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!