Sunny Saturday at the Cemetery

Olga and I took a stroll yesterday up to Fortune Green, where there's a park and a large cemetery. I was hoping I might find a closer (and cleaner) place than Hampstead Heath for Olga to run free and play, but the park turned out to be quite small (and partly dog-prohibiting) and dogs in the cemetery must be on leads. So we enjoyed the sunny day, enduring the leash.

We walked the paths among the wobbly, historic graves and checked out the large wildflower and butterfly garden. Isn't that a great idea for a cemetery -- encouraging wildflowers and the insects that follow them? In fact, some of the burial areas have been consumed by the surrounding forest -- headstones are visible beneath the trees and shadowy undergrowth. Personally I'm a fan of cremation, but if I were to be buried, I think I'd love to be in a quiet forest that grew up all around me.

After Olga and I got home from our two-hour ramble, we had lunch and Dave and I set out for Homebase, England's big-box housewares store. We needed some stuff for the flat, and once we got there and saw the selection in the garden shop we began dithering about whether or not to go ahead and buy some plants. We took the plunge -- cosmos, dahlia, delphinium, lavender and hostas. After a visit to the grocery store next door, we needed a taxi to get everything home!

I bought a palace of a pot, a big blue-glazed urn with graceful curves, for our beleaguered horseradish. No other simple horseradish plant has it so good! Behind the pot, you can see the wild state of the garden right off our patio, with the iris, weeds and blackberries running rampant. Dave is hot to get to work, but it's raining today, so gardening may have to wait.

We also bought some bird seed and filled our two bird feeders, and we hung some dried corn cobs for the squirrels (out of Olga's reach, though the squirrels will surely drive her crazy, if they are brave enough to come around at all).