One red onion is beauty in itself don`t you think?   It should  should be called  purple , deep mauve , fuschia even, anything but red. I bring a paper bagful home from the market to make an edible autumn display on the table. This  depletes over the week with glossy fried onions for gravy with sausage and mash,  stirfry with   crunchy sticks of carrot and white cabbage and Sunday`s last beef slivers.  I`m addicted to Sharpham Park pearled spelt, and it is just the thing for making a risotto with chopped red onion,  beetroot  and goats cheese. 

  Lido blue sky, Jerk chicken on the breeze ,  and through the park gates a  fluttering  gold horizon on the hill , Sunday in Brixton is just as freeing and refreshing as a walk  in country woods. I am a country girl in my  heart but for all the delights of  rural  beauty and peace  my  head soon  tires of  petrol hikes to the shops and  sinister ice on winter lanes.  Give me the people life of  urban encounters:  a  late night war story  from an Eritrean  minicab driver, fellow dog walkers  smiling in four legged connection;  a close  friend and glass of fizz  one road crossing away; or Antonia and Casey at  Beamish and Mcglue who dispense good coffee  and local chat.   And from the spreading rash  of betting shops in the high street to a potential  feast of films in a new Picture House cinema, these are  all elements of my village life in the city.

 It`s  been a good week for  exhibitions: : Whistler`s  fog scenes on the river at Battersea; more  colour at Tate Modern with  Paul Klee and  then to Albermarle Street and       Tim Wright`s   powerful  painted  figures .

GARDEN NOTE : Apart from a  few floppy pink rose heads. colour is leaching from the garden beds. But the sycamore is flaming and the grass  thick and rich green, a last growth spurt before winter draws it  back into the earth to wait for Spring.   Boxes of tulip and allium bulbs are packed in the cool of the larder.I have a weekend earmarked for planting them and  putting the garden to bed. NB see great pictures by   Caroline Arbour`s  in a  new book  on Virginia Wolf`s garden .