Cacti

Believe it or not, we had NINE trick-or-treaters yesterday! I was astonished! By the time I got home from work Dave had already had one, and then the rest showed up over the course of the evening until about 7:30 p.m. And then I had to turn out the porch light because we were down to one mini-candy bar and I worried about how I'd handle it if two kids showed up.

I guess the porch light really is the signal, because we had no other Halloween decorations and no jack-o-lantern. Maybe people on the street know we're American and thus likely to be participating in this insanity, but as I said yesterday, no one came around in previous years.

I must admit I enjoyed handing out candy more than I thought. At some point I turned to Dave and said, "This is pretty fun!"

He rolled his eyes.

Pictures today from our Thanksgiving cacti, which as I understand it really are slightly different from Christmas cacti. Something about the shape of the leaf -- and when they bloom, obviously. (Here's a rather breathless article on the subject.)

This first one is the white -- or really light pink -- cactus that blog reader Frances sent me as a cutting several years ago. It's having its best year ever. I actually have two of them, because I rooted some sprigs in different pots, and now one of those pots dropped a few segments so I have a third one going.

My salmon-colored cactus has about three flowers on it, which is better than last year's one. I've had this plant since 2019 and it's probably the feeblest (healthwise) of all my Thanksgiving cacti, but it's hanging in there.

And finally, here are the bright pink ones, which have dozens of flowers and are easily the most robust. I have two pink-flowering plants. How did I wind up with all these flipping cacti? Basically every time a piece breaks off I root it, because I can't bear to throw it away. Hence, I have more than I ever intended. This is the time of year that it all pays off!

Boo!

Another year, another Halloween. I went out on a limb this year and bought a box of miniature Cadbury chocolate bars, in case of trick-or-treaters. Mind you, we have never had a trick-or-treater, and as you may remember Dave and I normally turn off the lights and stay in the back of the house so as not to invite any. But the new neighbors upstairs have a couple of kids, and though they're probably well past trick-or-treating age, I wanted to be prepared in case they knock on the door. They'll know whether or not we're home so hiding from them wouldn't be an option.

There's also a house a couple doors down, festooned with fake cobwebs and plastic spiders, where an American couple live with numerous small kids. I figured they might turn up too.

In any case, we're ready.

Found in a returned library book

I had a funny exchange with a little girl yesterday in the Lower School, a first-grader. She asked me how old I am.

"Pretty old," I replied. "How old do you think I am?"

She thought for a moment and said, "Twenty six!"

I told her that was the nicest thing anyone had said to me for at least a month, but I was much older than that.

"Seventy nine!" she said.

Criminy.

Rainy Day Disorientation

That was the view early yesterday morning from our hotel room window. Not exactly optimal beach weather, and in fact it got worse after I took the picture! You can see my Suzanne Vega tour t-shirt on the chair. I thought as an image it summarized our quick trip very well.

We had a late-morning breakfast -- a brunch, really -- at a place called The Breakfast Club that I'd photographed on a previous trip. They even had American-style pancakes!

Not exactly Denny's, but close. Often in England when pancakes are on the menu they're these skinny, crepe-like things, so we were happy to see these. I got caught up in the American atmosphere and ordered coffee, and the waitress asked in a not entirely pleasant way, "What kind of coffee?" And then I realized I had to specify Americano or Espresso or whatever, because we're still in Europe and plain old brewed coffee is not really a thing. What was I thinking?!

Anyway, we lingered at The Breakfast Club for a while before braving the rainy walk to the train station and catching a train straight back to West Hampstead, which is about as convenient as possible. I read "The Old Curiosity Shop" on the way.

Stickers on the back of a street sign in Brighton

We were slightly disoriented (or "disorientated," as people say here) all day, sitting at home on a random Wednesday afternoon; between that and Sunday's time change I never felt quite normal. I was happy to go to bed and wake up this morning back on my daily routine -- although I have to be at work half an hour early today as I'm being "interviewed" by a seventh-grade class for a project.

Speaking of work, on Tuesday I had a funny experience when I saw a fifth-grade girl come into the library and slip a book into the book return. Something about her looked sheepish, so I promptly retrieved the book and it was sopping wet. I don't just mean damp, or partly wet. I mean it looked like it had spent the night in a full bathtub.

I showed my co-worker and we had a good laugh about what would possess a kid to put a wet book in the book return, on top of what could have been (but fortunately wasn't) a bunch of other books. I could have chased her down or contacted her parents about paying for it, but it was just a little paperback that I think was a donation anyway, so I decided to let the whole thing go. I deleted the book and threw it away. Moving on!

The Vega Show

Well, here we are in Brighton. We've seen our concert and now we have half a day to wander around town, have a leisurely brunch and then catch the train back to London. The weather isn't exactly cooperating, as it's pretty damp out there, but I can't have everything and this is England in almost-November.

Dave and I worked full days yesterday and then promptly headed for Victoria station, where we caught a train that brought us to Brighton in just over an hour. We had sandwiches on the train, so all we had to do here was check into our hotel and then head to the theater.

We passed the ghost projection above, swirling on the sidewalk in front of the Theatre Royal. That's not where our concert was, though -- it was across the street at the Brighton Dome, part of the fanciful Royal Pavilion complex. The inside of the theater featured Indian (from India) style arches and architectural elements; it was a cool place to see a show.

The music began at 7:30 p.m. with opening act Katherine Priddy, a singer and acoustic guitarist, and we caught most of that. Suzanne Vega took the stage with her two accompanists, a guitarist and a cellist, soon afterwards.

As I said in yesterday's post, I've been a fan of Vega since the 1980s. I think my college friend Lorenzo first introduced me to her music, back when she only had one album. Now she has ten albums and a long career behind her, including radio hits like "Luka" and "Tom's Diner." She's 66, so she's several years older than me, but I still feel like we've grown up together. I first saw her in concert 35 years ago, and most recently (before last night) 18 years ago, which blows my mind!

For those of you who may know her songs, here's the set list from last night's show:

Marlene on the Wall
99.9 Fº
Caramel

Small Blue Thing
Gypsy
In Liverpool
The Queen and the Soldier
Flying With Angels
Speaker's Corner

Chambermaid
Left of Center
I Never Wear White
Some Journey
Luka
Tom's Diner

Encores:
Walk on the Wild Side
Alley
Galway

Some of those are from her newest album, which I haven't yet heard, and I hope I got all the titles right! I was happily surprised to hear her play "Walk on the Wild Side," because she usually sings her own songs rather than covering someone else's, but apparently she regularly performs that one as a tribute to her late friend Lou Reed.

Here's a very brief 40-second snippet of her performing "Tom's Diner," the hit DNA version with a beat (as opposed to her original song, which was a capella.)

After the show we walked back to the hotel, past the decorative doorways of the building known as the Corn Exchange (above). Now, I'm off to find some morning coffee!

Deo

Here are the neighborhood pigeons, roosting once again in the walnut tree in our garden. You can see how the autumn colors have deepened since I took a similar photo in September. The Japanese maple is blazing more and more red and the walnut is gradually yellowing.

I made a discovery which, although touching on an unsavory subject, might be useful for you all to know. Remember how I mentioned that I found myself wearing a slightly odiferous sweater the other day? Well, the truth is, both I and the sweater were odiferous, and here's why. Some time ago, I bought two new sticks of deodorant -- Sure, my usual brand, in identical green plastic containers. I used one of the sticks and it was fine. When it ran out, I moved to the other, and I thought, "Hey, this one seems slightly different." I didn't give it much thought until one or two days later -- the day of the sweater.

I discovered that I'd inadvertently bought something called "Sure Whole Body Deo," which is not the same as regular anti-perspirant. In Sure's own words, "Traditional deodorants, especially antiperspirant deodorants, are designed to tackle body odor at its root by blocking sweat glands and reducing skin bacteria. Body sprays, on the other hand, are akin to perfumes, offering a fragrant cover-up for odors with a blend of herbs, oils, and spices."

(This was not a spray, but I assume the product is similar however it's delivered.)

So basically I'd bought something that was not my regular deodorant -- that "covers up" odors rather than blocking them. BEWARE the "Whole Body Deo"! That's my useful consumer information for the day.

Dave and I are off to Brighton this evening to see Suzanne Vega in concert. I've seen her live a couple of times, once back in 1990 during her tour for her album "Days of Open Hand," and again in 2007, a show I blogged about. (She also showed up as a surprise guest at a Christmas benefit concert I attended that same year.)

I've been a longtime fan so I'm looking forward to this. I bought the tickets way back in May so thank goodness I didn't forget. We'll stay overnight in Brighton and we've taken tomorrow off work, so we don't need to rush home. I hope we can have a leisurely morning by the sea!

A Mostly Sunny Walk to Edgware

After spending all of Saturday in the house, I decided I needed some exercise and a change of scenery. So yesterday I grabbed the big camera and headed north along Edgware Road for a good, long photo walk.

I trekked through the neighborhoods of Kilburn, Cricklewood, Colindale, Burnt Oak, Edgware and Canons Park. I've been up that way before but it's been years. As you can see above, I was lucky enough to have sunshine for the first part of my walk, and although it was chilly out it felt good.

 I stopped at the Welsh Harp Reservoir, which has recently undergone a massive cleanup that involved draining the water, relocating fish and gathering tons of rubbish. I was glad to see it once again full of water and if the birds are any indication, it has been restocked with plenty more fish (as was the plan).

Here are a couple of other fun snapshots I grabbed along the way:

Free perfume/cologne, anyone? I don't wear any of that stuff so I left it behind. (I can't even tell if it's meant for a man or woman, or maybe there's a mix of both?)

A curious name for an apartment building. "Holocene" is the name of our current geological age, but it also stems from the Greek words for "all new," so maybe it's named that because it's a new building?

Mysterious graffiti in Colindale. There is no beach nearby, though I suppose if you head in any direction for long enough you'd eventually hit one.

In Edgware I stopped by St. Margaret's Church, which has an interesting graveyard that provides a green oasis in the middle of an otherwise quite developed area. There were wildflower plantings (mostly gone to seed now), a frog pond, an "insect hotel" and other ecological features, as well as historical gravestones, with the graves of former soldiers marked with red poppies.

Across the very busy road -- where it was impossible to take a picture without cars, though I did try -- is the historic but troubled Railway Hotel. It closed in 2006 and although plans for its renovation were announced more than five years ago it remains mostly shuttered.

From the Canons Park tube station, I caught the Jubilee Line straight back to West Hampstead. All told I walked about eight miles. (According to the health app on my phone, I took 2,153 steps on Saturday, and 20,972 yesterday!)

Potato Horror Show

We have a long, narrow window in one of our bathrooms, and maybe a year ago I put a pot with some cuttings from our "wandering dude" plant on the windowsill. As you can see, it has prospered to the point that it has outgrown that little niche. I think it's taking over the world. I'm not sure where it's headed next but it is creeping out into the room.

At left, in the frame, you can see that odd face mask I found on the beach in Vietnam.

Yesterday I started my annual Charles Dickens autumn reading project. This year I've chosen "The Old Curiosity Shop," which I know absolutely nothing about. I just like the name because I love a thrift store, and if Charles Dickens is writing about his era's equivalent of a Goodwill, well, that sounds pretty interesting. Then I made the mistake of reading the introduction by the Earl of Wicklow, from 1950, in which he revealed several significant spoilers. For example, he assumes (SPOILER ALERT!) that we know going into the book that Little Nell dies, but personally, I would have preferred to find that out at Dickens' pace.

I spent some time in the garden cutting down some spent Michaelmas daisies and tucking another dahlia into the shed for its winter nap. I also put our garden cam back out again -- I took it down last week, thinking I'd take a break from it, but I've been missing the antics of my wild critters.

Oh, and I got confirmation that my voluntary redundancy contract has been signed by the school, so that is that -- I am officially retiring as of April 15. Six more months to go! It's hard to believe.

I discovered a bag of potatoes in our pantry that, let's just say, had been there a while. When I opened it, this horrific scene awaited. Halloween-worthy, right? I mean, those are just fleshy roots, but still -- pretty gross. I am the king of finding ways to eat food that's a bit past its prime, but these were too far gone even for me. Into the compost bin they went.

In the evening, Dave and I watched "A House of Dynamite," Netflix's new movie by Kathryn Bigelow about a possible nuclear attack on the United States. It's a riveting moment-by-moment account of how such an event might unfold among the primary players, but the ending was maddening. I had a few quibbles with it -- for example, some fighter pilots were shown scrambling and then flying in their jet, presumably to surveil (or shoot down?) the incoming missile, but nothing ever came of them. And it was never explained -- at least, not to my satisfaction -- why the most obvious way to address the predicament (waiting) wasn't viable. I can't say any more without giving the plot away.

It's been a good movie weekend. On Friday we watched an old Shepperton Studios film from 1960 called "City of the Dead" starring Christopher Lee. Q-Anon Anonymous -- a podcast I follow that critiques conspiracy thinking -- did an episode on this film, which was ultimately about witchcraft, and though it is strictly a B-movie in the Saturday afternoon "Creature Feature" vein, I enjoyed it.

Do you want some happy reading? Check out:

-- The story of Ray Ray the cat, who stowed away among the luggage on top of the family car when his owners went for a road trip from Pennsylvania to New Hampshire. They found him unscathed after about 100 miles of driving.

-- The story of Kiki the disabled sheep, who cannot walk but has a custom-made cart she can steer and operate with her head to move around. She has become something of a star both at the animal refuge where she lives and on social media. (Admittedly, this one is bittersweet, and I think there's quite a bit of anthropomorphizing going on in interpreting Kiki's behavior, but still -- she's lucky to be alive and mobile. It seems insane that we eat perfectly healthy lambs and then go to such lengths to help a sick one, but no one ever said humans are free from moral contradictions.)

Both of those should be gift-article links accessible to non-subscribers, so I hope they work for you.

Faint Praise

Our pink Thanksgiving cactus is finally blooming, and as you can see from the buds there are lots of flowers still on the way. We have no open blooms yet on the plants that produce white or salmon-colored flowers, but it's only a matter of days.

I had a funny conversation with a student yesterday. One of the middle school boys is very into photography, and he knows I take pictures too, so he often comes to me with questions or observations about cameras. He's one of these kids who's intrigued by using film, which as I've said is a complete mystery to me -- I think being unburdened by the restrictions and hassles of film is one of the best developments in my life, and I mean it. But anyway, at some point I showed him one of my photography books, which I'd donated to the library years ago. He and I talked about street photography and he made some observations about a few of the pictures.

Yesterday he brought a friend to the library and showed him my book, and he came to me about 20 minutes later and said, "You know, Mr. Reed, when I first saw your photography I thought it was only so-so. But now I've looked deeper into the book and I've decided it's really good!"

Now, this boy is likely to say anything, and with a directness that can be downright painful. But I thought that was pretty funny. I'm glad he has decided I'm not merely mediocre.

It's hard to believe I put together my last book ten years ago. (Not counting one I did a few years back of my dad's photos from his Europe trip in 1957.) Maybe once I retire I'll compile another book. An Olga retrospective? I don't do as much street photography as I used to before I had a full-time job, but I could see picking it up again when I have more spare time. I remember that was one of my hesitations about starting work in the library in the first place -- that it would cut into my photography. But it's not like photography was making me any money!

As long as I'm on a roll talking about childhood stuff, as I have in several recent posts, here's another memory that came to me the other day. You know I'm a fan of book covers, having posted about good ones, bad ones and some that once belonged to my mom.

Well, I got to thinking about a copy of Arthur C. Clarke's novel "Childhood's End" that I owned when I was a teenager in the early '80s. I don't think I ever actually read the book, but I remember buying it based on the slick, futuristic cover art. I wondered if I could find an image of it online, and the answer, of course, is yes!

I'm pretty sure that's the cover at left, though there's a very similar, slightly earlier version with a less stylized typeface, and I might have owned that one. In any case, the illustration was the same. It's nice to see it again, and I was amused to find this cover made enough of an impression on another blogger that he also wrote a short ode to it. (In fact that's his image of the cover, at left, which hopefully he won't mind me reposting here.)

Once again, it's funny how some things make such a deep impression on our memories when we're young.

Ifalik

This has appeared on a doorway on Finchley Road. It seems an appropriate thing to see as I walk to and from work, since that's about how I feel by the end of most days!

Nothing much to tell about yesterday -- more book covering, book repairing, shelving, wrangling little kids in the Lower School, etc. A typical day. I wore a gray sweater to work that I'd worn in Penzance, and I became aware about halfway through the day that it didn't smell very fresh. Don't you hate it when you suddenly realize that people might be cringing as you walk away from them, wondering if your shower is out of order? That made me self-conscious for the rest of the day.

After posting my old school certificates the other day I began thinking about another episode from elementary school. I remember we did a unit in the fourth grade about a remote coral atoll in the Pacific. I couldn't immediately remember the name, but it eventually came to me -- Ifalik. I haven't thought about this in years, but I remember being very interested in life on Ifalik, which seemed like a tropical paradise with a lagoon and people eating breadfruit and that kind of thing. There was a lot of emphasis on the breadfruit.

I got to wondering why kids in rural Florida spent multiple days learning about life on Ifalik. I suppose it's just as valid as learning about life in India or Germany or anywhere else, and in fact Ifalik -- as part of the Caroline Islands in Micronesia -- was a territory administered by the United States at the time. So maybe that made it even more relevant, as a far-flung part of our own country. (It has since become independent.) I did some Googling to see if anyone else on the interwebs mentioned this specific memory from school.

I didn't find any first-hand accounts, but I did find a "Teacher's Guide to Economic Concepts" for fourth to sixth graders from 1975. On page 101, under "Division of Labor: Specialization: Interdependence," it listed a fourth grade textbook called "Regions Around the World." Page 74 of that textbook is summarized this way: "Ifalik is isolated. Its contacts with the world beyond the reef are very limited. The people meet most of their needs with things that are found on the atoll."

So my guess is, we were using that textbook. And maybe I remember the breadfruit so prominently because the whole point was to study the economy of Ifalik, which would have concerned labor and food production. It's funny what sticks in our heads, isn't it?

Addendum: Here's a post from a travel blogger who more recently visited Ifalik and a nearby island, and has some excellent photos of life there.

Blustery Bench Watch

Another cat sticker, found on my walk to work yesterday morning. Whoever this artist/cartoonist is, they've been busy.  I'm seeing more and more cats all up and down Finchley Road!

I realized after I posted yesterday that I'd already told you about my political buttons in an earlier post, about five years ago. Oops! I try very hard not to be repetitive here on the ol' blog, but occasionally my mind slips a gear and it happens. Oh well. At least the sloths were new information.

We are having a blustery, rainy morning here. This is part of Storm Benjamin, apparently. It's not particularly windy from what I can tell, but I do hear rain coming down. I always dread going to work on mornings like this. If it's windy I don't want to walk, but cramming into the tube with a bunch of other damp commuters and their drippy umbrellas is no fun either.

Here's the latest on "Bench Watch." The seat of the broken bench, which had entirely come away from the anchored frame, has been removed and the cones are back, along with more warning tape. Why someone chose to carry off the seat but not the back is a bit of a mystery, and there's still no functional place to sit, after at least five months.

And here, next to Prince Head Wound, are the last of our tomatoes, which I had been ripening in a paper bag with an apple. There were more in the bag but after a week or so I took out all the ones with any sign of color and I tossed the rest. Most of the discards were too small to ever ripen, like that little green one in the middle above. Anyway, I ate the ripe ones with my dinner last night -- a scrambled egg concoction that I made with all the random leftover ingredients I could find in the fridge. Dave didn't feel like cooking and I wanted to head off any takeaway orders, because we had plenty of food on hand. Cleaning out the fridge always gives me a sense of accomplishment.

In further evidence that the world has gone insane, did you see that a woman in Richmond was handed a £150 penalty by police for pouring the dregs of her coffee down a storm drain? This is the stupidest, stupidest thing I have ever seen. If the police can't tell the difference between a harmful chemical and a harmless, organic cup of coffee, well, it doesn't bode well for our society. (To the council's credit, they dropped the fine.)

Towernaut and Tree Sloths

Fellow blogger JayCee posted some photos on Monday from a trip she took to Costa Rica several years ago. Her post included pictures of sloths, which triggered something in my memory that led me to go burrowing into a box of old documents and other items in one of our closets. Here is some of what emerged from that burrowing; the sloth connection will soon become apparent.

I found the certificate above, which was given to eight-year-old me during an elementary school field trip to a Florida Division of Forestry fire lookout tower. These metal towers used to be found all through rural Florida, where the forest rangers could use them to spot wildfires. This one was known as Gower Tower, near the small community of Gowers Corners (which is now heavily developed suburbia, but back then was little more than an ancient gas station and a lumber mill).

As you can see, I was  deemed a "Towernaut" for making the "grueling ascent" to the top of the tower -- along with my entire class, I'm pretty sure. Did I ever take advantage of the "rights and privileges thereunto appertaining," whatever they were? (They also misspelled my name, which hopefully won't nullify my rights and priveleges, which I fully intend to exercise at some point in the future.)

Note Smokey the Bear in the lower right corner, reminding us that "Only YOU can prevent forest fires."

I also found this fancy parchment-paper certificate for "community and civic participation" during the Bicentennial. What on earth I did to deserve this, I have no idea. Again, it was probably some class project and we all got one. I'm not sure why it came all the way from Atlanta. I think the Constitutional Press had something to do with the newspaper, which was known at the time as the Atlanta Constitution. It later merged with a competitor to become the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, or AJC.

Dave and I have often wondered at many modern schools holding commencement ceremonies to mark students' passage from elementary to middle school, or from middle to high. I'm sure I have confidently exclaimed, "We never had anything like that when I was a kid!" And yet I found this certificate of promotion from the sixth grade -- so apparently we did get some kind of recognition. I'm pretty sure there was no ceremony, certainly nothing involving parents. I'd remember if my mom or dad darkened the door of the school, because that was a rare occasion!

OK, now we're coming to the sloths.

I found my collection of buttons and badges, including two I had made in our high school library featuring tree sloths. My erstwhile high school girlfriend, Barbara, had adopted the panda bear as a personal "spirit animal" -- she even used to sign things PQB, for Panda Q. Bear. That year, our school library got a machine that could custom-make buttons -- as I remember, we could bring a picture or message on a circular piece of paper, pay something like 50 cents, and the librarian would turn it into a button. Barbara had a button made featuring a picture of a panda bear she'd cut from a magazine.

I decided I needed a spirit animal too, and I chose the sloth. I'd like to say that I was trolling Barbara -- that I had some awareness of how silly this whole spirit-animal thing was, and thus deliberately chose a modest underdog of an animal as my totem. But I don't think I was that smart. I think I just liked sloths.

I used to wear those sloth buttons on my jacket, which must have perplexed my classmates, to the extent that any of them noticed.

The other buttons are just things I picked up here and there. The Nixon button came from a flea market, purchased as a kind of joke (as Nixon was thoroughly disgraced by that time). I genuinely was a Reagan/Bush fan when I was in high school, though I ultimately wound up voting for Mondale in 1984 -- me and about twelve other people.

A few years later, I was much more politically active and actually campaigned for Dukakis at my university, as well as Steve Pajcic, a Democratic candidate for Florida governor. In both cases, we know how well that went.

The anti-George W. Bush button is something I picked up when I lived in New York, during the run-up to the Iraq invasion, which I was steadfastly against. Remember when George W. Bush seemed like the worst thing that could possibly happen to the American presidency? Ah, those were the days.

Pigments

The honesty plants are changing color for autumn, their chlorophyll fading to reveal the same inner pigments that give them such bright purple flowers in spring. I love these plants. We have a couple of them that re-seeded in one of the lily pots (above) as well as a few that sprouted in the flower beds, which is a minor miracle. Despite the fact that we don't weed much, plants seldom seem to re-seed well in our garden. Foxgloves, for example, never carry over from one season to the next the way they do for other people. About the only plants that reliably sprout are green alkanet, of which we have waaaaaay too much, and forget-me-nots.

Here's a status report on our Thanksgiving cacti. We now have five plants -- the salmon-colored one in front, two white ones behind that, and two pink ones in the back. The pink ones are by far the most robust. I think one of my white ones has a bit of root rot, and as you can see there's also some kind of weed growing in the pot -- I think it's a forget-me-not. (They re-seed so well they're growing INDOORS!)

All the cacti have buds so it looks like we'll get lots of flowers this season. I'm trying to back off my watering a bit. I usually water them weekly, and try not to let them sit in watery saucers, but with root rot showing up I guess even that is too much.

My mind is swirling a bit these days with all the potential changes in our lives. The contract for my buyout next spring is in the final stages of preparation, and I've been dealing with a lawyer to get that done. And there's still this mysterious "opportunity" hanging off our bow like an iceberg (an image that illustrates pretty well how I feel about it) -- though I still can't get into the details. I probably won't be able to write about it, in fact, for at least another month or two. Just know that it's out there, and I will reveal all at some point.

All this makes it very hard for me to focus. I spent yesterday writing to some kids and their parents and/or teachers about overdue summer books, so I'm still trying to mop those up. When I print out our library's overdue report it comes to 13 pages -- all students with books that were due on Sept. 1 or before. Some of them were due last spring! It seems like it's getting harder and harder to motivate these kids to get things back to us.

There is the occasional screw-up on our end. Yesterday a boy came into the library and said he thought he'd returned his book, but he agreed to bring money the next day to pay for it. After he left, I thought, "Let me check the shelf, just in case." And there it was. Why it was never scanned so it came off his account I don't know. Sometimes kids put books back themselves, sometimes the scanner doesn't work right, sometimes it's human error, blah blah blah. Anyway, I e-mailed him and said, "Good news! You're off the hook!" But I pointed out that the next time he receives an overdue notice for a book he believes he returned, he needs to SAY something -- not ignore the situation until I write his teacher.

Back to Work

The climbing hydrangeas are looking properly autumnal.

It's pouring rain outside as I type. As always, I am loving the sound, from the sanctuary of my warm, dry bed. I have to get myself up in short order because we return to work today. Weird to think this was my last October break!

Otherwise, there's not much to report from yesterday. I literally spent the whole day on the couch, archiving my photos and reading "Tomorrow, When the War Began," a dystopian YA novel set in Australia about the country being invaded by an unnamed military force. Six teenagers on an overnight hike in the wilderness return to find their parents gone and their town occupied, and become a force of resistance. It sounds silly but it's pretty good. We have the whole series in the library and I'd never heard of it before I worked there, but apparently it was a big hit when it first came out back in the early '90s.

Dave and I are watching "Boots" on Netflix and really liking it. It's especially appealing because it pisses off Pete Hegseth.

Foxes and Flowers (More of the Same)

It feels good to be back home after our short Cornwall excursion. Mostly it felt amazing to sleep in our own room last night. I did sleep on the train, but that's nothing like sleeping in a familiar -- and stationary -- bed!

I spent yesterday morning running laundry, catching up on blogs and finishing "Auntie Mame." I also mowed the lawn in the afternoon. Even though we're well into autumn, the grass continues to grow and must be kept at bay. The lawn mower also grinds up and vacuums up the fallen leaves from our walnut tree.

This toadflax plant (above) is blooming right outside our French doors, so we have a nice view when we look outside.

The dusty miller is blooming as well, as are the Michaelmas daisies (below), our purple wallflower and our verbena, among other things. So although the golden autumnal shroud has descended on the garden, it's still got some floral color.

I didn't go to yesterday's "No Kings" activities and in fact I'm not sure there was even a demonstration in London -- since obviously the "No Kings" moniker is problematic in a country with a king! (I think here it's called "No Tyrants" for that reason.) Last spring a demonstration was held near the U.S. Embassy and I imagine there was something similar this time around. Dave and I talked about attending but having just disembarked from an overnight train we weren't up for it. That seems lazy as heck now that I write it down, so thanks to those who did go to resist the Trump juggernaut.

I downloaded the garden cam to check out recent activity, including during our absence. I moved it again, to a different location on the patio, and it's interesting to see what animals come right up close to the house -- both foxes and a few of the cats. Here are some highlights:

-- We start with the brown-tailed fox, who is curious about the camera. The weather wasn't great in these first few clips so they look a bit dim.
-- At 0:24, the fox with the white-tipped tail shows up. I've taken to calling him or her Q-Tip. From this point on we get both foxes in repeated visits, mostly just making a quick circle of the patio. (And yes, I know our patio looks like heck. It needs to be weeded and swept.)
-- At 1:19, we have an obligatory squirrel video.
-- After dinner one night, I put the crispy skin from a roasted duck breast out on the patio for the foxes. At 1:42, the brown-tailed fox grabs it. (I almost never feed them and they eat street garbage anyway, so please don't take me to task for that!)
-- At 2:39, Pale Cat shows up.
-- At 2:57, we see Pale Cat in the daytime, looking much more orange and much less pale!
-- At 3:15, Bell the Bengal passes through.
-- At 3:38 we see Tabby, our least frequent cat visitor. Blackie did not make an appearance this week, though I've seen him or her on the patio on other nights.

Seven Wives, Seven Sacks, Seven Cats...

Yesterday was a crash course in Cornwall tourism, with us packing as much as possible into a single day. And I gotta say, we did an excellent job -- saw lots of sights but not too many, with plenty of leisure time for pints at a pub and some photography walks.

After a quick, light breakfast at our hotel, we took a taxi out to Land's End, at the far southwestern tip of Cornwall. I mainly wanted to see it just to say I'd been there. We started at the Land's End attraction, a kind of touristy complex (which we did not enter) with entertainments and a hotel, and we walked the coastal path from there up to Sennen Cove, a little more than a mile away.

It was a beautiful stretch of coast, with sculpted rock forms and windswept vegetation. We saw porpoises in the water and lots of seabirds, the rusted hulk of a shipwreck, and several lighthouses.

Remember the old postcard I bought of the First & Last House in England, back in 2022? I'm sure you don't, but I posted about it here. Well, we saw the First & Last House, which is still there and serves refreshments, though it wasn't open when we passed by. You can see it in the top photo, on the cliff at upper left.

At Sennen Cove we called our old friend the taxi driver, and he collected us and took us all the way up to St. Ives. These two taxi rides -- from Penzance to Land's End and from Sennen Cove to St. Ives -- were our one great indulgence, as they cost altogether about £90, but they got us around fast. I'd thought we might take a bus but apparently the bus is pretty slow and we wanted to use our limited time more wisely. We passed through little towns like St. Just, Pendeen, Morvah and Zennor on the way.

St. Ives is an artsy community and quite well-known as a tourism hotspot. It made me think of the nursery rhyme, and I kept singing to Dave, "When I was going to St. Ives, I met a man with seven wives..." He had no idea what I was talking about, so I played him a Sesame Street rendition on YouTube, which made even me laugh. Do you all know that song? I had it on a record when I was a little kid so every time someone mentions St. Ives I think of it.

(Apparently there's some dispute about whether the St. Ives in the song is the Cornwall town or one up in Cambridgeshire, but I'm not taking a position on that.)

Anyway, we walked down to the train station to look at train times back to Penzance, and then explored the town. We went to a swanky pub for lunch with big glass windows overlooking the harbor, where I had a "charred watermelon salad" (if there was charring it was very subtle) and Dave had mussels.

We wandered through town, did a little shopping, and then we went to another sculpture garden -- because this is apparently what one does in Cornwall. This one was the former home and studio of Barbara Hepworth, one of Britain's most famous sculptors. Several years ago I posted a picture of her "Winged Figure" outside the John Lewis store on Oxford Street. We saw lots more of her works here.

Peering into her studio made me realize I could never be a sculptor. The dust! The shavings! The chips and shards! I'd go crazy.

From there we walked down to a bench on the waterfront, where we had coffee while watching the passing crowds and the seabirds. This seagull (above) was obsessed with that ball, which I think was a dog toy it found on the beach. I swear it was playing keep-away with the other birds, all of which were trying to snatch it.

I left Dave on the bench while I took a walk out to the pier and then around some back streets. Some poor woman sat next to him with an ice cream cone, only to have a seagull swoop down and carry off the ice cream! Maybe that's what the seagull above thought he'd found -- a scoop of ice cream.

We went to a pub for a couple of pints and then had an early dinner at a modest-looking restaurant called Silco, which was recommended by one of Dave's co-workers. The food was excellent. From there we walked to the train and headed back to Penzance, getting there in plenty of time to collect our bags from the hotel and return to the train station for our overnight train back to London...

...which is where I am now, home in bed!

Tremenheere

Yesterday was our first opportunity to look around Penzance. We were too early to check into our hotel, having just gotten off the overnight train, but they were happy to store our bags so we could explore unencumbered. We decided to head to the Tremenheere Sculpture Garden, a secluded ravine just out of town filled with artwork and exotic plants.

We caught a taxi just in front of our hotel and wound through the streets of town and then rural roads past hedgerows and farmland. St Michael's Mount was visible offshore, a tidal island topped by a medieval castle (much like the famous Mont-Saint-Michele in France).

The park was just opening when we arrived, and we might have been the first guests of the day. We wandered up and down the hilly terrain, checking out artworks like David Nash's "Black Mound" (above).

The ravine is its own little microclimate, with a burbling brook at the base and lots of tropical or semi-tropical plants like bananas, palms and even gingers. I was astonished by some of what I saw growing there. I kept telling Dave, "We need to bring our avocado tree here!" Maybe they'd take it as a donation.

The kniphofias, which have been finished for weeks in our garden, were still blooming brightly.

More tropical foliage surrounding Sheila Williams' sculpture "Heliotrope."

There's a surreal oval structure called "Skyspace," a chamber with smooth, white walls and a cobbled floor, and an oculus in the ceiling allowing observation of passing clouds. (Or a blanket of clouds, in our case!)

Here's Lisa Wright's "Three Graces."

After winding along the pathways, boardwalks and steps of the sculpture garden, we descended to the restaurant where we had lunch -- Cornish mussels for me, dressed crab for Dave. Then we called our taxi and headed back into town, checked into our oceanfront hotel room and lay down for what we thought would be a brief nap.

It turned into a two-hour nap, which meant by the time we got up it was too late to go to Land's End, which had been our plan. (We could have done it if we had a car but we are subject to the vagaries of public transportation.) We may try to squeeze that in today.

This curious seagull landed on our windowsill and tapped gently at the glass with his beak for several minutes. Whoever had this room before us must have been feeding him. I was impressed by how mannerly he seemed and I wanted to give him a cracker but Dave was against it -- and it is true that if I put so much as a crumb out that window we'd probably have about 400 of his friends there in three seconds. They would have been smashing through the glass like Hitchcock.

Last night we went to a mediocre restaurant where dressed crab was on special. I thought about getting that with a side of rosemary-dusted chips (french fries), but then I noticed there was a dish called "crab-loaded fries" and it was cheaper. I asked the waitress, who was possibly still in high school, what she'd do, and she steered me toward the crab-loaded fries, which turned out to be dreadful.

"This is what happens when you ask a teenager what to order," I told Dave.