Spring Flowers

The wild garlic (ramsons) is just coming into flower. The leaves are great in salads or made into pesto.

Wild garlic with flowers

The flowers are delicious, they have a strong garlic flavour with a nice touch of sweetness and creaminess.

Wild garlic flowers

Tulips are beautiful, this is taken in Nunhead Cemetery. According to Twinkel’s article in the latest Funky Raw magazine they are edible but somehow they look too good to eat!

Tulip flower closeup

I don’t know what this is but it is very pretty. It’s in Peckham Rye Park.

Peckham rye pink flowers

Close up of pink flowers

(Click on any photo to enlarge.)

Update and Festival Photos

AnastasiaIt’s been a while since I last posted, I’ve been at the Funky Raw festival and then Festival of Life. Back to my reasonably normal life now so maybe a few more posts! One of the things I love about my job is that I only sell products that I really value myself and want other people to share, so I am really excited that I am now selling Tony Wright’s book Left in the Dark and the Anastasia series by Vladimir Megre. Both are massively important in different ways (follow the links to read more about both). Tony’s book explains from a scientific view what is happening with our brains and Anastasia gives us inspiration for living in harmony with nature.

Here are a few photos from the festival, I’ll put a full album on the Funky Raw site soon, if you have any photos you want me to include, please send them over.

Face painting at Funky Raw
Beautiful face painting by Mary

Oriental Food Preparation Demo
Chan Yu’s Oriental Food Prep demo (assisted by Carme)

Music by fire
Music from Harmony by the fire

Rose Hips, our local superfood

Rose hips are the fruit of the rose plant. There are many different varieties but the one most often found in the wild is the Dog Rose (Rosa canina), pictured below. Rosa rugosa has larger, rounder hips. I was eating rose hips in the Autumn but I found them quite tart and the little hairs on the seeds could be a problem, but I’ve found that now is the best time to eat them. They are so much sweeter now and it seems the hairs are less of a problem. I pick the hip then kind of squeeze the seeds out without losing too much of the flesh.
Dog Rose (Rosa canina)
Rose hips are extremly high in vitamin C in a form very useful to the body and have high levels of calcium, iron and vitamin A. They also contain selenium which can be hard to get on a raw diet.

Spain and France

I’ve been on holiday to Spain and France for a couple of weeks.  I was half planning to do a bit of a photo blog as I travelled, but I forgot the lead for my camera so couldn’t do that, but it might have been for the best so I didn’t spend the whole of my holiday on the computer!  So here are a few of the best shots from my trip.

I started out in Orgiva where I used to live but didn’t really take many photos, so the first couple are in Zaragoza, northern Spain:

Basílica de Nuestra Señora del Pilar, Zaragoza (Spain)

Basílica de Nuestra Señora del Pilar, Zaragoza (Spain) (Detail)

This is near Jaca, Spain, which is on the edge of the Pyrenees, I went on a couple of good walks around here:
Puente san Miguel, Jaca (Spain)

And this is near where my parents live in south west France:
Crocus

Brockley Nature Reserve

There is a nature reserve just round the corner from where I live but it is permenantly closed. Well, until today, when it was open for a couple of hours in the afternoon, so I jumped at the chance to go and have a look. Here are a few photos, click to enlarge:

Autumn Colours

Flower

Flower with water droplets