Hay and Sunshine

We're at the peak of blooming tree season, it seems. Any walk around London leads past billowing clouds of pink and white. Yesterday morning I took Olga to Gladstone Park, and we found these cherry trees growing in a tight pair, one seeming to bend over the other protectively.

Getting Olga to the park helped alleviate my guilt about not taking her anywhere at all the day before. We had a long walk, and then her dog-walker showed up in the afternoon and took her for another long walk.

She's still in bed as I write this.

I spent the afternoon on my own outing, a photo walk through Walthamstow and Snaresbrook, in far northeast London. I hadn't been to that area in a while and I got some interesting shots. This was the most curious shop I found -- a place that specializes in providing hay bales for parties. Can they really make their overhead? Maybe that's why they're closed.

I walked past the William Morris Gallery, which looks like it would be an interesting place for a future visit -- but I didn't go in. Not this time.

I eventually wound up in the Epping Forest, a large, linked collection of wooded tracts that snake from Leyton up into Essex. I was in an area called the Leyton Flats, where there were lots of people out picnicking, bicycling and boating.

After a few hours of walking, I stopped in the village of Wanstead and had coffee and carrot cake at Costa, watching the passersby from a table on the sidewalk. It's such a relief to have reached a time of year when sitting out is possible. Then I made my way back home.

Yesterday morning I potted our rescued, rooting foxglove. I dusted it with rooting powder and put it in special seed compost, and it's still looking perky this morning, which I consider a very hopeful sign. If we can keep it going for a while and get it to produce a few more roots, we can put it in the ground and I'm sure it will prosper.

I also sorted out my situation with British Airways. I called them up to buy a ticket to Florida with my credit from last summer's unused Copenhagen flights, and for some reason they balked because the credit stemmed from flights for two people and I only wanted a ticket for one. But then they said they could issue me a full refund instead! Hello?! Why wasn't this option made clear to me nine months ago? I have no idea. But supposedly I'm getting the Copenhagen money back and I can just go buy my own ticket for Florida -- an infinitely simpler solution.