Bridges, Bleak House and Burros

I belatedly realized that I may have caused some confusion by titling yesterday's post "London Bridge" but showing a picture of Tower Bridge. Tower Bridge is what you see from London Bridge, but it's not the same as London Bridge. Sorry about that!

In fact, the BBC article I linked from that post (here it is again) addresses a longstanding myth about the two bridges -- that the man who bought old London Bridge and moved it to Lake Havasu, Arizona, mistakenly believed that he was buying Tower Bridge. His grandson says that isn't true at all. "My grandfather knew exactly what he was buying," he said.

Anyway, hopefully I have cleared that up!

I had possibly the laziest day of my entire life yesterday. It was rainy and blustery and I spent the entire day on the couch with Olga, who showed no inclination to want to go anywhere. Both of us were in hibernation mode. I watered the plants in the morning and did some vacuuming, and just before and after lunch I struggled to keep my eyes open while reading. I don't know why I was beset with such fatigue considering I'd barely done anything.

My eyes may have been involuntarily closing because I was reading "Bleak House." I'm about 250 pages in, and I think I can already say that this is not my favorite Dickens novel. I had no idea what it was about when I began it (lawyers) and it bothers me for a couple of reasons. One, the perspective keeps shifting from an omniscient narrator to the first-person account of a main character, a young woman. (I think this is the first Dickens I've read with a female protagonist.) Second, there are about a million characters, some of whom have two names, and some of whom have very similar names -- I kept reading about Mr. Turveydrop and his "deportment," but I was confusing him with Mr. Tulkinghorn.

Again, I chalk some of this up to the fact that I was nodding off. But I will persevere.

Let's look at a few more of the old postcards that Jeanie gave me last week. Here's one of a small marina on Bradenton Beach, Fla., mailed in 1953.

"Arrived home Thursday noon. Had a nice trip down, found everything OK, it is no warmer here than in Ohio. -- Mr. and Mrs. Francis, Judy & Pee Wee"

Mailed 1944 from Bakersfield, Cal.:
"Hello Linnis -- I am sending you a pair to work on the farm this spring. How do you like them? How much do you think they are worth? -- Bill Greene"

(On the front: "These are out on the desert where I work.")

This one, mailed in 1910 from Topeka, Kan. to Albuquerque, N.M., gave me a chuckle:

"Dear Arthur & Marie: This is the crossroad to your farm a few years hence. -- Della"

(Top photo: Dramatic shadows on Finchley Road on Friday afternoon.)