Repotting and Pot Roast

Our neighbor's gigantic clematis vine is blooming like crazy, and it's visible from our living room through a gap in the trees and over the fence. I feel certain I've posted a similar picture in past years but if you're like me you won't get tired of seeing that amazing cloud of blossoms.

I was a whirlwind yesterday morning. I wanted to discard a couple of our orchids, which after several years of good service had died (or were dying), but in both pots young maidenhair ferns had taken root. We have several mature maidenhairs and I guess they sent spores out into the world that somehow took hold in these orchid pots. Anyway, I wanted to save the ferns, and that meant repotting, which meant getting access to the potting compost, which meant cleaning out the shed.

You see how this goes. One thing leads to another and pretty soon you're doing five interrelated tasks.

At the end of it all, I'd cleaned and organized the shed, and repotted not only the fern but the ficus tree and another fern. I threw away some broken terra cotta pots and neatened up the patio. Then I repotted our red pelargonium, which we've had since we lived in Notting Hill (eleven years ago) and which has been in the same pot for about a decade, I think. This poor plant! I tipped it over to remove the root ball and the soil was so depleted, so spent, that it poured out of the pot like dry sand and left the sparse roots utterly bare. It should be happy in some new, more nutritious dirt.

Meanwhile, in the garden, I couldn't resist another picture of our Leucojum...

...and here's our spotted lungwort, blooming up a storm.

Speaking of storms, in the afternoon we were supposed to get rain, which we sorely need. Around 3 p.m. we began getting booming thunder, which was quite dramatic.

As you can see, Olga isn't fazed by thunder. Unlike Ellen's dog Minnie and many other sensitive canines, she never has been, even when she could hear better. It was loud enough this time around that it caused her to open her eyes, so we know she can hear something, or perhaps just feel the rumble -- but she didn't react otherwise.

There were several bright flashes of lightning and quite loud bangs, and soon we began hearing sirens. "Something's happening out there," I said to Dave, and sure enough, apparently lightning hit a building near the tube station, casting concrete rubble onto the street.

The rain itself turned out to be a bit of a disappointment -- just a spattering. We need more than that. Sound and fury signifying nothing, except for the people near (or in) that damaged building.

In the evening we had Dave's co-workers Darlene and Ed over for dinner, which meant an afternoon of cleaning the house. They're about to leave London (Darlene was on a temporary contract, and Ed was a substitute teacher) so we wanted to thank them and wish them well. Dave made a pot roast with his signature scallop & orange starter, and they brought a lemon tart for dessert. They also gave us several bottles of miscellaneous alcohol from their liquor cabinet, so we're stocked with more limoncello and port and a few other things that we'd normally never buy but might eventually drink. Might.

We went to bed at 11 p.m. (Olga was very confused because this is easily an hour later than we'd normally go to sleep) and this morning I have a second dishwasher load of dishes churning away. There are probably two more loads to go. Dave can really tear up a kitchen when he cooks!