Foxglove on the Heath

The wild foxglove is blooming on Hampstead Heath just as it is next to our house. Olga and I found this patch during our walk on Saturday. We had a good, long outing, which is a good thing, because yesterday I didn't take her anywhere -- we stayed home and Dave and I worked a bit in the garden. (Olga didn't seem to mind. I think she was still tired from the day before.)

I'm trying to take it easy, to cool off this hot coal behind my eye. It seemed a little better yesterday, but then I was taking aspirin so it's hard to tell.

Meanwhile, we planted the new sunflowers, and moved a few other plants that weren't growing in quite the right place. We've decided to let the slightly sunken, rectangular patch of lawn immediately beneath the rose bushes -- an area that looks like it used to be a flower bed, now replanted with grass -- go a bit wild. We're going to stop mowing it and see what happens. This solves several problems, including how to protect the ragwort, fox-and-cubs and other wildflowers that grow there naturally. It should be great for insects and critters, but I predict Mrs. Kravitz will hate it. (And she won't hesitate to tell us!)

My splint on the lupine blossom, by the way, was short-lived. On Sunday morning the flower was a collapsed, slimy mess, having been ravaged by another snail. I cut it off.

Then we came inside and watched "Witness" and "The Silence of the Lambs," neither of which I'd seen in many years. I e-mailed my dad to wish him happy Father's Day, but he's got so much on his plate health-wise that I'm not sure he's even reading his e-mail. Well, I'll see him in a couple of weeks.

It's raining again today, a light, drizzly, gray rain. Yesterday was moderately sunny, enough that I managed to do laundry and dry our sheets outside -- so much better than the dryer!