The Saturday Agenda: Going Through My TSA @ A+I Routine and Trying Something New

It seems that I now have an Angel+Islington routine. It became a pinned, default agenda in my Saturday afternoon for these past weeks. You might be thinking, 'Doesn't she do anything else other than go to Islington on Saturdays?' Hahaha. Surely, I don't want to bore you with my routine by posting the same set of pictures and captions every week. Please bear with me as I post this for maybe the last time --- my typical Saturday at Angel+Islington. The next time I mention TSA @ A+I, you can just go back and re-read this post :)

Don't worry, it looks like I will be doing something different in the coming weekends, and I sure did something different this Saturday (read on to the end of this post)!! But it doesn't take away my hunch that there must be something special and addictive about Angel+Islington for this place to bore itself into me, quite literally, (-;) and stamp its own agenda in my Saturday afternoon. 

The typical TSA @ A+I goes like this:

• Buy flowers. I have a favourite. There's this lovely stall near The York and Toni & Guy, along Upper Street. I think it's called Angelic Flower. I usually buy the hand-tied bouquet because this includes a good mix of vibrant colours - greens, roses and tulips. Its height and hand-tied size is just perfect for my vase, too.

Click to "Read more".

• Coffee. This Saturday, I decided to find and try this local favourite, Brown Bear Coffee but was disappointed to see that it's now permanently closed. 
• Buy seafood. Still on a mostly pescetarian diet as of date. At Moxon's Fishmongers, I usually get tuna, salmon and scallops.
• Leisurely walk around Camden Passage. I window-shop through the vintage stalls and see if I can find anything that catches my eye. So far, found nothing special yet. This Saturday, I saw a ring with green flower-like gems which fitted my ring finger quite well, and was selling for £8. But I held back. I'm waiting for my resized birthstone ring to come sometime this week.
• Try something new. I do have a list of '13 hidden gems in Islington' (written by Mark Kebble) as my rough guide. Unfortunately, I found out after checking Google Maps that three of these are permanently closed. These are on top of Brown Bear Coffee above, which I then submitted to Google Maps as an edit to mark as permanently closed. The reviews of these four 'hidden gems' were mostly raves, which made me wonder why they were closed quite too soon. I guess, it only reminds me of two things - Some good things never last; make the most of the precious time you have with those that really matter 'cause once they've passed you by, you'll never know if they'd ever come back or if you'd get another chance. Ooops, stop right there. That goes for life and love, as well.

• Brunch or dinner. As much as possible, this should be in one of those one-off restaurants only found in Islington. This time, I had lamb dinner at Afghan Kitchen. The lamb with potatoes, Qurma-e-Gosht-kachalo, tasted like kaldereta from back home. The kaldereta (from the Spanish word caldera which means cauldron) is goat meat stew which is also served with potatoes (any meat can also be used --- usually beef as this is more widely available). I was really impressed with Afghan Kitchen's very tender lamb that I ordered the lamb with spinach, Qurma Suhzi Gosht, for take-away. I had this for breakfast this Sunday morning and it tasted like my country's laing --- the dried taro or 'gabi' leaves substituted with spinach. I guess the home-cooking touch is what lends this small cosy restaurant its charm. Plus points in my books, since these dishes remind me of Philippine food! [P.S. The food presentation was passable, don't get me wrong. But I didn't take any picture of the food because (1) I was so hungry I ate my dine-in food right away, and (2) the lamb dishes are not very photogenic, including my take-away, but I'd leave it to you to trust me when I say that these were both delish :)]

 

So what did I do differently this Saturday? 

I swatched watercolours!!

My two sets of watercolours: Although the one on the left is portable with a lovely walnut box, I've decided to use this for at-home work for now. The one on the right will be my travel watercolour palette. Before buying these, I made sure that pans from both sets are interchangeable.

Excited to swatch!

These Sennelier watercolours are honey-based (hence, the bee symbol) and they indeed flowed more smoothly compared to my other set of pans.

I can't believe I actually swatched Chinese White!
I agree with the tip: If you can do away with one pan of watercolour, that will be white.

I also played around with some blues and lemon yellows. I definitely still need more practice!

I spent more than an hour swatching and dabbling. It was the perfect excuse for mindfulness and allowed me to momentarily drift into another world, dimensions apart from the current reality. It's a simple world of a few basic colors, two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen. Nothing complicated really.

Till here for now. Happy April to you, my dear! Ciao!!

XOXO,
Genefel