Tally Ho!

It's been so damp lately, baby teasels are sprouting from seeds still in the pod. I may put some of those in their own pots to cultivate them for spring!

Well, I'm back on a computer -- a new one, which I went out and bought yesterday. I usually go to the Apple Store in Covent Garden, but I suspected Covent Garden would be insane on a sunny Saturday, so I instead I took a bus up to the Brent Cross shopping mall. And wouldn't you know, that was insane too! Heaving, as the British would say. I navigated the mysterious sign-up-and-wait system of Apple Store shopping, and used my waiting time to pretty much settle on the machine I wanted.

After a painless transaction I emerged with a new 13-inch MacBook Air running the Sequoia OS, with 16 GB of memory (quite a bit more than my old machine). I can see all the keys -- they haven't been worn away by too much frenzied typing! And the screen is so new and clear and free of blemishes! It's also much lighter than my old machine.

So I'm pleased all around, except for one thing: I cannot get Lightroom, the Adobe software I use to edit my photos, to run on this new machine. You'd think it would be as easy as going to their website and downloading an update, but no. Nothing downloads, even when I'm signed in. Apparently this is a known problem. So I have to monkey around with that today.

I also had a bit of a kerfuffle about cables. The new Macs are so smooth and minimalist that they only have two cable ports, both requiring USB-C cables. There's no place to insert a flash drive or memory card or any regular USB device, like my camera. So I had to go back to the Apple Store to buy an adapter, and I realized moments after I bought one that it really wasn't what I needed, which they didn't seem to stock. So I took the tube to work and picked up the adapter I use there. Thus I was at least able to shift all my data to the new machine via my back-up drive.

I took the photo above outside the Brent Cross mall. I was amused by the "Tally Ho!" -- apparently that's the last stop in North Finchley, outside the Tally Ho pub. But it also seems like a friendly greeting!
 
I did a lot of other stuff yesterday too -- cleaned the kitchen, where the painters had splashed some stuff around the sink, repaired a picture frame that was damaged when it fell off our newly-painted wall (the nail was loosened by the painting), and re-hung two pictures with new hooks. I took care of some houseplants and trimmed some stuff back in the garden too. It's about time to prune the roses and the buddleia, but I'll give them another week or two.

Do you remember me blogging about Ben Wilson's chewing gum art? He's a street artist who paints on hardened bits of chewing gum left on the sidewalk. The piece above is located near the school where I work. I first wrote about it 13 years ago, and revisited it again eight years ago. As of yesterday, it's still there, albeit looking faded and worn. Its companion piece, also shown in those posts, is long gone.

Oh, the police arrested some guy for our neighborhood stabbing. Still no word on who was stabbed or why, or who was arrested, but I'm virtually certain this was not a random thing. It's likely to be a beef over drugs or women, as is often the case.

Breakage and Police Drama

More blogging by phone today. I managed to get my computer working yesterday enough to do a backup, so I haven’t lost any data, which is a blessing. (I back things up every few months anyway, but my last one was in October, so I was overdue and fortunate I made it work.)

Today, I’m off to get a new computer, I suppose.

The photo above shows my bedside table, which will give you an indication of how desperate I was for a photo to blog. Here’s another tale of woe: The painters broke my green glass bedside lamp, which I’d had ever since we moved to London. (I picked it up free from a room full of cast-off household goods being left behind by other teachers!)  So for now I’m using that red desk lamp, which was in the closet of our flat when we moved in. I’ve turned it toward the wall for less direct light.

I’ve already ordered a replacement for my green lamp, which was an IKEA product (“Lykta”). They’re no longer being sold but I found one on eBay for not much money. It should be here soon.

What did we ever do without the internet?

Well, we were nicer to each other, for one thing.

Speaking of which, as I walked to work yesterday morning I passed this scene on the next street over. The cops had not only the roadway closed but the sidewalks too. This is a street where I walked Olga almost every morning when she was younger and I think of it very much as our neighborhood, so I was curious what happened. (Once a reporter, always a reporter.)

I asked one of the officers on the scene. He would say only that there had been “an incident.”

It wasn’t until I got to work that I read someone had been stabbed! Yikes! The story, as is often true here, is maddeningly short on details. But it happened at 4:30 pm the previous day, and I do remember seeing a helicopter fly overhead just as I was coming up my front steps after work. That was the air ambulance, arriving to take the victim to the hospital. Apparently his injuries are life-threatening.

I don’t ever remember anything this dramatic happening in our little ‘hood so I’m eager to hear the rest of the story. Hopefully we will.

Remember how I just posted about “decline porn” and the safety of London? Hmmmm.

I thought this was amusing. I happened to enter my first name into a Google search the other day (can’t remember why) and these are all the prompts that came up. It sucks that Stephen Miller is now one of the top standard bearers among the Stephens of the world! I had not heard of Stephen Hough or Stephen Bernard Libby, and “Stephen traitors” perplexed me until I learned he’s a participant on a TV show (called “Traitors,” obviously, which I have never watched).

Anyway, this might be fun to try with your own name. I have a feeling the lineup would be different if I were Googling from the USA. That list seems heavy on the Brits.

Back in Place

I’m blogging from my phone today because my computer has decided to completely die. I’m not sure what’s going on there. It worked fine yesterday when I got home from work and now it’s just showing me the red “recharge battery” symbol — and it’s been plugged in and charging all night. It won’t even turn on using the power cord. Argh!

I suppose I need to go buy a new computer. This one’s been around for a while. I think I got it in 2015.

Anyway, before that snafu, I was excited to report that our repainting project is DONE! Woo hoo! As you can see above, everything in the living room is back in place — including Dave. He and I worked a couple of hours after getting home from work to put our rooms in order.

And here’s the very blue bedroom. I like it! We have to re-hang the big picture on the left but that’s roughly where it goes. As you may have noticed, we moved the gigantic yucca from the living room to the bedroom because the ceiling there is higher. I’m a little afraid it’s going to fall on me in the night and put my eyes out. Wouldn’t THAT be a news story? “Man Loses Eyes While Sleeping.”

Please ignore the awful drapes — a problem still to be resolved.

Dave decided that he wants fewer tchotchkes sitting around, and despite all appearances I’m really not a tchotchke person either. So I’m going to box some of them up and stick them in a closet. As someone in the comments said a few days ago, painting provides a great opportunity to evaluate all your stuff — both ownership and placement.

And here's the Cranberry Crunch front door!

Levi's Very Friendly Dog

The painters were back yesterday for their second day. I thought they were close to being done, but it turns out they had to "cut in" the bedroom, which I think just means giving the paint a sharper edge, and they gave everything a second coat and started the front door. We had a scare in the morning when they said the living room wall was too wet to paint -- and indeed, there were water droplets in some areas, which I have never seen before. They insisted the water was coming in from the outside. We have some dampness issues in the living room -- we always have -- but I'm sure what we were seeing was actually condensation from all the humidity in the room. I left the dehumidifier on overnight so it would be drier this morning, and it seems much better.

Also, the tree guy was here and cleared out a huge amount of greenery from the back of the garden. I'll get some photos this morning so you can see what I mean. I think we're going to have him come back and do some more, because he left a huge amount of ivy after cutting its stem, and I don't want all that dead ivy just hanging there. I'd rather pay extra to have him remove it.

So, yes, chaos continues here at home, though the painters say they'll be done today. That would be a mercy.

This was drawn by a boy named Levi in our Lower School library. He brought it to me and said, "How do you like my very friendly dog?" I had to laugh, both at his sarcasm and his artwork. Pretty amazing for a second-grader!

I got a treat yesterday when a book I'd ordered was delivered. It's a collection of UK crisp packets, known to those of us in North America as potato-chip bags, dating from the 1970s to 2000. I read about it in The Guardian and knew I had to have it -- it's just the kind of cultural detritus I love. Apparently the author started collecting the bags in tube tunnels while doing graffiti, which had preserved the decades-old packaging. He wound up with a fascinating assortment of graphic designs involving aliens, cartoon characters, dragons and more, for obscure snacks with crazy names like "Bermuda Triangles" and "Monster Munch."

Speaking of monsters munching, Dave had some leftover lamb chunks from a Chinese meal he'd ordered and we decided to put it out for the foxes. Here's the result. It looks like one fox got all of it -- ate its fill and then carried off a few more pieces for safekeeping, or perhaps to share with a mate. That must have been one happy, contented fox!

(Top photo: Edgware Road, a few weeks ago.)

Chaos

Here's what our dining room looks like at the moment. Pretty much every plant, picture and tchotchke we own is crammed in there, out of the way of the painters.

As I write I am lying in the middle of our very blue bedroom, where the bed is still far from the walls as they dry. Weirdly, I don't smell paint very strongly, but I think that has more to do with my nose than the room. I really should have my sinuses looked at. I can't smell anything anymore, but in this case it's probably just as well.

Here are some "before" shots. Above, our old gray/brown paint, with most everything cleared out of the bedroom. This has all been painted over now. Dave expressed doubts about the blue paint last night. "I hate to say I told you so," I said -- and he replied, "Did I choose that?"

Ummmm...yes. Yes, you did.

The funny thing is, I actually like it, though the darker blue does make the room look smaller. Maybe when we move everything back in again it will look more normal. Photos to come.

And here's our mostly cleared-out living room, awaiting repainting. We eventually rolled up the rug and moved that big yucca into...

...the hallway, along with the fiddle-leaf fig. These plants are so big and heavy we couldn't get them any farther than that.

We moved our Dracaena forest temporarily into the front hallway.

I will be so glad when all this is over and the house is put back together. Having everything topsy-turvy makes me tense. And to make matters worse, the tree guy is coming today to remove our fallen branch and kill the ivy growing up the elders at the back of the garden. I have a real sense of dread about losing the ivy but I suppose it has to be done.

Winter Lights 2026

As you may remember, for years now I've been going to the annual Winter Lights installations at Canary Wharf at the end of January. It's an annual show of light and sound sculptures, with the pieces installed outdoors on a walking tour through the neighborhood. They are always inventive and unusual, and they brighten the otherwise dreary days and nights at this time of year.

I went on Sunday and here's some of what I saw. Above is "Un-Reel Access" by KAPPA/Patrick and Kaori Jones of the UK and Japan. It's an illuminated doorway with one corner peeled up, and inevitably people would walk up to it and try the doorknob. "Through the power of light, Un-Reel Access asks us to abandon being bound by common sense. It is a portal that invites the curious mind to reframe and change its vision of the world," according to the sculpture guide.

Here's "Out of Body Experience" by Alaa Minawi of the Netherlands, Palestine and Lebanon. It's meant to evoke dancers and the capacity of dance to take us out of ourselves.

"Sol," by Artistic Latvia / Janis Petersons, suspends illuminated replicas of the planets among the trees in an indoor rooftop garden. "What if the stars leaned closer?
What if the planets themselves could rest in your backyard, shimmering softly beneath your gaze?" (That's from the guide again.)

"Colour Rush" by Liz West (UK) was made like this: "Two different large 'Concertina' drawings were created before being cut up, mixed together, repositioned and folded into eight individual stripes. It is these luminous stripes that are the basis of this new octagonal light box." I'm not sure I understand that but it sure is colorful.

"For Ever and Ever and Ever" by Anna Lomax (UK) is installed in three different locations, and I only visited two. It uses "infinity mirrors" to endlessly replicate lit features installed in a column (top) and panels (above).

"Whale on the Wharf" is a more permanent installation, but I hadn't seen it before last night. It's a whale made of pieces of plastic debris like toys, jugs, coolers and shoes, seemingly surging upward from the waters of the canal. That purple box at far left is Hawksmoor, the restaurant where Dave took me for my last birthday in November.

Those are the sculptures that are more static -- that don't depend on movement and sound for their full effect. But like last year, I also made a video so you could experience the more dynamic creations, which use music or sound and spinning, shifting, pulsing light.

In the video, we start with a crowd shot to show how many people were there on Sunday. Answer: a lot!

After that, we move to the art:

1. Two views of "Amplitudes" by Limbic Cinema (UK), meant to evoke "the diverse nature of waveforms that shape both the natural world and human experience." This is my favorite piece of the whole show. It uses light projected onto a spraying fan of water droplets, along with timed music.
2. At 1:55, you see "Lacto-Reacto-Light" by Jack Wimperis (UK), a lit panel made of recycled plastic milk bottles that reacts to movement in the crowd.
3. That's followed by "FloWeЯ PoWeЯ," by Aerosculpture / Jean-Pierre David and Christian Thellier of France. This was an interesting sculpture, but what's even more unusual is that the video fails to fully capture the color. Those little spinning "flowers" were much more vibrant and colorful in real life than they are digitally.
4. "Trispheric Garden" by REELIZE.STUDIO of Australia is supposedly inspired by "the architecture of dreams." From the catalogue: "Each obelisk houses mirror-like orbs that refract and reflect light, casting ethereal patterns across the water’s surface. Together, they transform the fountain into a ‘dreaming pond’, where reflections ripple like portals between reality and imagination."
5. "In Bloom" by Kumquat Lab (UK) was inspired by pollinators visiting flowers: "Touching a flower triggers a musical note, echoing the dance of pollinators moving from bloom to bloom. The work turns this natural ritual into a collective and intuitive act of music-making, celebrating connection and the vital role of pollination." (I couldn't hear music but maybe there were just too many people.)
6. "Aether" by Architecture Social Club (UK) looks like a nightclub. Light beams project onto a suspended collection of fine rods and a black backdrop, and it makes vibrant, shifting shadows on the floor, too! From the guide: "Like a dancer improvising, Aether translates music into hypnotic waves and phosphorescent fragments, stirring something deeper within the audience." (There are two clips of this piece.)
7. At 5:46 we have "Blueprint" by Studio Vertigo (UK), which is inspired by the twisting double helix of DNA.
8. That's followed by "Hulahoop" by Scale (France), a hypnotic light and music sculpture and another favorite of mine. "As the eye follows the lines traced by the installation, peripheral vision melts away, hypnotising the viewer into an almost dreamlike state."
9. At 7:29 you'll see "Sanctuary" by Ithaca Studio (UK), "a tall, almost cathedral-like open structure, designed to immerse the audience in atmospheric light and sound. Enter the Sanctuary and be surrounded by colourful, reflective, illuminations and cocooned in a soothing soundscape, as the lighting transforms from the soft glow of candlelight to the jewel-like, bright tones of stained glass." (Watch for my reflection too! I'm pretty easy to spot.)
10. "Manifestation" by Marcus Lyall (UK) was inspired by Victorian spiritualism. "Loosely based on ‘Thought Forms’ a 1905 book by spiritualist Anne Besant, who believed abstract visual forms could be linked to sounds or spiritual states, this piece delves back into the early dawn of ‘Visual Music’ shows, and their roots in seances and magic." (From the guide.)
11. And finally, there's "At the Hand" by LACROIX (Canada), in which spectators use their own hand movements to trigger a monumental hand made of light.

It was a great show, made better by the cup of mulled wine I bought along the way!

Woad Walk and Cranberry Crunch

Well, we ironed out the paint choices. Ultimately I convinced Dave that maintaining a neutral beige in the living room would be wise. In return, I let him choose a darker shade for the bedroom than I would normally want -- but I think it might wind up looking pretty good. It's a deep blue, somewhere between peacock and teal, with the mysterious name Woad Walk.

Someone asked yesterday, "Don't you like the paint colors you already have?" I actually do, even though we chose neither of them. The bedroom, a sort of deep gray/brown, was painted by the previous tenants -- just as we lived with their couch for more than a decade, we've lived with their bedroom walls. The living room was repainted several years ago, at least partially, but it's time again.

This will leave only the dining room with its original off-white paint job, and honestly, we're not in that room much.

One thing we're not certain about is how much of the trim the painters plan to do. Are they repainting all the baseboards and molding? When we had the halls, kitchen and bathroom painted years ago, we did not do the trim or the doors or windowsills or any of that stuff. So I'm not sure what to expect there.

Oh! And they're painting our front door. We're going from faded, flaky dark green to bright red. Cranberry Crunch, to be specific.

In other news, I made another batch of squash soup with one of the front-porch pumpkins, which have been sitting in the chilly closet under the stairs. (I forgot about them until last week, to be honest.) This soup wasn't as successful as the last. I used the brown pumpkin, which turned out to be sort of pale yellow inside. It was more like a spaghetti squash and when baked and then blended, the texture wasn't as smooth as I would have liked. I stirred in some spices, stock and sour cream, and I ate it for dinner last night. It hasn't killed me.

Now I only have that green one to deal with.

I also finished a book yesterday, "We Contain Multitudes" by Sarah Henstra, a gay coming-of-age/romance novel about two high school boys who are assigned to write letters to each other in English class and have a relationship as a result. The novel is epistolary, told through their letters, and one of them is a Walt Whitman enthusiast, hence the title. I had to set aside some quibbles -- no high-schoolers would write letters like these, recounting events between the sender and recipient that had just occurred -- but it was interesting and it drew me in and held me until the last pages. I could never make heads or tails of Whitman, and I admire anyone who can.

I finished it on the tube last night as I went to see the annual Winter Lights display at Canary Wharf. More on that tomorrow!

(Photos: A healthy-looking teasel in the garden, and our snowdrops about to bloom.)