Shadows & Light

Cockfosters

2012-01-28T07:09:00.006Z

Cockfosters is not a metaphor. It's merely a suburb.

Author David Leavitt is responsible for planting in my head the idea that it could be more. Years ago I read his book "While England Sleeps," in which an author and enthusiast of the London tube system named Brian Botsford is curiously fixated on the Cockfosters tube stop. One of Botsford's mantras is "Imagine Cockfosters" -- for him, it represents a distant place of potential. In fact, he never actually goes there, because he's afraid if he did, he would find plain old stifled suburbia. The question, to him, was more interesting than the answer.

Yesterday, I decided to stop Imagining Cockfosters and go see it for myself. I hopped on the Piccadilly tube line and rode it all the way to the end, about nine miles north of central London.

It's interesting that Leavitt chose the Cockfosters stop for his book. It's not the most distant tube stop from central London -- that's Amersham in Buckinghamshire, on the Metropolitan Line, about 24 miles northwest of Charing Cross. But the book took place in the 1930s, and maybe at the time Cockfosters was one of the more remote stops in the underground network.

More likely: I suspect that Leavitt, a gay author whose books can be frankly sexual, and who was writing about a gay character, was making a not-so-subtle double entendre. If you're a conflicted gay man in the 1930s like Botsford and you're "Imagining Cockfosters," what are you really thinking about? Surely some graduate student somewhere has already made that the subject of a thesis. Or is it too obvious?

Anyway, as you can see, the real, non-metaphorical Cockfosters is mostly a pleasant but unremarkable community of semi-detached houses and small businesses. I walked for a couple of hours through Trent Country Park, a huge park of forests and fields just north of the tube station. (Photos to come!) Then I walked westward to High Barnet, a tube stop on another line, and rode back into Central London.

Now I don't have to Imagine Cockfosters. I've been there. (Wink, wink.)

Chips and Shards

2012-01-27T08:53:00.005Z

In case you're curious to see the stuff I've found beachcombing at Bankside on the Thames, here it is. The clay tubes are from single-use smoking pipes, which as I understand it are at least 100 years old. (I suppose picking them up back then would be like picking up cigarette filters today! Bleah!)

The pottery is an assortment of earth-colored stoneware and finer dinnerware. Again, I have no idea how old any of it is, but I'm guessing based on the decorations it's about 100 years old, maybe a little more. And the glass is just a mix of interesting shards -- the bottle neck has a seam, so it was manufactured rather than blown, and that piece of stemware looks fairly recent. But all the sharp edges have been worn down, so who knows?

Beachcombing and Jobs

2012-01-26T06:25:00.004Z

Yesterday I went back to the Thames at low tide, to pick up a few more interesting bits of pottery and such on the beach at Bankside. (Nothing valuable or very interesting, I hasten to add, for the benefit of any authorities reading my blog.) I am such a beachcomber. I could do it for hours.

Afterwards I walked to St. Paul's, on the north side of the Thames, and then to the Tower of London a bit farther downstream. I tried to do some photography but the weather wasn't great -- the skies were gray and leaden -- and that part of town just isn't very inspiring to me. It's very businessy, full of banks and office towers. I dunno. Maybe I just wasn't in the mood.

I've been looking at job listings online, but I haven't seen anything very promising. The journalism jobs all seem to involve covering either markets or specific technologies, neither of which I'm equipped to do. (Or want to do, for that matter.) Of course, those are the jobs that require very specific experience, the ones that need to be advertised. There may be other jobs out there that are more general, but that begs the question: Do I want to return to reporting, chasing ambulances and working nights? Could I even do it in this environment, where the government structure is a mystery to me and I don't yet know the subtleties of the culture?

Other writing jobs seem geared toward technical writing and that sort of thing, where I have no experience. I'm continuing to look, but I'm still uncertain about my place in the current economy. Do my talents and training have any value anymore? Or are there so many people out there who can write and gather information -- "citizen journalists," and other media people squeezed out of disappearing jobs -- that what I used to provide for a fee can now be had for nothing?

I have no teaching experience. I have no retail experience -- at least, not since college. Many job types seem the domain of various groups -- Eastern Europeans, for example, make up so much of the food service industry that it's been the subject of articles in the newspaper. (Besides, I'm not yet to the point where I feel like I have to take any job, at McDonald's or the grocery store. My time is more valuable to me than that.)

I've applied for three jobs since I got here -- one a temporary position -- and all three came to naught. It's not like I've been plastering London with resumes, and maybe I should be. Or maybe I should turn away from all that and continue finding a way to work for myself as a photographer and/or writer.

As you can see, there are more questions than answers!

(Photo: An alley in the old City of London, yesterday. I liked the bright pink trash bag amid an otherwise dark scene.)

Waiting

2012-01-25T08:53:00.003Z

Fulham

2012-01-24T06:41:00.008Z

I took another marathon walk yesterday, an 8-mile trek through Kensington to Fulham Palace on the Thames, historically the home of the Bishop of London. That wasn't my destination when I started out -- it's just where I ended up.

As usual, I took lots of photos, like the one above of a used furniture store on North End Road. I found yet another street market in that area, with vegetables and all sorts of other items for sale. London has a surprising number of outdoor markets, especially given the season! What with going to Borough Market twice last week, Portobello Road on Wednesday and now this one, I think I'm marketed out.

I found lots of interesting storefronts, like this unforgettable gem, as well as both "USA Nails" and "American Top Nails and Tan." Interesting how Americans are so readily associated with nail and tanning salons.

I wandered along Lillie Road, where there is a pub named after the actress Lillie Langtry. Despite exhaustive Googling, I can't find any information on the source of the name of the road, so I'm not sure whether it's named for Langtry or predates her. That's the first question in a really long time that I've been utterly unable to answer using the Internet.

I briefly visited Fulham Palace, just long enough to get a sense of the place and have a coffee and some apple cake in the cafe. (By this time it was past noon, and I hadn't brought any lunch with me!) I then hoofed it back via Hammersmith and Shepherd's Bush, and got home about 3 p.m. A nice day out!

Mother Tongue

2012-01-23T07:25:00.005Z

The book I'm reading now, "Mother Tongue" by Bill Bryson, is all about the evolution of the English language. It's an interesting read. Bryson tracks the roots of English, the origins of certain interesting words, the reasons American spelling is different from British spelling, the sources of our grammar and sentence structure, and other subjects.

For example, the term "O.K." I've long had a vague idea that it came from the military, and relatively recently. But Bryson said its earliest usage in print was March 1839, in a Boston newspaper. Apparently some young people at the time thought it funny to use "intentional illiteracies," and O.K. may stand for "Oll Korrect." I had no idea.

He also makes the point that some of our rules of grammar really make no sense. For example, we have rules against split infinitives, and against ending a sentence with a preposition. Apparently these are rather groundless prohibitions that serve no useful function. We prohibit split infinitives because they are prohibited in Latin, and an early grammarian simply thought ending sentences with a preposition sounded bad.

I've never really stopped to think about our rules for usage, grammar and spelling -- I've merely adopted them, as most of us do. I've long been aware that English is a growing, changing language, but who knew it was so arbitrary?

Dave and I went to see "Shame" yesterday. It's a powerful movie, and an interesting examination of the excesses of misplaced desire, but I can't say I loved it. It's almost painfully slow in places -- and this is coming from someone who normally likes slow, cerebral movies.

Otherwise, we had a very quiet weekend. We've spent a lot of money over the past few weeks -- a new rug for the living room, numerous restaurant meals and movies, my photography classes, airplane tickets for Amsterdam and my visit to Florida late next month. It's time to pare back for a while!

(Photos: Top, an Instagram image of some sidewalk scaffolding near our flat. Bottom, the same scene taken with my camera a few minutes later, after the red car had parked.)

Film

2012-01-22T07:58:00.003Z

When Liz, Sally and I went to the Tate Modern on Thursday, we watched an exhibited film by the British artist Tacita Dean in the museum's vast Turbine Hall. The film, simply called "Film" -- how's that for minimalism? -- feels, according to the museum, "like a surreal visual poem, including images from the natural world among others."

It's silent and includes black & white, color and hand-tinted images that have been cut and manipulated. It was interesting to watch, and seemed to me a melange of both the natural and industrial -- leaves, girders, volcanic cones, windows. I couldn't begin to say what it's supposed to "mean," though.

The film is projected onto a white monolith at the end of the Turbine Hall that's supposed to recall the monolith in "2001: A Space Odyssey," according to the museum website.

Seating was available many yards away from the screen. But when we were there, two guys were lying instead on the concrete floor beneath the monolith, watching the film close-up. One seemed to be recording it on his iPhone. (It's funny how people seem to automatically record or photograph things around them now, almost as if that's the only way they can really see them. I'm guilty of that too!) Anyway, I liked the way the huge film dwarfed the two guys on the floor.

Dead Pigeon

2012-01-21T08:14:00.003Z

I couldn't believe it -- of all the places in London to go on my last day of photo class, we were assigned Borough Market. I'd just been there the day before with Liz and Sally! Oh well.

The teacher told us that it can pay to find a quiet spot to linger with your camera and observe. In other words, you don't need to be running around all the time. Just sit and be attentive. (Very zen!)

I took that advice. As I was eating lunch at the market, I saw a flattened pigeon in the road nearby. I got interested in the ways people responded to the pigeon -- some pointed, some frowned or made gross-out faces, some laughed. Many people didn't seem to notice it at all.

I sat with my camera and photographed people and their reactions. I wound up with 17 shots, which you can see on Flickr here.

One oblivious guy managed to drag his suitcase right through the dead bird, as did the woman with the beige bag, behind him. (Why would someone bring a suitcase to Borough Market?)

Playing Hooky

2012-01-20T07:47:00.004Z

I spent yesterday morning with my photography class, reviewing our photo assignments from earlier in the week. I was pretty happy with the way my Portobello Road photo essay turned out -- for just an hour or two of shooting, I think I came up with some pretty good images. We then went to St. Pancras train station to photograph an attempt by several couples to break a world record for longest marathon hug.

Then I played hooky. I skipped out of class to join Sally and Liz for a wander through Southwark and Bankside near London Bridge. I'd agreed to meet them before I signed up for the class and didn't realize the conflict until a few days ago -- I figured since we'd be taking lots of photos, being with them was just as good as being in class, really. Besides, it's not like I'm getting a grade or even a graduation certificate.

We had a good time at Borough Market, a food-lover's paradise but a vegetarian's nightmare -- I saw wild game hanging from hooks and a deer being butchered. Yikes. Then we walked along the muddy banks of the Thames, picking up little shards of glass, pottery and clay smoking pipes. Beachcombing along the Thames is fascinating -- those shards could be hundreds of years old. (Apparently you need a license for serious beachcombing, the province of people known as "mudlarks." As you can see from this site, truly incredible, museum-quality objects can be recovered from the Thames.)

We went to the Tate Modern to see a photo exhibit and a temporary film installation. Then we went back to Borough Market, where we met Liz's husband Andy and drank a pint while standing outside a surreal red-carpet party for Walkers Crisps. I had no idea who the "celebrities" in attendance were, but then I don't watch "The Only Way is Essex" -- which is essentially England's "Jersey Shore" -- or "Celebrity Big Brother." (I tried to ask a papparazzo -- of which there were legion -- who the celebs were. He said "I don't speak English" and turned a cold shoulder. They really do have bad karma. Fortunately a kind woman nearby, waiting to enter the party herself, filled us in.)

We topped off the day with dinner at Applebee's. No, not that Applebee's. This is a seafood restaurant at Borough Market, where I had terrific skate wing.

Today, back to class for one final day!

(Photo: The spires of Southwark Cathedral, seen between overhead railroad tracks at Borough Market.)

Misty Market Day

2012-01-19T05:42:00.003Z

On Wednesdays, particularly when it's damp and wintry, Portobello Road is transformed. It's not the impassable horde of foreign tourists that it becomes on Saturdays.

It's a market for locals, where people pass the time eating lunch outside a takeaway shop...

...or snoozing on a delivery truck...

...or having coffee at Coffee Republic.

A few stray shoppers check out the bright scarves, inexpensive pajama pants and London souvenir t-shirts.

The produce vendors, amid everything from potatoes and onions to pomegranates and lychee nuts, have time for some friendly banter.

A Japanese camera crew seizes an opportunity to stage a fashion shoot on the relatively empty street.

And the market recharges, getting ready for another crowded Saturday.

This is the photo essay I shot yesterday for my photography class. We had to include photos of five different types: an establishing shot that tells the overall story (top), a detail shot (pomegranate), a portrait (the woman through the scarves), a "moment" (the sleeping man, the man with the coffee) and a relationship shot (the women walking together, the produce sellers, the Japanese camera crew).

Long Shadows

2012-01-18T07:02:00.003Z

Here are some of my photos from my class excursion to the South Bank of the Thames on Monday. The shadows at this time of year are so incredibly long -- the photo above was taken about 3 p.m., and the last of the photos about an hour later.

Yesterday we went to the Berwick Street Market and to Chinatown with some specific assignments, and today I'm supposed to shoot a photo essay on something within my postal code. (Today is homework day.) Tomorrow the class reconvenes!

Leopard Car

2012-01-17T07:13:00.006Z

You gotta love this little car, which I spotted during my lunch break yesterday. People in London seem to love their animal-print cars. I've also seen a zebra car and another leopard car.

I'm back in photo class this week. Yesterday we talked photojournalism and went walking through Covent Garden and down by the Thames, shooting shadows and silhouettes. I got some nice shots, which you can see on Flickr (and probably here) over the next few days.

Dave and I went to see "Margin Call" on Sunday, and we really liked it -- which is a good thing, because the tickets cost an astonishing £17 apiece. (That's about $26 -- each.) We decided to try the Westfield cinema in Shepherd's Bush, which is within walking distance of our apartment. It's a very swanky cinema in a very swanky mall, and "Margin Call" was showing in an extra-swanky theater in the cineplex -- a theater, come to think of it, befitting a movie about the One Percent. I'm never going there again!

Two Weeks

2012-01-15T07:45:00.004Z

I'm adjusting to life without Ernie and Ruby. It's been a little more than two weeks since we put them to sleep, and it already feels like much longer. The incessant self-questioning -- Did we do the right thing? Was it the right time? -- has mostly subsided. I've become much more comfortable that we did what was best for them and for us.

My photo classes have certainly helped, getting me out of the house and focusing (!) my mind elsewhere. It's also indisputable that our quality of life has improved, sad to say, without the dogs. The house is much cleaner and more pleasant, the laundry and other housekeeping is more manageable, and we have time to do things spontaneously like go to movies or out to dinner. Next month we're going to Amsterdam for five days.

And I am sleeping better than I've slept in months. Last night, for example, I went to bed at 10:30 p.m. and I didn't wake up until 7:30 this morning. That's an unheard-of amount of sound sleep for me, and it never would have happened with the dogs around.

Obviously, this isn't to say that I don't miss them. I miss them every day. But we've already reached a place where we can talk and laugh about them -- all their goofy shenanigans, especially when they were younger -- which feels much healthier. I even feel a little guilty about this healing process, like it betrays them somehow -- but a truer betrayal, I suppose, would be permanently attaching sorrow to years of happy dog memories.

I'm sure I still have more healing to go. It's early yet. But I do feel much better.

Dave and I went to see "The Iron Lady" with Meryl Streep yesterday. We both enjoyed it a lot, and Meryl, of course, gives an amazing performance. That woman is such a chameleon. She becomes her characters more thoroughly than any other actor I know.

(Photo: The Bridge of Aspiration at Covent Garden, on Thursday.)

Portraits

2012-01-14T08:17:00.007Z

Yesterday we shot portraits in photo class. First we shot each other, which was no big deal. Then we had to go out and shoot strangers. Ugh!

My modus operandi in photogaphy is not interacting with my subjects. I'm not saying this is right or wrong. I just really don't want to talk to people I don't know. As my mother would say about herself, "I'm too odd and peculiar for that!"

Even as a reporter, my nightmare assignment was man-on-the-street interviews. I just hated the idea of interrupting someone who's going about their own business to ask them questions about politics or whatever.

Yesterday, we had three choices. We could a) photograph someone at work; b) photograph someone jumping into the air; or c) take candid portraits on the street, but they had to be good.

Option b was so far-out I considered it off the table. Option c was clearly my most likely choice, but I wanted to push my boundaries a little. So I found some poor newsagent who wasn't busy and photographed him in his shop.

I included all the cigarette packs behind him to give a sense of his workplace, but I wouldn't say it's a killer portrait. The light wasn't very remarkable. He was friendly but he had a lot of questions about who I was, what nationality I was, and where I lived -- and I can't blame him, since I'm sure it's not every day some strange middle-aged guy comes into his store and wants to take his picture.

I then wandered around and took lots of photos that are more representative of my style -- less in-your-face, like the top photo.

And with that, the first week of photography class comes to an end. Next week is going to be far more challenging -- it's street photography and photojournalism, which will mean more storytelling and more interaction. Ugh!

White Balance

2012-01-13T06:33:00.006Z

Here's another cool trick I learned in my photo class. The camera uses a function called "white balance" to determine the settings for all its colors. It's usually automatic, and more or less accurate, but you can fool the camera to produce dramatically colored photos.

In this case, I went around pointing the camera at different colors -- red, blue, green and purple -- and told the camera each one was really white. After each reset, I took a photo of a tree in front of the building where my classes are held. Pretty cool, huh?

I'm sure I won't use this trick much, but it's cool to learn how white balance works. There are situations where you'd really want to reset the white balance, if your camera isn't doing it automatically -- for example, in a room lit by fluorescent light, which registers slightly green on the color scale. Otherwise the color on your photos will be distorted by weird lighting.

Today is the last day of my class, but I signed up for another more advanced class next week, focusing on photojournalism and street photography. Should be fun!

Pigeons

2012-01-12T07:30:00.004Z

"Here I am, just an average tourist, feeding bread to pigeons in Kensington Gardens. Isn't this fun?"

"Look how the pigeon flies to my hand!"

"Oh my, here come some more! Good thing I have lots of bread."

"Wow, this pigeon won't even give me a chance to drop the bread. He's a little aggressive."

"GET THEM OFF ME!"

Chinatown and Carnaby

2012-01-11T06:55:00.003Z

Yes, that is my hand.

Yesterday in photo class we learned more about exposure times and techniques like panning, which means following a moving object with your lens so the object is in focus while the background is blurry. The teacher had us hold our cameras on our shoulders and spin around while focused on our outstretched hands. I thought that was a pretty clever way to show how panning works.

We also experimented with spinning the camera itself while snapping a photo, which produces this effect.

And isn't this cool? If you use a long exposure in a dark room and someone sets off a flash a few times in front of their face -- in this case, my teacher -- this ghostly effect is the result.

We studied other things too, like how changes in the aperture (or F-stop) affect the depth of field. Again, some of this stuff I already know, but experimenting with it is always helpful. It's surprising how lazy you get just shooting everything on automatic. You forget what your camera can do.

In the late afternoon our class took a walk over to Chinatown, where we broke up and spent an hour or so shooting. I like this shot, with its bright colors and relatively shallow depth of field (blurry foreground and background).

And on the way home, I stopped on Carnaby Street -- scene of the swinging '60s fashion scene in London and home of the miniskirt -- and took some shots at night with longer exposures.

I'm having a lot of fun with this class. Today is a homework day -- I have a few assignments, but I'm also planning to just go out and wander a bit.

Blue in Focus

2012-01-10T06:51:00.007Z

My photography class kicked off yesterday, and so far it's really interesting! I've already learned a lot about my camera -- how to control shutter speeds, F-stops and the ISO, for example. For years I've been shooting in automatic mode, relying on the camera to set all those factors for me. Usually it works really well. But there are times when I might want to take control, and now I'll know how.

I'm not totally green -- I know from working with film cameras what shutter speeds and F-stops are, for example -- but I didn't know which dials and buttons on my digital camera control and meter them.

The guy teaching the course is a photojournalist who worked for Agence France Presse, or AFP. He seems very knowledgeable and he's a good teacher. In between classroom lectures and demonstrations we are periodically sent out onto Oxford Street, the main shopping drag in the heart of West London, to practice our skills.

These photos are the result of a 10-minute assignment on focusing. We were supposed to choose a color -- in my case, blue. Then we shot photos experimenting with focus points, or those little squares that you see inside the viewfinder of your camera, incorporating items of our chosen color into each picture.

That's why part of these images is focused -- usually the blue object -- and part isn't.

Fascinating, I know.

Concert

2012-01-09T06:11:00.003Z

Dave's high school students gave their first concert of the year yesterday, and it went really well. It was held in the afternoon, which I thought was pretty smart, and combined the efforts of the band, orchestra and choral students. The orchestra even performed the theme from "Psycho," which was fun.

Afterwards, Dave and I, along with the other music teachers and their dates, went out for dinner at the local pub. A good time was had by all!

(Photo: Shoreditch, on Saturday, with street art by Mr. Penfold.)

Geffrye Museum

2012-01-08T08:17:00.006Z

Yesterday Dave and I went to the Geffrye Museum, which houses eleven period rooms from the 17th through 20th centuries. It's meant to show how middle-class Londoners lived during those various eras, with authentic furnishings from the time. It was pretty cool. Given that I've gone through numerous pieces of furniture in my own relatively short life as an independent householder, I'm surprised any furniture could survive for more than 300 years -- especially with its original upholstery, like this "Turkey work" chair!

The museum has a special holiday exhibit, with the rooms decorated in period style, that ends today. I was glad we snuck in just in time to see it, even through Christmas already seems so over. Did you know Christmas trees didn't appear in English homes until the Victorian era, when they were introduced by the Germanic Windsors?

After the museum, which is housed in an old alms-house for the poor (above), Dave and I walked through Shoreditch so I could show him one of London's hottest neighborhoods for street art. I go there fairly frequently for photography but he hadn't seen it yet. We had coffee in a little espresso shop, admired the ever-changing cycle of artwork and wandered down Brick Lane, with all its Bangladeshi restaurants, before catching the Tube back home.

By the way, I did check out that neighborhood Buddhist center I mentioned a few days ago. I went on Friday for their open meditation period. It was interesting -- definitely not the Zen lineage of Buddhism I'm used to, but just another path of practice. I'm sure I'll go back!

Kitchen Monster

2012-01-07T07:01:00.001Z

One Week

2012-01-06T05:47:00.008Z

It's been one week since Dave and I took Ernie and Ruby to the vet for the last time. Since then I've cried, and then stopped crying. I've cleaned the house and enjoyed its incredible neatness, devoid of dog blankets and the smell of dog food. I've missed the dogs' warm bodies around my ankles in bed at night, and their steady, snoozing companionship during the day.

I've experienced denial, anger, guilt, depression, relief -- all the standard feelings, some of which I didn't recognize right away. This has been quite a psychological adventure.

Everyone says they feel guilty upon euthanizing a pet. I had no idea how deep that guilt could run. "How could I have let this happen?" I've said to myself. "I was responsible for them. They trusted me. Did I do all I could? What if I'd tried another medicine, another veterinarian? What if I hadn't taken Ruby off her medication? Was it really the right time for them to go? Couldn't they have lived another day, week, month?"

These messages have run like a river through my head, fed by a wellspring of denial. I picture the dogs in their healthiest recent moments, wagging their tails or trotting with a brief burst of energy across the parking lot. I don't picture them sleeping their days away (they slept all the time) or bleeding or shuffling slowly on their walks. Ruby's heart failure had her panting for air, after all -- and she had that awful necrotic tumor on her side. Ernie, with metastasizing lung cancer, was losing weight and energy. Yet I could deny those illnesses enough to question what we did.

I've felt anger -- in a very subtle, involuntary way -- at Dave for supporting our decision, even though he was right. (And even though they were his dogs, for Pete's sake, and had been for a decade or more!) I've doubted the vets and their dedication.

Now, a week later, I'm in a calmer place. It's not without sorrow, but it's not quite as desperate. I have brief flashes of pain when I see something that reminds me of the dogs -- the corner of the elevator where Ruby always put her nose, for example. Last night we had chicken for dinner, and I took the skin off, like I always do -- and had no dog to feed it to. It just sat limply at the edge of my plate until I threw it away.

I read some pet grief web sites that indicated my feelings are very common. I especially liked this quote from a reader of one forum:

"As compassionate and caring people we have to think about what is best for the pet when they get sick -- especially with a terminal illness, remembering that they are not humans. They don't reason like us. All they know is that they are in pain and suffering. It is our job to help them out of that pain and if experts tell us it will get worse then we have a moral obligation to relieve them of it -- even if it hurts us."

That says it all pretty clearly. I'd already worn myself out trying to keep them healthy, and I was losing the battle. We really didn't have much of a choice. I loved them dearly and always will, but it was time for both of them.

(Photo: A lamp at Gordon's house on New Year's Eve.)

Tate Britain

2012-01-05T07:02:00.006Z

I finally made it to the Tate Britain yesterday, where I wandered among classic examples of British art. There's a lot of incredible stuff in that museum, but I was most impressed by the John Singer Sargent painting above, "Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose," from 1885. Isn't it amazing how well he captured the glow of those paper lanterns? You feel like you've stepped back 125 years into a dusky English garden.

I also liked Gerald Brockhurst's "Portrait of Margaret, Duchess of Argyll," from 1931. The Duchess was a great beauty and a controversial figure in her day -- this rather biting obituary notes her famous sexual exploits and her role as a "mistress of boring banter." The painting was done before any of the controversy, though, and depicts her as a privileged 19-year-old, about to step into a world in which England would be transformed. Another online biography notes that the duchess "was in many ways a symptom of the aristocracy’s inability to adapt to the seismic changes in society after the Second World War. She could neither boil an egg nor make her own bed, and was unable to cope with life outside the confines of wealth and class."

I also saw a fascinating exhibit of the apocalyptic work of John Martin (even though the admission was a rather steep £14!) and wandered through the museum's more modern works, including a bizarre maze-like installation of gloomy, dingy rooms called "The Coral Reef." I topped off the day with lunch in the museum cafe and a walk through the neighborhood of Pimlico.

The weather, however, is not cooperating with my efforts to get out and about. It's supposed to rain again today and the wind is howling against the windows. I also need to hang around home to receive some expected deliveries -- my brother sold Florence and I'm waiting for related paperwork.

I did sign up for a weeklong photography course, beginning Monday. It occurs to me, though, that January may not be the best time for a class that takes place partly outdoors!

Alstroemeria

2012-01-04T06:30:00.006Z

I picked up these flowers, known as alstroemeria or Peruvian lily, at Tesco the other day. I put them in a vase on the dining room table, where the sun lights them up in late morning.

Despite my resolve to get out of the house, I wound up staying in most of yesterday. I'd hoped to go check out the Tate Britain, but we had an all-day windy, lashing rainstorm that intensified just as I planned to go out, so I scrapped my plans. I did manage to do a few quick errands and go running during a drizzly lull before settling in to finish Bill Bryson's book.

Bottle Cap

2012-01-03T06:31:00.009Z

I found this bottle cap on the sidewalk as I walked back from the grocery store on Saturday, the day after we put Ruby and Ernie to sleep. It's just a brand of beer, but it also got me thinking. Ruby and Ernie are free from the ailments that were slowly sapping their strength; I am free from the need to be a nurse in a canine hospice.

We usually perceive freedom as a positive thing. But it can also have a negative side, as some musicians have pointed out. In "Cactus Tree," Joni Mitchell writes about a woman who's "so busy being free" that she can't commit to a relationship with any one of several suitors, though "she thinks she loves them all." In a line that seems to suggest both fulfillment and longing, Mitchell writes, "her heart is full and hollow, like a cactus tree."

And of course, as Janis Joplin sang, "freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose."

Buddhism, on the other hand, teaches unattachment. Being attached too tightly brings misery and delusion. That doesn't mean we can't love, but we love with the knowledge that all things continually change. Everyone and everything shifts, evolves, dies. There is no permanent state of being, and even as those we love change, so are we changing. I didn't cry at all yesterday; I'm not the same person I was the day before.

So now I have more freedom, with all that it entails -- the sorrow and the relief, the loss and the gain, the heart that's both full and hollow.

Aftermath

2012-01-02T08:10:00.008Z

Our dessicated Christmas tree has been toted out to the recycling bin, and all the stray needles have been vacuumed away. My failed mantel adornment has also been discarded. Trees are lolling on their sides on many of the sidewalks of Notting Hill. It's time for us all to get back to our routines.

Dave has one more day off work -- today is a holiday, maybe because New Year's Day fell on a Sunday -- and we plan to go into town and do some shopping. Dave needs some new shoes and a suit, so we thought we'd go down to Covent Garden and Regent Street and poke around. Then, tomorrow, he's teaching and I am faced with a big, empty, silent apartment, and the big question of what to do next.

I'm thinking about taking a photography course or workshop. I overuse the automatic setting on my digital camera -- I really need to learn more about adjusting exposures and shutter speeds manually. And there's a Buddhist center near our apartment that I am determined to check out. They key to my sanity is to get out of the house, and stay out.

How am I doing emotionally? Well, I'm still struggling with doubts about what we did and feelings of loss. I cried hard three times yesterday. But I also went vintage clothes shopping (in the pouring rain!) and got a cool shirt, and I'm doing my best to look ahead rather than behind.

(Photo: This looks like a post-Christmas photo, but it was actually taken in Battersea on Dec. 3. Must be a remnant of someone's holiday party!)

A Fish Called Alan

2012-01-01T07:33:00.005Z

Did you ever think it would be 2012? To me it still sounds insanely futuristic, like we should be flying around in rockets a la Buck Rogers. I suppose in some ways we are.

I've always liked the turning of the year. Calling it a clean slate may be cliche, but it's true. Last year was very good to me and Dave, bringing us changes we never imagined. It cranked along at a happy pace while I grew into my job in New Jersey as a reporter, then shook that whole fledgling life to pieces and swept us both overseas to a new adventure altogether. It ended in crippling sadness, but even that already seems to be easing its vice grip.

You might remember that several months ago, faced with an absence of Milk Bones and dearth of suitable replacement dog treats, I started rewarding our dogs with small pork sausages. We had a few left in a package in the fridge and yesterday Dave cooked them up. We ate them for lunch, and even had a laugh about the dark absurdity of eating our deceased dogs' treats. (They were intended for human consumption, I hasten to add.)

We went to a New Year's Eve dinner at the home of our friend Gordon and his wife Donna. They cooked a leg of lamb and were generous with all sorts of excellent wines from Gordon's cellar. We watched the London fireworks on television -- a spectacular display over the river near the London Eye -- then set off a few of our own in the back yard. We sang "Auld Lang Syne" and toasted the new beginning.

A neighborhood 11-year-old named Ben attended the dinner and told us about his pet goldfish. Someone asked the fish's name and he said "Alan." Dave and I both found this funny and somehow very English. Dave asked Ben if the fish had a middle name. Ben considered the question and said, "John."

Here's to you, Alan John the goldfish, and to everyone else, too. Happy New Year!

(Photo: Balconies in Mayfair, on Dec. 2.)

Animalless

2011-12-31T07:42:00.004Z

First of all, thanks to all my readers who offered support yesterday. My god, what a day. I don't have a lot of experience with mourning, mercifully, and let me tell you, yesterday was brutal.

I'll spare you the details, except to say that everything went smoothly and as planned.

I cried on and off all day, but the real enormity of what had occurred didn't hit me until last night as I sat talking with Dave before dinner. I realized that not only am I mourning the dogs, but also my own sense of purpose. For nearly this entire year, much of my time has been taken up with planning for the dogs' move, shuttling them to veterinary appointments in the states, preparing to have them shipped to England, anticipating their arrival and finally, once they were here, caring for them. The dogs have been my job.

Dave certainly helped, but he had his teaching and other work-related obligations to distract him. Even he would agree I took the lead on dog care and planning.

Now, obviously, all of that is over. I'm thankful for the cleaner house (I spent most of yesterday afternoon cleaning -- vacuuming, washing the floors, doing laundry) but I'm left with a sense of emptiness and uncertainty. What do I do now?

I have never lived without an animal. Now here I am, animalless. (Or is it animal-less?)

Oddly, I've found some comfort in the Bill Bryson book I'm currently reading. He talks about life on Earth, how it arose and its incredible diversity. Did you know that something like 99 percent of all the species that ever existed are already extinct? Life just keeps growing and evolving all around us -- we die, the substances of our bodies become other things or organisms, and we're reborn again. In the vastness of time, our individual lives are so short. Ernie and Ruby have moved on in the cycle, but I feel like they are still all around me, part of the fecundity of the world.

(Photo: Moss on a telephone exchange box in Maida Vale, yesterday afternoon. England is a very mossy place, and I'm often impressed with how diligently it grows in the most unlikely locations.)

Day of Decision

2011-12-30T05:52:00.006Z

Ruby had a rough night two nights ago -- panting, coughing and gagging for breath. I've already mentioned the various worsening maladies afflicting both her and Ernie.

I have been very hesitant to take the final step toward ending their lives. Making that decision seems unnatural to me. But I guess that's the point -- sometimes you don't want to wait for nature to take its painful course.

So Dave and I have decided to take the dogs to the vet today and have both of them put down. Dave feels very strongly that we should intervene before their lives get any more uncomfortable. After Ruby's rough night, my hesitance has eroded, and I think I do see signs of pain in both of them. I know our vet also agrees, having spoken to us candidly about euthanasia already.

Obviously I'm torn up about this. I love these dogs like crazy. And poor Dave has had them much longer than I have -- he got Ruby ten years ago and Ernie a year later, when both were already adults. (We can only guess how old they are.)

It may seem strange or wasteful to take the trouble to prepare the dogs for overseas travel and move them all the way to England only to have them euthanized less than three months later. I've questioned that decision too. But I remind myself that we gained significant additional time with them -- and also allowed them to live three more months in the U.S. than they would have had if we'd put them down when we left New Jersey. (Also, when we began this process at the end of March, we didn't even know Ernie was sick.)

It is impossible to know when it's exactly the right time. They still wag their tails, and Ruby eats like a truck driver. On the other hand, they have all the problems I've already mentioned. And admittedly, I am deeply tired of the pills, the salves, the blood, the urine, the constant walking, the dementia, the continuous stream of laundry, and my inability to leave the house for much more than a few hours. Our quality of life is just as important as theirs.

It's funny that I've often wondered which dog would go first, and it now appears they'll go simultaneously. In a way that's better -- they won't miss each other. But it's certainly harder on us.

We've given them good lives. Now, it appears, it is time to give them a good death.

(Photo: Ghost of a dog? A doorway off Portobello Road.)

Atoms

2011-12-29T08:09:00.005Z

"Because they are so long-lived, atoms really get around. Every atom you possess has almost certainly passed through several stars and been part of millions of organisms on its way to becoming you. We are each so atomically numerous and so vigorously recycled at death that a significant number of our atoms -- up to a billion for each of us, it has been suggested -- probably once belonged to Shakespeare. A billion more each came from Buddha and Genghis Khan and Beethoven, and any other historical figure you care to name. (The personages have to be historical, apparently, as it takes the atoms some decades to become thoroughly redistributed; however much you may wish it, you are not yet one with Elvis Presley.)

"So we are all reincarnations -- though short-lived ones. When we die, our atoms will disassemble and move off to find new uses elsewhere -- as part of a leaf or other human being or drop of dew. Atoms themselves, however, go on practically for ever."

-- From "A Short History of Nearly Everything," by Bill Bryson

(Photo: A tree reflected in the Grand Union Canal, on Boxing Day.)

London Eye

2011-12-28T08:24:00.006Z

Dave and I have realized that we have very different styles of relaxing. Dave likes nothing more than to recline in his chair with a string of episodes of "Star Trek: The Next Generation." I can hang out like that for a day or two, but after a while I need to get outside and explore. Even when I'm inside I tend to be bustling around on various projects.

(Years ago when my brother visited me in New York he got exasperated with my constant need to be on the move. "Why do you always have to be doing something?" he said.)

During Christmas and Boxing Day, Dave and I pretty much stayed home -- everything was closed anyway. But yesterday I prevailed upon Dave to go to the London Eye, the massive Ferris Wheel on the Thames that towers over the city. At 443 feet high, it's not your typical Ferris Wheel -- passengers ride in windowed, air-conditioned glass pods that each hold about two dozen people, who can walk around freely during the ride.

We've been meaning to go to the Eye for a while, but it's always jammed with hordes of people. I discovered that for about £30 each -- or £11 more than a standard ticket -- we could get passes that allowed us to jump most of the line, which was well worthwhile. One fare buys a single revolution on the wheel, which takes about half an hour.

Above is the stunning view of the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey from the top of the Eye. You can see the Battersea Power Station in the background. We could also see Wembley Stadium, far to the north, the skyscrapers of central London to the east and the suburbs sprawling away to the south.

We topped off the afternoon with a pint at a nearby pub, and then for dinner went to a restaurant in our neighborhood, Bumpkin, that specializes in seasonal British food. We each had a flight of three British wines to drink -- who knew Britain made wine? And continuing my adventures in wild game, I had venison!

Stasis

2011-12-27T07:01:00.005Z

This week between Christmas and New Year's always feels so strange. We're in limbo -- not quite celebrating a holiday, but not yet ready to return to the routines of our lives. The Christmas tree looks a bit dry and forlorn, but it's not yet time to throw it out. The Christmas pudding is still in the fridge, but each night it tastes a bit more leaden.

Our dogs and their erratic behavior are causing us to have more serious, strained conversations. Last night Ruby had another accident in the house, and the growth on her hip has opened into a gaping maw. I can't even see to the bottom. When I walk her, people on the street audibly gasp -- it looks like we put a bullet in her side. She's already on antibiotics and doesn't seem to be in much pain, but it's hard to tell. Ernie, meanwhile, has been eating less and less, and sleeping more and more. Our vet's office is closed until Jan. 3, so unless we get desperate enough to load the dogs into a taxi and go to the 24-hour vet hospital in Belgravia, we're on our own for the time being.

On a brighter note, we found "Love Story" on TV yesterday, a sappy movie that I never fail to appreciate. This time, in one of the shots of New York City, I realized we were looking up Second Avenue from my old neighborhood. I paused the TV and took a photo (above). That's the corner of 31st Street in the foreground, more recently the location of the Verizon store where I bought my first cell phone. Kips Bay Towers and the St. Vartan Cathedral are visible on the right. My gym was located between them, but it was built much later, after this street scene from 1970! (For more cinema history from my old neighborhood, see this post.)

(Photo: Yesterday at dusk, along the Grand Union Canal.)

Recovery

2011-12-26T08:10:00.003Z

So here it is, the day after -- or Boxing Day, as it's called in England. I don't know about you, but I'm exhausted. And I didn't even do that much!

Dave gets all the credit for making our Christmas special. He made an excellent fish dish for Christmas Eve and yesterday roasted two pheasants, with assorted British side dishes like bread sauce and braised cabbage. We even had a Christmas pudding, which in England is an inverted dome of dark, treacly moist cake doused with some kind of booze and set aflame. We didn't make our own -- apparently you've got to make it weeks in advance for it to cure properly -- but we found a satisfactory store-bought pudding at Marks & Spencer.

Dave loves days when we can crack open the wine in the early afternoon and nibble all through the day, culminating in a big dinner. I mostly love them, but I always wind up with an undercurrent of anxiety about eating so much and its effects on my heart and blood vessels. It's the killjoy health writer in me.

I spent the afternoon in a haze of champagne, Skyping with the family and watching "The Ice Storm," one of my favorite movies -- even though it's ultimately sad and not very Christmasy. I did help with the cooking, but I admit I was grudging about it. The kitchen is not a place I enjoy, unless I'm cleaning up.

Dave got me three books -- a book about an unsolved murder with racial overtones in Notting Hill in the '50s, actor Stephen Fry's autobiography and Margaret Thatcher's massive book about her years in power. That Thatcher book will take me ages to read but I bet it's interesting. I disagree with her politics but I think she was an admirable leader. Oh, and Dave got me a pillow covered with images of colorful British postage stamps that I'd admired in a shop. We need some color in our very beige living room, so that's a welcome addition.

Ernie and Ruby enjoyed their holiday, too. They're always a hit on Skype with the families and they got some special treats. They're sound asleep and snoring now, as is Dave. Recovery has commenced!

(Photo: A doorstep in Marylebone, last week.)

Christmas Portrait

2011-12-24T06:54:00.005Z

I really wanted us to take a Christmas portrait with the dogs, so I set the old self-timer. Here's the result! I'm blocking the tree, but oh well.

Last night, Dave and I watched the episode of the Graham Norton Show that we attended live earlier this week. We're visible only at the very beginning, when Graham opens the show in the audience -- we're in the row behind him, and then the camera sweeps past. And that's the last you see of us! Remember, it's on at 10 p.m. tonight in the U.S. on BBC America!

Merry Christmas from our house to yours!

Greenwich After Dark

2011-12-23T07:30:00.008Z

Dave and I went to Greenwich yesterday afternoon to meet one of his coworkers, Anna, for tea. She took us to a homey little tea shop where we had a spread that included salmon-and-cucumber sandwiches, scones with jam and clotted cream and slices of cake. Then, to work off the sugar, we took a walk through Greenwich Park to the same overlook I visited with Sally and Liz a few weeks ago. (Being a former New Yorker raised on stories of crime and "wilding" in Central Park, I doubted the wisdom of trooping through a big park after dark -- but we didn't have any trouble and in fact didn't even see any other people until we got to the overlook.)

It gets dark very early here now. We were out walking shortly after 5 p.m., and as you can see, the sun had already set.

As you may remember, the Royal Observatory at Greenwich is the location of the Prime Meridian, or the beginning point for measuring longitudes around the globe. At night, the observatory sends out a green laser beam that cuts across the sky, marking the meridian. It's hard to photograph a laser, but you can see it, faintly, in the photo above, slanting diagonally in front of the tops of distant skyscrapers in Canary Wharf, across the Thames.

St. John

2011-12-22T07:59:00.003Z

Have you ever had a salad made of duck hearts?

I can now say yes, I have.

Last night, I took Dave to St. John for Christmas. St. John is a restaurant near Smithfield, London's historic meat market, where the chefs specialize in "nose-to-tail" cooking -- in other words, using every edible part of an animal. Dave has been excited about St. John since before we moved here -- he was talking about going even when we still lived in New Jersey. Being a former vegetarian, I was a little more hesitant, but I decided it was time to check the place out.

I promised myself that I would not behave like a ninny. If we were going to go to St. John, I was going to participate fully in the experience. I wasn't going to turn up my nose at organ meats. I wasn't going to ask for the vegetarian goat cheese entree. I was going to eat meat, and I was going to experiment.

The dinner went very well. In fact, it's probably the best restaurant meal we've had so far in London.

Dave got a bone marrow and parsley salad appetizer, followed by calf's liver and onions. I had the aforementioned duck heart salad, which came with beetroot and pickled walnuts, followed by braised hare with swede (which we Americans call rutabaga). As a side dish I got "sprout tops," which are large leaves from the top of a brussels sprout plant. My vegetarian roots will show when I say that my favorite part of the meal was the sprout tops. But the duck hearts were good too -- they taste a bit like a cross between duck meat and liver. I found the hare less distinctive -- somewhat nondescript dark game meat -- but also good and definitely well cooked. Dave enjoyed his food too. For dessert we shared "spotted dick," a soaked sponge cake with currants and cream.

It was kind of appalling, I admit, to look at those five duck hearts and think about the five ducks wherein they used to beat -- that I was responsible, at least partly, for the deaths of five birds. But then I thought, this style of cooking actually reduces waste and sees that more of each animal is consumed, and surely the rest of the ducks were being used elsewhere. In my mind, that didn't seem too antithetical to Buddhism -- especially since, as my teacher once explained to me, many Buddhists worldwide are not vegetarian at all. Maybe I was rationalizing, but it worked for me.

(Photo: Pigeons taking shelter from the wind on Portobello Road.)

Graham Norton

2011-12-21T07:59:00.004Z

Dave and I sat in the audience at a taping of The Graham Norton Show last night! He's our favorite talk show host, and you may remember we tried to get in to see his show once before, but we were too far back in line. This time we were guaranteed a spot, and it turned out to be a great experience.

This despite the fact that I had no connection to any of his guests -- Matt Smith, from Dr. Who (which I've never really watched); Gillian Anderson, from the X Files (which I never watched); a comedian named Russell Kane (who I'd never heard of but who turned out to be a stitch); and a couple of other people from British television. The week before, his guests were Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law! (The show we'd planned to attend earlier featured Cliff Richard, which also meant nothing to me, though, so no loss there.)

He did a hilarious bit where he brought a piece of mistletoe out into the crowd, and held it over the heads of people he thought were couples. Sometimes he was right, and sometimes not. (One guy's response: "That's me mum!") I wanted to volunteer Dave and myself -- particularly because Graham chose a couple right behind us, so he was in our vicinity -- but Dave was mortified and urged me to keep quiet. So you won't see us kissing on Graham Norton.

There were also some fairly ribald topics of conversation and a funny bit about an errant housefly buzzing around the stage. We'll see how much of that gets on the air.

I think we'll be easily visible on the broadcast, as we were right in the center and relatively close to the stage. It's the Christmas episode, which will air here on Friday night. It will air in the U.S. at 10 p.m. on Christmas Eve on BBC America. (I'm sure none of you have anything more important to do then, right?)

(Photo: Apropos of nothing, cute wintry stuffed animals outside a shop in Marylebone, yesterday.)

Priscilla

2011-12-20T07:34:00.008Z

I finally got out to do some Christmas shopping yesterday, so our tree no longer looks completely bare and destitute. I bought a few items for Dave, and a box arrived from my father and stepmother in Florida, so we added their presents to the mix. (We already opened our gifts from Dave's parents, and my Mom sent a welcome gift of a more financially liquid nature.)

Last night, Dave took me to see "Priscilla, Queen of the Desert" on the West End. I've been hesitant to see the stage show, because the movie is one of my favorites -- and whenever you love something, seeing it adapted into something else always seems unsatisfying. In this case, the adaptation was fun, with lots of incredible costumes and glitter -- but it definitely felt more superficial than the movie. A tale of two drag queens and a transsexual making a road trip across the Australian outback in a rattletrap bus, the movie has a lot of heart. Audiences care about the characters, their backgrounds, their trials, relationships and individual personalities. The show reduces them to caricatures, all so relentlessly flamboyant that they don't seem very real. Maybe that makes them more palatable and less challenging to mainstream audiences. Is it possible that despite all the sequins, the stage "Priscilla" is actually less gay than the movie?

Just as we sat down for the show, I saw the news on Facebook that my former employer of 20-plus years is selling the division of the company where I worked. I find this news profoundly depressing. It's even more depressing than being laid off myself. It seems to signal an end to everything I knew in journalism -- the management values under which I worked and prospered (for a while) at the newspapers that I still, on some level, love. I feel for my friends who are about to undergo this change.

(Photo: Christmas decorations on Carnaby Street, Soho.)

Sunrise

2011-12-19T08:16:00.003Z

Here's this morning's sunrise, seen from our balcony. Enjoy your day!

Tree

2011-12-18T07:44:00.003Z

Remember how I said we weren't getting a Christmas tree?

Well, never mind.

I wasn't entirely happy with my earlier attempts at decorating for the holidays. Somehow a spray of piney boughs on our windowsill just looked a little pathetic.

Yesterday as I was walking through the Portobello Road market, on my way to drop off our cleaning and pick up a few things from Tesco, I passed the usual Christmas tree vendors. I decided I would just ask how much a small tree costs.

It turned out to be only £25, which I thought was pretty reasonable. (Considering it's Portobello Road, I'm sure there are cheaper trees to be had elsewhere, but as I said that didn't seem so bad.) So I bought one, brought it home, stripped my earlier decoration of its lights, ornaments and ribbons and added them to the tree. Voila!

Now we just need to go buy some presents! Apparently Dave and I are both procrastinating in that department this year. We've bought a few things, but they're "experiential" gifts so they don't come in a box -- leaving us with a rather bare-looking tree.

As you can see, the dogs are oblivious. I think even Wabi and Sabi are paying more attention to the tree than Ernie and Ruby are!

The Snowman

2011-12-17T08:31:00.004Z

Have you ever heard of "The Snowman"?

It's a children's book that was turned into a 26-minute animated film for the BBC back in the early 1980s. It's hugely popular in England -- something of a Christmas tradition, in fact -- but I don't ever remember hearing about it in the United States. I discovered it just this week in a very roundabout way.

My first glimpse of it came a few weeks ago in this commercial for Argos, where a family of cute blue aliens wonders why people stress so much about Christmas shopping. At the very end of the commercial, the aliens are watching TV and singing along with a song from a show.

I had no idea what they were watching or singing. But then, on Thursday, a friend sent me a link to a terrific song called "Walking in the Air," sung by David Schelzel, longtime lead singer for one of my favorite groups, The Ocean Blue. I recognized it as the same song from that commercial with the aliens. Now that I had a title, I did some research and discovered that the song -- in an earlier version sung by a boy chorister from St. Paul's Cathedral -- comes from "The Snowman."

It's interesting that "The Snowman" is such a phenomenon here -- famous enough that Argos can put it in a commercial and expect viewers to know exactly what it is -- while it's unknown to American viewers like me. I suspect it didn't become a staple on American TV -- if it was ever shown at all -- because it's entirely dialogue-free and has a somewhat sad ending. (Can't you just picture some cigar-chomping American network executive saying, "We can't show that! There's no words!")

Fortunately, you can watch "The Snowman" in its entirety on YouTube. To hear Schelzel's version of "Walking in the Air," click here.

(Photo: Stray Christmas sticker on the sidewalk, Notting Hill.)

Christmas Graffiti

2011-12-16T07:13:00.005Z

I went for a walk yesterday afternoon and found a crop of new graffiti at Trellick Tower, including this Christmas-themed piece. Santa, toasted on some kind of pills, asks for the "Jack and Gills." (Jack Daniels and Gilbey's, I'm guessing?) Tipsy Rudolph responds that he's "just done the lot."

Ah, nothing like a little substance abuse for the holidays.

This is the same area where I found the Halloween graffiti several weeks ago. (It was still there, too.)

Ladybird

2011-12-15T05:45:00.002Z

A couple of weeks ago I noticed a ladybug -- or "ladybird," as they say here in England -- on the windowsill in our bedroom. I tried to catch it to put it outside, but it stubbornly refused to climb onto a piece of cardboard so I could lift it to the window. I didn't want to try to pick it up for fear I'd crush it. I left it, thinking it would probably starve from lack of water and aphids.

It caught my eye once or twice since then, and I was surprised to find it still alive. How long can this crazy bug live inside, I wondered?

I did some research online, and it turns out it's not at all unusual to find ladybugs indoors, particularly in the fall. Apparently they seek out a place to hibernate, and houses sometimes substitute for the caves and crevices they'd use in the wild.

I debated what to do with it. Should I just leave it alone and let it winter in our bedroom? Should I put it outside? It seemed to be a bit dusty, despite my fairly rigorous housekeeping, which suggested to me that it needed a better environment.

I read on this website that ladybugs that manage to come inside may deplete their natural stores in the dry environment of a house and die before spring. "They are quite tough and can be swept up or vacuumed with a small hand-held vac, and carried outdoors, where the cold keeps their metabolism slow until spring," an expert recommended.

My ladybug, or ladybird -- whichever you prefer -- turned out to be an Asian "harlequin" variety, originally imported to Europe to combat pests but now considered a threat to local British ladybird species. (It figures I would have an evil ladybug.) That suggested a third option -- killing it outright.

Somehow, though, killing a ladybug just seems unacceptable, even an unwelcome interloping ladybug. (It doesn't know it's interloping, after all.) So in the end, I decided to follow the expert's advice. I coaxed the bug onto a piece of cardboard -- successfully this time -- and put it on the windowsill outside. I checked a few moments later and it had disappeared into the chilly afternoon.

More iPhotos

2011-12-14T06:33:00.004Z

I don't have much to report today, so here are a few more photos taken with my iPhone and filtered through Instagram. Enjoy!

These wreaths of artificial poppies were laid at a war memorial in Kensington.

And here is a photo of Ernie's paws, spun into a vortex of bad canine pedicure using Tiny Planet Photos:

Kind of creepy, isn't it?! We're always joking about Ernie's long toes. He has the longest toes of any dog in the world, I'd wager.

It's Official

2011-12-13T06:56:00.003Z

Dave got word that his job will be made permanent. That means we can stay put here in the UK! When he accepted the job last spring it was technically a one-year interim position, and the school had plans to fill it permanently this fall. (I think they were giving themselves an "out" in case Dave turned out to be an incompetent nut.) Fortunately, they like him. So we're staying.

This means I have to sell Florence, who is parked at my father's house in Florida for the time being. My brother has offered to sell her for me, in exchange for a cut of the proceeds, which is fair. I'm sorry to see her go, because she's a cute little car, but c'est la vie!

It's funny how things work out. Had I any idea that we would be moving overseas, I never would have bought a brand new car when I got my last reporting job in August 2010. I'll probably wind up losing as much money on the car as I brought home in a couple of months on that job!

Totally unrelated side notes:

-- I finished Anthony Trollope's "Doctor Thorne." Yay! It was a good book, and it picked up steam toward the end, but as a 500-plus page Victorian novel, it was also a challenge. Whew! Now I'm reading Joanna Lumley's recent autobiography, which was an "Absolutely Fabulous" birthday present from Dave. It's intelligently written, and Lumley is no fool, but with lots of photos it's still about as far from Trollope as possible.

-- Went running yesterday in Kensington Gardens. It was chilly but very sunny and a good running day. This morning it's raining and I can hear the wind gusting outside. December is very temperamental!

-- I found this amusing Web site which lists the prime-time television schedules for each year in the 1970s (among lots of other things). Browsing the TV listings was fun, and it's interesting how much I remember. But it also posed some questions. For example, I remember watching "The Waltons," but in 1979 it was apparently on opposite "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century," which my brother liked and I'm sure we watched as well. How did we watch both shows? (It amazes me that we had only three national networks, plus, in our case, a smattering of local independent channels. I kind of miss those days. Television now is so complicated!)

(Photo: Jet trails over Notting Hill, Dec. 5)

Thames Beach

2011-12-12T06:02:00.000Z

During my walk home from Battersea on Saturday, I passed a ramp leading down to the Thames. A little pebbly beach lay at the base of the ramp, strewn with all sorts of riparian detritus.

So many stray shoes had washed up that someone wove them into a sort of sculpture along the seawall.

I couldn't help but think some little kid shed tears over the loss of this cute toy.

In fact, there were a lot of toys on the shore -- mostly balls. Soccer balls, basketballs and volleyballs were all represented. There are at least six in the photo above; I counted a dozen altogether. And that doesn't include the tennis balls and ping-pong balls.

Most of the debris was wood and plastic -- bottles, foam, packaging and other trash. I shudder to think how much plastic is in the Thames, and how much of it gets all the way to the sea.

Kennels

2011-12-11T06:28:00.004Z

I've been trying to figure out what to do with the huge kennels that housed Ernie and Ruby during their flight to England. For the last few months they've been in the guest room. They're so big they basically rendered the bed unusable.

I tried to sell them on Craigslist and had no luck. Dave suggested we just throw them out, but I hated the idea of wasting them -- made of metal and heavy plastic, they cost about $300 each.

So yesterday Dave and I loaded them into a taxi van and I took them to the Battersea Dogs and Cats Home, where I thought perhaps they could be used to house or transport a shelter dog. (The taxi driver, seeing that I had a pair of kennels, began talking about his own dogs, and talked nonstop all the way to Battersea. I could have died.)

I unloaded the kennels with a feeling of immense relief, glad that they would be used, and the shelter folks seemed happy to get them. It cost £35 to transport them to the shelter, but I figured that was a worthwhile donation.

Then I walked home through Battersea, across the Battersea Bridge and into Kensington and Chelsea. We had sunny, clear weather, though it was chilly. I got some photography out of my system!

Coins

2011-12-10T06:35:00.002Z

The United Kingdom uses a bewildering array of coins.

Americans commonly use just four coins -- quarters, nickels, dimes and pennies. There have been other denominations, like the Sacagawea and Susan B. Anthony dollar coins -- but they've never quite caught on.

People in the U.K. commonly use eight coins, in £2, £1, 50p, 20p, 10p, 5p, 2p and 1p denominations.

That creates a heck of a lot of diverse change in your pocket.

To make matters more confusing, the 50p and 10p coins -- to my untrained eye, at least -- are very similar. I always have to look twice to make sure I'm spending the right amount.

More recent versions of the smaller denominations each depict part of a shield, which can't be seen in its entirety unless all the different coins are put together. (I don't have recent examples of all the coins, so I can't show you the overall effect, but you can see it in this proof set from the Royal Mint.) Here's the back of the 20p coin, showing part of the shield.

The £2 coin wins the beauty competition, I think. Not only is it two-toned, it has concentric circles of artistic, interesting patterns on the reverse. I liked the £2 coin so much when I first came to England, in 2000, that I took one home as a souvenir. (I brought it back and spent it on a subsequent trip!)

Does all this sound complicated? Well, before "decimalisation" in 1971, there were even more coins to deal with, including shillings, florins and half-crowns -- and there were 240 pence in a pound. Apparently it was all very confusing to tourists -- and calculating a simple transaction must have been a nightmare!

The Right Time

2011-12-09T05:59:00.004Z

We're taking Ruby off her medicines.

They don't seem to be doing much good, and they're making us all miserable -- including, I suspect, Ruby. She's been on diuretics and heart medicines for almost two months. The diuretics mean she must be walked every hour or two, and she drinks constantly. She's become increasingly prone to having accidents, which upsets her as well as us. I don't think she understands why she has to go outside so often.

More to the point, her belly is once again filling with fluid, despite the drugs. So we stopped the diuretics a few days ago. We'll continue the heart medicines as long as they last, and when they run out, we'll stop those too.

Basically, we're giving up.

Are we doing the right thing? Well, I've read enough online from owners of other dogs on similar medicines to know that our dog, for whatever reason, simply isn't responding. Other owners say their dogs improved markedly. Ruby hasn't.

She's also lately resumed having strange, agitated "sundowning" spells in the evenings. They don't happen every day, but when they do, she pants, wanders around the house, drinks and licks herself compulsively, and shakes as if she's cold or scared. She seems confused and uncomfortable. It's doubtful this is related to the drugs, because she had a similar episode soon after arriving in England, before starting medication.

Ernie, meanwhile, is beyond the reach of any medicine, as I've mentioned. We're just biding time with him.

The vet has already talked to us about putting them both down. Yesterday I e-mailed her and said we'll probably do so after the holidays. I'd like to see them through Christmas, at least, so Dave can spend time with them while he's off work.

On the other hand, they both still eat -- in fact, Ruby eats ravenously -- and they both seem eager to take their daily walks. It's so hard to know when to take that final step. I don't want to wait too long and cause them discomfort, but I certainly don't want to move too quickly.

I try to approach every day with a critical eye, assessing their condition. But it's easy to start seeing everything through a lens of illness -- actions that might otherwise go unnoticed, like sleeping all morning, now might suggest a problem. Are they sick or just old and lazy?

If the "sundowning" becomes more frequent or severe, we'll put Ruby to sleep promptly. If anyone stops eating or seems to lose enthusiasm for life, we'll do the same. Until then, the holding pattern continues-- now with no pharmaceuticals.

(Photo: Battersea, on Saturday.)

Decor

2011-12-08T06:06:00.003Z

I mentioned earlier that we decided not to get a Christmas tree, and my intent was to decorate the fireplace instead. Well, this was the result.

I bought two pine boughs for £8 (a crazy amount for what is essentially yard waste) and added a string of lights, a silver ribbon and some little ornaments shaped like woodland animals that we brought from New Jersey. It turned out pretty well, if I do say so myself. Ernie enjoyed it, as you can see.

Unfortunately, it was also a little too large for the space. The top of the fireplace is only about 2-3 inches wide. I braced the boughs in place with duct tape (which seems so American somehow) but as Dave and I watched TV that evening, the whole construction slowly began sagging toward the hearth. I was afraid it would fall into the fireplace entirely and we'd have a conflagration. So I took it down.

It's now decorating our windowsill, which is much wider and probably a better, safer place for it anyway.

Three Times

2011-12-07T07:24:00.003Z

"There is an old saying, 'Reflect three times before speaking.' This means that prior to saying or doing something, you should reflect on it three times....after reflecting three times, if it is considered to be good each time, you should say or do it. When wise people in China say to reflect on things three times, they mean many times. Pondering before speaking, considering before acting; if it is good each time you think about the matter, you should speak or do it." -- Dogen

(Photo: Residential buildings in Battersea, on Saturday.)

Tiny Planets

2011-12-06T05:42:00.003Z

Another iPhone photo app I learned about on Saturday, in addition to Instagram, is called Tiny Planet Photos. It basically spins the elements of a photo either inward or outward to create seriously wild, phantasmagoric images.

There are two modes, Tiny Planet or Tiny Tube. Tiny Planet pulls objects in the photo toward the center, turning the image into a sort of ball. Tiny Tube projects them outward around a core of space.

Above, for example, is a photo of our dogs asleep on the couch, in Tiny Tube mode. Wild! It reminds me of one of those Renaissance paintings, depicting saints in flowing blue robes. (Not that either of those dogs is a saint.) Maybe it's a canine El Greco, with those contorted, elongated figures.

Here's the same image in Tiny Planet mode, which makes the dogs look rather embryonic in a groovy paisley womb. Remember the end of "2001: A Space Odyssey," when the old man becomes a fetus again? (Or whatever actually happens in that scene -- I'm not sure anyone's ever figured it out.)

And here's the original image, just so you can see what we started with. Pretty fun, huh?

Short Items

2011-12-05T05:57:00.005Z

-- Dave and I debated getting a Christmas tree, and we've pretty much decided against it. We have this discussion every year. Trees sound like a great idea until it's time to go out and buy one, and then they seem expensive and cumbersome and messy. So I think I'm going to go buy a garland and some lights and decorate our fireplace instead. We'll have a bit of holiday cheer but hopefully not a zillion pine needles all over the floor.

-- Anthony Trollope is proving to be a bit of a challenge. I don't dislike the book I'm reading, "Doctor Thorne," but I've been distracted by other reading and events in my life. Consequently I'm only on page 180 and it's a fairly dense 500-page book. It's apparent this may take a while!

(Photo: Outside the Battersea Power Station, on Saturday.)

Battersea Power Station

2011-12-04T07:04:00.009Z

The other day Dave came home from work all excited. "Have I got an event for you!" he told me.

Turns out one of his colleagues, an art teacher, is a member of a group that uses Instagram, an iPhone application, for photography. Instagram allows users to take photos and add cool filtering effects before posting them immediately to the web, where they can be viewed by followers on other mobile devices.

The group had a "meetup" scheduled for Saturday where, it was rumored, they'd get to go inside the Battersea Power Station, a vacant brick Art Deco colossus on the south bank of the Thames. The station, built in the 1930s, is a famous part of the London skyline, having appeared in the movie "Help!" with the Beatles and on the cover of Pink Floyd's album "Animals." It's been praised for its architectural proportions and minimalism by the likes of John Pawson, and is a listed historic building. Despite the accolades, though, the station -- idled in the early 1980s -- has been the subject of various redevelopment schemes that have, so far, all collapsed, and it's considered endangered.

I touched base with the art teacher and she said I'd be welcome to attend the meetup -- even with my big, bulky, non-Instagram camera! So yesterday I zipped down to the appointed meetup spot, an art gallery in Battersea that, not just coincidentally, had a show of iPhone photography.

Only five of us showed up for the walk, and as it turned out none of us had any special access or arrangement that allowed us to get inside the station. (In fact, we couldn't even really get close to it!) But it was a fun day nonetheless, as I got to learn about Instagram and other iPhone photography applications. I've been playing with Instagram a bit and, while it seems to run counter to my journalistic preference for realism in photography, I do think it's fun. I'm sure I'll continue experimenting.

For me, as you can see, the day became all about different ways of seeing a single building. It was a bit of a challenge! And the Instagram folks were terrific company. (All the photos above were taken with my regular camera.)

And yes, I did use Instagram to take some shots, like this one. Pretty cool, though as a newbie my Instagram photos are quite simplistic. There are lots of apps out there to tweak them even further -- I've only scratched the surface!

Banksy

2011-12-03T05:32:00.003Z

Yesterday, when the day's first cycle of dog-sitting duty was finished, I got on the tube and went to Mayfair, where a new Banksy piece recently appeared on a building. It's been called "Shop 'til You Drop," and how he managed to put it so high up a wall with no detection is beyond me. (It's been rumored he used a scaffold.)

One of these days, Banksy is going to get arrested. Now THAT will be a story.

I think Dave has been a little concerned about me investing so much time and energy in the dogs. (Ruby is on four medications, and I've tried to get them on a regular diet of canned food, so there's a timetable involved -- aside from all the walking demanded by Ruby's diuretics.) Yesterday he told me not to give Ruby her diuretics and said, "We're going to dinner tonight!" We went to The Mitre, a restaurant near our house that turned out to be more or less a fancy pub. It was a nice break.

Tonight we're having dinner with the head of Dave's department and his wife, and I have a special photography outing planned for the middle of the day. (More on that tomorrow!) So Ruby isn't getting her diuretics today either! That's OK -- skipping a few doses won't hurt her and I'm not sure they're making all that much difference anyway.

I found a great website where runners can plot out their routes -- which helps me because I wasn't sure how far I was running. I could only estimate based on time. Here, for example, is the route I ran yesterday. I was pretty psyched that I went 3.6 miles! If you click on my name from that page (at the left), I think you can see my other routes too.

World AIDS Day

2011-12-02T06:14:00.003Z

OK, so I'm a day late in marking World AIDS Day. I'm embarrassed to say I didn't even realize it had arrived until a man walked past me on Westbourne Grove wearing a red ribbon, and I thought, "Oh yeah!"

Kind of a sad statement, but probably typical for many people in this day and age, now that HIV is treatable and much of the urgency has faded from the AIDS pandemic.

When I saw that man's red ribbon, I began thinking about how just 15 years ago, I was very active in AIDS and HIV as a cause. I helped raise money, I donated money, I wrote articles as a medical reporter and I dispensed very general information (based on that reporting) on Internet message boards. I read constantly about HIV and its treatments, partly out of my own fear that, as a gay man, I might become infected myself. (Never mind that I always played safe. Always.)

I walked in AIDS Walk New York, and helped organize the annual teams for my employer, right up through 2009 -- my last year working in Manhattan.

It is hard to overstate the effect HIV had on gay men of my generation. When we were coming out in the mid-1980s, AIDS was a death sentence. There was uncertainty about how it was spread and how long it would take an infection to make itself known. There wasn't even a consensus on how it was transmitted -- which acts were dangerous and which weren't? How could the risk be gauged? I lived in terror of HIV, and that fear undoubtedly had a substantial effect on my social and romantic life.

Now, of course, medicines have changed all that -- even in developing countries, where medical treatments have become more available. Young gay men today don't have that fear, for better and for worse.

I always come back to how different the world would be if AIDS was still cutting a swath through the population the way it did in the 1980s. How many movie actors wouldn't have made their most recent films, or musicians written their most recent compositions? How many artists wouldn't continue to show us their visions of the world? How many people would be missing? Who among our friends and relatives would be dead?

It boggles the mind.

Meanwhile, it's worth remembering that AIDS isn't over. It's quieter for now, but it's still there. Apparently I'm not so good at remembering that myself.

(Photo: Hackney Road, on Wednesday.)

Street Art!

2011-12-01T06:58:00.006Z

I had a great day yesterday, walking around Shoreditch photographing street art. I'd seen online that Gaia, the artist who created two prints I own and love, had just come through London and posted a big piece on Hackney Road. So finding that was my priority. That's it above.

Meanwhile I found lots of other great works, including this farmer-type guy. I don't know who's responsible for him, but the signature appears to read MAC. (As always, you can click on any photo to enlarge.)

These fish by Deadleg have taken over the gate where Ryan Callanan's watermelon used to be.

This beaver by Roa has been around a while, by the looks of it, but it's still an incredible piece!

This owl is by Don. Love the detail!

And this is by Malarky, whose murals -- with their characteristic fanciful animals -- are all over Shoreditch.

All in all, a very productive day! I came back with more than 100 good photos, which will keep me busy on Flickr in coming weeks.

Bicycle

2011-11-30T07:58:00.002Z

While running along the Grand Union Canal yesterday morning, I came across this wreck of a bicycle. It looks like someone pulled it out of the canal, covered as it is with algae, rust and crusty mud.

You can see the canal in the background above, along with the towpath where I run.

My brother the bicycle blogger might be able to tell us exactly what kind of bike this is, as well as point out any interesting features. (I'm sure it's some inferior brand, at least in his eyes -- he's used to pro equipment!)

I didn't take this photo while running, by the way -- I don't carry my camera when I run. (I'm not that crazy!) I went back yesterday afternoon to shoot some street art I found along the way, and I caught up with the bike then.

Portraits

2011-11-29T05:54:00.003Z

Because you can never have too many dog photos, here are some I took on Thanksgiving. Above, Ruby lounges in the living room.

And here's Ernie lurking beneath the table, waiting for any stray scraps to come his way. Believe it or not, when he was young, his face was mostly black.

Marilyn

2011-11-28T06:08:00.005Z

Dave and I went to see "My Week With Marilyn" yesterday, and I enjoyed it, particularly for Michelle Williams' spot-on portrayal of Marilyn Monroe. She really captured Monroe's gestures and wide-eyed innocent appeal, as well as her fearfulness and lack of personal confidence.

I went through a period of fascination with Marilyn Monroe when I was a freshman in college. I read several books about her, like Anthony Summers' 1985 investigative biography "Goddess," and I had a huge, life-sized poster of Monroe on my dorm room wall. (Now it seems so gay, but an amazing number of my dorm-mates assumed I posted it because I thought she was hot!)

It was Monroe's vulnerability and my then-conviction that she had been used and abused by Hollywood and most of the people around her that made her so appealing. If only she'd had an honest friend -- like me! -- she could have been saved, I naively thought. The same sort of sympathies are expressed by Elton John in "Candle in the Wind." But having gained a few more life skills, I can see that she was a difficult character in her own right, addled by substance abuse and emotional scars. Williams also skillfully portrays that darker side. (You can see the "My Week With Marilyn" trailer here.)

You might remember that I visited Monroe's crypt in Hollywood a couple of years ago.

Other than the movie, yesterday was pretty uneventful. I did lots of stuff around the house and Dave and I jointly managed the dogs. Ruby goes back to the vet today for a check-up, but I don't expect anything dramatic.

(Photo: Leaves at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich on Saturday.)

Greenwich

2011-11-27T06:15:00.007Z

Yesterday I met up with Sally and Liz for a wander through Greenwich, downstream from central London on the Thames, and the site of history, architecture and Greenwich Mean Time, not to mention the Prime Meridian. I also indulged in a bit of unabashed consumerism, which for me is pretty rare!

We met with our respective spouses -- and Sally's daughter Sorren -- for brunch at a pub near Blackheath train station. We had fun jawing about crazy American politics and other phenomena, which was good for me since lately all I've been able to think about is geriatric dog care. Then Liz's Andy and Sally's Mike and Sorren went home, and Dave went back to Ernie and Ruby. That left me, Sally and Liz to wander.

We crossed Blackheath, which is basically a big open field where guys were playing football (aka soccer), and crossed into Greenwich Park. We walked along an avenue of ancient chestnut trees to the Royal Observatory, which became the home of the Prime Meridian -- or the zero mark of longitudinal measure on the globe -- by international agreement in 1884. (Not that long ago, in the grand scheme of things.) We walked around the edge of the observatory, a collection of very ornate brick buildings, to a spot where you can actually stand astride the line that marks the Prime Meridian -- kind of silly and arbitrary, really, but fun! Then we went to an overlook with great views up and down the Thames.

That's central London in the distance -- you can make out "The Shard" on the left and, amid the other skyscrapers, "The Gherkin."

We avoided pushy squirrels on the observatory grounds and descended to the river, where we walked among a collection of buildings designed by Inigo Jones and Sir Christopher Wren. Some were the former Royal Naval College, one was a palace for Anne of Denmark, and some of the space is now used by the University of Greenwich.

In the Royal Naval College, where the buildings were designed by Wren, we saw the Painted Hall, meant to be a dining hall and decorated with elaborate murals by James Thornhill. The murals are loaded with figurative personifications like History, Age, Youth, Valor and Europe, along with various royalty of the era. There are mirrored tables to view the ceiling by looking down at the reflection (above), which is easier than getting a crick in your neck by looking skyward for ages.

We skirted the National Maritime Museum and the Cutty Sark, which is being restored after a devastating fire in 2007. We ended the day at the Greenwich Market, where lots of vendors were selling food, crafts, art, clothing and other fun stuff. I bought a couple of great t-shirts, one for me and one for Dave, a pair of cups depicting boars and foxes, a new credit card holder made from an old recycled London map, and yet another used Bill Bryson book. Oh, and earlier in the day I got a blown glass Christmas ornament, which may or may not become a gift for someone.

All in all, a busy day! Today, as a result, I'm going to stay home and chill.

Marigold

2011-11-26T06:20:00.003Z

The other day I noticed this tiny marigold in our parking lot, blooming in the crack between the curb and the pavement. I'm always so impressed when I find garden flowers that strike out on their own! We also have snapdragons growing along the top of the wall near the front door to our building -- probably from seeds that fell from a windowbox, or were dropped by birds. No one tends them there, but they seem to flourish.

Grouse Report

2011-11-25T06:29:00.004Z

The problem with experimenting is, you never know what the outcome will be. After all, you're experimenting!

We'd never had grouse before, and we discovered a butcher in Holland Park who carries it (along with pheasant, partridge, venison and all sorts of semi-exotic cuts of meat). Dave found a recipe online for grouse with blackberry sauce, and since we love blackberries we thought we'd try it for Thanksgiving.

Dave wasn't happy with the outcome -- or with his stuffing or his roasted celery root. But then, he's hypercritical of his own cooking. I thought the stuffing turned out well, and the grouse was interesting, though not something I would order every day. It's a dark, gamey bird, and beyond the breast we didn't find much on it to eat. The sauce sort of worked -- at least, I could tell what flavor relationship they were shooting for -- but it wasn't bright or acidic enough, so again, not really a favorite.

We got pecan tarts for dessert, and they were yummy, and we had some pink champagne and some terrific Bordeaux recommended by the wine store specifically to accompany grouse.

And best of all, we had each other! We watched my favorite movie, "The Graduate," and then watched "Midnight Express" with Brad Davis, also an old favorite.

We had to make a last-minute appointment at the vet to have Ruby's abdomen drained -- despite the diuretics she'd grown so large that she couldn't stand up easily and she was having trouble breathing. They removed three and a half liters of fluid from that dog. Now she's much more at ease, but still on diuretics and consequently, still drinking like it's going to be her last drop of water. (The diuretics help her eliminate fluid but they also make her incredibly thirsty.) Bottom line, I don't know how long we'll have before she's ballooned once again. Managing that dog's fluid levels is certainly a Sisyphean task.

(Photo: An art gallery on Westbourne Grove near our flat, at dusk.)

Thanksgiving

2011-11-24T05:19:00.005Z

Yesterday, while running, I cried.

Well, I didn't cry, exactly. I wasn't out-and-out sobbing. But I got choked up, which sometimes happens when I'm running and the beauty of the moment strikes me. I wrote about this phenomenon already -- I'm sure endorphins are partly to blame.

I was running on Ladbroke Grove. The sun was shining from a grayish steely sky, flashing through the girders of the bridge over the train tracks to Paddington. I was passing the graffiti-splashed walls of the bridge, then the huge council blocks near the end of Portobello Road, then elegant Edwardian row houses. It just struck me that I was running in London, where I now live, and I was feeling strong and healthy and just so incredibly lucky.

I have been amazingly fortunate in my life. I hesitate to even talk about it, for fear of tempting fate. But seriously -- I've lived with Berbers in Morocco, I've walked the beaches in Madagascar, I've explored Dogon cliff villages in Mali, I've listened to howling hyenas while sleeping in a tent in Botswana. I've run the Washington D.C. mall, and the Stars Walk of Fame on Hollywood Boulevard. I've been to the Taj Mahal and to Stonehenge, and to Italy, Germany, Austria, Iceland, France, Switzerland, the Czech Republic and Spain. I've seen Victoria Falls and Niagara Falls. I've seen the Aurora Australis in New Zealand and glaciers in Canada. I got to spend ten years living in Manhattan, and now I'm living here.

All of it, every last moment, is more than I ever dared to expect when I was growing up in Florida. I used to dream about traveling to the exotic places illustrated in my stamp collection, but I never expected those dreams to come true.

Of course, some would say it's come at a cost. I have no children, and many people count their children as their greatest joy. But I never felt any paternal instinct whatsoever, so for me, that's a fair trade.

I am so thankful for my experiences -- not to mention all the everyday beauty of the world, the health that allows me to walk or run for miles, the opportunity to write and practice photography and Zen, for my wonderful, patient partner and my decrepit dogs. I'm thankful for my family, and the fact that we generally have good relationships and aren't like those families I occasionally read about in the newspaper, where parents are selling their children for drugs, or siblings are drinking too much and beating each other up on the front lawn.

Thanksgiving isn't much of a thing in England, from what I can tell. But Dave and I will celebrate today with a special meal (grouse!) and some together time with Ernie and Ruby. Here's hoping that all my readers -- those who celebrate it, at least -- have a happy Thanksgiving as well! And as the old folks used to say, count your blessings!

(Photos: A tree in our courtyard has carpeted the grass with red-gold leaves. I have no idea what kind it is. A few blocks away a row of them has been planted along the street, and the colors are pretty impressive!)

Ernie

2011-11-23T06:17:00.004Z

For months now I've been regaling you with woeful news about Ruby's health. She's been the primary focus of most of our vet visits, given her weak heart and her ascites. Put simply, she's the most obviously ill of our two dogs.

(Funny story: Because Ruby is so bulbous, one of the little girls in our apartment complex thought she was a goat! The girl told one of our neighbors, "I've never seen a goat on a leash!" When the neighbor tried to tell her Ruby is in fact a dog, the girl denied it, saying, "She looks just like the goat in my storybook.")

Anyway, you may remember that Ernie's not in great shape either. In June we learned he had a mass in his lung that was probably cancerous and couldn't be treated. We gave him antibiotics on the off-chance that it was some sort of infection, but because this happened right before we left the United States, we didn't have the opportunity to explore the problem further.

Well, yesterday I took Ernie to the vet for his first exam since June. The vet did x-rays that confirmed the continued existence of the mass in his lung, and though it doesn't appear much larger than it did earlier this year, there are some signs that it may have spread to other parts of his body. The vet here agreed there's really nothing to be done, as long as Ernie seems happy. For now, he eats well and enjoys sniffing everything on his walks, so we're just in maintenance mode.

Basically, as Dave says, we're running a boxer hospice.

None of this is surprising. We knew they were both old and infirm when we brought them to England. We're watching for any signs that they're uncomfortable or in pain, and so far they seem OK. So as long as their lives are happy and productive I have no regrets, even if we only get to enjoy their company for a few more weeks or months.

Besides, we've learned that predicting pet mortality is tricky business. Our New Jersey vets never expected Ruby to live as long as she has!

(Photo: Surprisingly delicate-looking flowers for November, in Notting Hill on Friday.)

Rooster Express, Part 4

2011-11-22T06:59:00.006Z

Just another episode in my apparently endless quest to document the fast-food chicken restaurants of London! I found this one in Islington on Saturday. It's like the "Blade Runner" chicken restaurant -- very techie and minimalist. The logo looks like a computer cursor, and appears to include an apostrophe s, which suggests ownership. Maybe the owner, like The Artist Formerly Known as Prince, changed his name to a symbol?*

And then there's New Jersey Fried Chicken, also in Islington. What's not to love, with that jaunty chicken giving us an enthusiastic Jersey-style thumbs-up? (Never mind that chickens don't have thumbs.)

For previous chicken restaurant documentation, click here, here and here.

*For the record, Prince went back to using his name in 2000!

Blake, Defoe and Random Stuff

2011-11-21T07:30:00.001Z

When I was walking in the Finsbury neighborhood last week I came across an old cemetery called Bunhill Fields. (The name apparently comes from "Bone Hill" -- don't you love that? So macabre!) Old cemeteries fascinate me, so I wandered through the gate and along the rows of headstones, which seemed to date mostly from the 1700s and early 1800s.

I walked beneath the immense trees, admiring the afternoon light, and saw a few stones carved with ornate skulls or other decorations. In a central courtyard I found a surprise -- the graves of William Blake and Daniel Defoe! It really is true that history is everywhere in London.

Blake's stone was decorated with a mysterious collection of small objects, including coins and pieces of inexpensive jewelry.

Defoe's stone, meanwhile, was erected with the proceeds from a fundraising effort after his death. It's quite a monument, a big immodest obelisk.

The burial ground was closed in 1854. What's astonishing -- by that time, 120,000 people had been buried there! Those neat rows of headstones don't begin to tell the full story.

In other news:

-- On Saturday night, Dave and I went to a production of "The Drowsy Chaperone" at the school where he teaches. The kids did a great job, and I was impressed that they produced the show at all, given its fairly adult humor. I remembered attending the Broadway play with my mom back in 2006, when we initially went on the wrong day.

-- Yesterday I was in our apartment when I heard a racket coming from Portobello Road. I went out to the street to find a gang of cross-dressing protesters, both male and female, marching along with signs and chanting, "Do drag, not fur!" I've been finding anti-fur stickers around the neighborhood, specifically targeting Harrod's. I suppose the protesters are part of the same movement. (PETA has a history of drag-related fur protests.)

Islington

2011-11-20T07:39:00.008Z

I went on a long walk yesterday up through the London borough of Islington and back through Camden Town. Google maps says my route was 3.7 miles, which seems about right. It was a beautiful day, a bit chilly but clear and sunny and great for photos.

On most such outings I come back with about 80 pictures. I might put 20 of those on Flickr, but generally only one or two make me really happy. I love coming back home with aching feet after a long walk, settling into a comfortable chair with a cup of coffee, and culling all the photos I took. The "delete" button is any photographer's friend.

Not long ago, I had an interesting exchange with a blogger pal about the ways digital technology has altered photography. I told him I just don't understand the nostalgia for film -- after all, film was expensive, messy, time consuming to process and involved the use of all kinds of poisonous chemicals. Digital photography is so wonderful, freeing us from all of that. How could anyone not love it?

He says digital photography makes it too easy for photographers to produce great images through programs like Photoshop. He sees film as more truthful and less forgiving. But photographers have always manipulated images, even in the days of film.

My contention is this: No matter what technology is or isn't used, a good photographer has to have an eye. He or she has to be able to see an image and compose it well. No technology makes up for the lack of an eye, and that's what makes good photographers stand out. (And for the record, I'm not saying I am one -- there are far better, more imaginative, more courageous photographers than me.)

It may be that more people are able to artfully compose images these days, because we're all exposed to them in advertising, movies, magazines, newspapers and electronic media. We see more composed images than anyone did 100 years ago, and maybe more of us develop a sense of balance, lines and structure through that repeated viewing. (Isn't that a weird idea?)

Digital photography does free us from volume constraints. A roll of film held 36 shots, and every frame cost something -- so unless you were a commercial photographer with boatloads of film at your disposal, you had to use it somewhat sparingly. Now I can shoot the same image six or eight times, increasing the chance that I'll get exactly what I want.

Still, digital technology and Photoshop can't make a photographer. In fact, I think a good photographer doesn't really need Photoshop. Again, without calling myself good, I can say I do very little photo manipulation -- occasionally minor cropping and color boosting to more closely match reality. I have a very journalistic sense of what makes a good photo, and that precludes most enhancements.

Wallace and Trollope

2011-11-19T07:19:00.004Z

Poor Dave is working his tail off this week, including today, at a music educators' conference at the school where he teaches. He's been planning and leading workshops and sessions, and last night the two of us went to dinner with the teachers attending the event. The dinner was held at the Wallace Collection, an art museum housed in a historic home on Manchester Square. Unfortunately we weren't able to browse the museum, but I went there before when I visited London in 2003, and it's impressive.

I had vegetarian stuffed cabbage, which some people thought was a ridiculous choice when I could have had grouse or salmon -- but I thought I'd choose the menu option that Dave is least likely to cook! And it was good, I gotta say.

The dinner was OK, though I sometimes feel a little out of my element at these musical gatherings. I can't pretend to really know the ins and outs of music education, except what I've absorbed by osmosis. My idea of educating someone musically is to yell, "Practice!"

I finished Alan Hollinghurst's latest novel, "The Stranger's Child," yesterday. It's a great book, of course, written as it is by one of the best novelists writing today, but it was an interesting departure for Hollinghurst. It was much more E. M. Forster in tone, particularly in the beginning, and much less starkly sexual than some of his other books. Maybe he's mellowing with age.

Now I've moved on to Anthony Trollope, who I've never read before. I picked up a nice old hardback copy of "Doctor Thorne" at a junk shop for £1, so I thought I'd give it a whirl. It's one of his Barsetshire novels, set in the fictional English county. It looks a little dense but I like it so far -- much more readable than I expected!

(Photos: Virginia creeper along Regent's Canal, last week.)

Autumn Colors

2011-11-18T06:20:00.003Z

The view from our balcony is pretty nice this time of year!

Running

2011-11-17T06:05:00.003Z

Last Friday, I dusted off my running shoes.

Even before we moved to London in July, my running outings had become rare -- especially during our last several weeks in the states, when we were concentrating on moving and visiting family in Michigan and Florida.

Then, when we got here, we were so busy with finding a place to live and getting settled -- not to mention exploring our new city -- that running was the farthest thing from my mind. While we were living in the Hotel Danubius during our first week, I ran once in Regent's Park -- and by that time I was already so out of practice that it felt like hell. I packed up my shoes and that was that.

Now that we're established -- and the town has been more thoroughly explored, and our dogs have arrived, and their maintenance is keeping me closer to home -- I decided I needed to focus once again on getting some exercise. I don't have a gym membership -- London gyms are freaking expensive -- so running seemed like the answer.

Last Friday was terrible. I ran a little more than two miles along the Grand Union Canal and through Ladbroke Grove, and I had to stop and walk three times. (In the states I routinely went for five-mile runs.)

But what's amazing is how quickly I seem to have bounced back. The very next day when I ran again, I did the entire two-mile loop without stopping. I did it again Monday. Yesterday I went for an even longer run in Kensington Gardens -- all the way to the Albert Memorial. Yahoo!

Already I feel better. I plan to keep it up, if not quite daily at least several times a week, along with my daily regimen of sit-ups and push-ups. Who needs an expensive gym?!

(Photo: Hackney Road, last week.)

Florin Court

2011-11-16T06:32:00.000Z

This may be a "Shadows & Light" first -- a blog post by request!

"Are you up for a bit of a mystery?" wrote my college friend E, who has a blog of her own. "I've been watching the Hercule Poirot series from the late '80s, with David Suchet. In the series, the world-famous sleuth lives in a large art deco building called Whitehaven Mansions. It is actually Florin Court, and is in London."

E was curious to see what the building looks like these days, more than 20 years after the Poirot series began filming.

So yesterday I went down to Charterhouse Square, near the Barbican, to take a look. Florin Court is an amazing building, with an undulating facade that includes plate glass windows with both convex and concave curves.

It was designed by Guy Morgan and Partners and built in 1936. According to this site it has about 126 apartments, as well as a basement pool and a roof deck. Needless to say, it's an expensive, desirable address, and a Grade II listed building, which means it's protected.

I didn't see any mustachioed Belgian detectives while I was there, but Charterhouse Square itself was filled with dozens of screaming kids running around.

The area certainly is lively. Apparently earlier this year Florin Court was also the site of at least one sex party!

Sylvia's Drawings

2011-11-15T06:52:00.005Z

Here's a testimonial to the effectiveness of social networking!

Over the weekend a Facebook friend posted an article about a gallery show of Sylvia Plath's drawings. (Sylvia, you will recall, is one of my favorite poets.) The friend lives in San Francisco, but the exhibit -- shock -- is in London!

So yesterday, wasting no time, I hopped on the tube and went to see it.

It's at the Mayor Gallery in Soho. The drawings are mostly pen-and-ink sketches, though some are only pencil drafts and at least one uses ink wash. What I found exciting is that several of them were published in a biographical appendix to "The Bell Jar," Plath's famous 1963 novel. Having read that book several times, I was familiar with them, so it was cool to have an opportunity to see them in person.

Of course Plath is a skilled writer and poet, but who knew she was such an artist? Her drawings are well proportioned and finely detailed, even those depicting simple items like a chianti bottle or a horse chestnut. Some of them have an almost Japanese sensibility. And her streetscapes from France and Spain capture the mid-century character of those countries in their postwar years.

Even more surprising -- the drawings were for sale, and they weren't wildly priced. Nearly all of them were already sold, but I saw two still available. One -- a pen and ink drawing of a manor house -- was priced at £4,000. That may seem like a lot, but I think it's pretty reasonable considering the source!

Of course, I don't have that kind of money lying around, so I couldn't indulge my Plathophilia (?). As I said, it was just cool to see them first-hand!

From Above

2011-11-14T06:33:00.005Z

When Dave took the dogs out yesterday afternoon, our first sunny day in about a week, I grabbed the camera and took some pictures from our balcony.

Our routine is to take the dogs downstairs in the elevator and let them into one of the gated, fenced courtyards in front of the building. Normally this isn't a problem, and another dog owner in the building does the same thing. But occasionally the courtyards are locked -- apparently because yet another resident doesn't want dogs (or children) on the grass and asks the caretaker to lock the gate. When that happens, we head for the parking lot, until our dog-owning neighbor manages to get the gate unlocked again.

And then it's back inside! Unless it's walk time, pretty much once a day, when we take them out for a short jaunt around the block or through the immediate neighborhood.

This routine is becoming much more frequent now that Ruby is on diuretics. I've been taking her out every hour or two. I even had to get up in the middle of the night last night to let her out -- we can only hope that was a fluke. (She's very good about not having accidents inside.)

I love the monstrous shadows in that last photo!

Homesick

2011-11-13T07:36:00.004Z

Someone recently asked me if our move to London has made me homesick. I don't miss the United States -- partly because Dave teaches at an American school, we know lots of Americans here, and much of the television and popular culture we experience is American. The cultural differences are not so huge that I miss my culture, know what I mean?

Of course, I do miss my family. But they're just a plane ride away, and I'm not sure flying from London to visit them in Florida will be much different from flying to see them when I lived in New York -- just a few additional hours of flying time.

What I miss is home the way it used to be. ("You can't go home again," as Thomas Wolfe once wrote.) Almost immediately after I moved out of my family home in 1985, it changed dramatically -- my brother colonized my old bedroom, the neighborhood became more developed, my childhood friends moved on to lives of their own. In the years since, the changes have escalated as we've all aged, and as more and more people have poured into Florida. And of course I've changed a lot too.

Nostalgia is responsible for some of these feelings. When we think of our childhoods we often remember the good things and bury the rougher memories -- the struggles of growing up.

But still, if I'm homesick at all, that's what I miss -- lying in my bedroom listening to "99 Luftballons" on the radio, or waking up early to get ready for school with an old "Flipper" rerun on the TV, or riding bikes with my brother as our dogs tagged at our heels, or anticipating my mom's beef stroganoff. I'm homesick for the vacant lot that used to be next to our house, which you see in the photo above. Just a year or two after I shot this picture in 1984, a house was built on that lot. Now it's gone for good.

Rooster Express, part 3

2011-11-12T07:28:00.004Z

I've found a few more examples of fast-food chicken restaurants with the apparently customary red, white and sometimes blue signage. They really are all over London.

I've also belatedly noticed that these restaurants are almost always located immediately adjacent to a bus stop. Pretty brilliant marketing, I guess, if you want the hungry after-work crowd.

(See also part 1 and part 2.)

Grapevine

2011-11-11T05:45:00.003Z

I went walking late yesterday morning in Hackney, a borough of east London, where I found these autumnal grape leaves along the Regent's Canal. Beautiful, aren't they?

I also found lots of street art and interesting buildings, some of which you'll no doubt see in coming weeks.

I've been doing a lot of work with my photography lately. I can't reveal everything because some of it is associated with Christmas gifts. But I can say that one of Dave's coworkers is interested in buying some prints to decorate his newly renovated house, so I've been figuring out how to obtain large-format images and where to frame them. I'm not sure there will be much profit associated with that one deal, but perhaps it's a stepping stone toward learning how to make money from my pictures.

Last night Dave and I were supposed to have seats in the audience at the Graham Norton Show, a talk show on the BBC that we love. So we traipsed down to the BBC studios in the evening, but unfortunately they overbooked the audience, so we didn't get in. They said they'd guarantee us seats at a future show. The scheduled guests last night were Cliff Richard and Lord Alan Sugar, neither of whom I particularly wanted to see, so I'm fine with waiting. Personally, I won't be happy unless the Queen is on his couch.

Voting

2011-11-10T07:03:00.002Z

I am a resident of no-man's-land when it comes to voting.

As an American citizen, I can vote in American elections, even though I live overseas. But as I understand it, I have to be registered in an American district, and because of a series of bureaucratic fumbles I'm not sure I am.

I last voted when I lived in New York City. When I moved to New Jersey at the end of 2009, I tried to register there. I supposedly did so when I got my driver's license.

Unfortunately, my registration apparently was never recorded. Even though I later went to our township hall and checked with the clerk before last November's elections -- and was told I was on the voting rolls -- when I went to vote there was no record of me at the polling place. Subsequent investigation revealed another Stephen Reed on the voting roll -- not me.

So what I don't know is, am I still registered in New York? Or did my registration in New Jersey come through belatedly? Or do I have to register in Florida, where my mom's house is the closest thing I now have to a permanent address in the states? Can I do that from here?

I'd really rather not sit out a presidential election, but I'm not sure how to proceed. Guess I need to do some research.

(Photo: Kensal Rise, on Monday)

Marmite

2011-11-09T07:51:00.002Z

Marmite is one of those quintessentially English foods -- you never hear about it anywhere else in the world, except in regions where England once put down colonial stakes. It's brown and dense, basically the salted sludge from the bottom of beer-brewing kettles. (Kind of ingenious that it was ever turned into food, really.) It's eaten as a spread.

I long believed I didn't like Marmite. (Although, to be fair, I hadn't tried it -- I'd had Vegemite, a similar but apparently not quite identical product from Australia.) It's incredibly salty and packs a powerful punch. It tastes like nothing else. I can only describe it as tasting very brown.

When we moved to London, though, I bought a little jar. I thought I'd give it another go. And I've discovered, to my surprise, that I like it, at least under certain circumstances.

Here's the secret to enjoying Marmite: butter. A toasted crumpet (aka English muffin) topped with a swath of butter and a thin spreading of Marmite is a pretty great snack. Marmite also occasionally turns up as an ingredient in recipes, but Dave and I haven't cooked with it yet.

So allow me to hereby revise my opinion of Marmite. I still wouldn't say I love it, but when this jar runs out, I might go ahead and buy another one -- much to the chagrin of Dave, who finds it horrifying.

(Photo: On my walk to Willesden Green, Monday.)

Willesden Green

2011-11-08T06:48:00.004Z

Yesterday was gray and misty, and not a very promising day for photography. But after staying in all morning, taking care of the dogs and doing some housework, I was feeling a bit stir crazy. So I grabbed the camera and started walking north, through Ladbroke Grove and Kensal Rise, and just let my feet take me where they wanted.

I walked a little more than four miles to an area north of Willesden Green, part of the London borough of Brent. It's an interesting, diverse neighborhood -- lots of Middle Eastern and Polish businesses, especially. I passed a Buddhist temple that had clearly once been a Christian church, its eaves now decked with colorful, fluttering prayer flags.

I walked to the Dudden Hill area and then caught a bus -- with my newfound courage about using buses -- to come about halfway back. All in all, I probably walked five or six miles.

Photography on cloudy days is always a challenge for me, because I enjoy light, shadows and reflections so much. But I did manage to take some interesting photos, I think. The one above was taken in Kensal Rise at dusk, as I was returning home. If I don't have interesting light from the sky, at least I can try to work with interesting light from signs!

Completion

2011-11-07T07:58:00.003Z

"When we seek happiness through accumulation, either outside of ourselves -- from other people, relationships, or material goods -- or from our own self-development, we are missing the essential point. In either case we are trying to find completion. But according to Buddhism, such a strategy is doomed. Completion comes not from adding another piece to ourselves but from surrendering our ideas of perfection." -- Mark Epstein

(Photo: Trellick Tower, London. Credit to Reya for the quote.)

Guy Fawkes Night, Part 2

2011-11-06T06:49:00.006Z

I already inflicted upon you a video of fireworks in our neighborhood leading up to Guy Fawkes Night, so I didn't bother to shoot more video of all the boisterous explosions we heard last night, during the actual event. But let me tell you, things were crazy.

I wasn't sure what to expect. The Evening Standard warned it would be the biggest Bonfire Night in years, falling on a Saturday. Apparently the last time that happened, in 2006, the London Fire Brigade faced 1,545 calls -- about one per minute. Many residents were expected to be lighting their own bonfires and setting off their own backyard fireworks once again this year. (As it turned out, the brigade said there were 570 calls on Friday night and 528 last night, with 173 fires over the two nights, according to the BBC.)

Dave and I went to the movies yesterday afternoon -- we saw "Contagion," which was good -- and as we were walking home just after sundown we were amused by all the bangs and pops. It sounded like London was under artillery fire. In Holland Park we passed a group of adults with small children, all playing with sparklers. Only after we got home did the real fireworks begin -- the sky lit up in all directions with green and red flashes. From our windows I saw fireworks to the northeast, in the direction of Maida Vale, to the west toward Shepherds Bush, and to the southwest toward Holland Park. I didn't see any actual bonfires.

We thought the dogs might sleep through it -- they're fairly deaf these days -- and indeed Ruby was oblivious. But Ernie was terrified. His brain short-circuited and he took a whiz in the hallway, poor guy. (Let's hear it for hardwood floors and prompt cleanup!) Fortunately the bangs and pops didn't go on past the first few hours of darkness, and fireworks were illegal after midnight, so he was able to get some sleep -- as were we all.

(Photo: "Seriously reconsider everything right now" -- street art by Public Spirit in Notting Hill, a few days ago.)

Ghostly Graffiti

2011-11-05T11:31:00.005Z

In the better-late-than-never department: I was amused to find this graffiti on Wednesday near Trellick Tower. Halloween is not as big in the UK as it is in the United States -- we had no trick-or-treaters, I saw no jack o' lanterns, and I spotted only one or two other spooky decorations -- but clearly it's on someone's radar! (Judging from the "NYC" on his piece, Acid, at least, may be an American.)

Leaves

2011-11-04T06:27:00.004Z

The weather forecast calls for rain today, tomorrow and most of next week. (We might get some sun on Monday.) I just took the dogs out and they were not amused.

I've been photographing leaves again, my standard autumn activity. Don't the two in the top photo look like they're holding hands?

The leaves from the London plane trees are huge. This one's about a size 11 1/2, I think.

Zander

2011-11-03T06:22:00.012Z

My first visit to London in 2000 is kind of a blur -- I was here for just a few days, meeting my friend Arthur for a joint trip to Paris. Arthur was in London on a business trip for Barnes & Noble, where he worked at the time. (I think he was here for the London Book Fair, if I remember right.)

Anyway, our first night out was quite eventful. From my journals of April 19, 2000:

Our hotel on Norfolk Square turned out to be something of a dump, but the people are pleasant and I suppose you get what you pay for. There's no major difficulty -- it's just very scruffy looking, and the bathroom is so small you've got to sit sideways on the toilet.

Arthur and I met his friends Tracie and Hillary, who were running the London marathon, at a cool bar called Zander. We ate out ourselves at a fashionable little spot and then went to a pub where some of the denizens were staggeringly drunk -- one guy threw a glass, an act that prompted his banishment. We wound up at the Hard Rock Cafe, where the waiters performed an amusing trick -- one sprayed whipped cream onto the shaved head of the other, topping it off with a swizzle stick. They did that trick twice, and I was only there for two beers!

For my birthday yesterday, I wanted to go back to Zander, the "cool bar" Arthur and I visited on that trip. (According to the World's Best Bars web site, Zander is Europe's longest bar, with 36 meters devoted to "the art and science of seriously stylish drinking.") So Dave and I met at the St. James Park tube stop and walked to Zander, which is located in a nearby hotel.

Unfortunately, I don't have any photos of Zander from 2000, and I didn't take any last night, either. It's still a nice space, and it's configured the way I remember, though I'm not sure about the chairs and the purplish color scheme. (I guess it makes sense that might be different by now.) It was pretty busy for a Wednesday evening. After a martini (ok, two martinis) we made our way to dinner at a nearby pub, the Phoenix -- where, happily, we witnessed no breaking glass.

I can say this: Zander's business cards used to be a heck of a lot cooler. The cards at the top are from that first trip -- I was so impressed with them I saved them in my journal. Here's what Zander's card looks like now:

Not a change for the better! It seems they've de-emphasized the Zander identity in favor of this Bank Restaurant, whatever that is. I asked a hostess how long Zander had been associated with Bank, and she said she didn't know. She asked around and no one else seemed to, either. Oh well -- institutional memory is short in the service industry, and 11 years is a lifetime!

Birthday

2011-11-02T05:43:00.004Z

Forty-five years ago today I came into the world in a drafty wing of Tampa General Hospital. Kind of hard to believe I'm approaching half a century! (Or, as my Peace Corps friend Jennifer would say, I'm now in my middle middle forties. Next year I'll be in my late middle forties. Then my early late forties.)

At any rate, here's a photo of me on what I think was my tenth birthday, at my dad's house in Florida. That's my stepbrother Jim on the left, my brother JM next to me, and my stepsister Jennifer on the right. Dig that '70s decor. Lots of macrame and ferns!

I'd like to say I have extravagant plans for the day, but I really don't. Dave and I might go out for a martini after he gets home from work, but otherwise I'm staying close to home. We're starting Ruby on some new medication today so I need to stick around for that. Dave is planning a more thorough celebration on Saturday.

Meanwhile, I looked through my past birthday posts. Some years I didn't even mention it. And then there were the possessed cats.

Walking the Dogs

2011-11-01T05:43:00.003Z

Walking Ernie and Ruby is an exercise in patience.

When I walk alone, I prefer to keep up a brisk pace, to get my blood pumping and gain some cardiovascular benefit. Ernie and Ruby like to saunter, sniffing at every lamppost and spot on the sidewalk, quickly and illicitly snorfing up any edible substance left by a passerby. (When I say edible, I use the term loosely.)

These days, their sauntering is even slower than usual. In her younger years, Ruby insisted on being in front of the "pack," blazing the trail. Nowadays she usually brings up the rear, and I allow her to set the pace. If she stops, we all stop.

I don't take them far. We're scared to risk Ruby's weak heart beyond a couple of blocks. Even Ernie gets tired in that short distance, his head hanging low, a despondent thread of drool decorating his mouth and collecting stray bits of street detritus.

Their advanced age doesn't prevent them from driving me crazy, though. Sometimes all the sniffing and pausing, the agonizing 30 minutes it can take to circumnavigate a single city block, makes me nuts. (I was especially cranky Sunday and Monday, when I mistakenly got up at 4 a.m. I thought it was 5 a.m., but the UK left Daylight Saving Time on Sunday, and I'd failed to reset the bedside clock!)

Occasionally I unthinkingly jerk the leash to snap their noses away from a particularly interesting smell. Shocked at my own behavior, I remind myself that they're the equivalent of octogenarians -- at least.

Besides, to them, a walk is not just a walk. It's their single opportunity to interact with the world beyond our apartment, with other dogs, with new and different smells, with birds and blowing leaves. It's almost sad, really.

So, yes. An exercise in patience. An opportunity to practice breathing and gentleness and generosity, and to examine my own annoyed, urgent impulses. After all, where am I trying to go so quickly?

(Photo: South Kensington, on Friday.)

Guy Fawkes Night

2011-10-31T05:50:00.007Z

We're coming up on Guy Fawkes Night, also known as Bonfire Night, and every evening I've been hearing the pop and bang of firecrackers. On Saturday someone launched a full-scale fireworks show just west of our apartment, and I stood on our balcony and filmed about a minute of it (above). I've been unable to find out who sponsored it.

(Some of the recent fireworks might also be related to Diwali, the Hindu "festival of lights" holiday that fell on Oct. 26. I'm not sure.)

The actual Guy Fawkes Night isn't until Nov. 5. It's named for Guy Fawkes, a conspirator in the so-called Gunpowder Plot of 1605 meant to overthrow the British government. The celebrations commemorate the arrest of Fawkes and his co-conspirators and the survival of King James I.

Events are scheduled all over London for next weekend, when children build effigies of Guy Fawkes -- known as "guys" -- and bonfires and fireworks displays will be held. (Apparently the use of the word "guy" to mean any man comes from Guy Fawkes' name. Who knew?)

I'm not sure yet what Dave and I will do. I'd love to go see some fireworks, but we may want to stay home to console the dogs -- they might get jittery with all the bangs and explosions. (If last Saturday is any indication, though, they won't have a problem. They slept through that celebration without so much as a whimper.)

Occupy 2

2011-10-30T07:39:00.003Z

Despite my ambivalence, I went down to the Occupy campsite in front of St. Paul's Cathedral yesterday afternoon, just to check out the scene. I took some photos, as you can see, and more are on Flickr here.

While I was there, a housekeeping meeting of sorts seemed to be taking place. Organizers were talking about upcoming workshops and planning issues, and speaking in support of the former chancellor of the cathedral, Giles Fraser. Fraser backed the protesters occupying the churchyard and resigned last week when others at St. Paul's began considering ways to retake control of the yard and cathedral steps. (The protests closed the cathedral for several days, causing considerable financial losses.)

In any case, things were pretty peaceful when I was there. It was cool to check out the campsite and applaud the speakers, and there were lots of interesting and thought-provoking posters and leaflets throughout the site. The Hare Krishnas were even serving vegetarian food!

Some Facebook friends referred me to this interesting blog post about ways to support the Occupy movement "without sleeping in a park." I like to think I'm doing my part by spreading the word and these images, at the very least.

Sandy Denny

2011-10-29T07:08:00.002+01:00

In the mid-1980s I briefly experimented with radio production, volunteering at a community radio station in Tampa. I helped put together one episode of a radio show, and in my free moments I had a great time digging around in the station's collection of vinyl records.

Among the albums I came across a boxed set of recordings by British singer Sandy Denny. Back then, I knew Denny only as the author of her best-known song, "Who Knows Where the Time Goes," which had been famously covered by Judy Collins. But I listened to some of the boxed set, and that put me on a path toward appreciating Denny as a singer and musician.

Denny was a lead singer for the folk-rock group Fairport Convention in the late 1960s, before embarking on a solo career that lasted until her death, at age 31, in 1978. I eventually bought one of her solo albums, "Rendezvous," as well as a "best of" anthology, and I enjoyed them both.

Now that I live in London -- Denny's home turf -- I thought I might try to find her grave. I did some research and found that she's buried in Putney Vale Cemetery, in southwest London near her former home in Wimbledon.

Putney Vale is not immediately accessible by tube, and it's located on a fairly well-traveled highway that -- at least on Google StreetView -- doesn't look particularly walkable. I decided I would have to take the bus.

I have been reluctant to use buses in London, mostly because I am intimidated by the spaghetti-noodle craziness of bus routes. (I avoided them in New York, too.) Whereas the tube and the New York subway have relatively few lines, buses seem to exist on a whole new level of complexity.

Anyway, yesterday morning I set out to conquer my unease about buses and pay my respects to Sandy Denny. The bus, it turns out, is not all that difficult, once you know which route to take -- easily determined on the web.

The bus dropped me off right smack in front of the cemetery's iron gates, and after about 20 minutes of wandering I found Denny's grave, a simple white headstone inscribed "The Lady," after one of her songs, above her married name. "Sandy Denny" is written beneath, almost like an afterthought, in parentheses.

I listened to some of her music, including the prescient "Who Knows Where the Time Goes," on my iPod as I stood at her grave, decorated with a single red, slightly bedraggled geranium. In Denny's case, her time was relatively short. I'd had a vague idea that she died of cancer, but it turns out that's not true -- she fell down some stairs in March 1978, and although she reportedly recovered enough to perform at least one more concert, she died from a brain hemorrhage the following month.

(Side note: I also found in Putney Vale the grave of Bruce Ismay, the chairman of the White Star Line and its doomed RMS Titanic. Ismay was aboard the ship when it struck the iceberg that sank it, and famously made sure to procure a scarce lifeboat seat for himself.)

Surprisingly, there's no footage of Denny performing her most famous song on YouTube. (There are some of those photo mash-up faux videos, but I hate those.) So here's a live version, instead, of another song, "Late November," which is also on my iPod.

Occupy

2011-10-28T08:45:00.008+01:00

I've been thinking about the Occupy Wall Street movement -- all the people gathering in cities around the United States and elsewhere, protesting the economic insanity of our time.

I certainly sympathize with the cause. But I haven't been motivated to join the protests -- even though I'm unemployed, a fairly recent victim of downsizing, a cog in a declining industry, and I am deeply troubled by the flow of wealth upward to the highest rungs of our economic ladder. I'm definitely among the 99 percent!

I could easily go down to St. Paul's Cathedral, the site of the London protests, and lend my voice. (Under no circumstances would I camp out there, though -- not while I still have responsibilities in my comfortable home, to a partner and two geriatric dogs, one on medication.) I could at least take photos and bear witness to the events.

I'm not sure why I'm not more motivated -- I used to relish the idea of protesting injustice. In fact I feel a little ashamed of my lack of enthusiasm. I guess when it comes right down to it, I doubt the effectiveness of street protesting for such a broad cause. It's one thing to protest anti-choice measures or nuclear weapons, but an entire socioeconomic system run amok?

Maybe I'm just too old and too cynical. But I don't think the protests are worthless for their lack of focus, as some critics have charged. The fact that so many people (more motivated than I, he says shamefully) care enough to get out and participate shows the depth of dissatisfaction and anger and that, in itself, is an important message.

And for each of those protesters there are probably hundreds of others, like me, who believe in the cause but haven't put our feet on the street. Yet, anyway.

(Photo: The shadow from a vase of stargazer lilies in the kitchen.)

Quieter Days

2011-10-27T09:59:00.006+01:00

Dave is off to Norfolk today through Sunday, working on a regional band gathering -- or something like that. So it's just me and the dogs for the next few days. My quiet days just got quieter! Fortunately I've always liked my alone time, so it's not a problem for me -- and it's a chance to go back to vegetarian stir-frys and pasta for a while.

I solved our dog treat problem! Background: Milk Bones, which our dogs know and love, are apparently not available in the U.K. So we've been buying Tesco dog treats -- dried, flat strips of pulverized chicken that look like a small ruler. Ernie, unfortunately, doesn't like them. So yesterday I found a package of 40 tiny pork cocktail sausages, also from Tesco, for £1.98, and both dogs love them. They really seem like treats, too -- something out of the ordinary that the dogs will appreciate.

I went to see Tilda Swinton's new movie, "We Need to Talk About Kevin," yesterday. It was profoundly disturbing, full of dark bloody images and despair. I've seen plenty of movies about troubled children, but this seemed so real. I felt like I was living the mother's hell right alongside her. Good movie, but I never want to see it again.

(Photo: Sunset in Ladbroke Grove.)

Ceramics 2

2011-10-26T07:31:00.006+01:00

I watched the final episode of the BBC's series on British ceramics on Monday, and yesterday I went back to the Victoria & Albert Museum to see the pieces mentioned in the show. The episode focused on studio potters of the late 19th and 20th centuries, beginning with the likes of Edmund Harry Elton and William de Morgan through Bernard Leach, Lucy Rie and still more modern artists.

I love the ceramics galleries at the V&A. I could wander there all day. The colors and exquisite designs of the pieces are just astonishing, from antiquity to modern pottery. I saw a Chinese wine pot from the mid-1600's that was so white and finely detailed, with two dragons prowling its cylindrical surface, that it could have been made yesterday. I found more pieces that especially struck my fancy, like Joyce Morgan's dish depicting a blowfish, and Michael Casson's abstract bowl. (And how great is it that all these pieces are online, so I can show you exactly what I'm talking about without resorting to my own substandard museum photography?!)

While I was in the museum it poured rain, but fortunately the storm had passed by the time I walked home in late afternoon. The sky was amazing, with dramatic clouds behind the Albert Memorial (top photo) and above the round pond in Kensington Gardens (above).

Canal

2011-10-25T08:17:00.006+01:00

Here are some more photos of the Grand Union Canal, which as I mentioned yesterday runs near our apartment. The canal system in England is old and complicated, but as I understand it this is the Paddington Branch of a much larger canal that runs between London and Birmingham.

There's a pedestrian walkway along the canal -- once a towpath, I assume -- so it's walkable for long distances and used by a lot of runners and bicyclists.

Parts of the canal are quite urban, as you can see in the top photo of the area near Westbourne Green. Other areas show signs of industry, like this section west of Ladbroke Grove.

Houseboats are moored along the banks and motor slowly up and down the waterway. They're all this style of long, narrow boat, often painted some shade of red and piled with colorful potted plants. The foliage along the canal is starting to match the paint on the boats!

Waterbirds are everywhere -- herons, swans, geese, ducks, coots and moorhens. In that respect it's a bit like Florida! (What's that bird in the bottom photo -- anybody know?)

Tyrannosaur

2011-10-24T07:15:00.004+01:00

I saw a good British movie yesterday called "Tyrannosaur." Pretty intense and not exactly pleasant, as it deals with anger and abuse and regret, but beautifully made and definitely worth seeing. I'd read about it in one of the local papers and decided to check it out. I'm not familiar with the writer and director, Paddy Considine, but I'll watch for more of his films.

I didn't photograph the jazz festival after all. We couldn't work out a time for me to go that wouldn't have me making two trips to the school or hanging around for hours with nothing to do. And then Ruby seemed to be having trouble standing on Saturday night, because of a lingering infection on her hip, so I stayed home to take care of her. I bought some antibiotic cream, which paired with the antibiotics from the vet seemed to help a lot, and she's much better now.

I did get to go to dinner on Friday with Dave and the other teachers involved with the festival, so that was fun. And I took some good walks over the weekend -- one along the towpath beside the Grand Union Canal, which runs near our neighborhood and connects London to Birmingham and other points west, and one from Soho back to Notting Hill.

(Photo: A leaf on the path beside the canal, on Saturday. Things are looking more and more autumnal around here!)

Sunny

2011-10-23T06:53:00.007+01:00

It's been many years since I've lived in such a sunny apartment. My place in New York was a north-facing cubicle with one window, and in Florida my condo faced north and my last rental apartment was surrounded by trees. I haven't lived in a place with windows on two walls since 1992.

So this south-facing apartment with windows on both sides and excellent cross-ventilation is pretty amazing. I never stop being intrigued by the sunlight, which throws mottled splotches, crescents and tiny rainbows, all coming and going, shifting and changing.

It's ironic that I would enjoy sunlight so much in London, reknowned for being dark and foggy! (Of course, that "fog" has improved substantially with the imposition of environmental controls and the phasing out of coal-burning industry.)

Jazz

2011-10-22T10:09:00.004+01:00

The school where Dave works is hosting a student jazz festival this weekend, and I've agreed to photograph the students as they rehearse and perform. The organizers want the photos for their Web site. Unfortunately they're not paying me, but in a way that's good -- I'm not an event photographer and I can't guarantee the quality of my work, so this way there's no pressure! Assuming the pictures do turn out, they might help win points for Dave, which pays me indirectly. So I'm going to head over there later this afternoon with my camera.

Meanwhile, I've discovered a rerun of "Fat Albert" on television -- remember that cartoon, hosted in the '70s by Bill Cosby? I haven't seen it since then, so I'm watching just for nostalgia's sake. "Hey hey hey!"

I've also got lots of reading to do, and I have to be around to take Ruby out every few hours because she's on a prescription diuretic. I love her expression in the photo above -- like, "Why are you interrupting my nap with that stupid camera?" (That's what we call her "tired eyes" look.)

AOL Tales

2011-10-21T06:47:00.005+01:00

The other day I got a funny e-mail from AOL. The subject line: "Thanks for being with AOL Mail since 1995."

Yes, it's true. I still use the same e-mail address that I've used since I first ventured online. While others have hopped from one provider to another for various reasons, I've stayed put.

To be honest, it's more out of laziness than anything else. I don't want to have to inform the world that I have a new e-mail address, so I just keep the old one.

But I've never had many complaints about AOL, or America Online, as it was known in the beginning. Sure, I paid for it, at least at first -- my dialup service fees were something like $23 a month, if I remember right. When I got a DSL connection, in 2004 or so, I tried to unsubscribe, like thousands of other Americans who no longer needed dialup. But AOL -- known at the time for tenaciously holding on to customers -- instead sold me a $4.99 monthly plan that allowed me to keep my e-mail account. (Sucker!)

That arrangement went away pretty quickly as AOL realized it couldn't compete with all the free e-mail providers. AOL became free too.

AOL does have a bit of an image problem. When I was job hunting in 2009, it was suggested that I might want to change my e-mail address, because @AOL brought to mind a grandma in Peoria, someone naive to the ways of the Web -- a digital newbie. So I signed up for a gmail account, but I never used it. I figured if someone is so painfully style-conscious that they're going to make assumptions about me based on my e-mail address, I might not want to work for them anyway.

AOL noted in its e-mail to me that a lot of things have changed since 1995, when "Toy Story" was released and eBay was founded. ("One of the first items sold is a broken laser pointer, bought for $14.83 by a self-proclaimed collector of broken laser pointers.")

And to thank me (and presumably other customers) for sticking around, AOL sent a link to a printable paper doll. I thought, "Boy, I bet nobody will take the time to put that thing together." And then I promptly did. I printed it out (it's supposed to be blue, but for some reason mine came out black) and assembled it in about 20 minutes.

He looks vaguely prehistoric, which may not be the message AOL intended to send, but oh well. I like him anyway.

October 20, 1991

2011-10-20T07:14:00.006+01:00

Here's one more selection from my old journals , 20 years ago today!

10/20/1991

Today I have a nasty cold. I don't know where it came from -- it descended on me late last night and today I've had a sore throat and a nasty raw sinus. I think I've got a cough coming on, but no fever.

I've had a really busy weekend! Yesterday I went with Kevin and his friends John and Rick to some thrift stores, in search of accessories for our Halloween costumes. Mine is basically done, but no one else has been working on theirs, I think. I told you we're going as waitresses, right? It should be hilarious.

Then, last night, I went to see a very bizarre movie called "My Own Private Idaho" with Kevin and a whole flock of his friends. It was a strange movie and a strange night.

I went home today, did laundry, and visited with mom and JM. The weirdest thing I did today was cut papayas for Mrs. Pass. She came over to get mom to do it because she couldn't reach them, so I went over to help. It was interesting -- the trees are tall and woody, but they grow incredibly fast. In a year a papaya gets to be pretty big! I was up 8-9-10 feet or so, and I'd slice off these huge fruits bigger than a football. They came off the tree easily, green with a tinge of orange. Mrs. Pass said the possums were eating them -- she planned to get a gun and do the animals in. I held my tongue.

I saw a deer in Land O' Lakes today -- the first one I've ever seen there. When I turned on Wisteria Road from (highway) 41 it was grazing beside the road. It saw me and leaped into some underbrush. I couldn't believe it! Mom and I saw a raccoon that evening, too. There must be some hungry animals out there for some reason.

I finished my book -- "Wintering," by Diana Kappel-Smith -- it was tedious at first but I got very attached to it after a while. Now I'm watching "Against All Odds" because it's too early to go to bed, and it was either this or a "Dynasty" TV movie. It's an '80s kind of night!

Footnotes:

I don't remember who went on that movie outing or why it was "a strange night."

Mrs. Pass was our next-door neighbor in Land O' Lakes, where I grew up. She was constantly grousing about animals eating her fruit, but to my knowledge she never shot any. She has since moved away, but my mom is still in touch with her.

Deer sightings in Land O' Lakes have become much more common, perhaps because of habitat loss and encroaching suburbs. I never saw deer there as a child, when they had more room to roam.

(Photo: My cat Angeles in my apartment around the time I wrote this journal entry. I got Angeles in 1985, when she was an adult stray who wandered up to my door. She died in 1993.)

Ceramics

2011-10-19T07:51:00.004+01:00

The other night I watched a BBC show about the history of ceramic arts in England. It discussed various potters and their work in different styles, going back hundreds of years. (I'm into this because I've done some wheel-throwing myself, though I was never very good at it!) The show, part of an ongoing series called "Handmade in Britain," featured remarkable pieces from the Victoria & Albert Museum.

So yesterday I went to the V&A to see them. I spent about two hours in the ceramics galleries, browsing shelves and shelves of plates, bowls, figurines, vases and other vessels from all over the world. I did find the pieces mentioned in the show -- though I had a terrible time finding John Dwight's figures of his young daughter in death and in resurrection, because they're located in a different part of the museum.

I also had a great time just browsing the galleries, which contain some really incredible stuff. One of my favorite pieces was Harry Parr's "Boy on a Toad." How bizarre is that?!

(Photo: I walked across Kensington Gardens to get to the museum. The day was bright and chilly, and jets were leaving some incredible, graceful trails in the sky.)