Sea Glass Quilt

Our community art show at school is coming down, and I walked over to the gallery yesterday to pick up my very blue photo. While I was there, I photographed this piece in more detail. I remember some of you commenting on it so I thought you might want a closer look.

It's a "sea glass quilt" made by a parent, and although I'd love to give her credit I also want to protect her privacy, so I won't name her. It's made from scraps left over from earlier quilting projects, she said in her description. She called it "Flow" and said in her mind it connects the recipients of those projects and the lessons she learned working on them.

Also, after viewing the video in my earlier post -- which you can see by clicking the link above -- blogger Ellen asked about the sculpture of the woman sitting on an egg and what it was made of. I took a second look and it was glass. (Nothing like answering a reader question a month late, right?!)

Finally, I'd meant to include in my earlier posts the words of a woman who knitted a sweater shown in the show. She mentioned how she'd dipped in and out of knitting through her life, and said, "You don't need to do art every day to be an artist. You can leave it for days, weeks, months or years. It's not going anywhere." As one who often feels compelled to get out and take pictures, I found that such a comforting thought.

Here's my latest plant rescue project. Yes, it's another Dracaena, found a few days ago next to a trash bin at work. As I was looking at it, trying to decide whether to take it on, the principal of our Lower School walked past and said, "You can't save it. It's too far gone." I said, "I think I might be able to, actually!"

I brought it to the library and put that sign on it saying, "Please do not discard. I'm in 'plant hospital.'" Yesterday I brought it home. I'll repot it and probably keep it here until it revives, but I've promised Dave I will then take it back to the library, because we already have five rescued Dracaenas and we really do not need one more.

Finally, last night I got to meet fellow blogger Jeanie of The Marmelade Gypsy. She and her partner Rick are visiting England from Michigan, and they stopped by West Hampstead to meet Dave and Olga. We stepped outside to see the garden and Olga managed to both bark at us incessantly and roll in black mud, so that was fun. We then went to dinner at a restaurant on the high street (Olga stayed home) and had a great time. Jeanie is artistic, articulate and interesting, as you'll know if you read her blog, and Rick's career path was somewhat similar to my brother's in municipal planning so I enjoyed talking to him too -- yet another positive "IRL" encounter with blogland!

Cacti and the Pink Blanket

Another day, another leaf! Nature's little miracles of design at this time of year.

Yesterday was pretty nondescript. It was board game night in the library, and there was some last-minute setting up to do for that -- and I DO mean last-minute. The event started at 4 p.m. and at about 3:45 my boss realized she needed a table to display all the games and had forgotten to request it. I just assumed she'd decided to leave them on the cart, but no! So I ran downstairs and found someone to bring us a table and we set everything out, just finishing up as people were walking in the door.

I didn't stick around to play games. It's not really my thing. I have occasionally enjoyed board games in a group -- like when I'd go to my friend Kevin's for Thanksgiving years ago -- but I bet I haven't played one since then.

Now that the dahlias are fading, here's the next thing to bloom -- the Thanksgiving/Christmas cacti! As you can see, my bright pink ones (on the left) have buds already. The second one from the left at top is my salmon-colored one, which I brought back from the dead and which has a few tiny buds as well.

The other two are the white/light pink variety that blog reader Frances sent me years ago as a tiny cutting. You may remember the first plant I grew from the cutting got root rot and died, but I took more cuttings and kept them going. I think this is the healthiest all my cacti have looked! I don't see any buds on the white ones yet, but fingers crossed. (Or do I have the white and salmon ones mixed up? Hmmm...)

I can hear my brother now: "STOP TALKING ABOUT PLANTS!"

I just talked to him last night on the phone, actually -- an unexpected pleasure. He called about some family business but it was fun to catch up on other stuff too. I don't know why we don't talk more often. I've turned into such a terrible communicator.

I'm thinking it's about time to throw away Olga's pink blanket. It's got that gigantic, frayed hole in the middle and we've actually cut it into two pieces, so she won't get tangled up in it. (This is the biggest floor space I could find in the house to lay it out and take a picture!)

As I'm sure I've written before, this blanket used to be on my bed in the winter when I was a kid. It's about as old as I am -- almost 60 years.

And it is still much-loved! I suppose we'll keep it a while longer.

Street Work and Halloween

I came across these autumnal trees walking home from work yesterday. It's amazing how fast the leaves change. It seems that all we need are a few cold nights and suddenly we have autumn.

Remember that sign indicating our street would be closed for a few days beginning on the 14th? Well, this is what the closure looks like. I have no idea what's going on here, exactly, except that it's a Thames Water project and it's linked to that house on the right, which has recently been entirely gutted and basically rebuilt except for the outer shell. It's been a long, long renovation process and I guess they're getting a new water hookup, maybe?

Meanwhile, at work, our Halloween book display went up yesterday, with the help of some enterprising parent volunteers. (All I did is pull the books.) I like the witches' hats hanging from the ceiling!

Not to mention the big, hairy spider hanging off my desk!

Garfield

Another picture from my canal walk on Thursday. I'm showing you this partly because I like it, but also because yesterday was a complete photography fail. I don't think I took any pictures at all.

Oh, actually, I did take a pic of one of our dahlias:

This plant is pumping out flowers by the dozen. It's outperforming all the other "Bishop's Children" plants. I don't know if it's happier because of its location by this warm, south-facing brick wall, or if it's just extra-robust. I have been deadheading the dahlias like crazy, and that supposedly keeps them going.

So, OK, one picture. Otherwise, I just didn't have the opportunity for much photography. I barely left the house, except to go to the laundromat and walk the dog (briefly) up the street. I did a lot of cleaning here and took care of the houseplants, and read a chunk of "Bleak House," and watched a movie in the afternoon. ("Mandragora," a 1997 Czech film about the fraught lives of male hustlers in Prague. I remember seeing it at the theater when it came out, but I'd forgotten how melodramatic it is -- a bit over-the-top considering the subject matter is already plenty dramatic. It's the last of a trilogy of films, the other two being documentaries I watched earlier in the week.)

Dave was away for part of the day, helping students prepare for honor band auditions. I know! On a SUNDAY! I hope those kids are grateful.

Here's another photo from Thursday, a bit of graffiti at Trellick Tower. I was a big fan of Garfield back in the day. I had about eight of his books, I think. As the graffiti artist noted, he was very '80s! I was going to say my level of laziness yesterday was on a par with Garfield's, but I did at least clean the house, and I did not eat any lasagna.

Oh, and we Skyped with Dave's parents last night. They say their mobile home in Cortez survived Milton just fine. A neighbor went and checked it inside and out and sent them a video. Some nearby residents had damage and even flooding, but their home is slightly elevated and apparently stayed high and dry -- except for the loss of the washer and dryer in an outdoor shed during Helene, which I think I mentioned earlier. (And possibly the air conditioner, because the compressor is on the ground -- they're not sure yet because the house still has no power.) Anyway, they're obviously relieved about that.

Dave and I got confirmation of our Christmas plans in Whitstable, and we're also making arrangements for a little trip at Thanksgiving. Stay tuned!

Autumn Cemetery Visit

Olga surprised me yesterday by ginning up the energy to go to the cemetery. We hadn't been there together since August, and frankly I wasn't sure we'd ever go again, so I was glad for the opportunity. Usually we set out for a walk and she turns around at or near the top of our street, ready to come home.

And not only did we get all the way to the cemetery, we walked the entire thing -- not just the back half like last time. The old girl was having a good day!

The area that was thick with green hogweed in July is now relatively bare (above), the hogweed having died back for the year.

It was a fairly unremarkable walk, but as I said, I was happy that it happened at all! The cemetery itself is pretty timeless so not much had changed there -- just the slow revolution of the seasons.

I didn't even bring a tennis ball this time, and though there was no squirrel-chasing, there was definitely squirrel-watching. She seemed to have fun. Look at that dog grin!

She is still sound asleep as I write this. I'm hearing lots of snoring.

Otherwise, not much happened yesterday. I read about 50 pages of "Bleak House," which is slow going at first, but now the plot's beginning to pick up.

I just opened my e-mail and found 28 spam messages, 13 of which were from the Democratic party or the Harris campaign. Can I just say that I am SO READY for this election to be over? It feels like it's been going on forever, doesn't it? I realize I may not be happy with the ultimate results -- and it's inexplicable that the race remains so tight -- but still, I am ready to move on.

A Failed Talisman

A relatively quiet day yesterday. We had an engineer from British Gas come to make a minor repair on our boiler -- the timer switch, which we use to control when the heat runs, wasn't working correctly so he replaced it. At this time of year we usually set the boiler to come on first thing in the morning, for about an hour, just to warm up the house. But we don't want the heat to run all day, and that's what was happening. I came home from work one day last week to find the house stifling. Argh!

I also went to the doctor for a routine follow-up visit after all my medical tests in the spring. I  really want to repeat that calprotectin test to see if the numbers are still elevated -- if I still have inflammation in my guts, in other words. The doctor seemed unconvinced that it was necessary but it's a cheap test so she went along with it. It's mostly for my own curiosity. It bothers me that I had an abnormal test that is completely unexplained and I'd like to either see that it has resolved or get to the bottom of it.

Olga, meanwhile, took advantage of the sunny day, lying in the yard on her bed. It wasn't particularly warm out there but she didn't seem to mind.

Our passionflower vine has produced several of these heavy-looking passionfruits. I suppose we should come up with a recipe to eat them, assuming they're the eating kind. I know nothing about passionfruit! A squirrel already got to one of the ripe ones, but I think we have five left.

Finally, Milton has proved to be the gift that keeps on giving. News emerged yesterday that the Rod & Reel Pier on Anna Maria Island, where I spent a lot of time hanging out with friends in my 20's and 30's, and which I photographed several times on more recent visits, was destroyed by the storm. It had already been damaged by Helene, but now it is completely gone. Shocking!

Coincidentally, I wore my Rod & Reel Pier t-shirt when Cherie came over on Wednesday night, as a sort of talisman against the storm. Strange to think I was wearing it at the very moment the pier was collapsing into the water.

A Canal Walk

Well, I'm happy to report that all my peeps in Tampa seem to have come through Milton OK. My stepsister said a large limb fell across their road, temporarily blocking access, but it was being removed as she told me about it.

You may have seen that a massive crane collapsed in downtown St. Petersburg and crashed into the building that houses the Tampa Bay Times. I've been in that building several times, including once almost a quarter of a century ago (!) to interview for a job I didn't get. (It was actually better that I didn't get it, because the opportunity arose to move to New York a few months later.) I still have friends who work there. The building looks pretty badly damaged.

Things in London are fortunately much calmer than Florida, weather-wise. I took a walk yesterday along the Grand Union Canal, from Lisson Grove through Little Venice and Ladbroke Grove to Willesden Junction -- about four and a half miles, according to Google Maps. It was a good day for photography, with light rain eventually making way for intermittent sunshine, so I got some decent photos.

I tried to pay attention to the changing seasons. We haven't hit "peak leaf" yet but there's some color out there.

The leaves combined with the quirkiness of the canal boats made for fun picture-taking.

I don't know what's happened in this area under the Westway. There are three or four derelict, burned-out boats in the water, including that one in the foreground that is little more than a pile of floating plywood, and there's loads of rubbish piled against the wall along the path. It looks like there was a fire, or series of fires, and people are perhaps rebuilding -- but I couldn't find anything about it in the news. It's a mystery.

I stopped at Trellick Tower to check out all the street art. I used to come here with Olga all the time when we lived in Notting Hill. It makes for good graffiti photos, but I only took a few this time around. I guess I'm not as into graffiti as I once was.

This area between two bridges was hard to photograph because it was just a little too wide for my camera lens -- and I couldn't back up anymore without the bridge intruding into the picture overhead. So I took a pano shot with my iPhone. It's nice to have a couple of camera options!

It was a little strange to make this walk without Olga, but she can't go that kind of distance anymore. Hopefully she was content to go to Hampstead Heath in her dog-walker's van!