Not Very Uplifting

Here are some of the buildings Sharon and I encountered during our visit to Hackney Wick last weekend. It may be gentrified, but it's still a very colorful neighborhood!

This one has a Roy Lichtenstein feel to it...sort of Lichtenstein-meets-Marvel-Comics.

You might be wondering (probably not) whatever happened to my itchy arms. Well, they're still itchy. I have backed off the belief that insects are the cause. I haven't been outside enough in the past week to have encountered any insects. I'm returning to the belief that this is a result of cumulative sun damage over the course of the summer. Now that I'm at work I'm obviously in the sun much less, and I've been taking a daily antihistamine, which seems to help -- so I think the problem is slowly, slowly going away. It's still a very peculiar situation.

The lesson for the future, I think, is that I need to wear sunscreen.

I've been missing Olga a lot lately. The other night I woke up in the wee hours and came out to sit in the living room for a moment, and missed the fact that when she was alive, she would wonder where I was if I didn't come back to bed. She'd come out to sit with me on the couch. I still miss her snoring weight and her presence in the garden during the day, annoying as it could be. It's been slightly more than a month since she left us, but it seems much longer. When a constant presence is suddenly absent, that absence seems even more profound.

I think I'm approaching this year at work with more trepidation than I let on in yesterday's post. This was amplified by a meeting we had yesterday where we outlined what's needed in the coming year, and it sounds like I'll be spending even more time in the Lower School and less doing what I used to do. Every day's schedule is going to be different, and there will be much less routine. I'm told that overdue materials are "just books" (in other words, don't spend so much time trying to get them back) and I'm still doing all the book covering. To be honest, I'm not entirely sure what's expected of me, but the message I'm getting is that I should not count on sitting at the circulation desk as much. At the moment, the prospect of another whole year is not very compelling. Maybe that will change as I get more into the rhythm of things.

I think I'm just exhausted with all the opening-week activity, too. I'm ready to have students back and stop with all these meetings and trainings and speeches and socializing.

All I know is, it's not a good thing when I wake up in the middle of the night stewing about work. I am ready to leave this part of my life behind.

Dave had a little more left over bolognaise sauce from dinner on Wednesday night, and I put it out for the foxes once again. I honestly don't mean to make a habit of this but I hate throwing away perfectly good meat sauce, and when it's not enough to save but too much to put in the trash, an animal is the perfect solution. Again, I'm missing Olga!

Anyway, this time around, the fox never came for it. According to the garden cam, a curious cat checked it out but I think ultimately the starlings ate it. The idea of birds eating meat sauce is a little disgusting for some reason.

Pronunciation

I found that sticker on my walk home last night. I'm not blogging it because it illustrates my mood or anything like that -- in fact I've been pretty upbeat this week, even though I have a lot going on workwise. The first week of school (for teachers) is always a crazy time as we go through all of the standard all-school meetings and training sessions. Yesterday we had one on creating "courageous global citizens," and today we have child protection training, which is mandated by law.

And of course, we're still setting up the library, so when the training is done I'm organizing shelves and displays and moving stuff around. Yesterday we divided the board games into three different groups for display in three areas, for example. Plus I'm taking departed patrons out of the library system and organizing magazine sign-ups (don't ask) and blah blah blah.

I honestly don't mind it all, but it is boring to write (and read) about. Hence not much to blog about my days at the moment. Students come back on Tuesday.

Blogger Margaret uploaded this entertaining map the other day, supposedly showing the town names in each state that are the hardest to pronounce. (You may have to click on it to see the names clearly.) Like Margaret, who disputed Washington's choice of Puyallup, I took issue with some of them immediately.

In my home state of Florida, for example, the name chosen is Ocoee, which is a city near Orlando. I would have chosen Immokalee, Chokoloskee or Islamorada, all of which I have mispronounced at one time or other. For years I did not know that the "s" in Islamorada is silent, as in island.

What about Mississippi? Their choice is Louisville, and even assuming it's pronounced LEWISville (because why else would it be hard to pronounce?), a quick look at Google maps offered a host of other worthy contenders. There's Hushpuckena, Arkabutla, Looxahoma, Bogue Chitto, Toomsuba, Shubuta, Eastabuchie and Wiehe -- and also Splunge, which is just funny.

Likewise, the choice for Nebraska is Cairo, which I assume must be pronounced KAYro. (Because, again, why else would it be hard to pronounce?) But they overlooked Unadilla, Ohiowa, Otoe, Niobrara, Verdigre, Minatare, Joder (surely not the Spanish curse word?) and Ough.

And finally, Colorado. Seriously? Crested Butte is the best they could do? What about Iliff, Capulin, Abarr, Arickaree, Hoehne and Gulnare?

There are others I could challenge as well, but I suppose the point is that mispronunciation is in the eyes (or mouth) of the pronouncer. Still, it was a fun exercise. It would be interesting to do it for Britain. I'm sure the winners would be somewhere in Wales, home of the famous Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, which is an actual place.

Bolognaise

There is not much room in my head at the moment for anything but work, so rather than bore you with further tales of the library (which bore me as well) I'm going to share another video from our garden wildlife cam.

This one begins with a mysterious cat that I have never seen before, getting up close and personal with the camera lens. There's some squirrel chaos. Then I put down a container with a small amount of Bolognaise sauce that I thought the foxes might enjoy. The magpie comes to check it out but isn't interested. The starlings peck at it a bit. Then, finally, a lithe young fox shows up, and although the camera failed to catch it actually eating the meat sauce, I know it did because the container was licked clean. (And subsequently recycled by me.)

I think the camera must need new batteries. Its reaction time seems slower than usual. There's no reason something as big as a fox standing in front of it shouldn't trigger it right away!

The Animals

I told you I'd take photos of all the animal-head sculptures that live in the library display cabinets. These are projects that students made in an art class many years ago -- before I got my current job in 2013. So I've been staring at these critters (and they've been staring at me) the whole time I've worked at the school.

Now the current librarian is talking about swapping the artworks out for something new. If the animals do get removed, they will apparently go live in the art building.

Excuse the dusty shelves. No one ever cleans inside these cabinets! I love the platypus on the right.

I think that lizard, or sea creature, or whatever it is, is from a different art project.

The one at bottom right is a boar -- sorry the light is right in its face. The one next to it is a walrus. All these heads are made of clay and they're quite heavy.

A pretty good assortment of creatures! Some are better than others but I do enjoy them all, so it's nice to have a record of them now.

The Storehouse

Yesterday I met up with blogger Sharon, who is visiting London from the sweltering desert environs of Phoenix, Arizona. Sharon had mentioned in an earlier comment on my blog that she wanted to visit the V&A East Storehouse, a vast working museum and warehouse in East London where the V&A houses many of the items in its collection. I said, "I'll go with you!" So yesterday we made it happen.

I met Sharon near Euston Station and we took the tube and then the overground train to Hackney Wick, a colorful neighborhood full of street art near the River Lea. I've been to Hackney Wick many times and you've seen it on this blog. But the Storehouse is a relatively new addition to the neighborhood, which has been dramatically built up and gentrified since the London Olympics were held there back in 2012. What was once a landscape of junkyards and industrial estates is now an Emerald City of glittering apartment buildings and hipster cafes. There's still some impressive street art here and there.

We stopped at a little coffee shop across from the museum where, curiously, they seemed to sell large dramatic houseplants as well as cappuccinos. Only after we left did we see it was called "Coffee and Plants." Well, that explains it.

We entered the Storehouse, where Sharon (like all visitors) had to put her bag into a locker before entering the storage/exhibition area. Visitors are asked at the outset not to touch the objects on the shelves, many of which are within easy range, but the mood is relaxed and there's not a lot of strict monitoring. And how do you know what you're looking at? Well, the displays on the end caps of the shelves have a number, and there's an app where you can enter that number and read about each item.

To learn about the other objects in storage, you have to be able to see the item number and enter that on a different web page. Sadly, I couldn't see the number for the pandas above, so their provenance remains a mystery.

There's a glass floor looking down into a lower gallery, not quite as terrifying as the one I stood on at Blackpool Tower. See the round black objects in the display case at top center of the photo above? Those are Keith Moon's drums, all in their protective cases. The V&A owns an incredibly eclectic collection of stuff, like Mughal architectural remnants, a medieval ceiling from Spain, British Art Nouveau ceramics and hand-tailored robes from Africa. It's fascinating that they've developed a method for simultaneously storing it all and showing it off.

Above is part of the facade of Robin Hood Gardens, an architecturally acclaimed housing estate in East London that is sadly being demolished. (I went there and blogged about it way back in 2015.) The V&A salvaged part of the building and the entrances of two apartments, so you can imagine walking along the outer corridors of the estate back in its heyday. There's also an accompanying film showing interiors and an audio track where residents explain what it was like to live there.

From the macro to the micro -- the size of objects in the V&A collection can vary vastly from gigantic architectural elements to the smallest mementos.

Here's Sharon photographing the Kaufmann Office, another architectural installation. Designed by Frank Lloyd Wright between 1935 and 1937 and made of cypress paneling, it used to be the office of Edgar J. Kaufmann, a Pittsburgh department store owner. Wright and his acolytes also had a presence in Arizona, at the architectural studio Taliesin West, and Sharon has blogged several of their buildings, so this was a perfect find for her!

After wandering around the Storehouse for a couple of hours we had a quick lunch in the cafe (cheese and piccalilli sandwich and coffee for me), and decided to hop on a bus and take a scenic route back to Marylebone. We caught the 30 bus from Hackney Wick and sat in the coveted front seat on the top deck, which we discovered is not so coveted on a hot sunny day. It was like being in a dehydrator -- we nearly roasted up there before we moved to a shadier seat farther back. But we had a good view!

Hourglass

Well, I got several items crossed off my "to-do list" yesterday. (There is no actual list. Only in my head.)

First, in late morning, I went back to the optometrist. I simply wanted to ask him whether my experience with my varifocal lenses was normal. Was it normal, for example, to only see a portion of a photo on a computer screen in focus? An area about the size of a drinks coaster?

To my surprise, he did not say, "Give it a while and try to get used to them." He didn't say, "Your eyes will adapt." Instead he said, "Oh, that's not good," and promptly took the glasses back. He said the way these lenses are designed, there's a sort of hourglass-shaped area of focus -- which is why the tops and bottoms of the lenses worked fine for distance and close reading, but the mid-range center focal area was so narrow. Why on earth they would be designed so that the CENTER OF THE LENS is the narrowest focal point is my question, but no matter. He said he'd give me new lenses! I don't really need the distance part -- my distance vision is only a tiny degree shy of normal, and I can read signs and see birds in trees and that kind of thing unaided -- so he's going to turn the glasses into bifocals, with mid-range and close-up areas, and I can continue wearing them as readers.

I also wonder how much of this problem has to do with the size of the lens. They aren't that big, and it could be that we were just trying to do too much with too small an area.

Anyway, I'm back using my old reading glasses for the next week or so.

I did some other stuff too, including finally ordering a new couch. Dave and I are ready to get rid of the brown behemoth, which you'll remember we did not even choose but simpy inherited from this flat's previous occupants. (It was almost new then.) The brown behemoth is gigantic, and the new couch is not going to be as big -- about 40 cm shorter, and 20 cm less deep. So we'll have a bit more breathing space in the living room. The new one is also going to be dark blue, a shade poetically called "night owl blue" in the "clever woolly" fabric range. I think it will arrive in a couple of weeks.

Meanwhile, we have to figure out how to get rid of the brown behemoth. It's worn out, with a big hole in one cushion and substantial fabric wear, mostly from dog paws. The company delivering our new couch won't take away the old one, so Dave and I will have to get it out to the street somehow and schedule the council to remove it. I remember the previous owner telling me that the delivery guys had a terrible time getting it into place because it's so big it wouldn't fit through the hallway -- they had to bring it up the alley at the side of the house and in through the back door. But we've had the side gate replaced since then and I'm not sure even that will be possible. Drama to come!

I also trimmed the neighbor's rose bush overhanging our patio -- aka "the monster" -- and filled a yard waste bag with all those cuttings.

Meanwhile, we had Trump and Putin "negotiating" at their summit about the future of Ukraine, without even allowing the president of Ukraine to be present. What kind of colonialist BS is that? It's like two Victorian kings carving up Africa. Trump is so proud of his statesmanship but all he did, as far as I can tell, is cave to Putin's demands. It's not difficult to negotiate peace when all you're doing is capitulating. Giving in to a global menace is the easiest thing in the world.

(Photos: A hoverfly on our pink anemone, yesterday.)

Hammering and Animal Heads

Another day, another dahlia. I hope I haven't used this picture (or that joke) already. I'm starting to lose track!

We have had very warm weather the last week or so. One day we got up to 88º F (or 31º C) and that was no fun. Fortunately at school they're finishing up a replacement of the air conditioning equipment, so yesterday I had nice, cool air conditioning at work. The downside is that they're doing power-drilling on the roof, so the construction noise never stops. And you know how I love that.

Then I came home and found that Mrs. Kravitz had hired people to build some sort of structure in her back garden. They were out there hammering and sawing and from the looks of things it's still not done. I have no idea what it is. She already has a summer house and shed in the back, so it's a bit of a mystery. More construction noise!

In the library, my boss is on a campaign to remove a collection of animal-head artworks that students made many years ago from the glass display cases facing my desk. (I blogged one of these animals once but I don't think I've ever shown the whole collection. I'll photograph them all next week so you can see them.) They're very creative sculptures, all made of clay, and they've been there longer than I have -- at least a dozen years. I really like them and I've argued for them to stay, as did the art department head yesterday, but my boss is having none of it. She insists that the students all think they're creepy (in other words one person may have said that), and she's been asked by administrators to change them (I'm skeptical). I actually said out loud, in resignation, "Well, that's fine. I'll only be here another year anyway."

I have a feeling I'll be saying that a lot this year. Assuming my buyout package is approved, which I still haven't heard.

After work I picked up my new glasses, with my "varifocal" lenses. So far, I am not a fan. It's very hard for me to wear them to work on the computer, for example, because the mid-range focal area is so small. If I focus on one word on the screen, everything within about an inch of that word is in focus, but beyond that it gets progressively blurry. In other words, I can't see my whole screen clearly, and forget looking at something like a photo or a painting in its entirety. Not to mention a spreadsheet. Shouldn't I be able to clearly see more than that?

Also, when I turn my head, everything sort of tilts and slants. My screen goes from a rectangle to a parallelogram. That doesn't happen with my regular reading glasses. It's like being underwater.

So, I dunno. The jury is still out. I'm wearing my old reading glasses at the moment.

The other day I happened to look at my secondary e-mail account at Gmail. I almost never use it, and I found an e-mail from April, from a guy trying to gin up publicity for a book release about some New York graffiti artists. I had allowed the artists to use some of my photos in their book, and he sent me photos of the printed pages so I could see how they turned out. That's one of my photos above on the left, superimposed over a negative image of the artists. (Here's the original shot, from April 2010.)

And here's the second one -- this picture, from April 2011. I must say, that looks quite good on the page.

I allowed these pictures to be used for free. After all, I took them mainly to make a record of graffiti and street art in New York at that time, and I'm glad they've served that purpose for the artists. (I did get credit, which is all I usually ask.) The book is a 468-page behemoth selling for $150 so I may have to be satisfied with these images of my images -- not sure I want to shell out that much myself!

Venus and Nicole

This lovely (?) mosaic version of "The Birth of Venus" graces a tunnel beneath the train tracks near Waterloo Station. Dave and I came across it while walking to lunch on Wednesday. What would Botticelli say? Probably "Get all that junk off my artwork!"

When I went to Italy in 2007 I saw the original painting in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. It was kind of like standing in front of the Mona Lisa in Paris or Van Gogh's "Starry Night" in New York -- I felt a sense of disbelief and awe that this is the REAL THING.

The mosaic at Waterloo is definitely not the real thing. But it has a certain rustic charm.

My first day back at work was uneventful. It mostly involved just getting my desk organized -- cataloguing and putting away all the magazines that accumulated over the summer, dealing with mail and deliveries, putting things back in place after they'd been moved and pushed around by whatever itinerant workers happened to wander past the circulation desk at some point. I shelved the returned books and prepared some beginning-of-the-year displays.

It was especially nice doing all those things with the lingering sense that it may be the last time I'll have to start a school year. Still no word on whether my application for the school's buyout offer will be accepted, but I expect to hear something any day.

Nicole the Nicotiana has bounced back quite beautifully after her bout with root rot earlier this year!

Next to Nicole you can see Tommy the tomato (all names courtesy of Dave). We have not yet picked any of the tomatoes. Dave is convinced they're not ripe, even though they are bright orange with red stripes. He thinks they're going to turn red. I'm not convinced -- we don't know what variety of tomato it is because the plant was a gift -- but every now and then I give the tomatoes a light tap. I figure if they don't fall off the plant then maybe they're still OK.

Citizens!

Here's one of our new dahlias, on our new patio table. I love the color of the dahlia but the plant, along with almost all the rest of our dahlias, has been attacked by powdery mildew. It's a problem they often face as the summer wanes, and it's especially bad this year, I suspect because of that dubious compost I planted them in. The stuff is like sawdust and doesn't hold moisture well, so the plants dry out quickly, and repeatedly drying out puts a plant at risk for powdery mildew.

I read online that spraying them with a milk solution can help, and although skeptical I tried it. Hard to say whether they benefitted or not, but they did briefly smell funny.

Anyway, enough of that. I know you're all wondering about our citizenship ceremony!

Yes, Dave and I are now citizens of the UK. Here we are with the Camden borough mayor, Cllr. Eddie Hanson, holding our citizenship certificates. Hanson has an interesting backstory -- he came to the UK as a teenager from Sierra Leone and is the first Camden mayor of West African descent. In his brief speech to all of us, he used his own experience to illustrate the opportunities available in the UK.

The ceremony went like this: After registration, we all sat in the Camden council chamber, an ornate room where borough council meetings are normally held. There were 61 of us being sworn in as citizens, and we were separated into two groups -- the "swear" group (who took a traditional oath mentioning God) and the "affirm" group (who pledged a more secular affirmation). Dave and I chose to be in the "affirm" group, which was the larger of the two, but honestly it wouldn't have made much difference to me. I don't particularly believe in God but I don't have a problem saying his/her name.

A professional photographer took our pictures when we first arrived:

See those big cloth flags? There's a story attached to them. When Dave and I first moved into our flat, in 2014, those flags were in the closet. I kept them, always planning to use them if and when we became citizens. So when the opportunity finally arose I brought them with us. We were also given little cardboard flags like the small one I'm holding. There were plenty of Union Jacks on hand! I'm also holding a printed copy of our citizenship affirmation.

As we waited for the ceremony to start, an acoustic mix of Beatles songs played softly in the background. I thought this was both enjoyable (being a Beatles fan) and kind of funny, as hearing "Lovely Rita, Meter Maid" and "Norwegian Wood" at such a ceremonious occasion seemed a bit incongruous.

We were sworn in all together, first the "oath" group and then the "affirm" group, pledging our adherence to British laws and values and our allegiance to the King, his heirs and descendants. The mayor gave his brief speech. Then we were called individually to the front of the room to collect our certificates, which is when the photo with the mayor was taken. Interestingly, Dave and I were the only family group -- everyone else was being sworn in singly.

The people came from all over the world -- the clerk read out many of the countries and they included many of the nations in continental Europe, as well as Taiwan, India, South Africa, Eritrea, Colombia and Brazil (and the USA, obviously). An Italian guy sat next to me during the ceremony. As the clerk said, "I think we've hit every continent!" (I don't remember Australia or New Zealand being mentioned, but maybe they were.)

There were several other Americans among the crowd, including a guy sitting in front of us wearing a "Denali" t-shirt. (I chose to believe it was his silent protest against Trump renaming the mountain McKinley, but I didn't get a chance to ask him.) One American we spoke to said she'd lived in London for 40 years, but was only prompted to seek citizenship when Trump came to power.

After the ceremony, Dave and I went to the OXO Tower Restaurant on the Thames and had a fancy, leisurely lunch on an outdoor terrace with pink champagne and a view of the river. It was a great way to cap off the special occasion.

The restaurant gave us congratulatory plates with our desserts. (I told them what we were celebrating when I made our booking.)

So that was that! We came back to the flat, Dave promptly fell asleep (he's still a bit jet-lagged from his visit to the states) and I did some necessary stuff around the house in preparation for going back to work today -- which I am about to do now. Nose to the grindstone!

Prolific Petunias and Insidious Bugs

Our "Blood Sky" petunias (not their real name) are cranking along, more than three months after I bought them. I gotta say, I am very impressed by their durability and prolific blooms. All our petunias, in fact, have had an excellent summer, though I have to water them practically every day.

It's been ridiculously dry here. England is in the middle of a "nationally significant" water shortage, according to The Guardian, and water companies are mulling over further restrictions. We've had below-average rainfall for each of the last six months, and much of the middle of the country is in an official drought. So far we in London haven't had a garden hose watering ban (a "hosepipe ban," as it's known), but it may still happen.

Thanks for all your comments and suggestions yesterday about my weird itchy arms. I did find that taking an antihistamine helps, and it was only last night that I belatedly realized I've been in this situation before. Remember the insidious flower bugs? This is the time of year that they show up in the garden and begin biting the heck out of me, and they are so tiny that it's entirely possible I just haven't noticed them. In fact I went out just now to look at our banana tree, where I've seen them in the past feasting on mites, and sure enough, there they are. Insidious indeed!

I was standing in the borders yesterday morning picking blackberries ("brambles" to you northern language purists) for my cereal, and I know I have been ravaged by insidious flower bugs while doing that in past years. So yeah, I'm belatedly thinking most of this itching is down to the bugs. I suspect UV sun exposure hasn't helped either.

That's probably the last batch of blackberries I'm going to get this year. The crop is pretty much done.

The boiled egg I set out for the foxes disappeared yesterday around midday, while Dave and I were at lunch at Chipotle on the high street. I was excited for some daytime footage of the foxes on our garden cam, but no! The camera, for some reason, picked up nothing of the egg being eaten. There are some clips from around that time showing a magpie hanging around near the egg, and I'm thinking the magpie is actually what ate it. That's fine. As long as it didn't go to waste.

We had our annual flat inspection yesterday by our property management company. An agent came in, looked the place over, tested the smoke and carbon monoxide alarms, took some pictures, asked some perfunctory questions and that was that. I showed her a few areas that could suggest a problem -- bubbling wallpaper here, peeling paint there -- and pointed out that the front of the house probably needs a paint job. But I don't expect much to come of it. The landlords told us months ago they intended to redecorate the sitting room, but we've heard nothing about that since so I'm not even sure it's still happening. Anyway none of it's an issue for us. I'm happy enough with things as they are.

Writing this post, I have buried the lede (as we used to say in journalism) because today is a momentous day. Not only is it our last day of summer vacation -- we both go back to work tomorrow -- but this is the day Dave and I become British citizens! Woo hoo! Our citizenship ceremony is at 10 a.m. In fact we were really supposed to go back to work today, but we postponed our return to get this done. I've planned a fancy lunch afterwards and I am looking forward to being able to vote in future British elections, just in time to do my small part to oppose Nigel Farage. (Yes, Nigel, I am an IMMIGRANT!)

Birds and Itchy Arms

I'd hoped to have video of the fox eating the boiled egg I left out, but it didn't come by again last night. I suppose I ought to throw that egg out. After sitting out more than two nights, and expired to boot, it might not do any favors even for the fox.

While digging around in the garden shed the other day, I came across the bird feeder above. We used to have it hanging in the center of the garden but as I recall it attracted too many pigeons, so we consigned it to disuse. Well, I decided to try it out again, so I put some seed in it and hung it from the mock orange in the shady back of the garden, and it has proved a major hit with the tits. I see little blue tits (above) on it...

...as well as coal tits and great tits. The tits are manic, fussy eaters, discarding certain kinds of seeds to hone in on the ones they prefer. The pigeons, meanwhile, seem content to patrol the ground below for the tits' discards.

It amazes me how fast those tits can empty that feeder. For such tiny birds, they can plow through seed like nobody's business. I thought squirrels or even rats were to blame, but I've seen no sign of rodent activity at all. I think it's just those little birds.

Steve Reed · Starlings

Yesterday afternoon, as I sat out on the bench reading, I was amused by the sounds of the starlings in the trees over my head. I love their whooping, rattling, chirping sounds. It's like they're so happy they just can't contain themselves.

Some readers asked yesterday about our new upstairs neighbors. I gotta say, there's not much to tell so far. There's a man, his wife (who I have not yet met) and two boys, young teenagers I'd guess. They're from Israel, they seem like very nice people and we hear them much less than we used to hear the Russians. There is no construction, no banging, no noise beyond normal snippets of day-to-day conversation. It's such a welcome change! The dad even gave me a nice bottle of wine as a thank-you for helping him manage the stacks of cardboard boxes that came from their move. Might they actually be normal people?! That would be a nice change.

I have the weirdest medical problem. Several days ago, I began getting itchy areas on my forearms. There were no marks to speak of beyond a generalized redness, which I assumed came from sun exposure. Well, this itchiness has spread all over the top surface of both my forearms. It is intense as heck and the only thing that relieves it is running my arms under cold water. Hydrocortisone does not help. I haven't tried an antihistamine yet but that's in my plans. There are some almost invisible raised bumps or nodules but they don't seem like insect bites or anything like that. They seem more like hives. Generally speaking, aside from slight redness, my arms look perfectly normal.

I haven't changed anything like diet or soap and I haven't been out in the sun any more than usual in recent days. But I suppose I have been in the sun quite a bit this summer, overall, and I rarely use sunscreen in the UK. So this could be a reaction to cumulative sun exposure over the course of the season. I'm wondering if I have this, although as far as I know my cervical spine is perfectly healthy. It could also just be this, I suppose. All I know is, it's driving me crazy to the point where it's been hard to sleep. Sunblock from now on!

Starling Squabble Close-Up

I know I've been hitting you with a lot of videos recently, but indulge me one more time. When I've videoed the starling squabbles at our bird feeder in the past, I've used my iPhone -- which works OK to a point, given that the bird feeder is out in the backyard and I have to film from the doorway of the house. But the other day I experimented with my big camera -- with its big zoom lens -- which is also capable of videos. I never use it for that purpose and wasn't sure I'd even remember how, but I managed to make it work.

So, there you have it -- the daily (or at least as often as I feed them) starling squabble, close up! (This one is also much squabblier than the previous video. All the water you see being flung into the air is coming from starlings in the bird bath, which is just below the feeder.)

I know the Russians didn't particularly like our bird feeders because of crazy episodes like this. I'm not sure how the new upstairs neighbors feel about them, but someone did come out and clap their hands at one point to scare the birds away, so they may not be thrilled either. We do get other, quieter birds -- tits, robins, the woodpecker -- so I don't want to put the feeders away completely, but even I will agree that the starlings are a bit over the top.

I thought I might have a second video for you, because I found a long-expired egg in the refrigerator (July 20) and boiled it to feed it to the foxes. It's sitting out there in the garden, with the camera trained on it, but the foxes didn't come around last night. Maybe we'll get lucky today or tonight.

Otherwise, yesterday was pretty quiet. I finished my Inspector Rebus mystery and washed a bunch of my shirts in preparation for the new school year. I also took stuff to charity and then reorganized the linen closet, during which I found more stuff for charity. So I have yet another bag going.

In the evening I re-watched one of my favorite movies, "The Year of Living Dangerously" with Mel Gibson and Sigourney Weaver. Mel certainly was a looker in his youth. It's a shame he's become such a loon.

Alligator Doubt

I had a somber task this week -- figuring out what to do with Olga's leftover food, treats and other dog items. She left us with six cans of food, two big unopened boxes of Dentastix, a box of brand-new rolls of poop bags (probably about a thousand of them!), and some towels and dog blankets. Oh, and her tennis balls.

I would never throw any of it out, but I also didn't want to save it all for if and when we get another dog. Who knows when that will be? Even canned food has a shelf life, and tennis balls deteriorate. I e-mailed the organization where we adopted Olga back in January 2013, thinking they might want the stuff, but I never heard back from them. So I looked around online and found that the Battersea Dogs & Cats Home accepts donated pet items. I made sure everything was clean and on their list of requirements, packed it in two big tote bags, and took it to Battersea yesterday morning.

I did not give away her collar and leash, her Kongs, her food bowls or her dog bed. Stuff like that will last until we get another dog. And remember that silly alligator dog toy we bought her in Florida a couple of years ago? She would never play with it -- I think it was too unlike her balls and Kongs and she never understood that it was a toy. We just kept it on our bed as a decorative item. Well, I put it in the donation bag, and then took it out again, and then put it in again. (Repeat cycle about three more times.) Finally I kept it.

I actually feel OK about the donations. I'm glad that other dogs will benefit, and Battersea is a wonderful organization. I am happy to support them. But of course it was still not a fun task.

I've also been trying to clean out some other stuff around here. I have two bags ready to go which I will take to Oxfam later today.

Oh, and remember how I said Dave would be back today? Well, never mind. It's actually tomorrow that he gets home! I guess I got the date that he leaves the USA (today) confused with his arrival date in the UK (tomorrow). So I'm on my own for one more day of meals. I think I'll manage.

These photos show a few flowers blooming at the moment. We only got one globe thistle (top) this year, for some reason. The cardoon (middle) has also not had an especially robust year, though it does have several flower heads, which as you can see the bees and hoverflies love. And that hydrangea (bottom) is the one I rescued on my walk home from work in the spring. It has leafed out quite happily and has loose white flower heads.

I'm finally making headway in my latest Ian Rankin paperback, "Even Dogs in the Wild," which I've been carrying around since before Blackpool. I like his books but it took me a while to break into this one, with all the distractions of travel and life in general. I'm about halfway into it, following retired detective John Rebus on his adventures in the Edinburgh criminal underworld, and will probably zoom through the rest.

Last night I watched an excellent documentary on Netflix, "Aftershock," about the 2015 Nepal earthquake and its effects not only on the Nepalese but on climbers on Mount Everest and a team of backpackers in a remote valley. Some harrowing stories, made worse by a cultural misstep by one of the backpackers. When I first started it I was ambivalent, because I'm not into mountaineering at all, but I ultimately found it riveting.

A Displaced Spider

I did some late-summer garden clearing yesterday morning, taking down most of the teasels and the burdock. They were past flowering and I didn't want to give any of them a chance to re-seed. I chopped down all the teasels on the lawn and all the burdock, period.

While working I tried my best to spare any little creatures I found, including several grasshoppers and this rather large garden spider -- a couple of inches long, I'd estimate. It scurried off a section of cut stem and I moved it to another teasel that will stay standing (for now). It was there all day yesterday but gone this morning, so who knows what's become of it. Hopefully it found a new home after being so rudely displaced.

After all the clearing I mowed the lawn, and this is how things look now. Quite a difference from the teasel forest!

That plant out in the middle of the lawn is one of next year's teasels. We seem to only have one out in the grass, which is ideal. I'd like to keep them in the flower beds if possible! (I left several standing in the central bed so they could set seed.)

I also noticed that our canna lily, which normally has dark red foliage, has generated a prominent bright green streak in one of its leaves. I think this is known as a "chimera," when a portion of a plant's cells mutate and generate a different color pattern than the dominant one. I remember seeing this in citrus when I was a kid -- sometimes an orange would appear that was mostly orange with a wedge of green, for example, with a very stark line between the two colors.

Anyway, I'm not sure that's what's going on here, but it's interesting. It makes me think of Tulsi Gabbard.

In the afternoon I went to the optometrist to have my eyes checked. It's been several years since my last exam in 2021 (!) and I suspected I might need new glasses. Sure enough, my prescription has changed -- my distance vision has deteriorated a little, for one thing -- and I have ordered new lenses to put in my existing frames. They're going to be "varifocal" rather than just reading glasses, so I'll wear them pretty much full-time. We'll see how this works out! Fortunately my eyes are healthy otherwise, although my right eye is significantly weaker than my left, which surprised me.

Finally, I met up last night with my recently retired friend Gordon at a very floral pub in Islington (above). We had a couple of pints and some Thai food. He knew I was alone this week and after having lost Olga, I might need some company. People are looking out for me.

I love how the pub doesn't even have a sign, though it's pretty obvious it's a pub!

Errands and Another Old Friend

So here I am, back in London now, settling into spending the rest of the week in an empty house. Dave won't be home from the USA until Sunday, and of course I am really missing Olga, whose presence I could always count on to keep me company. (Almost exhaustingly so -- she followed me from room to room!)

Fortunately, I have a lot to keep me busy. Yesterday I met up with an old school friend, Lenore, who was passing through London on her way back to the states from Scotland. (Linda Sue, she lives in Bellingham!) She'd spent six days hiking in the Scottish highlands with two friends, and it all went well until Storm Floris complicated their plans and they had to skip the last segment of the hike -- they were getting fierce wind, even worse than what I was seeing in Blackpool. Anyway, it was great to see Lenore, who went all the way through school with me, from first grade to 12th. Like my recent visit with Alan, another high school friend, I had a great time reminiscing and catching up with her life since. It's always interesting to see what people wind up doing. (In Lenore's case, she's teaching science, so we were able to compare notes on working in schools!)

On the way home I stopped into a stationer and bought a small, strong mailing tube so I could send Gwynneth those rescued cake knives with the ruined handles. She spoke up for them and has a plan to give them a second life. I packaged them up with bubble wrap and put them in the post. I was concerned about the legality of mailing knives, but the Royal Mail web site says it's OK as long as they're not legally prohibited blades and they're packaged securely, among other things. I told the clerk at the Post Office what they were and emphasized that they are not at all sharp, and she was unconcerned. So hopefully Gwynneth and I won't be arrested.

In the afternoon I had yet another conversation with some lawyers back in the states about estate planning. You'll recall that Dave and I have been trying for at least a year now to get a will (or something) written, and it's incredibly complicated because we have assets in both countries, and we're planning for two legal systems. We thought we had a solution until a financial adviser here raised a red flag about it. Now my first lawyer has essentially bailed on the project, and has referred us to a second lawyer who has more experience working with ex-pats in Britain.

And it's time to start gathering stuff for UK taxes, too. Argh! The bureaucracy never stops!

Meanwhile, the garden is in its late-summer phase, with the red-hot pokers (Kniphofia) blooming, as well as Japanese anemones, Michaelmas daisies, cardoons and other August flowers.

I was pleased to discover two little cherry tomatoes turning color, deep in our tomato plant. We have at least a handful of tomatoes on this bush but most of them are still green. I feel triumphant knowing we will have at least a small harvest! I'm saving them for Dave to pick when he gets back.

The Blackpool Tower

I came across this place while walking near my hotel in Blackpool. I wondered what on earth a "giant gut-buster barm" could be. I've heard the word "barmy" to describe a crazy person, but I've never heard of a barm as a noun. Turns out it's this, a big bread roll often served as a sort of sandwich. Apparently bacon, black pudding, chips and even a whole pasty can be used as a barm filling -- that's according to Wikipedia.

Well, yesterday was my last day in Blackpool and I had to make it count. The wind died down, so as soon as I'd had breakfast (an egg sandwich, so not quite a barm, but close) I made my way over to the Blackpool Tower. And it was open!

Look! There are people up there!

I got in line and bought my £18 ticket, skipping all the other related attractions like the circus and the dungeon. I suppose if I had kids I might do those too, but I only wanted the tower (and besides, my train left at 2 p.m. so I didn't have all day to kill.)

The "tower experience" began with a short 3-D film in the "cinema," which involved soap bubbles, getting sprayed with a mist of water and occasional puffs of wind. I went in thinking I'd tolerate it but it was actually very fun. It helped us imagine the tower's construction back in the 1890s, when a Blackpool mayor named John Bickerstaffe -- maybe or maybe not having seen the Eiffel Tower, depending on who you ask -- pushed to have it built. When it opened in 1894 it was the tallest structure in the British Empire!

Not only did I go up in the tower, but I made a video of the experience. You'll see what it's like going up in the lift, standing on the glass viewing platform (terrifying), and being at the very top, where it's open to the air (except for some netting). There's a spiral staircase to a still higher platform that is unfortunately closed.

The song that accompanies the video is one of my favorites, "In a Funny Way" by the band Mercury Rev. It's very cinematic (and it's permitted on YouTube by the copyright holders).

You'll also get a good view from the tower of the "Comedy Carpet," the tribute to British comedians that I mentioned a few days ago. Here it is from the ground. I suppose because yesterday's weather was better there were lots of people out enjoying it. I gotta say, every time I walked across it I saw something else that made me laugh out loud.

Finally, I had lunch and a final pint in Blackpool before heading to the train. I left slightly earlier than I'd originally planned -- I had an all-day return ticket so my time was flexible -- and I got back to London around 4 p.m. I spent my train time editing photos and putting together that video of the tower, which made me feel darned efficient.

Here's a final snippet of Blackpool, a mural I found on a side street incorporating all the local landmarks -- the piers, the tower, the ferris wheel and roller coaster, even the "Albert and the Lion" pub -- into the shape of a giant dragon. Pretty cool!