, which I’d clearly moved out at one point to free up space on my hard drive (please tell me it’s not just me that is constantly striving to find space on my laptop).

I’d also forgotten that 2017 was quite a big year for us, and that meant many more photos than usual. As well as our big birthdays and getting our garden ready for our big party, there was also a week in Dorset with MOH’s family, a week in Suffolk and a trip to Porto and the Douro Valley and much more besides. I almost made the deadline for completing my creation, but I realised that as I was halfway through the year with less than ten pages left, it was either going to need many more pages or some refinement. Actually I think the answer is a bit of both - it was a big year after all - and so I accepted defeat and bought an extension to my credit, and so my quest - and the race against the new deadline - to capture our 2017 in our year book continues.

But along the way I’ve rediscovered some great pictures, and some memories too. Unusually this has been a photo-free post up until now, but as I’ve been reliving 2017, here’s some of the photos I’ve uncovered this weekend, which may or may not have appeared on the blog before:

PORT IN THE DOURO VALLEY

SUN AND A VIEW

A SQUASH THAT DOESN’T LOOK AS IF IT DESERVES TO BE THIS BIG

THERE HAD TO BE SOME TILES, WHICH ARE EVERYWHERE

LOOK OUT FOR THESE IN A FUTURE LOO SERIES

…AND A GLASS OF PORT TOO

A REMINDER OF OUR GABION BASKETS?

AND FINALLY DECREPIT, BEAUTIFUL AND FULL OF CHARACTER!

That last caption is quite apt and made me smile when I realised its significance. It feels a bit like me at the moment, somewhere along the way of not doing anything very active at all I’ve tweaked my lower back. Having remembered it’s entirely possible to get a massage in Greenwich in my lunch hour, guess what I’m up to tomorrow?!