A Street Sweeper and a Fox

The other day I mentioned London's street sweepers. Here's one I came across yesterday morning on my way to work. The poor guy had a big job!

I am always intrigued by garbage. It appears in so many of my photos because it's such a constant feature of the urban landscape. I find it an interesting counterpoint to all of London's noble and historic -- or modern and flashy -- architecture, as well as a constant reminder of what an insanely wasteful culture we are. (When I say "we" I don't mean the UK alone. I mean the western world in general.)

I'm always finding interesting things discarded on the street. I did not take this pillow home, however. I draw the line at pillows.

On a completely different note, here's our garden fox. It ran past our patio doors yesterday evening and poked around among the flowers for a few minutes -- just long enough for me to get a few shots through the window. It seems lithe and young. I don't know anything about the growth rate of foxes, but it seems conceivable that this is its first spring.

I hope it can move fast, because not only do we have Olga, but our next-door neighbor -- the one I have not very kindly dubbed Mrs. Kravitz -- just got a dog. In fact her dog, a bouncy, fluffy, fancy thing of refined breeding, came over to play with Olga a bit yesterday evening. Olga did not beat it up, thankfully.

Mrs. Kravitz and our upstairs neighbor are involved in a dispute over the use and placement of the trash cans. Despite my past complaining about the trash situation, Dave and I haven't taken sides. I want to get along with everyone involved, so I'm waiting to see how it plays out.

Finally, our irises are back, too! This one, our first of the year, just bloomed yesterday. There's a bud right behind it, and plenty of other buds as well, so we should have irises for a while.