Incense, Orchids and the Bathrobe Woman

And now for something completely different, as Monty Python would say.

This is the remains of a box of incense that I bought in Marrakech, Morocco, in 1992. Even when I bought it I thought it looked old, like it had been hanging around the shop for a couple of decades -- perhaps from the era of Jimi Hendrix and the other counterculture types who traipsed around Morocco in the late '60s. It was incredibly dusty, as I recall. I must have used the incense -- I honestly don't remember -- and when it was finished I cut up the box and glued it into my journal, because I loved the artwork so much. Groovy!

My only excitement yesterday was walking the dog and having a Zoom chat with my library colleagues. While walking Olga I spotted this woman, another of our neighborhood free spirits. She walks around the high street rather dramatically wrapped in unusual clothing -- in this case what looks like a bathrobe. Sometimes it's a bedsheet done up like a toga. Her dark hair is usually loosely pinned with a big red flower -- the flower is there in the photo above, but you can't see it under her furry hat. And those cork-heeled platform shoes!

Anyway, it's not a very good picture, and one of these days I'll have to get a better one. But you get the idea.

Off the Black Path by the railroad tracks, I spotted a pair of books lying in the ivy behind the fence. And not just any books -- LIBRARY BOOKS! Well, as you can imagine, I couldn't let that stand. I looked around and found a long squeegee on a nearby rubbish pile. (There's always handy rubbish around in London.) I used it to pull the books through the fence. Of course, because we've had rain over the last two or three days, they were completely ruined. As it turned out only one was a library book -- from Montreal, of all places -- and believe me, they wouldn't want it back. I returned the squeegee to the rubbish heap and threw the books in a trash can.

Olga is watching my right hand in the photo above because I was holding her Kong. That's all she cared about.

(As an aside, if you type "Montreal" into Google, it prompts you to search for "Montreal Screwjob." I had no idea what this meant, so I did it -- with some trepidation, admittedly. Turns out it was a controversial 1997 incident in professional wrestling, in which wrestler Bret Hart was deprived of his championship title. The things you learn! Google prompts can sometimes be pretty interesting.)

Finally, here's a photo showing some of our blooming orchids -- the ones in the dining room. It put them all on the table for a "group shot." They're looking really good right now -- kind of psychedelic, like my incense box! The three pink orchids are all rescues, plants I picked up on the street that other people had discarded. The orangey one on the left we bought several years ago and it reliably blooms every year.

Dave and I have been watching "The Mandalorian" at night. We had to buy a subscription to Disney+ to get it, but it's not very expensive, and we've wanted to see this series -- a "Star Wars" prequel featuring the infamous Baby Yoda -- for a while. It's good so far.