In 2008, Emily chose to celebrate her birthday at the Akash restaurant at 500A Edgware Road. Of the several posts that have featured this, my favourite over four decades, https://derrickjknight.com/2012/10/31/curry-a-biography/ places this gem in perspective.
I had remembered this splendid family occasion when speaking on the phone to Heidi yesterday. This morning I received a Facebook message containing two of
my daughter-in-law’s photographs of the event. Both focus on Emily and Oliver. The first includes Majid, the manager; Cath and Amy in the background, and my hand in the foreground. Majid had produced the splendid cake.
Today the weather was wet, windy, and decidedly dingy.
During a slight lull in rainfall Jackie photographed the crab apples because she doesn’t know how long they will last before the blackbirds have finished them off.
Immediately after lunch, peering through the rain-spattered windscreen, we drove to Pennington to deliver an acceptance letter for his decorating quote to Nick Hayter, and to make a booking at The Wheel Inn for Thursday evening.
Much against my better judgement, I allowed my Chauffeuse to cajole me into photographing waves from the clifftop at Milford on Sea. In order for me to disembark without the gusting winds tearing the passenger side door from my grip, Jackie needed to leave her own comfortable seat to hold my door. This was only fair, really. My cheeks were then pierced by ice cold driven needles. These were the rain, not the eponymous appendages to the Isle of Wight, because
the Isle, its Needles, and the lighthouse, as can be seen from these two pictures, had gone AWOL.
It is true that I couldn’t see what I was doing, but I know I was pointing my lens to where the island used to be.
I managed to photograph more waves
and rocks before I sank back into the Modus
and focussed more easily on empty benches through the front window.
Although it lacks the horns, Jackie’s beef pie would definitely be appreciated by the Dandy comic’s Desperate Dan. Packed with tender steak, succulent onions and firm chestnut mushrooms the Culinary Queen’s speciality is what we enjoyed for tonight’s dinner. This was served with tasty boiled potatoes; crunchy carrots; cabbage and green beans, with which she finished the Sauvignon Blanc and I drank more of the Barbera D’Asti.