The Kid on the Trellis

Here are some of the old snapshots I picked up at Covent Garden market on Monday. Some of you mentioned that you didn't know Covent Garden had an antiques market -- it's only on Mondays, in the Jubilee Market section. There's lots of knickknacks, china, glassware, stamps and coins, books, old jewelry, stuff like that -- and invariably someone will have a box of old photos.

I liked the strong light and graphic patterns in the photo above. It was only after I scanned it that I realized there's a kid climbing the trellis! (Most of these photos are very small in real life, as a lot of old snapshots used to be, so it's not easy to see details.)

A very 1930s-looking tennis game. Remember Monty Python's skit "Salad Days"?

Again, this picture is tiny in real life -- no bigger than a postage stamp. Thank goodness we can wear more comfortable clothes nowadays. That collar seems awfully stiff.

(Late edit: Is this the same guy as on the left in the tennis photo above?)

This is the only one of these photos to have a note on the back: "Eileen with Francis, Lucy and Martin Cassar, Villa Shangrila, Ta' Xbiex, Malta. April 1965."

More kids, on a distinctive duck-shaped bench. Speaking of which, the kid in the back looks like he's goosing that girl. I can't tell what the older girl is holding in her hand. I tried reverse image-searching this photo to see if the duck bench turned up a location, but no luck.

And finally, a typical '60s-looking beach scene. Someone's little brother is creeping into the frame from the left. Are we still in Malta, or back in England? Or somewhere else? Who knows.

I have a few more, and as usual, they'll all go on Flickr.

A Butterfly on the Tube

Yesterday I decided I had to get out of the house, so I headed down to Westminster for a photo walk. How long has it been?! I've taken lots of incidental pictures here and there on other urban outings, but it's been ages since I've deliberately walked with photography as my primary purpose. I needed the exercise, and I brought my big camera rather than my phone, to make it a more intentional effort.

I started at Green Park and walked east through Soho to Covent Garden. Along the way I stopped at a Caffè Nero on Old Compton Street, where I sat outside with my Americano and watched the world go by. This Italian cafe was across the street. The blue plaque on the wall says John Logie Baird first demonstrated television in that building, in 1926. Talk about opening Pandora's box!

It's been so long since I've been able to get out and do some street photography. Maybe once I retire this is something I'll focus on more (no pun intended, honest).

Finally I got to Covent Garden and went to the market, where I spent some time combing through old photos. I bought a handful to add to my online archive of anonymous found photos, and you will no doubt see them in coming days. The guy charged me £7.20, and I gave him £12.20 thinking I could get rid of some coins and he could give me a £5 note back. But no! He gave me £5 in even more coins than I gave him! So ridiculous. Why didn't he just tell me he didn't have a fiver?

Weirdly, I ran into a guy named Patrick who I met the night I went to The Moth. He's a friend of my co-worker Staci's friend Chrissy (if you can follow that). So basically, a friend twice removed. We chatted a bit about good antique markets. So random.

I'd intended to buy Dave a birthday present, but I didn't find anything he'd want. I went to Nisbets to get him some new baking sheets but I couldn't find any. I wound up buying a cutting board instead, to replace one that Dave bought that doesn't fit in our dishwasher -- good to get but it didn't address the birthday issue. And then I had to lug it around.

On the way back to the tube in Bond Street I passed the Mexican embassy, which is all decked out for Pride. It's heartening to see that Mexico has joined the modern world, while the United States of America furiously backpedals against it.

On the way home I was surprised to see a red admiral butterfly trapped in the tube car. Considering we were underground this was a bit of a surprise. I'm sure it flew onto the car when it was parked in a train yard at either end of its route. Well, I couldn't leave it there, so right before I got off in West Hampstead I gently captured it in my hands. By that time we were above ground, so all I had to do was step off the train (a bit awkward carrying my camera bag, a cutting board and a butterfly) and release it into the air. It flew away in the sunshine.

"Thank you!" called a woman from the train just before the doors closed.

That's the first red admiral I've seen this year, and in such an unexpected place!

Magenta Spreen Lambsquart

Dave and I went to breakfast on the high street yesterday morning. Along the way, we passed this beautiful plant growing beneath a street tree. I took a photo and ran it through my plant identifier app. The answer came back "tree spinach," aka "magenta spreen lambsquart," which gave us a good laugh.

"That would make a great password," Dave said. "No one would ever guess it."

Turns out "magenta spreen" and "giant lambsquarters" are common names for Chenopodium giganteum -- the app somehow combined and truncated them. It's also called "purple goosefoot" and "fat hen." It's an amaranth, a relative of quinoa.

We want to try it in the garden. It grows five feet tall, and you know how much I love my dinosaur plants! We might try to transplant this one, or we might wait to collect seeds. Like many amaranths they are apparently prolific re-seeders so we might have to keep them in check.

Anyway, we went to breakfast, and Olga came along. We tried to sit outside but in the early morning the breeze was still too chilly, so we moved indoors for our pastries and coffee at Gail's. As the hours passed the temperatures warmed and by afternoon they were perfect, in the low 70's (F) with a partly cloudy sky.

The Solomon's seal sawfly larvae are back on the Solomon's seal. I'm leaving them for now. Biodiversity and all that. I used to worry that they'd kill the plant and I'd try to remove them, but they reappear every year and the plant always bounces back. Cycle of life!

I did some routine garden trimming, mostly deadheading and cutting blackberries out of the flower beds. I also had a Facetime call with my brother so I could fill him in on my retirement plans. He's retired already himself -- and he's younger than I am -- so he wholeheartedly approves!

It continues to be a banner year for ladybirds/ladybugs. Here's a little video to show you the many stages I'm finding -- larvae, pupae and mature adults, some of them just emerged. Oh, and a bumblebee, busy on our Turkish sage (Phlomis). I like the way it has to lift the lid on each flower to get to the good stuff.

Many years ago I plucked this lantern from someone's trash and brought it back to our garden. It's been hanging there ever since and it had become filthy, and yesterday I almost threw it out. But then I scrubbed it up with an old toothbrush and it looks respectable again.

Last night we had leftover pasta bolognese and I set up a table in the garden so we could dine al fresco. We put a candle in the lantern and set it in the middle of the table atop a colorful tablecloth. It all would have been quite idyllic except that Olga CANNOT tolerate us sitting in the garden if we're not paying attention to her. She barks incessantly. It was a noisy meal.

Two-Spot Afternoon

Our red geranium (or, to be absolutely proper, Pelargonium) has finally bloomed after a spring spent looking rather spindly and terrible. I'm glad it's bouncing back with more sun and warmer weather. Several of our geraniums are looking a bit worn and next year I probably need to give them all a hard prune. (I say this every year but I'm always reluctant to prune anything and so I never do it.)

I had a very relaxed day yesterday. I changed our bedsheets, folded and put away laundry, and sat in the garden with Olga. The temperatures were perfect.

I couldn't decide which of these pictures to use so you're getting both of them! Although you can see my computer sitting on the chair above (I was reading blogs and catching up on comments), I spent most of my time reading "A Visit From the Goon Squad," which I finished. I really, really enjoyed that book. It was masterfully constructed and just so interesting. I have a Louise Doughty mystery to tackle next.

Some of the pupating ladybirds/ladybugs seem to be emerging. I'm seeing more mature beetles around, and the pupa I blogged about a week ago, standing on its end, is now empty. Nature keeps on truckin', to quote R. Crumb.

The ladybird/ladybug above is a two-spot, which is a native variety and not one of the Asian harlequins. I am glad to see the native species holding their own. I was reading last night that although the harlequins are invaders, there's mixed evidence about whether they out-compete native varieties. Maybe we really can all live together in harmony. At least if we're ladybirds/ladybugs (and we're not on Twitter).

I tried once again to find evidence of any protests in London and saw nothing online. Only in the evening, after I'd made my start-of-summer martini, did Dave see a post from a Facebook friend about a protest at the U.S. embassy. Drat! I knew I should have gone down there. (But when? And where? I like to have a plan before I set out on such an expedition. Next time they need better publicity.)

Anyway, I am heartened this morning to see so much visible resistance in the USA, in all 50 states. You've gotta be a brave person to attend an anti-Trump march in Alabama and Mississippi and a lot of other conservative areas, but people did it, protesting our own governmental Goon Squad. Bravo all around!

Free at Last

Yesterday was our last day of work until mid-August. Woo hoo! And it was barely a workday. I had almost no customers in the library, and everything was pretty much already cleaned up and put away for the summer, so I just did a few small tasks here and there.

I took Jerry, the library Christmas cactus, down to the Lower School patio garden and hosed him off to ease his mealybug infestation. (A fifth-grader named Jerry last year when she saw me daubing his leaves with alcohol to kill the mealybugs. She decided he needed a name. I have no idea why she chose that one, but whatever.) I did the same with another Christmas cactus that I then brought home to try to rehabilitate. It needs some work.

I discovered this dinosaur fantasy (above) in a pool or fountain in the middle of the courtyard.

And these fearsome monsters were off to the side.

We had our year-end lunch at noon, where we heard speeches and said goodbye to several departing colleagues, and then we were free!

Someone left these flowers outside the office door of a co-worker. Unfortunately I think she'd already gone home, so I e-mailed her to tell her they were there and I put them in some water. Hopefully she'll come back for them.

I walked home and found these nicely framed prints along the way, offered up for the taking. They need a cleaning but they look good otherwise. Rothko, I think? Or maybe a Rothko imitator? In any case I did not take them.

In the afternoon I lay in the garden with Olga and read. I got very sleepy, which I attribute to the two glasses of wine I had at lunch. It's certainly not the fault of the book, Jennifer Egan's "A Visit From the Goon Squad," which I love. An English teacher recommended it to me and I'm so glad she did. It's a novel made up of interconnected stories about people loosely arranged around a music producer, and I think both the construction and language use are interesting.

Last night we were supposed to get "torrential" rains, according to the weather forecast. We got rain but it was hardly torrential, at least as far as I could tell before I fell asleep. Nothing like the toad-stranglers I've witnessed in Florida!

Authoritarianism and Australian Spam

I'm going to start right out by mentioning the scary state of affairs in the USA -- Trump's mobilizing of the military against our own citizens, and against the wishes of state and local leaders in California, not to mention the handcuffing of a U.S. senator for daring to ask a question at a press conference by Kristi Noem. I said to Dave yesterday morning, "This is martial law." Where does it stop? This is authoritarianism. It's happening now. As I say pretty much every day nowadays, Trump's America is not the country I grew up in.

If we were having anti-Trump protests here tomorrow I might go, but I'm not aware of any. (And I've looked.) As I've said in comments on other blogs, part of the problem might be that the "No More Kings" slogan doesn't really work in the UK. It's a branding problem! I bet if I went down to the embassy or maybe Trafalgar Square something would be going on. Meanwhile, I'm protesting here on my blog.

More trivially, what was up with the onslaught of Australian spam comments on my blog yesterday? Did any other bloggers experience this? I've deleted it all -- which I almost hated to do because YP made funny replies to several of them -- but it was the strangest thing. I had about eight comments trying to sell me pool maintenance and bank loans and all manner of stuff, from businesses all based in Melbourne, I think. Those crafty Australians, hacking Google's firewalls.

Yesterday at work I did my first aid training and my fire safety training. The latter was a three hour online video course, and involved far more detail than I should have to know given that my only responsibility as a fire warden is to make sure everyone leaves the library if the alarm goes off. I don't need the legal origins of the fire codes and statistics about fire casualties blah blah blah, and although it's helpful to know about the various types of fire extinguishers it's highly unlikely that I would ever be in a position to fight a fire at work myself. Not only that, but some of it was stunningly obvious. Here's one actual directive from the video: "Once you believe the fire is out, stop using the extinguisher." Yeah, no shit, Sherlock!

Today is our final all-school meeting and lunch, where we say goodbye to departing colleagues and that kind of thing, and then we're off for the summer. It's also Olga's last walk with her dog-walker. A momentous day!

Oh, and Mr. K returned from his travels yesterday. He mowed his lawn and I told him how I'd closed their shed. Mrs. K is supposedly coming back today, so normalcy appears to be returning to my little corner of London.

(Photo: A neat house I often pass on my walks to and from work.)

Beetle

Here's one of our masterworts, or Astrantia, which I divided and replanted a couple of years ago. Half of the original plant is in the flower bed in the center of the garden and half in a pot. Dave said of these blossoms the other day, "That's not a very nice color." And it's true that it's not as bright as another of our masterworts. But I still like it, that dusty pink.

Yesterday was very quiet in the library. We got a few more books back from people who waited until the very last minute -- and incidentally, there are still quite a few out. I think the student overdue list is about three pages long at this point. The kids will just have to deal with all that in the fall. I am not a miracle-worker.

I only worked through the morning and came home around 1 p.m. -- just in time to see Olga dropped off by her dog-walker. He and I had a brief chat about her age and condition. I think he's sorry to lose her as a client after so many years, but he understands that at this point she'd probably rather just lie around the house and garden. Her last day walking with him is tomorrow.

This is a scarlet lily beetle, living on one of our Asiatic lilies. A severe infestation can defoliate a lily -- in fact, you can see the leaf directly above the insect has been nibbled. The RHS advises to tolerate them if possible, and we don't have much of an infestation so for now I'm leaving it alone. (I think they're kind of pretty, actually.) It doesn't seem to love these particular lilies, but we used to have a crown imperial fritillaria that the beetles hungrily devoured. I've picked them off and killed them by hand in the past, but it's difficult -- they're really hard. Smashing them is like trying to crush a pebble between your fingers.

So anyway, Mr. Beetle is safe for the moment. If I see a lot of larvae or eggs I'll take steps.

Well, That Got My Attention

I passed this graffiti on my walk to work yesterday morning. I thought, "Does that say what I think it says?" And in fact it does.

I was going to title this post HotSexTime but then I figured none of you would click on it because you'd be afraid I'd been hacked by some virus-spreading bot.

Today is going to be a short one at work. It's our last day with students, but it's only a half-day. The kids leave at noon, and then all the faculty are off to their year-end divisional lunches. I am not included in any of those events because I'm a cross-divisional employee, working for the middle, lower and high schools. So I get to come home! (I think in theory I could choose a divisional lunch to attend but I'm fine with missing out.)

I'm supposed to do some online fire safety training module (don't those words just make you want to die?) but I think I'll wait until tomorrow to tackle that. It's going to take a couple of hours, which seems insane to me. I'm a fire warden for the library, but all that means is I have to make sure the space is cleared if the fire alarm goes off. I don't need to know how to fight the fire. So why two hours of training? I have no idea!

I also have First Aid Awareness training tomorrow morning. We have to do that every two years, to refresh our CPR skills and that kind of thing. At least in the back of my head I can sustain myself with the knowledge that it's the last time.

The collapsed bench is still on Finchley Road outside the telephone exchange. Someone very helpfully put large cones around it, just so no one would be tempted to sit down. Wouldn't it be easier to just haul it away? You would think so, right?

The Only Constant is Change

I think this is the only picture I took yesterday. Olga and I were on our morning walk and passed this pleasant cluster of flowers across the street. Olga is barely holding on to her patience.

So, some momentous decisions are being made around here.

First, Dave and I have decided to stop Olga's daily outings with her dog-walker. After this week we'll be home to care for her, at least through the summer, and the dog walks have just become too much. She has never seemed to relish going with the dog-walker and I think, honestly, she'd just as soon stay home, in her familiar environment. So that will save us £100 a week.

I think in the fall, when we go back to work, she'll happily spend her days just sleeping. If she needs a midday walk we'll hire someone to take her out locally or I'll come home at lunch to let her into the garden. We'll see how it goes.

Second, and more major, we've decided that next year will be my last working in the library. I had planned to go one or two more years beyond that, but our school has offered some incentives toward retirement that make it a good time to step down. As you know from all my grumbling and grousing, the routines of the library have been wearing on me a lot this year, and 13 years seems like long enough to plead with 12-year-olds to return their overdue Lemony Snicket books. I've put in the request with the school and I don't expect them to oppose it (though theoretically they could).

I'm not sure what I'll do next, if anything, but I don't have any qualms about making the change. I am ready. Of course I'm a bit nervous about how it will all play out financially but I don't think we should have any problems. I will still have income from various sources.

Dave, on the other hand, is going to stay put for the time being. He's a few years younger than I am and he feels like he's still got some game, more power to him.

Last night I took the chocolates from that ridiculously long box I blogged yesterday and put them all in a tiny Tupperware container, where they fit perfectly with room to spare. A much better solution, if less elegant. That box is going out with the recycling and I'm glad to have it gone.

TV update: I have finally persuaded Dave to watch "Poker Face," which I am enjoying a lot. At the urging of one of Dave's colleagues we're also watching "Sense8," on Netflix, which I have mixed feelings about but we're sticking with it so far. I think there's a new season of "The Handmaid's Tale" which we might try, and I am persevering with "The Studio" which I love, though Dave doesn't like the energy. He says the show is too hyper. Finally, we watched one episode of the new season of "The Last of Us," which I liked but Dave was, once again, not thrilled with.

He's becoming harder and harder to please with TV and a lot of times I'll look up during a show and he'll be scrolling his phone. He says he can pay attention to both but when I ask him what someone on the show just said, or try to confirm what just happened, he never knows. He is lost in the scroll.

сюрприз!

I took this picture as I was coming off the Thames Path the other night when I went to The Moth. I passed these two women and noticed they were wearing "I (heart) London" t-shirts and wanted to work them into a photo somehow. So I passed them and, at the top of the stairs, turned as if to photograph the river. Unfortunately I only had time for one shot and one of them was slightly behind the other, but still -- I think the picture turned out OK.

That word in the title of my post is the Russian word syurpriz, which means exactly what you think it does: Surprise!

I went next door yesterday morning to ask the Russians about the quince plant next to our front door. (Mrs. Russia never responded to my e-mail.) When I knocked, Mr. Russia answered, and I told him I didn't want to make a big deal about it, but if there was any way that plant could be moved to another location I would be grateful. He said he "would ask."

About ten seconds later Mrs. Russia was at my door, and her first words were, "Well, I'm glad you suddenly care about the appearance of the property!" So it's apparent that she's still tied in knots about the front garden, even though in the end it was trimmed exactly as she wanted. I only resisted her idea to tear out and replant the shrubbery. She appears to believe I should be serving as her personal gardener and caring for everything to her specifications.

I basically ignored all that and said the quince's plastic pot looked trashy and I didn't want it next to my door. I suggested putting it in a nicer pot, or moving it elsewhere. So she picked it up and moved it down next to the street, behind some other bushes. (Maybe it will get stolen.)

And that's when the syurpriz comes in.

"It will only be there for another month anyway," she said.

I asked why, and she revealed that she and her family are...

...wait for it...

MOVING!!!!

I tried to keep a very neutral reaction even though inside I felt a tsunami of joy and relief. She said they will be renting out their flat and they're leaving at the end of this month.

"Will you have a garden?" I asked her.

"Yes, a big garden," she said.

"That's good," I replied. "I think you need more space." (Translation: You need to stop tearing apart your tiny flat over and over out of sheer cabin fever.)

Of course, this could all still go horribly awry. Maybe a death metal band will move in and practice on the terrace. Maybe they'll be cooking meth or growing weed. Maybe they'll have a hundred children, or they'll be farming iguanas. Or all of the above.

But knowing the Russians and how meticulous they are, I doubt they'll rent their precious flat to just anyone. In fact, I would not be at all surprised to find that they already have an acceptable tenant lined up. Goodness knows I would not want them as landlords.

Meanwhile, this was one of my projects for the day. I worked in the garden, trimming and neatening, and I mowed the lawn. The rear area around the teasels is still unmowed for the insects' sake, but otherwise I somewhat tamed the jungle. I filled two and a half yard waste bags, and I also vacuumed and took Dave's concert clothes to the cleaners and did some other small tasks.

Afterwards, lying on the couch reading blogs, I rewarded myself with chocolates! One of Dave's students gave him some fancy Belgian chocolates in a very unwieldy box. As you can see, the box is longer than Olga, and she is not a particularly small dog! I think I'm going to wind up eating most of them because I like them more than Dave does. Not exactly a good step toward developing my summer beach body.

A Rainy Saturday

This is our "jungle" as it looks from the back door. There's a big lavender right off the patio that, along with the yellow Phlomis beyond it, basically obscures our view of the lawn. I don't mind that too much at the moment, since it needs to be mowed anyway. I would have done it yesterday but we had rain all day, which sounded wonderful from inside the house.

You can see our mock orange (Philadelphus) blooming white at the back of the garden. And to the right of the red Japanese maple, above the roses, you can see our fig tree, which has grown immense from its early modest size and condition.

Our "Bowl of Beauty" peony has indeed bloomed...

...as has our yellow lily.

Remember all those little ladybird/ladybug larvae I blogged a few weeks ago? Well, they have gone on to form pupae, their final step before they emerge as full-grown ladybirds/ladybugs. This one is standing on end as they sometimes do -- I have no idea why. Usually they're hunched down like a little Volkswagen.

I don't have much in the way of news from yesterday. As it was rainy and chilly (60º F, or 16º C) I stayed in and did laundry and washed Olga's dog bed. That's more of an undertaking than you'd expect, because it has to be disassembled and then put back together. As is often true with such things, the foam pieces that go inside it never seem to fit right after a washing, so now it's a bit lumpy. Hopefully Olga will forgive me.

Dave, meanwhile, went to high school graduation, as all faculty members are expected to. (I'm not faculty, but support staff, so I can squeak out of it.) He was gone all afternoon. I still have three seniors with books out from the library, but hopefully they'll be stricken with a guilty conscience sometime in the coming week and return them!

Only one more week to go and then it's SUMMER! (For us, anyway.)

The Moth

What an exhausting week. I am so ready for a weekend with nothing on the agenda. Which is what I have.

Yesterday was a marathon -- a normal workday until 4:30, then an office gathering of the librarians and tech staff, then a dinner with a co-worker, and then an evening event at the Southbank Centre (above). The event was the "grand slam" story competition by The Moth, a storytelling organization that you may be familiar with if you listen to public radio. I'd heard of The Moth but never listened to their radio show or podcasts, so attending this event was me stepping into that world completely cold. (My co-worker Staci had a spare ticket.) The storytelling was fascinating and it was interesting to see how the speakers crafted the arc of their stories, much like I used to do with newspaper articles.

It made me think about what stories I'd tell if I were ever a Moth participant. The fact that my mom wouldn't speak to my dad for much of my childhood? The time I could have died by falling off a cliff face while hiking in Morocco? I'm not what I would call a very linear or polished storyteller -- at least not verbally. I can't even tell a joke. But I suppose, as with anything, practice makes perfect, and some stories are so visceral that they sort of naturally unfold.

Anyway I didn't get home until about midnight, which is insanely late for me. Today is my day for recovery!

Parakeet Wave

Dave and I saw this parakeet on the feeder a few days ago and we were greatly amused by the way it's holding a chunk of suet ball in its claw. Every once in a while it lifted the chunk to its beak and nibbled. We'd never seen a parakeet eat this way.

It seemed so nonchalant, like a teenager eating a granola bar.

"Hello!" (Waves)

So who's surprised that Elon Musk and Donald Trump are now at each other's throats? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller? I mean, we all saw this coming, the clash of two gigantic egos fueling childish pride. There's a theory that Elon is doing it purely to curry favor with liberals, so they'll start buying Teslas again -- which I suppose is possible. I don't know what made him throw in his hat with the MAGA crowd in the first place, because none of those people want an electric car. He's basically alienated his entire consumer base. I wouldn't drive a Tesla if he gave it to me free.

Regardless of motivation, there is something delicious about watching them throw hash at each other.

Meanwhile, in the interest of journalistic accuracy, I have a couple of minor updates on recent blog topics:

1. The central panel of the sidewalk mosaics I posted on Wednesday is in fact still there. I think it was just covered with a sign when I passed recently. (Here's what it looked like years ago.)

2. The woman with the pipe shown in yesterday's post is famous Spanish crime reporter Margarita Landi. If you Google her name and look at the associated images you'll see that she was almost always photographed with her pipe. (Special thanks to reader jonboi for identifying her!)

3. At the risk of beating this horse to death, I ventured into the Kravitz's back garden yesterday morning and closed their shed. I also spoke to the neighbor on the other side, who confirmed that they are overseas taking care of Mrs. K's parents. Apparently Mr. K comes back periodically, which is why I've seen him more than her. Supposedly they also have "guests" staying there sometimes. Mystery solved, at least for now!

The Pipe

I passed this beautiful amaryllis sitting out on someone's garden wall as I walked home from work a few days ago. I didn't get the impression it was being discarded -- I think someone put it out for the world to enjoy, which is pretty generous (and trusting). The window behind it is also filled with tropical houseplants.

Speaking of tropical, we had a little trauma here last night. I let Olga into the back garden and as she rounded the corner by the steps I heard a flapping of wings on the ground. Olga lunged and before I knew it had pounced on a young parakeet! The bird screamed bloody murder, but unlike last year's baby starling, she didn't get it in her mouth and I pulled her back immediately. The bird flapped and bounded away, and it looked fine but didn't take flight. I'm not sure it could fly. It seemed almost mature but its tail was still stubby and it was still a bit small. It disappeared into some shrubbery, where hopefully it recovered enough to get off the ground.

Baby bird season is always hazardous. Now I'm afraid to let Olga into the garden unattended for fear she'll catch it again, but given all the foxes and cats around here it's probably already met its fate, unless it eventually managed to fly.

Parakeets are tough and there are no green feathers on the lawn, so that's a good sign.

How's this for a look? Dave and I were watching a Netflix documentary about a famous kidnapping in Spain in 1993, featuring footage from a TV news show at the time. That footage included a quick shot of this woman, and there was no explanation of who she is -- the host, perhaps? She's holding a printout so it looks like she's there in some official capacity. We got such a kick out of her momentary formidable presence, with the Patricia Nixon hairdo and that pipe! Not something you see on TV every day. (Or maybe in Spain you do.)

And speaking of kidnapping, here's the latest on Mrs. Kravitz. I've knocked on their door a couple of times in an effort to speak to Mr. Kravitz and no one answers. I've emailed her and texted her, to no avail. I did find a moldering Amazon delivery tucked into the shrubbery beside the door, so I brought that home to protect it from the weather. It had apparently been there for weeks.

I'm sure they're just away. I don't think anything is so amiss that it merits calling the police. I may go into their back garden just to close up their shed, so the foxes don't move in! I'll take the risk that I pop up on their security cameras. Surely they would understand.

Mosaics

This mosaic is on our high street in front of one of the shops. It's clearly a remnant of an earlier tenant, but I have no idea who installed it. I first photographed it when we moved to West Hampstead in 2014 and it hasn't changed much since then.

Here's another piece, then and now.

There used to be a central section containing a bunch of different objects encased in some kind of resin, and I'm not sure that still exists -- I didn't see it on my most recent walk past.

I'm still in a crunch period at work, but I'm having some success with overdue items. I've got books back from all but two high school students, and many of the middle schoolers have returned things as well. Slow but steady progress!

We've had a bit more drama with the Russians. Remember the plant we "rescued" from the trash, only to have Mrs. Russia demand that we return it? Well, I immediately did, and she responded by plunking it down in the front garden outside our door. Where it now sits, in its plastic pot, looking abandoned.

I sent her an e-mail asking her to move it to her door or perhaps put it behind the bins where it was before, so it doesn't look like it's associated with our flat. (Because frankly, it looks trashy.) She has done neither and has not responded. She apparently wants to force us to live with it on her terms.

Ever since the front garden kerfuffle, she has basically refused to interact with us, and I sense a palpable hostility from her. I'm not sure what we did to upset her so much but it's a problem when we can't even have a conversation with our upstairs neighbors. I suspect issues will arise that will require us to talk, and it will be interesting to see what happens then. (The husband is far less hostile, so maybe I'll just deal with him.)

I noticed last night that they trimmed one of the shrubs in the front garden and put all the cuttings in the trash bin. I took them out and put them in a yard waste bag, which is where they're supposed to go, which gives us more room in the bins. I suspect this will piss her off too.

It's all so exhausting.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Kravitz is still missing. Her yard remains overgrown and her shed is still standing open, with the light on. Very strange.

Nutrition, Not

I realize I am behind on responding to comments. I'll try to get to them today. I haven't forgotten you, readers! I feel like I'm just barely keeping my head above water -- the end of the school year is always a mad rush as kids get books for the summer and I'm trying to recover overdue materials from throughout the school year. I still have some books out from January. Argh!

We have a policy that kids can't get their yearbooks until they clear their library account. Normally I report a handful of kids who then scramble to pay for their missing books at the last minute. This year, the no-yearbook list has 39 middle schoolers and 14 high schoolers on it. Unprecedented, I believe.

I don't know what's going on out there but in my experience, kids' executive functioning skills really have diminished in recent years. Maybe I'm just getting crankier.

Dave is in the middle of crunch-time, too, with back-to-back concerts over several nights. They started last week and continue this week. As I mentioned yesterday, that means some nights I come home and have leftovers with the dog (not containing the dog, obviously, or from the same bowl as the dog, but with the dog as companionship).

Last night was one of those nights, except I couldn't even be bothered to heat up leftovers. I ate half a can of Pringles Texas BBQ-flavored potato chips (which are not real food on any level) and called it a night. I did it partly to get rid of them -- Dave has gone on a whole foods kick, eating fruit for dessert and that kind of thing, and this half-consumed can of Pringles was something he'd abandoned in the wake of that decision. I usually don't even eat potato chips or much other processed food. Oh well. Half a can won't kill me.

I gotta say, whatever weird powder they put on those Pringles is addictive. It's like crack. You just keep eating until they're all gone.

Remember how a squirrel gnawed the bud off our oriental poppy? Well, the plant didn't manage to generate a new one, but we do have some surprise field poppies coming up on the patio. They're growing in the cracks between the paving stones from seeds cast in previous years. Much smaller and less dramatic than the oriental variety, but still pretty.

I found this little hoverfly buzzing around one of our Princess Margaret roses. If you watch the video (which is very subtle and not very exciting) make sure you're seeing it in HD or you may miss the fly, which is a tiny little thing. I wouldn't think a rose would be very attractive to insects, with that nest of impenetrable petals blocking the center of the flower, but the fly was intrigued, at least momentarily.

(Top photo: Graffiti on Finchley Road, on my walk to work.)

All Over the Place

I was walking Olga yesterday morning when I came across this truck being unloaded in front of our local Waitrose. Some people question why corporations feel the need to declare solidarity with Pride month, but I'll tell you it gave me a little boost seeing this message. I'm glad Waitrose is on my side and celebrating Pride with me!

Later I was deadheading roses when I found this little bush cricket hiding in one of the blossoms. I left these particular flowers alone. I couldn't deprive him of a home.

One of my errands for the weekend was to follow up on my fox print from Mitchell's cousin's granddaughter, which I'd left at the frame shop several weeks ago. I hadn't heard from them so I called on Saturday and they said they'd e-mailed me on the 19th that it was finished. I never got that e-mail, but anyway, I went and picked it up. I think it came out great, and I hung it on the wall over my side of the bed. (Yes, it's too high on the wall, but I wanted it out of the way when I'm sitting up in bed or making the bed and moving around pillows and blankets. There's another large artwork to the left so it's not alone.)

Yesterday was the end-of-the-year concert for Dave's high school band. I walked to school in the early afternoon to watch from the audience, and the kids, as usual, did a great job, playing pieces including Percy Grainger's "Children's March," a portion of Dvorak's "New World Symphony" and Rimsky-Korsakov's clarinet concerto. (The jazz bands also performed pieces such as Count Basie's "Splanky," Chicago's "25 or 6 to 4" and Paul Desmond's "Take Five.")

Afterwards, while Dave went to dinner with a student and his family, I came home and had leftover pasta with the dog. I'd been invited to the dinner but it was really for this kid's teachers, not me. I was happy to relax in the garden instead!