...that's what gave me my jolly red nose!"
I'd never really given them much thought until my travels brought me to Karnataka and Kerala... I vaguely knew that tea grew on bushes, and coffee beans on trees, and imagined that pepper and vanilla did too. Bushes and trees respectively.
Wrong.
The excursion into the backwaters sorted that out for me. And then there was henna! And tapioca! Surely not!
Suddenly uneasiness poked me in the stomach with ARROWROOT. Memories of Plaistow, and standing outside The Brit on a warm summer's evening, a glass of lemonade in one hand, and a big unpleasant biscuit in the other, sold for a penny from a jar on the bar. For the dog. Waiting for the grown-ups to drink up their pale ale, light and bitter, a shandy and a milk stout so that we could go home.
Back in October a guide in Rajasthan replied to one of my "and could you tell me what that is?" questions, "In India we don't always know the names of our trees and plants, but we know what they are for."
Quite the opposite to western gardening, I thought.
I am looking forward to the new season in The Gloucester Oasis.
I'd never really given them much thought until my travels brought me to Karnataka and Kerala... I vaguely knew that tea grew on bushes, and coffee beans on trees, and imagined that pepper and vanilla did too. Bushes and trees respectively.
Wrong.
The excursion into the backwaters sorted that out for me. And then there was henna! And tapioca! Surely not!
Suddenly uneasiness poked me in the stomach with ARROWROOT. Memories of Plaistow, and standing outside The Brit on a warm summer's evening, a glass of lemonade in one hand, and a big unpleasant biscuit in the other, sold for a penny from a jar on the bar. For the dog. Waiting for the grown-ups to drink up their pale ale, light and bitter, a shandy and a milk stout so that we could go home.
Back in October a guide in Rajasthan replied to one of my "and could you tell me what that is?" questions, "In India we don't always know the names of our trees and plants, but we know what they are for."
Quite the opposite to western gardening, I thought.
I am looking forward to the new season in The Gloucester Oasis.
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