Harry (Not The Royal One)

I like this house in Marylebone with its stained-glass windows depicting peacocks. There are at least four of them -- I photographed another two more than 14 years ago (!) but it's even better to catch them at night.

Why was I in Marylebone last night, you may wonder? Well, remember the abandoned giraffe? I went back to see if it was still there. I know, I know -- I'm crazy. And it was already gone, which will no doubt make Dave very happy.

Instead, in its place, I found a sign for Harry's room or cabinet or something. I'm guessing that was also Harry's giraffe -- and possibly that's Harry's kitchen sink in the background.

Dave was busy last night with an audition for a part-time, evening conducting job with a local community band. He's one of four candidates. He's had fun with the interview process and I know he's enjoyed being able to perform more challenging musical feats with adult players. I'm not sure when he'll hear back about who got the job. It would mean working one night a week with the band, which he thinks he could manage. He's feeling a bit stale, artistically, only working with middle and high school students.

I was on my own for dinner so I made one of my famous clean-out-the-fridge omelettes and watched "Bernice Bobs Her Hair," a 1970s made-for-TV movie that I remember being shown in school several times. It's based on an F. Scott Fitzgerald short story and it's got a fantastic cast including Shelley Duvall, Veronica Cartwright and Bud Cort. It was a film that my high school English teachers often resorted to when we had a free day in class, between units or right before a break or whatever. I hadn't seen it in many years and, lo and behold, it was on Amazon Prime at no extra cost. I enjoyed watching it again.

Yesterday I added this book to our library collection, a new volume of "Nathan Hale's Hazardous Tales," a history-based graphic novel series. This one is called "Bones and Berserkers: 13 True Tales of Terror." I got a kick out of the end papers. As I told my colleague, "This is the most accurate depiction I've seen of the current state of politics in the USA!"

Busy Sunday With Lava Lamp

The red hellebores are opening up, looking fresh and bright as a spring day. (I'm thinking ahead!) These are the same flowers that months from now will fade and darken and draw a collection of aphids. It's hard to believe that's even the same plant, isn't it?

The white ones are looking good, too.

I had a busy day yesterday, considering I barely left the house. I finished my book about the Lusitania, which was very good, particularly the account of the sinking itself. I didn't realize that the ship sank in only 18 minutes! I always thought a shipwreck was a protracted affair, like the Titanic, which stayed afloat for almost three hours -- but I guess a torpedo is different from an iceberg. Imagine being a finely dressed cruise passenger, having a fancy lunch, strolling the deck, and 20 minutes later you're floating around in the ocean in a sea of wreckage. (If you're lucky.)

I also planned our trip for February break. Dave and I are going back to Spain -- this time to Málaga, Córdoba, and Granada. We plan to visit the famous Mitchell and San Geraldo, as well as take in such sights as the Alhambra and the Picasso museum. I went to Granada many years ago, in 1994, but I only dimly remember it, and I've never been to the other two cities. Dave hasn't seen any of them. So we're looking forward to that! I booked our flight and our hotels, with two nights in each place.

Saturday self-portrait in a pub hand dryer!

I finally got our lava lamp working -- sort of. I thought the bulb had burned out, so last weekend I took it to our local hardware shop and we put another bulb in it -- and nothing. Dead as a doornail. So I left it for the hardware guys to repair, which they offered to do for £30. (Yes, I realize I could have bought a new lava lamp for probably less than that, but it's the principle of the thing. I don't want to throw this one in a landfill.) I picked it up on Saturday with new wiring and yesterday bought a new bulb, and it now works -- but the bulb is five watts stronger than is recommended for the lamp, which means it gets just a bit too hot, and all the wax tends to linger at the top of the cylinder. I suppose I need to get on Amazon and order a proper bulb.

This is a lot of trouble for a lava lamp.

Finally, the tree guy came last evening to look at our fallen branch so he can give an estimate to the landlords for removing it. He said he'd give three estimates -- one just for the fallen part, one for the entire tree and one for tidying that whole area in the back of the garden. I'm guessing the landlords will go for the first option, but that's fine with me.

Garden and Gas-Guzzler

Contrary to what this picture would suggest -- and we'll get to it in a moment -- I had a quiet morning at home yesterday. I worked on a couple of houseplants that needed some attention. We have a sort of elephant-ear plant with striped stems that has been prospering in our dining room for several years now, and lately it's been looking a bit yellow. I thought it might be too big for its pot, so I repotted it. But in doing so, I realized that it may be suffering from root rot, so it may not be long for this world.

I lose something to root rot every winter, it seems. This is why I tried to lighten up on the watering and wound up almost killing my maidenhair fern. Where is the balance?!

Anyway, I also repotted the bedroom rubber plant and I dealt with some outdoor plants that have died. The blanket flower, or Gaillardia, went deader than a doornail several weeks ago, and the brook thistles vanished from their pot as thoroughly as if they'd stood up and walked away. They were both several years old so it could be they'd just lived their life spans. I moved some tulip bulbs from the brook thistle pot into the ex-Gaillardia pot and now all vessels are back in use.

Well, wasn't that exciting?!

Then, Dave and I headed down to Marylebone to have lunch with our pals Gordon and Chris, who we haven't spent time with in a while. We work with Chris and we used to work with Gordon before he retired, so discussion mainly involved what was happening at work and our own retirement plans. (Dave doesn't have any specific plans yet but it won't be too long.) We booked a noon table at a pub and we got there just a few minutes beforehand to find the place dark and locked up tight. Turns out someone didn't show up for work. Some co-workers appeared at noon and got the place up and running before letting us in and it only delayed our first pints by a few minutes.

Afterwards I went walking through Marylebone and down Edgware Road toward Marble Arch, before turning around and walking all the way back up to West Hampstead. It's been a long time since I've done a photo walk so it felt good. Anybody want a free giraffe?

That top photo was the scene outside Shishawi, a shisha place in the very Arabic neighborhood along Edgware Road. I don't know what the heck was going on with that big pink stretch Humvee or whatever it is. How does the driver even turn a corner in that thing? I took 27 pictures of it before I got one that I liked, with just the right break in traffic.

Back home again, I downloaded the garden cam. When I set it up most recently, I apparently screwed up the date and time settings, because they are totally wrong, so just ignore those.

I wanted to film an area at the base of the hazel trees where I was pretty sure the foxes were making a nest. I'm not sure it's a proper den -- in other words, I don't think they're living there -- but they use it as a rest spot. I've surprised them there a couple of times when coming out the back door.

So this week's video first shows a couple of squirrels, followed by lots of back-and-forth by the foxes. Check out the one with the disfigured tail! It looks like he/she got it caught in something. We even see one of them in daytime, which is always a plus.

Finally we get some footage of them going back behind the trees and lying there, and even nuzzling each other there before making their funny little fox sounds. I dunno. I may have a fox family on my hands soon enough.

It's Out of My Hands

I walked past this corner after work one night  last week and liked the shadows on that wall. I took some photos with my phone, but vowed to come back with my big camera to get some better ones. And then it rained, and it rained again, and the shadows don't look the same when there's glare from the wet wall. When I walked past last night, the sky had lightened and the scene wasn't the same.

So, on the plus side, it is getting lighter out there. There's now a smidgen of daylight when I'm walking home from work.

On the minus side, my plans for a better picture were stymied unless I make a special trip later in the evening.

Walking to work yesterday, I encountered this flock of circling pigeons, seemingly struggling to choose which photogenic rooftop to settle upon. They flew around and around, and then just as I got out my phone and started filming, they chose the roof of the Camden Arts Center.

Sometimes circumstances decide what kind of photo or video you get, and that's just the way it is!

Entropy

Our African daisy (Osteospermum) is trying its best to bloom right now, mysteriously. There's not a bee or other pollinator in sight out there, so why it wants to have flowers in the middle of January is anyone's guess. The flowers were a sort of dull greenish-orange until I moved the plant inside to protect it from our recent freeze, and then they all turned bright orange.

Well, this has been an interesting morning already. I tried to sign in to Blogger as I always do, and although it allowed me to see my blog, when I clicked on "new post" I got this:

I use the same browser every single day, so why it would suddenly be "not supported" is a mystery to me. I updated Chrome, thinking that might solve the problem, but no. So I'm writing now on Safari, which is not the browser I typically use to blog. Who knows what the heck is going on, but I think it's on their end. God forbid a Google website should work with a Google browser!

Anyway, yesterday was rather hectic. I went to the doctor in the late morning because my IBS (or whatever it is) has been acting up lately and I wanted to touch base with the experts. I was sent home with a couple of routine tests, which is fine because I haven't had them in a while and it makes sense to do them regularly.

Remember the kid who wanted me to take pictures with his camera? Well, I told him that rather than doing that, and faffing around with film, I'd take some photos at school using my own phone just to give him a sense of the types of things he could be shooting. That's one of my pictures, above, which I haven't shown him yet. It wouldn't win any prizes but it's kind of fun.

The message I'm trying to get across to him is, you can take a creative picture anywhere -- even in a room where you spend practically every waking moment and already know like the back of your hand. I know he also wants to process film for other people, but I think getting his friends to shoot film is going to be an uphill battle. Getting me to shoot film certainly is.

And here's a picture of the elder tree that has collapsed on the back garden wall. The point at which the trunk broke is just out of the camera frame on the right. I think it got so saturated with water, and so heavy, that the wood gave way. An arborist contracted by our management company called Dave last night to schedule its removal, but now we've had some confusion about whether he's coming or not, so we still have to iron that out.

It's always something, isn't it? Browsers not working, doctor's appointments, trees collapsing. Isn't "entropy" the idea that orderly systems eventually degrade into disorder? That's what life feels like lately.

And now my Chrome browser seems to have corrected its issues and it works fine with Blogger. Sigh.

More Tree Drama

Here's some amusing graffiti I found on my walk to work yesterday morning. The note beside the drawing says, "To you who prefer a blank wall, I pity you."

We had some excitement yesterday morning. One of the old elder trees in the back of our garden -- which you may remember I went through a lot of stress to have trimmed a couple of years ago -- broke off and collapsed onto the back garden wall. I have no idea when this happened. I was out in the garden yesterday morning, but it's possible that I just didn't notice it. Anyway, while I was at work I got a text about it from the caretaker of the apartments behind us, and I told him we'd report it and I'd try to get it taken care of as soon as possible.

The branch is too big for us to remove ourselves -- we'd need  a chainsaw, for one thing -- so the management company will have to handle it. I'm sure the apartment caretaker is annoyed because this is exactly what he was concerned about when he pressured us to have those trees trimmed.

Oh well. I did my best, and meanwhile the birds and other critters got to enjoy it for two more years.

Speaking of trees, remember when Dave and I went to Penzance last October? We went to the Tremenheere Sculpture Gardens, a forested ravine full of artworks and lush plantings, and we had a view of St. Michael's Mount off the coast. Well, apparently that area got decimated when Storm Goretti passed through last week. St. Michael's Mount lost 80 percent of its trees, and the sculpture garden lost many too. They had 112 mph winds!

I don't think Storm Goretti is responsible for our tree falling. I think I'd have noticed it before now if it happened last week, but I could be wrong.

Apropos of nothing, here are a few more photos from yesterday. First, I found these little handmade pottery vessels sitting on a garden wall, waiting for someone to adopt them. I left them there because I was headed to work, and they were gone when I passed that evening, so someone took them home.

Here's a fun pillow in the window of a futon store on Finchley Road...

...and a mysterious critter in the Lost & Found at school. (I think it's a hat?)

Yesterday I spent an hour in a meeting with my department to choose our final statement of purpose. Remember how I went to a meeting several weeks ago to help wordsmith that? Well, this time we were presented with two options and asked to choose the one we preferred. They were both very similar, and I still struggle with the need for a statement of purpose anyway. As I told my co-worker, yesterday's exercise was like being asked whether I preferred a white marshmallow or an ivory-colored one. Ultimately, we all chose the same option, which made the meeting easier than it might have been, I suppose.

I also got two Christmas cards in the mail last night, including one from former blogger Vivian, who painted Olga's portrait several years back. She mailed her card a month ago and it's only just now arrived -- but nonetheless we appreciate the thought, Vivian!

A Film Assignment

OK -- I'm going to be less perfunctory than yesterday. Yesterday's post is what happens when you start blogging at 7 a.m. and you still have to get ready for work and eat breakfast and be out the door by 8 a.m.! Sometimes time is not on my side.

Last week I had a slightly awkward situation arise with a student. An eighth-grade boy who is very into photography -- and who knows I take a lot of pictures as well -- wanted me to shoot a roll of film so he could develop it. He was going to loan me a camera and do the processing. Initially I said I would, but after giving it some thought it seemed a little too personal -- borrowing his camera and taking even harmless pictures on the street that he would then see before I did.

So I went to a principal and asked for advice, and she suggested I shoot the film at school, not including people in the photos. That seemed like a good compromise, but then finding time to do that -- when I didn't have to be at my desk and when there weren't many other people around -- wasn't easy. Finally, Monday afternoon, I tried to shoot a couple of pictures in the library and I couldn't get the film to wind.

I finally gave the camera back to the kid and said I'd tried. He showed me that I was winding the film incorrectly, but by that time I'd lost what little enthusiasm I had for this project. I told him I'd be happy to continue talking about photos with him but I'd rather not borrow his camera!

The whole point was that he really wants people to shoot film rather than digitally, and he and I have had an ongoing debate about which method is better. As someone who struggled for years with the constraints of film, I love digital photography. But as someone who grew up in a digital world, he enjoys those same constraints and finds the limitations and chemistry of film challenging.

Anyway, it was kind of a strange situation for me and now that I look back on it, I probably shouldn't have agreed to do it in the first place. You want to encourage students but at the same time there are boundaries!

I downloaded the garden cam again last night and I still didn't have any nighttime shots, which is very strange. I discovered that the batteries were low. Apparently when that happens, the camera shoots during the day, which uses less energy, but it stops doing nighttime infrared filming. That's why I didn't have much content the last few times I downloaded the videos.

Anyway, I made a short compilation of what little worthwhile footage I've collected over the last two weeks, including some images of snow and passing foxes and cats (Tabby and Pale Cat). And now I've recharged the batteries and I'll set it up again this morning. Hopefully next time around I'll have more interesting nocturnal images!

(Top photo: Graffiti by Abotz in West Hampstead. I've blogged Abotz before here.)