London

Dear London,  

I miss you so.

Some days I wake up and the moment before I open my eyes I imagine I am back with you, about to greet another day with open arms, excited at the thought of exploring the corners of you I am yet to be enchanted by and revisit the ones that feel like home.

You bestowed upon me the belief in myself to develop my own style - from the way that I dress to the music I dance to, the company I keep and the dreams that I conjure, the thought clouds and imaginings that some day may (thanks to you) become matters of fact.  I arrived in love with your air of anonymity, and yet at the same time, the contradictory feeling that I didn't have to be an anybody here, I could be someone.  I left with that notion simmering in my heart, a crumpled train ticket to Heathrow in my pocket, a journal filled with amateur scribblings in my backpack, and a tear in my eye. 

I miss the way you made me negotiate your slippery streets after winter snow and rain and the smell of curry wafting tantalisingly down Globe Road.  I miss Friday afternoon leading into night drinks at the Camel after work and Brick Lane bargains and bagels and feeling like I could be one of those girls on Sunday wearing vintage heels and bright red lipstick and unabashedly kissing every minute of life with it.  I miss riding my rickety bike alongside the canal and dreaming about what the insides of those house boats look like and how I'd decorate my own with thrift finds and well worn books and polaroids and trinkets from my travels.  I miss strawberry beer and hoolahoops, steamed buns from China town, the Camden falafel bar and even, dare I say it, the aisles of opportunity at the roaring behemoth that is Asda. I miss taste testing at Borough Market, train trips to the countryside, meditation classes and open mic nights, thrift store bargains from Islington and Hammersmith, exploring Shoreditch's bars and brews.  I miss calling it the "offie", the "chippie" and inserting "innit" into conversation at every given opportunity.  I miss my family of friends, and feeling like a local watching fireworks at Viccy Park, (even just calling it Viccy Park), moving with the masses on Oxford Street and watching the Hyde Park rollerskaters.  I miss cold weather at Christmas time and the lights, all the lights, all year round and everywhere, West End theatres and Covent Garden buskers, and evenings spent roaming the pavement in wonder and amusement with a camera in my hand.  I miss the man selling coffee from his kombi at Notting Hill Market, cheap film nights on Whitechapel Road, the museums, the galleries, the epitaphs, sculptures, statues, monuments, the incredible tangible history I am yet to really fathom (and I hope I never do).

I miss you.  All of you.  With all your eccentricities and contradictions, with all your crazy beautiful changes of costume, with all your ups and downs, comings and goings, has beens and yet to becomes.

I'll be seeing you soon.  Save me a seat in the front row of your show.

Yours truly,

K. 

 

personalKirsty Dunnlondon, wanderlust, open lettersComment
preservation

Some of my friends travelled abroad this summer; they spent their Christmases in quaint English villages before seeing in the New Year at a London club, or partied hard until the sun came up in Sydney on New Years Day; those that didn’t leave the country opted for various North Island festivals, consecutive days of sun-bleached debauchery, seeing the new year in under laser lights amidst a crowd of thousands.  My holiday antics were somewhat more subdued and undertaken a  lot less further afield than that.  I went South to stay with parents.  I spent nine hours on the bus to get there.  I camped a few nights by the lake.  And then I made some jam.

I don’t know why I’d never noticed the cherry plum tree in our backyard before.  I’m not quite sure how I came to be up my father’s ladder contending with the birds as I raided their summer banquet, nor can I explain the sudden urge to haul out my mother’s edition of Good Housekeeping in search of the perfect condiment recipe. But there I was, in all my grannish glory, mashing fruit pulp through a sieve onto an ancient set of scales, faithfully following a classic well-worn jam recipe, attempting to master the intricacies of finding the exact right setting point,  and loving every minute of it.   There is something special, something therapeutic about the simple process of preserving.  And whilst I may have subsequently been accused of being boring, nannery, or even the dreaded indie “h” word, the reality is I felt like a school kid; heartily clutching the finished product, complete with homemade label and gingham-string-tied lid cap, saying “Look, Mum!  Look what I made!” 

And you know what? It tasted fucking good.

Say what you will; think what you like.  I’m not suggesting New Year’s Eve at Rhythm and Vines is no match for a summertime jam making sesh; and I’m not saying overseas excursions ain’t got nothing on a good old pickle party.  I am simply saying that, this summer, I learned that maintaining traditions can be a kind of adventure too; albeit a simpler and smaller one, conducted a little more quietly, and somewhat closer to home.

 

Cherry Plum Jam

Ingredients

  • 1.8kg cherry plum fruit pulp (about two medium-sized bowls of unpulped fruit)

  • 900gm of white or brown sugar

  • 1 piece of fresh ginger

Method
1     Wash your jars and lids in hot soapy water and dry them. Put them in the oven at 180 C for 20 minutes to sterilise them. Always have extra jars ready just in case you make more jam than anticpated.

2     Put a saucer in the fridge (you'll need this for testing the jam's setting point later on).

3    Put some of your fruit in a microwave-safe dish and cover with gladwrap. Cook on high for about six minutes. You can either leave the fruit to cool a while or get straight into the pulping part...

4    Place a sieve on top of a bowl and pour the softened fruit onto the sieve. Use a potato masher to push the fruit pulp into the bowl (splashes inevitable, safety goggles optional...)

5    Repeat the microwaving/pulping process until you have 1.8kg of pulp.

6    Put the pulp, sugar and ginger, if desired, into a big pot and bring to a boil.

7    Remove the brown foam that begins to accumulate on the top of your mixture with a sieve spoon.

8    Boil the mixture rapidly until setting point (approx 25 minutes). 

9    After about 20 minutes, remove the jars from the oven (you want to ensure that the jars are hot when you put the jam in to avoid the chance of them cracking).

10    To test if the jam is ready, put a little bit of the mixture on the cold saucer from the fridge. If, after a couple of minutes, the mixture crinkles when pushed and seems a little thicker, it is ready.

11    Remove the ginger from the mixture.

12    Pour your mixture into the jars (you may want to use a funnel to help minimise the mess!)

13    Leave jars for fifteen minutes or so and then seal.

14    Stand back and admire your handiwork.

15    And then do the dishes...

 

personalKirsty Dunnmusings, preserving, recipesComment

In September, I scribbled a few lines on Poetica's Infinity Poetry blackboard - an installation on Columbo Street which encouraged passers by to share well loved poems or a few words of their own, thereby injecting some life and inspiration into an empty post-quake space.  Little did I know, my four line homage would be painted on the wall for all to see.  You can find out more about Poetica: The Christchurch Urban Poetry Project here.  (And read the Sydney Morning Herald's feature on Christchurch where my poem makes an appearance here.)

Kirsty DunnComment