Dahlias and a Rodent Houdini

Our first dahlia blossom of the year has appeared -- one of the "Bishop's Children" variety. It was a race between that one and this:

Remember how I said the "Iron in the Fire" dahlia appeared to have died over the winter? Well, I think that (above) is "Iron in the Fire," which means the dahlia that died was actually the purple one -- "Dalaya Dark Aruna." (You can see them both here.) I'm not broken-hearted either way, and I guess we won't know for sure until the flower opens, but that bud sure looks more like an orange flower than a purple one.

I spent yesterday almost entirely indoors. It poured rain in the morning, which was fantastic. It's cooler out there than I'd like it to be but I'm so happy for the moisture. I stayed on the couch reading about Bobby Darin and Sandra Dee, and in the afternoon I watched "A Summer Place," which is definitely a melodrama but better than I remember. I learned that the real-life house used in the film -- which was in Monterey, California, and not Maine as specified in the plot -- burned down last year. A shame.

Apropos of nothing, here's a quote I came across yesterday from author Michael Chabon, who wrote "The Mysteries of Pittsburgh" and "Wonder Boys" and "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay" and "Telegraph Avenue," all of which I enjoyed:

"Every morning I wake up and in the seconds before I turn my phone on to see what the latest news is, I have this boundless sense of optimism and hope that this is the day that he's going to have a massive stroke, and, you know, be carted out of the White House on a gurney."

Let's just say that struck home.

And here's the sight that greeted me when I looked out the window yesterday afternoon. I don't know if you can see what's going on there, but that squirrel is head-down in the plastic interior tube of that bird feeder. Having emptied the peanut feeder, Houdini-squirrel found a way to unlock the lid of this one, which is supposed to be squirrel resistant. I can't turn my back for a minute!

A Model World

I haven't said much about my slide project lately, except that it's continuing. Here's a more thorough update: I've finished scanning my third bag of loose slides, the one on the left in this photo, and I've just started sorting the loose slides in the green middle bag. Then there are the boxes to go through. I'm trying to devise a way to consolidate those boxed slides while not mixing them together or allowing them to lose their context, if you know what I mean.

Anyway, yesterday I came across multiple slides of something that looked like an amusement park of miniatures. Above you can see a couple of rocket launchpads and lots of little vehicles leading up to and around them. For a sense of scale, there's a person standing behind and to the left of the rockets -- you can see he (and the buildings behind him) are much larger.

The sign on the right-hand building in the background says "Børneteater," which means Children's Theater in Danish. So that gives us a hint where we are.

These slides were all mixed in with a bunch of others, so as I came across them I set them aside in a special pile, and soon found that I had a dozen. They're from 1969.

When I looked more closely, it became obvious that these aren't just miniatures -- they're miniatures made with Legos! Yes, these photos do indeed show the first Legoland amusement park, the year after it opened in Billund, Denmark, in 1968.

The photos vary in quality. It took me a moment to figure out what I'm looking at here -- not a real ship out a window, but a Lego ship (a model of a ferry named the Winston Churchill) in a display case.

This is a model of Marselisborg Palace in Aarhus, Denmark, the summer home of the Danish royal family.

There's a model city, complete with a church with a wedding in progress -- you can see the little Lego people standing in the doorway.

There's a city of the future, featuring architecture worthy of the Jetsons.

And there's a sort of Western-themed area called "Legoredo," which despite the name does not appear to be made with Legos.

The photo quality is dubious overall, but it's nice to be able to add these images to the public record of the history of Legoland.

This Lego portrait, like the ship above, was apparently housed indoors and the photo didn't work out too well. The slide is also significantly discolored. But who knows if there are any images of this portrait elsewhere in the world? I might have the only one! (Google can't find any others, at least.)

Here's a fun short film about Legoland made by British Pathé studios in 1968, the year before all these pictures were taken. You'll see a lot of the same constructions depicted above and how they were made -- not to mention an "American Indian" in full feathered headdress, presumably in Legoredo.

I'm not a huge devotee of Legos, but I still found all this interesting.

Squirrel-Proof

Dave and I have recently marveled at how quickly the peanuts disappear in our "squirrel-proof" peanut feeder, and now you can see why. Turns out, it's not squirrel-proof at all -- at least not to a young, smallish squirrel.

As you can see, I've already had to wire on the lid because otherwise the squirrels will unscrew it.

Here's the escape:

You don't suppose it will ever get stuck in there, do you? I'm not sure how I would solve that problem.

We're reconsidering all our bird feeders -- both their placement and their structure. I'm putting out fewer suet balls, even though the birds love them, because they bring rodents, and I took one feeder down entirely because it got mobbed by pigeons. The others get mobbed by pigeons too, but they're built in such a way that the smaller birds also enjoy them.

I spent yesterday chilling at home. It felt so good, after such a busy week, to lie on the couch and do nothing. I got all my pictures organized and archived and I started a new book, "Dream Lovers," a biography of Bobby Darin and Sandra Dee written about 30 years ago by their son. I have no idea what possessed me to buy this book. I read about it somewhere -- probably around the time Dee died in February 2025 -- and it sounded interesting. I have a soft spot for big, colorful '50s and '60s melodramas, like "Imitation of Life" and "Peyton Place," and of course Dee and Troy Donahue in "A Summer Place." Maybe this will inspire me to watch "A Summer Place" again. I haven't seen it since we lived in New Jersey many moons ago. Probably not the best use of my time, but hey, I'm retired now!

Lilies, Nigella and a Girl With a Cat

Well, my brother and his family are off to Heathrow this morning for their return to the USA. Dave and I had them over last night for a farewell dinner -- Dave made flank steak -- and I think we all agree it was a fun and successful visit.

We met up at noon yesterday for a pub lunch in St. John's Wood, and then took a walk to Regent's Park to stretch our legs before circling back to the school where I used to work (and Dave still does). Dave met them there to give them a tour, and I came home and did some photo editing. I am SO BEHIND on managing and archiving all my photos, especially with this huge slide-scanning project happening. I'll be working on that more today.

As you can see above, our yellow lily is blooming again this year. But the Asiatic lily behind it dropped its buds and it looks like we'll get no flowers. That's probably partly due to the two honesty plants also growing in the Asiatic lily's pot. After the honesty sprouted on its own, I thought all three of them might manage in there but with our dry spring I think the Asiatic lily just didn't get enough water and/or nutrients. Oh, well -- there's always next year.

We also have a single love-in-a-mist, or Nigella, that sprouted by the back steps. We used to have tons of it growing there but it's gradually been crowded out by other plants, weeds and grass. I'm amazed there are still seeds out there to sprout. I think this is the only flower so I'm not sure we'll get any more fertile seeds, but if it produces some I may save them and try to grow them on next year.

All during my brother's visit I was continuing to scan and post my rescued slides, about ten per day. The second Flickr album now has 143 photos in it, and more will be forthcoming. The picture above, from 1974, was a long-shot rescue attempt; the slide is so dark that it's almost black and I could barely see the image. So I scanned it and used Lightroom to brighten it up and bring out the contrast. It's sort of ghostly in its effect.

I downloaded the garden cam yesterday and found that the batteries gave out at some point in the middle of the week. So no garden cam video this weekend; I'll save up what little footage I have and put it all together for another video next week. I know you're all heartbroken. 😀

I intend to reappear elsewhere in blogland today and catch up on all my fellow bloggers' lives! Forgive me if I don't go back and answer all my comments from the past week, but I have read and appreciated them all. Frances asked several days ago why Americans are so infatuated with visiting Stonehenge, which she termed "a few old stones in a field." I think it's basically their age -- I can't think of any large-scale monuments in North America that even vaguely approach the age of Stonehenge. Mesa Verde, in Colorado, has been an inhabited site for thousands of years but the existing cliff dwellings there "only" go back to the 1200s or so. There are other ancient sites but they're mainly excavated areas where spear tips, arrowheads and that kind of thing have been found. Nothing as large as a stone circle. So that's my inexpert opinion!

The Sightseeing Bus

That's the Gothic ceiling of the stunning Lady Chapel in Westminster Abbey, above. It's one of the places we visited yesterday, on a day devoted to London tourism.

I met up with my brother's family in the late morning and we bought tickets for one of those open-top tour buses that roll around the city, taking in all the main sights. Dave and I have found that these buses are a great way to get the lay of the land and at least a glimpse of all the major sights, and then you've got some information to decide what you'd like to revisit. We recommend them to all our visitors.

Our tour began uneventfully. We picked up the bus in Holborn and went eastward, along Ludgate Hill and past St. Paul's. I was amused by this couple sitting in front of me, the man with his "Quality Milk Producers" fleece and the woman with her cow headscarf. I detect a theme.

Then, as we approached London Bridge, crazy weather! Everyone fled the top deck of the bus, including my brother and his family. Only I and the woman with the cow scarf stayed put, and I at least had an umbrella. She must have been soaked. I didn't do too badly -- my seat stayed dry because I was in it and my umbrella sheltered most of my body.

We rode the bus over the Tower Bridge and past the Tower of London, and thought we might get off there, but it didn't stop. Only then did we realize we have to hit the "stop" button, just like on a city bus, so we got off at Embankment instead and ate at a pub near the Temple.

Then we caught the bus again and took it to Westminster, where we checked out Big Ben and went into the Abbey.

I've been to Westminster Abbey several times before, but every time I go I'm astonished. The graves of Elizabeth I and Mary, Queen of Scots! Of Edward the Confessor and multiple medieval kings! Chaucer is there, in Poet's Corner, along with graves and monuments to many other famous writers. It really is a mind-blowing place.

The figure above is Joan, one of the 12 children of Edward III originally depicted on the side of his tomb. (Only six of them are still there.) He died in 1377. Amazing.

From there we walked across Westminster Bridge to the London Eye. The line wasn't too long and although my brother wasn't crazy about the idea (he doesn't enjoy heights), my niece really wanted to ride it. So we bought tickets and took a spin.

I noticed the LGBTQ+ Pride flag on the white building at lower left in the image above. We've seen Pride flags in lots of places, I assume because this is Pride month. I'm happy to live in a country where such things are still celebrated.

Remarkable views, as always! I think my niece was pleased.

From there, my brother's family took the tour bus back toward their hotel and I caught the tube home. There was another tube strike yesterday but it didn't affect us much, fortunately -- the line I needed to get home was still running. (This was a very strange strike, with some lines open and some shut down, apparently depending on which union represents the workers.)

Today is our visitors' last full day in London, and they're going to spend it at our place in West Hampstead. Home sweet home!

Bath

Not content with all the things there are to do in London, we struck off across the country yesterday to see Bath. I think my brother and his wife wanted to get a sense of the countryside and see what life is like in other parts of England. Bath isn't exactly your typical town, being a huge tourist destination in its own right, but it has a lot of history and a rather unique sense of place so it seemed like a good choice.

I met my brother, sister-in-law and niece at Paddington Station and we caught a 9:30 a.m. train, which rocketed smoothly across the fields and farmland and got us to Bath in less than an hour and a half. We walked into town and visited Bath Abbey, the site of religious buildings dating back to the time of the Saxons.

The structure itself has been demolished and remade several times over the centuries. What's there now is a Gothic building dating back to the 1500s. I particularly enjoyed the downstairs museum, with its examples of medieval floor tiles and other artifacts found when parts of the abbey were excavated.

Then we went to the Roman baths, which I had never done in the several times I've been to Bath. I don't know why because it was quite fascinating -- not only the pools themselves, which in the time of the Romans were fed by water from an underground warm spring -- but also the exhibits of all the Roman debris they've found in and around the springs. Coins, glass, headdresses and masks, jewelry, you name it. Some items were tossed into the springs for ceremonial or religious reasons, including "curses" inscribed on bits of lead, calling on the Gods to exact vengeance on certain thieves or miscreants.

You wouldn't want to swim in the spa now. Apparently the Roman plumbing has given up the ghost, because the pools aren't refreshing themselves the way they would have back in the day. There are modern spas nearby that perhaps use the same spring as a source for fresher, warmer water. There was a spout to taste clean water from deeper in the spring, before it got to the stagnant pool above, and it tasted warm and minerally.

After the baths we hoofed it over to the Royal Crescent, an impressive arc of 18th-Century townhouses overlooking a park where I walked Olga way back in 2013. (How time flies!)

And then it was time to catch our train back to London, so we hustled back to the train station via the promenade along the river, and got there with about ten minutes to spare. A few more random photos:

A ghost sign over a closed shop, harkening back to the days of film developing;

Some rabbit graffiti;

Some colorful hair;

And a sleepy dog on our train home. I used to often hold Olga in this exact position, but this dog, a whippet, looked to be about 10 kilos lighter than Olga!

Today, more sightseeing around London. Sorry I am largely absent from blogland at the moment but I am reading all your comments and I will catch up when I can!

Stonehenge Squall

Yesterday turned out to be one of the craziest experiences I've ever had sightseeing in England.

First, there was the tube strike. The lines around my brother's hotel were completely shut down, so I was afraid that getting from there to Victoria Station -- where we planned to catch our tour bus to Stonehenge -- might be a challenge. I took a Thameslink train and got down there at 6:30 a.m. just in case we had to walk the whole way. But city buses were running and at that early hour they weren't too crowded, so as it turned out we caught a bus from Bloomsbury Square, right around the corner from the hotel, all the way to Victoria Station. We even had enough time once there to have breakfast at Starbucks.

While riding the bus, we passed this guy (above) apparently selling that very mod abstract painting outside Green Park station. Then we saw the same guy and painting outside Victoria Station, which is where I took that photo. The likelihood of seeing the same guy with his artwork in both locations -- which are not close together -- seemed quite coincidental.

We left London on the tour bus at about 8:30 a.m., and drove about two hours to get to Stonehenge.
 

When we first got there, the sun was shining. We got off the bus, the driver praised the sunny weather, and though we'd brought umbrellas we didn't think we'd need them. So we left them in the luggage rack above our seats.

After quickly collecting our wristbands to prove we'd paid admission, we started to walk to the monument, which is quite a distance from the parking area. We saw ominous gray clouds in the western sky, and I tried to go back to the bus for our umbrellas, but the bus was locked and the driver nowhere in evidence. So we soldiered on without them.

We walked through fields of sheep and even some woods before coming to Stonehenge, all beneath more or less sunny skies.

And suddenly, everything changed.

You can see the transition in this video. Dry to begin with, a shot of the advancing clouds, and suddenly crazy mayhem with rain. (There's a lot of background noise in the video because of the wind, but I wanted you to fully experience what it was like!)

And I don't mean a small amount of rain. It was pounding, drenching rain. There was thunder. There was hail! And of course, Stonehenge is on a hill in the middle of nowhere, so there was no shelter. We just had to stand there and take it. To be honest, even having an umbrella might not have helped much, because the wind was so powerful -- but I was still cursing our driver.

It passed just as quickly as it came. We wound up sopping wet, standing like hurricane victims in a line for the shuttle bus back to the parking area, which thankfully was warmish and not air-conditioned. My brother was wringing streams of water out of his shirt -- he and my niece got new shirts at the gift shop to replace the sodden ones they were wearing. I fortunately had a sort of windbreaker on that proved to be water-resistant, so I wasn't too drenched.

We had lunch (Coronation chicken sandwich for me) at the cafe and then boarded our bus back to London. And once we got into the city, that bus moved at a crawl. I was half insane by the time we disembarked back at Victoria about 4 p.m. I walked with my brother and his family to Green Park, where I caught the Jubilee Line (one of the tube lines still running) to get home. They continued walking toward their hotel and apparently got more rain on the way.

I know I wanted rain. I know, I know. But I never envisioned standing in a downpour in an open field with no protection from flying hailstones! How did we offend the pagan spirits that haunt Stonehenge?