New York is a city of small villages connected by a vast subway system. The air is clean, the buses are electric, most people use public transport. Sprinklers on in playgrounds for kids to play under remind me of the good old days when water wasn’t a problem.

Open cellar doors as you pass shops. Lots of colours on the trains, peoples faces. Lots of style, individuality. Big walking city. Great walking city. Good for the legs.

I love the tenements with their lacy fire escapes and the brownstones. The houses close to 5th Avenue, the posh street that runs along the east side of Central Park, are beautiful.

I could ride the subway all day and write about the people. So many wonderful faces. I saw my first drunk last night staggering in Union Square Station. Amazing that I’ve only seen one in such a big city.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is huge so I decided to visit just two exhibits – the Egyptian and the Alexander McQueen exhibitions.
The McQueen exhibition is amazing! Each piece of clothing is a work of art. It was awe inspiring. The attention to detail, the shape and fall of each piece, the sheer wackiness of his ideas left me with my mouth hanging open. I never thought a piece of clothing could have such an effect.

I love the small community gardens dotted around the city. You pay $25 a year to tend your plot but you can’t see where one person’s plot end and another begins. The garden is an integrated whole. And they are open to the public at certain times during the week. You can even rent them for a wedding or private function.

This is the brownstone I’m living in, the one on the right. My apartment is on the top floor. It’s on the Upper East side on the edge of Harlem.

These wonderful buskers were performing outside the Met.

One of the many small community gardens