Near-Death Experience

I had to be at work early yesterday, because we did some schedule shuffling so the library could stay open an extra hour and a half. It's time for end-of-the-semester exams, so in theory students need extra library time to study. I haven't heard yet whether any students actually took advantage of those longer hours, but anyway, at least I didn't have to do the later shift. I was out at 4 p.m.

I took the tube down to Covent Garden to run a Christmas errand. That's the big tree outside the central market, above. I can't say what my errand was on the off-chance that the person it was for will read my blog (very, very unlikely). But all will be revealed soon enough.

I walked over from Piccadilly Circus and stayed at Covent Garden just long enough to run my errand and walk around a bit to take in the holiday vibe. Then I got back on the tube at Covent Garden station -- which is never that convenient to use as it involves elevators -- and came home.

Dave was away last night on an errand of his own -- a job interview for a moonlighting gig as the conductor of a community wind band in the City of London. I think I mentioned this before. He's excited about the possibility to work with some skilled adult musicians and program some more challenging music, but he's one of at least four candidates trying for the job, so who knows how it will shake out. Anyway, I was on my own for dinner so I had leftovers and watched "The Ice Storm," one of my favorite movies. I've seen it a couple dozen times and it still makes me cry.

One of our plants, a maidenhair fern that I transplanted from another pot where it grew of its own accord, had a near-death experience a couple of weeks ago. I have been experimenting with slightly altering my plant-watering schedule, from every week to every ten days or so. I always feel like I give the plants too much water in the winter, when they're not actively growing.

Well, all the plants were fine with the schedule change except the maidenhair fern, which loves water and is potted in that terrible compost I bought last spring. It's very porous and the water runs through quickly, and maidenhair ferns like to be damp. So basically the plant dried out and I didn't notice until it was positively crispy.

I watered it thoroughly and kept it watered over the next week or two. I thought I'd killed it until I saw those tiny fiddleheads appearing at the base (above). Looks like it's bouncing back.

There's a second, smaller fern in the same pot, also bouncing back.

Whew!