The Early Bird Gets the Dickens

Remember how I said the garden was beginning to feel a little claustrophobic? Here's a good example -- the path leading up from the patio. That gigantic dusty miller -- which grew from a tiny little plant I bought back in 2022 -- is encroaching from the right, and we have a rambling rose and the crocosmia "Lucifer" leaning in from the left. You can still see the stepping stones I made during the pandemic from some of the pottery shards I'd collected on my walks, but just barely! We can sidle through here without too much trouble but I do feel a bit like Dr. Livingstone in need of a machete.

I did a bit more gardening yesterday, trimming and neatening and repotting a fern that lives in the back atop our celebrity plant pedestal. The older fronds on our tree fern were in a sort of in-between zone between life and death -- substantial portions were alive and green but some bits and pieces were brown. So I painstakingly trimmed away all the brown parts, thinking it would be good to save what's still photosynthesizing and benefitting the plant. And then a few hours later Dave marched past holding the entire fronds, having cut them off himself and thus negating all my work.

Oh well.

The Brugmansia seems happy, with five flowers (two of them hidden in this picture).

Here's what I found early yesterday morning on my way to buy a carton of milk. Someone discarded a trash bag full of old books, which had clearly been sitting out overnight as the top volumes were a bit damp. I took about half of them (above). I've never read "The Woman in White" or anything by Elizabeth Gaskell, Oliver Goldsmith, Richard Harris Barham or Len Deighton. I might try all of those. I have read "Great Expectations" and I'm not sure why I took it except that I hated to see it thrown out. "Straight to the Mark" is a Victorian novel supposedly meant to teach morality to young people. It could be incredibly tedious -- it was published by a company devoted to religious tracts -- but it has a beautiful cover so I took it anyway.

I left behind some practical nonfiction ("How it Was Made") and religious books, as well as Robert Browning's poetry and half of "Tom Jones" and "The Count of Monte Cristo," which were published in two volumes but both had one missing. The funny thing is, by the time I went to the store and came back with my milk, all the rest of the books were gone too. Someone must have come along behind me and scavenged the rest.

Here's a peculiar set of images I found while scanning slides. Back in 1991, someone took pictures on a beach of a distant person doing what looks like yoga poses. (Or maybe just acrobatic ones.) They're mysterious pictures, aren't they? Did the photographer know that person? Were they aware in advance that the person was going to bend over backwards? Why are they so far away? So many questions. I love the colorless sort of moonscape, though -- it adds to the surreal quality.

A Walk and an Inability to Center

I worked on my slides all morning yesterday, and managed to go through all the boxed slide cartridges. I looked at every slide, chose about 45 to scan, and packaged up the rest in a plastic tub according to the organizational scheme I described yesterday. And then I vacuumed the corner where those cartridges were stacked, because those things were filthy. It will be a miracle if I don't get hantavirus.

After that I needed some exercise, so I took a long walk over to Hampstead Heath Extension and up into Hampstead Garden Suburb. I came across the tree above in the wild part of Golder's Hill Park. I think it's a redwood, or some kind of cedar maybe. Not very typical for this area. It reminded me of Georgia O'Keeffe's painting "The Lawrence Tree."

It felt great to get out and walk and I was struck by how much I'm still missing Olga. The fireweed is blooming on the Heath and that brought tears to my eyes, because I took so many pictures of her romping in front of it. It's been almost a year since she died, which is hard to believe. The pain seems recent, and yet it does seem a long time since I held and petted her. We are long overdue for another dog but we've got to hold out until our Italy trip is past, in late July.

It wasn't a sad walk, overall. In fact it was beautiful out -- dry and sunny and cool, very Mediterranean -- and I put on my music and had a great time thinking about London as my personal property. (That's one of the songs I heard on my iTunes!) I'm glad I got that walk out of my system because it's looking rainy again this morning.

And I had a close encounter with a slightly muddy fox! As you can see from the video, it was in a quite populated part of the park near the tiny Golder's Hill zoo. I feel like the fox whisperer, but I know it's just that those varmints are everywhere. You'll also see video of the blooming fireweed, also known as rosebay willowherb.

In the evening Dave and I watched our usual TV lineup, which has lately included "The Four Seasons" and "The Pitt," both of which we love. "The Pitt" is so good we're reluctant to stop it -- we often find ourselves bingeing a couple of shows together. We watched "The Boroughs" on Netflix, which wasn't bad, mainly because of the cast, but it wasn't as compelling as "Stranger Things" (an earlier project by the same filmmakers).

I'll close with a couple of the slides I came across yesterday. Remember how I mentioned that some photographers seem to have trouble framing their shots? Here are two excellent examples, both from the mid-1950s:

There's a person to the left of the woman in pink, and all we can see is a smidgen of their jacket. But thank goodness the photographer included that lamp! (I like the right-hand woman's bouquet of passionflowers.)

I don't mean to be snide about anyone's photographic ability, but COME ON, MAN! Why are we cutting the tops of people's heads off? Why include so much under the table?

Blogger Boud commented many posts back that with some of those old-style cameras, you couldn't always clearly see the parameters of your image in the viewfinder. I think something like that must be at fault here, because this person's framing is completely bonkers. The main subjects of many pictures tend to be shifted upward and to the left, which leads me to suspect the photographer was using a camera with the lens below and to the right of the viewfinder. Fortunately, I still have enough well-centered shots that I have some scannable images, which I will post to Flickr over the next few weeks.

Cutting Down the Ramblers

I took that photo of the lawn yesterday just as five pigeons took flight from beneath our bird feeder. It looks like one of those time-lapse photos showing a single bird in flight -- but it's really multiple birds. I'm not that photographically sophisticated!

I always like to show off the tidied garden -- not that it ever gets very tidy. Especially at this time of year when everything is growing and blooming it even feels a little claustrophobic out there. Greenery encroaching from all sides!

I mowed the lawn and cut back the rambling roses, which had stopped blooming.

That's one of them on the right -- the one that fell against the house a couple of years ago. You may remember I bought special cables and braces to tie it upright, still visible around its trunk. It gets huge, sending out gigantic arching branches that catch the wind. So, gotta keep it trimmed.

Here's another shot of the newly mowed lawn -- except for my little "No-Mow May" patch behind the teasel, which I'm keeping for now.

Anyway, I filled three yard waste bags with rose clippings, and I'm glad to have that job done!

It is indeed the "Iron in the Fire" dahlia that survived the winter -- not the purple one.

This shows the planter where Nicole Nicotiana lives. She's still in there, but she's been overshadowed by two magenta spreen lambsquarts* and a good-sized sunflower (tied up at right). I'm hoping Nicole keeps growing because eventually she'll win the battle for that space, but she may give up the ghost if she doesn't get enough sun. I'm astonished she's still alive, truth be told. I never expected her to live beyond one summer, and this is her third year.

Other than garden stuff, I read more about Sandra Dee and Bobby Darin, and I sorted some more slides. I've moved on now to the slide projector cartridges, which are stored in boxes and filled with slides:

I have 25 of these boxes. I don't want the cartridges, which take up too much room, but I also didn't want to just pull the slides out and mix them all up -- as you can see, they are somewhat organized by topic and in some cases labeled with the year they were taken. The context and labeling need to be preserved.

So I'm keeping the end piece of each box, with the labeling, and putting it into individual Ziploc™ sandwich bags along with the slides from that box. That keeps everything sorted and labeled but allows me to save a ton of storage space.

I'm pretty proud of that system, I must say.

*Yes, I realize this is not really the plants' name. My plant identifier app called them that, apparently because it ran out of characters, and I just think it's funny. In reality they're known as lambsquarters, magenta spreen, or tree spinach.

A Final Farewell

Yesterday was the end-of-the-year luncheon at the school where I worked until mid-April. It's a tradition at these annual luncheons to say farewell to staff and faculty who are leaving, and people who have worked there more than 10 years have the option to have a short speech given in their honor, and to make remarks themselves.

Some of the 30-plus people who left this year chose not to attend, but I wanted an opportunity to say goodbye to everyone so I went. I sat with my librarian pals and when my name was called, I marched up to the stage and got my engraved tankard, which I'm sure I will never use. I worked there 14 years so I could have had a speech, but I chose not to, and I didn't make one, either. I didn't want to make everyone sit there and endure reminiscences about my career. But I did wave from the stage and say thanks and I think that was enough. Less is more.

I also visited the library for the first time since I left. There have indeed been a lot of changes, and more are coming, because at least one of the librarians told me she's not happy with the current shelf organization. I could have adapted if we'd done all this when I was there, but I'm happy not to have to deal with it. I still feel a sense of ownership over the space. I found myself walking around, picking up bits of paper and neatening things. (I must say, the person who took the job in my stead doesn't appear as meticulous as I am, and this makes me secretly happy, because I am an egotistical bitch and I want to be missed.)

On my way home I passed a planter filled with violas (above). This planter, outside a shop on a street where I used to walk Olga, has historically been a deathtrap for plants. It gets baked by the sun and it's infrequently watered. But the violas look like they're prospering. They're tough plants.

I found more cat art on my way home.

Here, with that tadpole-like graffiti I've been seeing around the neighborhood.

And then there was this...

...a dose of realism to go with the cartoons!

Anyway, by the time I got home I was exhausted so I'm once again behind on blogland but I'll catch up today.

Birds and More Dumpster-Diving

I bought some "robin insect mix" bird food at Waitrose and the birds are crazy for it. It's a mixture of seed and mealworms, and it seems to have an advantage over the suet balls in that the bigger birds -- pigeons and parakeets -- don't monopolize the feeders like they do with suet. The little birds come in swarms and though they throw a lot of the seeds on the ground, the pigeons stay below to mop them up, so they get fed too.

I filled that entire feeder and it was empty by the end of the day. And the lid stayed on, so squirrels weren't to blame! I saw lots of coal tits, blue tits, great tits and robins. I even made a video so you could see how busy it was:

It's a bit shaky, for which I apologize -- I took it from a distance using my big camera and zoom lens, and that thing is heavy, and it makes even the slightest inadvertent quiver look like an earthquake. (Here's a stabilized version if the shaking bothers you. I don't care for it because the stabilizing software gives the video a shimmery effect, but at least it's not moving around as much.)

It was also rainy and downright cold yesterday. I went out at 2 p.m., taking my neighbors' cast-offs to the charity shop, and it was 56º F (or 13º C) on the high street. The low at night was supposed to be 49º F (or 9º C). Is it winter?! I'd put away all our jackets and blankets and we've had to take some of them out again. It's supposedly going to warm up over the next few days and I'm hoping that's true.

I confess I did survey our trash bags to see what else the neighbors discarded in their move. I retrieved some new-looking clothing, a couple of plastic and glass refrigerator containers that I can use for my slide project, and a few other odds and ends. Any bags containing food or kitchen debris I just closed right back up again. Now I can sleep soundly knowing what's going out in the trash really is trash.

Of course, just as I pulled the bags from the bins and opened them up, someone drove up in a blue minivan and went into the apartment above us -- not the neighbor moving out, but perhaps the one moving in? I said hello as he passed. Way to make a great impression, right?!

Dumpster-Diving, Hungry Foxes and a Huge Cat

Our passionflowers are awakening from their winter slumber. The first blossom appeared the other day and there are plenty more buds. This vine really needs a trim job. Frankly I'm impressed it survives at all, since it's crammed into the same pot as our olive tree (where it grew of its own accord from a seed).

Yesterday I took out the trash and found a bunch of stuff in the bin, apparently discarded by our departing upstairs neighbors. Some of it was in a nice reusable fabric bag from John Lewis, so I grabbed it and brought it inside to salvage the bag. I found another reusable Waitrose bag and some rather fancy clothing -- pleather pants, a heavy pleated skirt, a jacket, some trainers (running shoes), even some earrings in a red box from Valentino. Who throws away earrings?! I couldn't put all that stuff back in the trash, so I folded it up and put it in a bag for the charity shop.

Also...

...a perfectly good Raggedy Andy. I don't really want a Raggedy Andy for myself, so right now he's in the charity bag too. I did wash him to brighten him up and I think he may find another home.

I shudder to think what's in the other trash bags in our bins, but I'm not going to dig through them too. Let's maintain some semblance of dignity.

I keep wondering what will happen if I take that stuff to the charity shop and it appears in the window, and the neighbors walk past and see it. Would they be surprised? Would they be angry? Is it a gross violation of their privacy for me to pull their stuff out of the trash and try to give it a second life? Hmmmm...the ethics of dumpster-diving.

I realized yesterday that Dave's birthday is coming right up in 11 days. Yikes! I have some ideas for things to get him but I haven't moved on any of it and I guess I need to do that. I was going to make us a dinner reservation but when I asked him about it last night he seemed unenthusiastic about going out. This is a bit of a surprise, coming from him, but it may stem from his recent medication changes and the fact that he hasn't been feeling all that great. I told him to tell me if he wants to move ahead on that and I'll arrange something.

Maybe I could give him Raggedy Andy?

(That's a joke.)

I cobbled together another wildlife video with the almost two weeks' worth of footage I've collected. We start with some nice daytime images of one of our foxes, including at 0:14 where it is clearly hunting. (And it ate something, so whatever it hunted it apparently caught!)

-- At 0:56, Pale Cat walks by.
-- At 1:09, a fox gives us a quick drive-by.
-- At 1:17, two little bouncy birds. (Dunnocks?)
-- At 1:25, I put down some pork chop trimmings for the foxes.
-- A couple of hours later, at 1:36, Crooked Tail shows up and spends the next 15 minutes eating the pork. (Don't worry, I condensed the footage so you don't have to watch all the chewing, which isn't all that interesting.) By the way, sorry this part of the video is so dark. That branch in front of the camera was reflecting infrared light back at the lens. I trimmed it the next day and the images got much better.
-- At 3:51, the next night, the foxes are back, first Q-Tip and then Crooked Tail.
-- At 4:17, who is this cat?! I've never seen this creature before. It's huge. Is it pregnant or merely overweight? Henceforth to be known as Huge Cat.
-- At 4:39, an amusingly hyperactive squirrel.
-- At 5:11, the proverbial early bird. (Not getting a worm.)
-- At 5:24, GET OFF THE CAMERA!
-- At 5:35, a little bird lands and spreads its wings to sunbathe. Another bird shows up and they have quite a violent tussle!
-- At 5:50, another treat for the foxes, fish skin this time.
-- At 6:01, an hour and a half later, Crooked Tail shows up and eats it.
-- At 7:02, Sharpie shows up but the fish skin is long gone.
-- At 7:54, Huge Cat is back, also entranced by the smell of the fish.
-- At 8:28, a quick drive-by from Q-Tip.
-- At 8:43, more spazz squirrels.

Tiny Dramas All Around

In the garden yesterday, I noticed that a minuscule blossom from our olive tree had fallen into the middle of a seed head on the clematis. That's a design worthy of a jeweler, isn't it? Or a fireworks display.

Dave wasn't feeling well yesterday so he stayed home from work. The school year is basically over anyway -- his last classes were Monday -- so "work" at this point is just a matter of tidying up the department and filing and that kind of thing. Instead he stayed home and camped out in his chair. He plans to go in today.

In the morning I heard a lot of thumping around above us and on the stairs and realized our upstairs neighbor is moving out of the Russians' flat. Apparently his family is back in Israel so he's downsizing to a smaller flat closer to his office. I'm sorry to see him go because he's been a terrific neighbor, and I told him so. He said another family is scheduled to move in at the beginning of July. We'll see what that's like.

In the afternoon I took a long walk and spent some time looking at the bugs in the butterfly garden at the cemetery:

You'll see some thick-legged flower beetles, Oedemera nobilis, which I have often likened on this blog to David Bowie in his Aladdin Sane costume. And at 0:14, if you look at the left-hand flower, you'll see a white crab spider (Misumena vatia) that has grabbed some poor fly, or possibly two poor flies. I left the natural sound in the video, so you'll hear birdcalls and wind as well as the shouts of some teams on the athletic field adjacent to the cemetery. Summer sounds!

I didn't see any butterflies in the butterfly garden, oddly, but I did find this Angle Shades moth (Phlogophora meticulosa) in our living room yesterday morning. Maybe it flew in when we had the light on the night before. I gently put it outside on a buddleia. Hopefully it promptly moved where it would be better camouflaged.