jasmine

Walking round the neighborhood at this time of the year involves a great deal of stopping to smell the jasmine.  This is pink early spring jasmine - we have a bush growing at the side of the house, right by the kitchen window, but the buds are still pretty tight.  Not so the jasmine outside the Kasbah cafe - not a cafe we ever seem to go into, these days, preferring (if that's the right word) to stand in line with the hipsters at Intelligentsia for the dubious privilege of having something fancy drawn in the foam on our cappuccinos, and feeling as though we're about thirty years too old to be there.  The Kasbah has these pretty little leafy grottos at the side of the cafe with frescoes of a certain vintage - rather like a bad Italian restaurant - and, it would seem, lots of ice blue lights festooned among the flowers.