London...

Down at the farmer's market the other day, at the wonderful Moroccan foodstall, Granny was served by a man who was clearly not Moroccan. He looked Chinese - no, more complicated than that. His face was thin, fine, porcelain coloured, he had a little close drooping moustache, he looked more like a Tartar, say; or maybe, rather, he looked like one of Genghis Khan's warriors. Except for this: on his head he wore one of those high, all controlling hats that Rastas wear to hold their huge nests of dreadlocks; the Genghis Khan warrior's hat bulged as if his hair was in uncut dreadlocks too. A certain cultural confusion there, it seemed to Granny; but this is London after all.

Very shortly after she found herself talking to an unmistakable Englishman in a raincoat who'd come to check on a broken door to one of her balconies. And who turned out to be married to an Iranian woman, met in London, and to adore life in Iran, You can go into shops, he said, to buy, and come out with bags full of stuff, not having spent a penny, it's all been given to you. While out in the country he'd met herdsmen miles from anywhere and sat down on the grass with them to drink tea. That was the best experience of whole my life, he said, it was really. (Bush should have heard him; oh yes we all know about the mad revolutionary guards, mad mullahs, and the madder president whose name Granny cannot get her tongue round let alone her keyboard: but there's much more sense in Iran than that. Let the place alone and it will all come out. If only...)

And now it's Sunday afternoon and it's the weather in a state of cultural confusion, and a good deal else besides. Granny is blasted by racket from the Irish pub on the corner. Celtic supporters are in town for a friendly with QPR just up the road. They are all wearing brutally-striped green and white shirts just like the players, right down to the Carling label in the middle. They are well-oiled by the sound of it and making a lot of noise; at times they burst into the worse kind of sentimentalised Irish folk song. Granny doesn't know how the match went; it must have been affected by the culturally confused weather that dumped a mighty thunderstorm right on the top of it. After which the sun came out - and the insects and the screaming swifts to add to the racket, And now it looks as if there's about to be another storm. She wonders if it will drive the revellers back inside the pub and ease the noise a little. Wishful thinking probably. How can a not so enormous group of men make such a DIN? Oh god, they're singing again now. Come, thunder, please come.

Still she's had a good weekend. Family and friends all out of town, her two flatmates off with their respective squeezes, she's had the flat to herself since Saturday morning. She's written a lot, had her hair cut, been to a weird opera about twins, which she can't recommend because it's finishing, and the weird exhibition of Anthony Gormley at the Hayward Gallery which she can recommend because it goes on until late August. Fancy metal men on rooftops looking out wherever you look? You will find them. Oh and aside from him, along the South Bank, outside the Festival Hall there are two extraordinary fountains created by a Danish artist. One of them you can get right inside and end up dry still - more or less. Bring children. Hurry. For them it is total bliss to judge by the faces of the ones there. N0t bad for adults either.

London in summer can be pretty nice. Really. Ask an at-the-moment, happy Granny, about to feed herself on goodies from the middle Eastern supermarket up the road; fancy a honey mango anyone, or home-made baba ganoush, or a huge bunch of rocket in a salad with tomatoes? Yes. Really.

chilly

London's mixed nature is always the more apparent to Granny when returning from a more mono-cultural place - Berlin, for instance, let alone her island. Last night she went to pick up a newspaper from the Indian newsagent that carries local papers from more counties in Ireland she ever knew existed. She then tripped a few doors along to the Chinese Bakery-Come Takeaway where you can get whole meals for £2.50 (she went for chicken in black bean sauce with rice if you're asking) served by an aged Chinese man round and smily as a Buddha, who calls everyone, young, old, male, female 'Boss.' From behind him in the kitchen came the odd word of Chinese - no more than that; the whole staff, just like the Indian woman in the newsagent were watching Coronation Street while they worked. Granny wonders if being hooked on Coronation Street would count no less than the cricket taste as evidence of assimilation. She doesn't see why it shouldn't.

It's cold. Granny is wearing: one sleeveless thermal vest + one short-sleeved thermal vest + one t-shirt+ one purple polo neck sweater (cashmere - from Uniclo - heaven) +one big, green woven wool shirt, twenty years old from a woollen mill in Oxfordshire, (nicked from Beloved the moment Granny saw it; her favourite garment these days; her generation started the trend of wearing clothes belonging their male admirers - in her young days it was the only way, short of surprising the assistants in men's clothes shops, to get big sweaters in good dark or bright colours; she sees no reason to change this habit, even in a more unisex age) + a black fleece jerkin + her black sheepskin boots. (The one's that AREN'T slippers..). When she goes out she adds a thick black coat. This just about keeps her warm. Thinking of global warming - and, of her fuel bills - she does try not to up the temperature indoors; this is good of her. But she is not yet quite geriatric enough for hypothermia to be an issue, so has no excuse not to try, at least.

As you would guess, London is not sitting in a heatwave. Nor is it literally arctic. But it feels quite Arctic enough to her, thankyou. Which does not mean she did not enjoy opening her window two mornings ago and seeing SNOW. It so surprised her, her jaw, literally, dropped. Yes, she knows that's a cliche, but almost for the first time she realised that it does actually happen. Her jaw unhinged itself spontaneously and fell; she could almost hear it.

The snow had all gone by mid-morning. Living in the Canaries may leave Granny feeling the cold even more than she always did, on the other hand it does make her appreciate the glory of that ephemeral whiteness. But she of course was not forced to go out first thing and brave the predictably chaotic transport system. She spoke to a friend shivering on a platform, having waited twenty minutes for a District Line train. Lucky Granny on the other hand, layered in her wool, was safely indoors and happy to stay there.

She's off here there everywhere over the weekend. Which means she won't be back here before Monday at the very earliest. Meantime she has put up two more chapters on her unpublished story, here. Just to keep you happy. OR NOT. It's up to you.