I had grand plans to take Olga to Wormwood Scrubs yesterday morning, but when we got to the Overground station the trains weren't running. (Of course.) Rather than change plans and backtrack toward the Heath, I decided to continue on towards Paddington Old Cemetery, where we hadn't been for about a year.
It was a beautiful day, sunny and spring-like.
The crocuses were out in profusion, which provided me with plenty of photographic opportunities. Olga was more focused on chewing up her tennis ball.
The cemetery's beautiful gothic chapels are still fenced off and inaccessible, just as they were last spring. It seems tragic that those 160-year-old buildings are being left to deteriorate. The light was hitting the stained glass windows, and through a gap in another window I could just make out Jesus, looking down on the empty room. That's probably as close as I'll ever come to seeing those windows from the inside.
Among the crocuses and snowdrops I also found clumps of iris. I'm not sure what kind this is, but it's much earlier than the irises in our garden, which won't appear for another few months.
Back home again, I joined Dave to do a little bit of trimming in our garden. More is scheduled for today -- we need to hold back the flood tide of English ivy that threatens to swallow up our plants. I still don't see any sign of life from the passionflower vine, which you may remember I cut back really hard a couple of months ago. I still think I may have killed it.
Last night we went to dinner with Chris and Linda, our pals from Notting Hill. I privately pledged not to discuss Brexit, which turns into more of a disaster every day, and we never broached the topic -- thank goodness.
The dead will have been happy to have Olga running over their graves. Little did she know that the earth was filled with bones.
ReplyDeleteYorkshire Pudding never fails to make me chuckle!
ReplyDeleteOlga is so pretty posing among the crocus flowers!
Love Olga amongst the flowers! That Stained Glass Jesus looks like he just threw Olga's ball to her :)
ReplyDeletethose crocoses are amazing. they're like wildflowers. I have some maroon irises that were labeled 'japanese'.
ReplyDeleteNope. Not fair. "Spring-like weather." Crocuses and iris in bloom. Here on the north shore of Long Island we have freezing rain and the fact that it's not snow is what we count as a blessing, with nary a petal or zephyr in sight. I have to think hard why I still live here.
ReplyDeleteSpring flowers in the cemetery, that is a wonderful cycle of renewal. Best not to talk about Brexit. We don't talk about "you know who" either. Too stressful in every way.
ReplyDeleteThe Bug is right- Jesus does look like he just threw a ball to Olga!
ReplyDeleteThose irises are a small and true glory.
Getting out of a routine can give us some very different things to look at.
ReplyDeleteI think that second photo of Olga is frame worthy. She's posing perfectly and in a field of crocuses....so pretty! To bad about that chapel. The peek at the window looks like it is quite beautiful. When my friend had his cabin up north, he used to have wild irises all over the property but these in your photo are much prettier.
ReplyDeleteLove the photo of Olga with her ball among the crocuses. She knows how to pose! The wild irises are beautiful. Us New Englanders are so wishing for and dreaming about Spring at about this time.
ReplyDeleteYes, Olga is definitely a calendar girl!
ReplyDeleteWhat is it about dogs and tennis balls? I can never understand beautiful buildings left to ruin. I watched a show about ghost towns across the world, yesterday, some of them perfectly preserved, but hardly ever visited. I can't help but feeling its such a waste when there are so many homeless in the world.
ReplyDeletePaddington Jesus looks vaguely surprised. Sad about the buildings left to nature's reclaiming. Some homeless folks might appreciate a roof and a bench.
ReplyDeleteOlga wins the cute prize of the day...AGAIN!.
Olga looks grand, indeed, with her chest puffed out and paws just so.
ReplyDeleteDoes anybody really know what will happen post Brexit? Is there any information informing people of the day to day practical implications? Sounds pretty catastrophic to me, but then, we have our very own home-grown catastrophy.
Thanks for the very pretty pictures!
The stained glass window is still beautiful, considering no maintenance has been done. Great shot; that must have taken some artful maneuvering.
ReplyDeleteLove the Olga shots, how she keeps her toy right with her. She's such a good girl to pose for you -- or at least to be predictable enough that you know how and when to get a shot that isn't blurry!
Steve, I don't think I've ever seen graves quite like those in the first photo with the stone rectangular form in front of the headstone. Is that common in England?
ReplyDeleteYP: If I were dead and buried there, I would certainly be happy to have Olga running around on top of me.
ReplyDeleteJennifer: She really does seem to know what she's doing sometimes when she poses for a picture!
Bug: Ha! All the more reason for Olga to enjoy that cemetery!
Ellen: Yeah, I think they DO spread on their own once they've been planted. They're very randomly scattered and seem to be growing naturally.
Vivian: Ugh! It IS a little early for spring in your part of the world, it's true. I seem to remember daffodils holding off until March when I lived in NYC.
Robin: The friends we visited are "leavers" who voted to exit the EU, so I know anything we said would lead to a debate. I just couldn't face it!
Ms Moon: Aren't they beautiful? I wish I knew what they were!
Red: Absolutely!
Sharon: I don't think these irises are wild, but I have no idea what kind they are.
Joanne: It's not far away, even there! Just another month or so!
Catalyst: I could put together about 100 calendars with all the pictures I have of that dog, LOL!
37P: It IS a tragic waste. In this case I'm sure the council is struggling financially, but I don't see why they can't invest enough money in this historic structure to at least stabilize it and let people use it. Maybe they're waiting for a white knight to step in.
Linda Sue: I wonder if people get into those buildings? I bet they do. No vacant building is left alone forever around here.
Tara: Basically, no one knows what will happen, because it's all dependent on what kind of exit we have, and that's still being negotiated. Having no deal will be much worse in the short term, with shortages of medicine and fresh produce predicted. No matter what the British economy is going to take a hit and we'll likely be in recession for a while. I think we're all just coasting along in wait-and-see mode.
Jenny-O: Yeah, I was on my tiptoes at an awkward angle! I must have looked weird standing that way. Fortunately no one was really around.
Sue: A lot of graves have that little wall around them, for whatever reason. I think it just better defines the plot and gives an area for planting flowers and that kind of thing. Some graves just have a headstone and some are completely covered with a slab. It all depends!