A Long Midday Wander

Rose & Crown pub, Southwark

Yesterday morning was pretty quiet. I watered the houseplants and the orchids, did some puttering in the garden (why is the garden the only place where anyone ever "putters"?) and then some reading. By lunchtime I was feeling restless, so after having a meatloaf sandwich out on the garden bench, I decided to take a walk.

I grabbed my big camera and took the tube down to Southwark, near the Tate Modern. I hadn't been on a photo walk in a while and I felt a little rusty, and I'm supposed to help lead a group of Middle Schoolers on a "Street Photography" outing on Thursday. (More on that to come!) So I thought I'd flex my own photography muscles a bit.
 

I specifically wanted to walk across the Millennium Bridge, so I did. That view never gets tiring, does it?

While standing on the bridge, I saw this woman coming toward me, rollerblading in a long red-velvet dress. She was coming so fast that I only had time for one shot, and fortunately it worked out pretty well. I wish I'd seen her at street level, but oh well!

I wandered around St. Paul's Cathedral and then came westward along Fleet Street and The Strand. This statue of Hodge, Samuel Johnson's cat, stands in Gough Square. The streets in that area are a warren of little squares and alleys, with treasures like this at every turn.

I could have sworn that I've photographed this statue before, but if I have, my methods of archiving are failing me because I can't find the shot anywhere.

Samuel Johnson's house is also on the square, and it's a museum now. I've filed that away for a possible future visit.

More interesting sartorial choices.

I thought my Australian readers might appreciate seeing Australia House on The Strand, the home of the Australian High Commission. It's both the oldest Australian diplomatic mission in the world and the longest-occupied foreign mission in London, according to its web page. The sculpted figures in front were created by Harold Parker from 1915-18. The woman at top right looks particularly rapturous.

Finally, I made my way to Trafalgar Square, where I stumbled onto these young women making a dance video to the song "Armageddon" by the K-Pop group Aespa. (I didn't recognize the song as such; I Shazammed it.)

At first I thought maybe they were Aespa, but they'd surely be thronged by fans if that were the case. I guess they're doing a tribute. The way that camera operator is swooping around, their video looks like it might be a bit nauseating to watch, but that's me talking like the 59-year-old man I am.

From there I navigated my way through Soho and along a very crowded Oxford Street to the tube and back home, my wanderlust satisfied!

Post-Equinox Brunch

Yesterday's sky was deep blue and so clear that Dave and I could watch a jet precisely flying in the contrails of another jet that had passed moments before, like Hansel and Gretel following their popcorn path through the forest. "You should just take a picture of this sky," he said. But of course I opted for shadows instead, the dark, clear-cut shadows of spring.

And I just realized we passed the equinox two days ago, so it is in fact spring now. Woo hoo!

We took ourselves out for brunch in the morning, right after Dave got his hair cut. In fact when I walked up to the cafe where I was meeting him, there was a random man sitting in my seat chatting away to Dave -- turns out it was his barber, who came out to sit with him between customers!

It felt great to sit outside and soak up the warmth of the sun and watch the passing parade of people, cars and buses. We are all emerging from our winter coccoons.

In the afternoon I re-potted a couple more plants. I was forced to kill a toadflax that had taken root in one of our lily pots. I'd meant to move it to its own pot but it had woven a net of roots so tightly around the lily bulbs that I couldn't extract them. I just pulled out the crown of the toadflax and repotted the whole root ball, figuring the roots would disintegrate on their own, leaving just the lilies. (Which have already started sprouting.)

I also cleaned the house, read blogs and got about 80 pages into "Flashlight," which is pretty interesting so far. And in the evening I made a martini and we watched "Bugonia," which is one of the weirder movies I've ever seen. It was good right up until it wasn't, toward the end, when it took a twist that neither of us could quite swallow. But it was entertaining, I'll give it that.

The Arch at the Arches

As I was walking on Finchley Road on Thursday morning, I saw these guys installing a big floral arch over the doorway at McDonald's. I guess someone was having some sort of celebration there? I've seen these arches installed over the doorways of homes for weddings and things like that, but I've never seen one at a fast-food restaurant! It was gone by the next day.

Yesterday was all about doing more to prepare for the handoff at work. I went through my entire Google Drive -- 14 years of accumulated work documents -- and moved anything even remotely valuable over to my boss's Google account for safekeeping. I also went through my desk and passed off a couple of things to her that should be preserved -- but of course most work documents are "virtual" these days as opposed to pieces of paper, so there wasn't that much.

I also culled that thick folder of thank-you notes and brought home the ones I decided to keep, along with the originals of all my work photos. Some of you wondered about the group photos in my retirement video -- why they were all so similar from year to year. We took them at school picture time using the school's photographer, and sometimes they were included in yearbooks, but mostly they were just for us. As you can see we tried to have a "theme" each year, somehow related to what was going on in the library or the school. For example, the one in which we all dressed as artists was taken the year our new Arts Building opened.

By the way, we created a second version of the retirement video, including one more group photo I found -- of all of us in masks during the pandemic -- and my boss put a little note on each slide noting that it's for my retirement so that anyone who looks up and sees the show in the middle won't wonder what it's for. Don't feel like you have to watch it. It's otherwise exactly the same as the first one.

I think I might actually start reading a book today. I've made a sufficient enough dent in my New Yorkers that I feel like they're once again at a manageable level, though I'm not by any means caught up. I've been meaning to read "Flashlight" by Susan Choi so I think I'll give that a go.

A Light No Longer Lit

Here's one of our orchids, giving us another round of blossoms. Although this one is doing well and at least two others have flower stalks, I have a few orchids that are looking pretty pathetic. Many are getting on in years and I find that they get a lot less vigorous over time, failing to grow new leaves, not to mention flowers, despite regular and careful watering and feeding. I'm thinking about doing an orchid cull. We have 11 of them, so we're hardly lacking, and I could let three or four go.

But that is not a problem I need to think about today.

Here's my retirement slideshow, the one we made to play in the library. It's made to run on a loop, and it has no sound. It mostly shows me with my co-workers over the years, and it has a few other little odds and ends thrown in. Hopefully no one will mind me posting it here. (It's not public on YouTube.) My boss said the flowery background reminds her of the shirts I wear, which I can definitely see, and it sorts of alludes to my gardening too.

When I came in yesterday morning it was stuck on the first slide, and I couldn't figure out how to get it to auto-play. So I asked my friend Colin for help. "You're setting up your own retirement slideshow? That's pretty pathetic!" he said. I laughed and told him my boss had made it, though I provided the photos. So it's not that pathetic. I just want it to display properly! We got it going eventually.

So, yes, the word is finally out. I'm glad it's not a secret anymore.

I liked the statistic that my boss provided -- that we've checked out nearly half a million books from August 2013 (when I started in the library) to now. I didn't process all of those checkouts, of course, because I'm not working first thing in the morning and I take an hour for lunch each day, but I probably did most of them. And then had to get them all back and re-shelve them!

If I'd thought about it I'd have included something about reading all the Newbery Medal winners, because that's undoubtedly one of my biggest library achievements -- that and talking up the award with the school community. But oh well.

Oh, and remember the light relentlessly burning in the apartment window opposite? I texted the caretaker of the apartments yesterday and told him about it, and he said he'd mention it to the cleaner (?), and when I checked last night it was off. Problem solved, at least for the time being! Dave laughs when I do things like that. "Your retirement is going to be very entertaining," he says.

Getting the Word Out

The sign-maker, whose apartment I pass on my walk to work and who was once fond of hanging elaborate signs in his/her window criticizing Boris Johnson and other Tory leaders, has now taken to sending messages to our Labour politicians. Perhaps this is a sign of how unhappy everyone is with Labour, even the center-leftists. I don't think Keir Starmer is so bad, honestly, but to hear the media talk he's a disaster. Early on he did make some strange choices and decisions that seemed to me very un-Labour-like, but I think he's been better recently. I'm not sure how the next round of elections will go for him, though.

Speaking of which, we got a flyer in the mail yesterday reminding us to vote in early May. Our first opportunity to vote in England since we became citizens! I don't even know where to go or what to do, though I assume that will become obvious as we get closer to the time. I don't think they're national elections -- just local councillors -- but still, I'm excited to participate for once.

I spoke with my boss yesterday about our need to tell kids about my imminent departure. As I told her, I don't want to just disappear and have everyone assume I'd been fired, or worse, hit by a bus. She agreed and we concocted a plan to put up a slideshow in the library wishing me a happy retirement, with photos taken over my 14-year career at the school. I helped her put it together and I think we'll start showing it soon, so the cat will be out of the bag.

I did tell my pal, the eighth-grader who often quizzes me about cameras and wanted me to shoot film for him to develop, and I was surprised by how strongly he reacted. He literally put his hands up to his face in a "Home Alone" gesture and said, "NO! WHY?!" His skin flushed red and I was afraid he would burst into tears, but fortunately he didn't. I told him I'd still see him since Dave still works at the school and I'll be attending events now and then. It made me feel terrible that I blurted it out so casually but I didn't expect that degree of reaction!

I'm actually beginning to feel a little dread about my departure. Excitement, but also a sense of what-the-heck-am-I-doing?! How will I keep myself occupied? I hope I don't regret this.

I met up yesterday after work with a blog reader, Joni, who happens to be traveling through Britain and France. She e-mailed me out of the blue several weeks ago and mentioned she'd be passing through and did I want to connect? So we had a pint together at a pub near the school in St. John's Wood. I think it may be the first time I've ever met up with anyone from blogland who didn't also write their own blog. She told me about her trip and we chatted about our shared affinity for dogs and some of our common experiences with people in the blogosphere. Today she's headed back home to Canada. Safe travels, Joni! (No, her last name is not Mitchell.)

Neighbors

On Saturday I saw this big bumblebee burrowing into one of our camellias. If a bee can look happy, this one did, and it wouldn't turn around or pull its head out of that flower for love or money, as the expression goes. You can see why these particular camellias are not my favorite flower -- they're already browning, and that's a brand-new blossom. But the bee doesn't care.

I just spoke to my upstairs neighbor. I heard him coming down the stairs and stopped him on the porch just to say hello. I wasn't sure anyone was living there but apparently he's still around, though his family is back in Israel. Given the choice, I believe I'd want them here rather than there at the moment, but I didn't press for details. At least I know the apartment isn't vacant.

I haven't called the council for a new rubbish bin, as I'd planned. I realized we have two, and for the time being, I just stashed the broken one at the back of the bin row, and we'll use the good one. If it's just me, Dave and one person upstairs, we ought to make do with one bin just fine.

I got up at 2:30 a.m. and saw that mysterious light burning brightly in the building opposite, shining its glare into our garden. I still think that's a vacant apartment. That light is on all the time.

And that's about all the news (?) I can come up with this morning. Otherwise I'm just walking to work and walking home, listening to my podcasts and trying to catch up on my New Yorkers. More of the same.

Notes and Cards

I found this sticker on my walk to work yesterday -- an unusual one, in that it's stuck directly to the sidewalk and it features the cats' paws and tail. Perhaps the cat artist is trying to do some new things?

I got my glasses repaired over the weekend and picked them up yesterday. When I was in Florida I damaged them pretty severely. One of the arms got jammed closed and I couldn't open it without basically forcing it, which I had to do in order to wear them. So I screwed up the joint, bent it somehow, and first aid was needed. Now they're back on my face, and at no charge! I'm not thrilled with these frames, which Dave bought ten years ago but then never wore himself, so in 2022 I had them fitted with my prescription. They're some kind of fancy German engineering and a little too complicated for their own good.

I polished off a couple more New Yorkers last night while Dave was at the doctor, getting some advice for his Crohn's. He's trying to take his treatment private, in the hopes that he can consistently see the same doctor over time and get some more attentive case management. We'll see how that goes. The doctor he saw last night is referring him to a different doctor and meanwhile has ordered tests.

Yesterday at work I looked through a huge file folder I've kept over the years filled with thank-you notes from students, birthday and holiday cards from co-workers, and other stuff. I have no idea what I'm going to do with it all. There's too much to keep, so I guess I need to do some culling. It's nice to be reminded that I've made a difference in students' lives, enough so that they felt a need to write to me. I always feel like such a crank at work, nagging kids not to eat in the library and to bring back overdue books, so I'm glad to see that they don't just associate me with scolding.

Here's the latest from the wildlife cam in the garden -- back in London and once again collecting footage of foxes, pigeons, cats, magpies and squirrels. The best moment comes at 1:41, when a fox comes right in for a quick sniff of the camera. Normally they're very wary of it. At 2:45 I move it to get a better angle, and at 3:02 I put down some fish skin left over from dinner, which a fox eagerly eats a few hours later. At about 5:23 a fox trots in with a bone or dog treat in its mouth, which it proceeds to bury in the garden.

(By the way, the camera was still set on Florida time -- so don't pay attention to the time stamps.)

Several posts back, one of my commenters admitted somewhat sheepishly that they no longer watch the wildlife videos. By all means, if they are not your thing, don't feel obligated! I find them relaxing and in this crazy world, when humans are doing such terrible things to each other, it's nice to see other critters just going about their business. To me there's something quite calming about seeing a squirrel scratching around in the leaves or a pigeon pecking at nothing. Plus they're fun to edit together. But I promise not to find fault with you if you'd rather just skip them!

Still no sign of the fox with the damaged tail, and I'm not sure I'm seeing Q-Tip (the fox whose tail has a white tip) anymore either. Unless maybe the foxes' coats change with the seasons? I've stopped trying to name them because I can't tell them apart. I also haven't seen Bell the Bengal cat in ages.