Diwali. The triumph of the light. It’s a five day celebration and today is day 2. Lou and I were in the perfect position to enjoy the festival in that neither of us were working today. We were in Reading, but you can’t have it all. And it benefits from being much more multicultural now than it was thirty years ago.
Just down the road from the sad little terraced house where three of us took shelter from the constant rain and made unrealistic plans late into the night nearly thirty years ago, Lou found a pleasant little Nepalese restaurant that was open. It’s been there 9 years and it is superb. Dhaulagiri kitchen café and restaurant. She spent ages in the Himalayas and a little bit of her heart is still in India. She recognised the name as matching a mountain range in Nepal, and figured quite rightly that it was going to be a good place. We book for mid afternoon. It’s a one meal day, and it has mostly been about lounging.
If I was reviewing it I would use words like “unpretentious”, “family run” and “authentic”. You get the vibe. If like me you like food, probably some of the ACTUAL best restaurants in the world are places like this. “This is the best Tarka Dhaal I’ve had in England,” says the only other guy there at half 3 in the afternoon. He’s clearly very specific about things and from him it feels high praise. He is less enthusiastic about his pilau rice but that makes the praise feel even more truthful.
We get a Thali, momos, some chicken and various other little lovely bits and it really is a welcome to the light. Here in the darkest winter we can eat this excellent Nepalese food and talk about Hanuman and Lakshmi and the guys in the restaurant can burn good happy burny things while we eat our tasty food and the light is coming back the heat is coming back it’s coming is coming!
Man, me and winter are gonna have to have stern words. Hot food on a cold day though. I’ll be doing a lot of that in the next few months I suspect. Gonna seek the spiciest late night food in Jersey cos I’m gonna be staying in a Premier Inn all December…
We spent most of the rest of the day chilling out in the Pentahotel today. I know I can relax in a hotel. I might even bring my pillows to Jersey.
Today we were just enjoying being with each other and not having much to do. I did some dreaming about trips to South America and we did some planning of brief escapes to The Canary Islands or anywhere that is hot in January. If the sun won’t come to us we will go to the sun. Both of us are going to get busy soon in not-the-sun so we got to looking at diaries and making sure we optimised the windows we share for company and vitamin D.
The light is winning.
AlBarclay 