An Outing and Some Memories

Today is the birthday of my childhood friend Theresa, who would have been 60 this year. I've mentioned Theresa several times on this blog -- she lived down the street where I grew up and was one of my earliest friends. I have many good memories of playing at her house, learning about science from her biology professor father, exploring the woods and swamps, and getting up to mischief like shooting BB guns at floating glass jars in a neighborhood pond that was rumored to be bottomless. Theresa died last year, but just as we always remember our parent's birthdays and other dates that were significant when we were children, I will never forget that this is her birthday.

Dave and I spent yesterday morning at home, me washing dog blankets and reading, Dave on his computer. Finally I suggested we take the dog out for an adventure, so after lunch we leashed up Bailey and walked to Hampstead Heath.

Getting Dave to walk that far is a minor miracle -- he isn't a huge fan of walking in general -- but we had a good time and he got a chance to see Bailey on her long lead and how she behaves in the "wild." She was a good dog, for the most part. I know I've said this before, but she's gradually becoming less reactive to other dogs as she feels more secure with us. We still can't let her get nose-to-nose with them, but at least she doesn't bark and snarl when they pass.

We walked to Golders Green Park, where we sat at one of these picnic tables and had coffee. (Well, Bailey didn't have coffee, but she did have some of our bread-and-raisin pudding.) She's very concerned in the photo above because Dave has walked away from us -- you can see him in the distance, returning.

The coffee break wasn't exactly relaxing, because there's a fair amount of dog management involved in keeping her nearby and under control, but we enjoyed our walk anyway, and the main thing is...

...it tired her out. Happiness is a tired dog.

Last night we watched "Deep Impact," at Dave's suggestion. We are doing a whole lot of nothing significant with our holiday weekend! (Today is a bank holiday so Dave is off work.)

Rain and Not Much Else

It rained off and on all day yesterday -- another 3.4 mm, giving us 10 mm so far for the month. (About 50 mm is average for August.) So we're still behind the curve but we're getting some moisture, and there's more to come this week supposedly.

Bailey and I actually got caught in the rain on our afternoon walk, something so unexpected that I didn't even think to bring an umbrella. We had to wait a few seconds beneath a shop awning until it slacked enough to keep going. The plants are happy, though the rain is beating up some of the older flowers like the Iron-in-the-Fire dahlia above.

Here's the whole garden from the back door. It looks greener in the picture than it really does, mainly because you can't see all the brown grass. But even this little bit of rain has freshened things up.

Otherwise I don't have much to say about yesterday. I read more of "Our Evenings" and walked the dog, did some laundry and some minor cleaning, and we watched "Titanic" in the afternoon (a good rainy day movie). And honestly, that was pretty much the extent of my activities. Ho hum!

In the evening I had a conversation with my siblings about the continued dispersal of my stepmother's estate. It just goes on and on.

A Caterpillar and Not Much Else

A mural at the Hampstead School

A pretty quiet day yesterday. Bailey and I stayed home and I read the first 130 pages or so of "Our Evenings" by Alan Hollinghurst, which I'm slowly warming to. I've loved Hollinghurst's past books, but this one is taking me a little longer to get into. I think it's about to get interesting, though.

In the afternoon I walked Bailey through the cemetery and up into Cricklewood.

I found this weird little caterpillar crawling around on a cemetery bench. It's the larvae of the pale tussock moth (Calliteara pudibunda), which I did not know until I got home and looked it up. This struck a memory chord and I realized I'd seen tussock moth caterpillars in Florida several years ago -- a different species. They're not even the same genus, apparently, so I'm not sure how closely related they are.

We found a community open space up in Cricklewood where I'd never been before, and I was impressed by the common yarrow (Achillea) growing amid the dry, dead grass. I've seen it blooming in the cemetery too -- it doesn't seem fazed by the incredibly dry summer. Bailey even posed for me momentarily off the leash! (Or with me not holding the leash, anyway.)

On the way home we passed the vintage Ford Galaxie that I've written about a couple of times before. It's been spruced up with a nice new paint job.

Last night we had a friend, Mark, come over for some drinks after work. Martini time! (For me, anyway. Mark stuck with Budweiser. He likes his watery American beer.)

Phantom Babies

Well, we did get rain yesterday, as you can see here on our banana tree. It wasn't much -- just enough to wet our whistle (4.4 millimeters, according to our local weather station). I heard one rumble of thunder in the afternoon but that's the only sign of the predicted "moderate to severe thunderstorms" that I encountered.

It was a day of surprises, and not just the rain.

First of all, Bailey's spaying was postponed. I took her in, and the veterinary nurse looked her over in the lobby and said, "Yeah, this isn't happening today." It turns out Bailey is having a "false pregnancy," a hormonal condition, and is even lactating as a result. (As I told the nurse, "No wonder she loves having her belly rubbed!") We have to wait for this false pregnancy to subside -- otherwise, if she's spayed now, her body might not know how to return to normality and her lactation could become more or less permanent. We're trying again on Sept. 10.

I asked the nurse, "There's no chance she could really be pregnant, is there?" We've had her for four and a half weeks, and the shelter had her for about two months before that. During at least part of that time she was supposedly in heat. (I assume she couldn't have become pregnant at the shelter, but you never know. ) A dog's gestation period is about nine weeks, and by four to six weeks the abdomen would be swelling -- so the nurse said she didn't think pregnancy was likely, because Bailey has "a nice waist."

But we'll keep an eye on her. That's all we need -- a litter of puppies.

Bailey got a new toy from the vet's office, which she promptly mangled.

A nicer surprise -- the insurance claim for my camera came through. They actually approved a payout of slightly more than I asked for! So that money should be in our account in five to seven days. I'm happy to put that whole episode to bed.

I also got a call from an unknown number, which always makes me wary. I answered it and got a rather garbled person checking up on my experiences with "transfers." I've been getting a lot of e-mails from car services that Dave and I used to provide airport transfers on our travels -- so I said they'd been fine but I hadn't needed them lately because I hadn't traveled much. The woman seemed a bit confused by that but said she'd e-mail me some information to get me better pricing. When I got the e-mail I realized she was talking about money transfers, which I hadn't done since I paid my last round of British taxes. She must have wondered why the heck I was talking about traveling in our phone call!

Otherwise I spent the day reading, cleaning, and archiving July's photos.

When I took Bailey for her afternoon walk, we passed the house with all the Chinese lanterns growing in the front garden. They look great, year after year. Dave and I have tried several times to grow them and we don't have much luck beyond a single season, so I would love to know this person's secret.

Finally, I compiled our recent wildlife cam footage into a video. Nothing earth-shattering here -- several itchy foxes (or maybe just one?), and fleeting glimpses of foxes and a brave neighborhood cat as they trot past the camera. At 1:22 we briefly see a fox doing that weird open-mouthed panting that I've seen in past videos; not sure what's going on there. At 1:27 you get a daytime shot of Bailey (those nipples!), followed by a nighttime shot in which she barks and Dave calls her inside. The cat is at 2:09 and again at 2:24, followed by more Bailey and more foxes.

As you can see, I moved the camera around a bit toward the end, trying to get a good vantage point to watch for Ratthew -- who did not appear at all, thank goodness.

Balloon Bailey and RAIN!

I awoke to rain this morning -- not hard rain, but not a mist either. A drizzle, I'd say. We have thunderstorm warnings for later this morning, with actual thunder, but I'll believe it when I see it. Of course this is also the morning I have to walk Bailey to the vet to be spayed. What are the odds that we'd have no rain for two months and then, on the morning I have to run an errand like this, a thunderstorm?!

Because she's going to be laid up for a while, recovering from her surgery, I took Bailey on a last outing to Hampstead Heath yesterday. We walked a long way and she even got a swim -- the beach that was closed last time was open again, so evidently the water testing didn't find anything nefarious. (And indeed she was fine afterwards.)

I was disturbed to see that old tree in the top photo with some dying branches. This heat wave and drought has been hard on trees, and indeed some historic specimens have perished as a result. I hope this one, a well-known hollow tree that looks (to me) something like an elephant, pulls through OK.

Here's Bailey in front of Kenwood House, in approximately the same location as The Kinks in my favorite photo of the band. Doesn't this photo look a little weird? There's something about the perspective that cracks me up. Bailey looks like a gigantic Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade balloon about to take flight over Kenwood House. In fact she already looks like she's floating!

As you can see, we had lots of clouds yesterday too, but no rain. Today's forecast, though, is a 100 PERCENT CHANCE of precipitation! Woo hoo! We can't lose!

Other than our walk, I did some minor work in the garden and around the house. It's funny how there are always things to do. I guess when I was working they just didn't get done. This is why retired people often have immaculate lawns and gardens -- not that ours is anything approaching immaculate.

I was sorry to hear about Tim Curry's death, coming so soon after Dolly Parton. It's been a tough week for the LGBTQ+ crowd, given that both of them are gay icons. I found it amusing that even on the right-wing news site I read -- it's good to understand the opposition -- people were lamenting Curry's death and waxing nostalgic about "The Rocky Horror Picture Show." You'd think self-professed conservatives, many of them religious, would all have hated it -- but no. Like Parton, Curry was a performer able to unite the masses.

Remember when Dave and I took Olga to the Rocky Horror castle for a stay? Hard to believe that was three years ago.

I forgot to embed this little video yesterday, which I took when I was sitting in the garden after washing the sheets. I strung up a clothesline by the back bench so I could hang them to dry. I sat behind the top sheet to read, and I liked watching it blow in the wind, dappled with shadows. It's a good thing I did that on Tuesday because outdoor drying is not happening today.

And here's Bailey snoozing in the sun, taken with the good camera.

Oh, some of you asked about her spaying and why the dog rescuers didn't take care of it before putting her up for adoption. The charity does pay for it -- though we pay an adoption fee that probably more than offsets the cost. They told us that Bailey's spaying was delayed because she was in heat and they had to wait for that to pass, but we also took Olga to be spayed when we adopted her years ago. I suspect the rescuers find it easier to have prospective adopters handle spaying and recovery, if possible.

A Weird Rose

This is my favorite view of The Alliance, a pub not too far from us, seen across Mill Lane from Gondar Gardens. You'll notice that the windows are covered with sheet metal. That's because once again, The Alliance is under threat from developers. This seems to happen every few years to a pub that has been officially branded an Asset of Community Value (ACV). It closed in June and was briefly occupied by squatters before being secured against further intrusion.

Who knows what will happen next. I don't think the building is under threat -- it already contains several flats -- just the pub itself. I've only been there a handful of times, but I enjoyed it when I went and I hope it can be saved.

Here's an odd garden anomaly. This rose grew up from the base of the plant, on a thick stem about ten inches high, and promptly bloomed! (The bush above it still seems healthy.) I was surprised to see a flower form on a stalk so low to the ground. I wonder if this is some kind of drought response. Maybe if there'd been water that new stalk would have been much taller.

I took Bailey out for a walk to the cemetery yesterday. While we were walking I got a call from the dog charity where we adopted her -- they've set up an appointment for Bailey to be spayed tomorrow. No time like the present! The poor girl has a rude awakening coming, but after that she may be even calmer. Fortunately the vet doing the procedure is right around the corner -- not far from The Alliance, actually -- so getting there won't be difficult. I'll be curious to see how she does at the vet's, given how reactive to other dogs she can be.

She is not going to be happy about this.

I was so sorry to read about Dolly Parton. She was truly a uniter and a good-hearted person, and we needed her to live forever.

The Dozing Bulldozer

Nicole Jr., the offspring of Nicole Nicotiana, is now blooming. This is the seedling that grew of its own accord in a pot with a teasel, and I put them both in the ground three or four weeks ago. I love those gossamer threads of spider web between the flowers. We're at the time of year when spiders hang their webs all over the garden, though I think I'm seeing fewer of them this year, maybe because of the drought.

I'm just glad Nicole Jr.'s flower stalk survived long enough to bloom. In our flower beds these days, with the bulldozer power of Bailey, that is not a given.

In fact, this was one of my garden projects yesterday. Bailey had absolutely trampled this bed between the walnut tree and the Philadelphus by the back shed. Squirrels tend to be found in both trees and running along the fence, so she is often back and forth there, barking wildly. Yesterday I installed bamboo canes to try to keep her off some of the plants, and I tied up the ferns so the fronds won't be so easily flattened. I have no idea whether this will have any impact at all, since a bamboo cane -- no matter how strong or how deeply planted -- is no match for 20 kilos of hurtling staffy. But we shall see.

These beds also look bedraggled from lack of water. Everything is dry as a bone. I cut down the rest of our Crocosmia, which had prematurely turned brown in this dry weather, as well as the Persicaria by the blackberries. It all looked like hell. Better luck next year, hopefully.

Incidentally, remember my cautious excitement about our rainy forecast several days ago? Well, none of that rain has materialized so far. None of it. We had two brief spells of light rain, on Aug. 18th and 19th, and as far as I know that's been it so far. This week looks promising for more, but again, we shall see.

I did finish Derek Jarman yesterday. And I took the dog for a brief walk in the morning and afternoon, as usual. This twice-daily dog walking is getting old, though. I need to be able to get out of the house and go do my own thing, and I feel trapped by canine obligations. I'd hoped we could do without a dog walker but I think we may need one after all. Besides, when I'm away traveling, what's Dave going to do? He can't come home from work every afternoon just to walk the beast.

I'm talking to the same dog-walking company that used to take Olga. Apparently they also do solo walks, which would be perfect for Bailey. Hopefully we can work something out.

Bailey this morning, lying next to me and twitching in a dream state.