God, This is a Boring Post

There's a large white climbing rose growing over the trees in the back of the garden. It's actually grown over the fence from the neighbor's, but I don't mind because it's beautiful and along with our own pink climbing roses, it puts on quite a show. It's past its peak now, and its white petals are fluttering down like confetti, landing on our hydrangeas (above) and everywhere else.

I was home all day yesterday, but as usual, I had several projects. I cleaned out the alley at the side of the house where we store our rubbish bins -- just the area streetside of the garden gate. It was full of campanula and other weeds and the shrubbery was growing into the bin storage area, so I weeded it and trimmed everything back and swept it all out. It looks much tidier now. I didn't clean the side return behind the garden gate but I'm leaving all that campanula for now, because it's still blooming and the bees like it. Besides, no one can see that area besides us.

I also moved our fiddle-leaf fig outside for its annual shower. I noticed on Friday night that it was looking pretty dusty. I hosed it down and I think it appreciated the "rain." That pink geranium at bottom left is one I rescued from a neighbor's yard waste bag on the street. They threw it out, and I grabbed it and brought it home and stuck it in a pot and it's perfectly happy. It's a beautiful color.

Remember how a squirrel was climbing into our peanut feeder? Well, I was afraid it would get trapped in there, and that combined with the RSPB advice not to feed nuts during the summer persuaded me to take the feeder down entirely. But now the squirrel has figured out how to climb into the seed feeder as well! Argh!

I don't think it likes the seeds as much, and it seems to struggle to reach them through the tiny openings for the birds, so maybe it will eventually grow discouraged. (Ha!)

God, this is a boring post. Sorry about that. What can I talk about that doesn't involve houseplants or bird feeders? How about Donald Trump and his completely bungled refurbishment of the Reflecting Pool? I am amused as heck by the incompetence he and his team displayed on that job, with the pool's fancy new coating coming away in sheets (within days!) and the water a poisonous-looking algae-green. Trump was so arrogant, insisting he could do the job right at a fraction of the cost of previous restorations, without properly understanding any complications -- and now he's paying for that arrogance. (Though as usual he refuses to take responsibility, blaming leftist vandals. Even if you buy that excuse -- which I don't -- what kind of properly installed pool coating allows people to cut or tear it off?)

And how about his apparent insistence that the scaffold remain in place in front of the Kennedy Center, so no one can see that his name has been removed by court order? He's such a baby. The entire country is being run by middle schoolers -- and I've worked with middle schoolers so I know.

Then we have politics here in the UK. The sudden return of Andy Burnham to Parliament, after a stint as mayor of Manchester, apparently poses an existential threat to Starmer. To an outsider it may seem peculiar that Burnham, who was only just elected to Parliament days ago, would leapfrog everyone else to become Starmer's chief rival -- but he was in parliament for years before his Manchester gig, including in the cabinet, so he's quite experienced. I think Burnham is an appealing figure but as I've said, as unenthusiastic as I am about Starmer, I'm not sure I want to kick him out. I think there's something to be said for maintaining the continuity of the government, especially after several years of very short-lived prime ministers.

As long as I'm boring you with gardening and politics, why not go whole-hog?

Here's the latest footage from our Garden Cam! Woo hoo! It wasn't a super exciting week, but we have a few mildly interesting moments.

We start with Crooked Tail and then Sharpie, sniffing around in the rain. (That was on June 10, so we're actually going back more than a week.) They don't seem happy with the precipitation.
-- At 0:22, the next night, it's still damp but at least the rain's not pelting down.
-- At 0:35, the following night, it's drier still. 
-- At 0:45, Crooked Tail (I think?) shows up with something in his/her mouth. I'm not sure what it is. Maybe a dog treat from that still unidentified source? There's more back-and-forth by various foxes.
-- At 01:15, a great tit nibbles something from the ground.
-- At 01:20 there's more foxes wandering around.
-- At 02:14, another fox shows up with more food. I'm not sure what it's eating. It settles down for a nibble. (It's hard to discourage our rodent visitors when the foxes keep bringing food into the garden!)
-- At 02:35, Huge Cat makes an appearance. I like its triangular face mask.
-- At 02:49, we see a starling and a "little brown thing" (that's a birdwatching term), followed by a very poised squirrel.
-- At 03:08, a fox walks past and apparently surprises a cat offscreen, because we hear it yowling.
-- At 03:37, we see two clips of a blackbird (and hear a leaf-blower, ugh). The bird gets chased off by a squirrel.
-- At 04:09, a fox begins a long itching/grooming session. It may seem to go on for a while, but I actually cut out a full minute of footage!
-- At 04:55, a magpie seems to be collecting sticks. For a nest, maybe? Seems kind of late for that.
-- At 05:16, pigeon, squirrel and hoverfly.
-- At 05:31, various passing foxes.
-- At 05:54, I turned the camera for another angle on the garden and captured our old friend, the rat. (I moved the camera several times after this just to get different perspectives.)
-- At 05:59, a fox trots past. The video skips slightly.
-- At 06:01, the magpie is back, once again collecting sticks.
-- At 06:14, the foxes make a few more passes, curious about the camera's new location.

And with that, I'm going to retire the Garden Cam for a while. Let's give the poor animals some privacy for the summer, shall we?

A Ladybug is Born

Remember the ladybug (or ladybird) I rescued from our yard waste bin the other day? It was in its pupal stage and I had accidentally cut its twig out from under it -- and then taped that twig to an adjoining plant so the insect could continue to grow. Well, I woke up yesterday morning to find it had emerged from its pupa and was resting. It was a very light-orange color and had only barely visible spots.

I checked back again at noon and it looked like this -- much darker and more obviously like a ladybug. Its shell appeared to have hardened and taken on a shinier appearance.

When I looked at 3 p.m., it was gone.

So that's a happy success story. I also lifted four or five ladybug larvae out of the yard waste bag and put them back on garden plants. We gotta encourage these ladybirds to keep down our aphids!

Aside from rescuing insects, yesterday was pretty quiet. It was very warm and dry, and I did a lot of reading and watering.

Some of you asked to see the creamer I bought at Eclectica on Wandsworth Road on Thursday. It's the one on the left, and as I said, I bought it because it seemed a good companion for the one on the right, which I bought 15 years ago right after we moved to London. The new one only cost 50 pence!

Wisdom from some Lucky Pagoda fortune cookies I had with my coffee yesterday afternoon, courtesy of W. Wing Yip PLC of Nechells, Birmingham. They've been hanging around our kitchen for weeks, left over from some forgotten Chinese takeaway.

Last night we finished "The Pitt," and I feel lost without it! We started "Joan" on ITV on the recommendation of blogger Meike from Germany, and I'm liking that so far. I also finally finished "Invasion" (finally!) and I'm still working on "The Lincoln Lawyer." Dave, whose patience with scripted shows has diminished over the years, increasingly just scrolls his Facebook feed while I watch television.

Whistler and Wandsworth

I was ready for an urban adventure yesterday, so I set off in late morning for the Tate Britain to see the James McNeill Whistler exhibit. I thought going midday on a Thursday might mean there would be a sparse crowd, but no! The place was packed.

It was an interesting exhibit. I like Whistler's gauzy expressionist painting style, with landscapes shrouded in mist and portraits in layered, dark tones. Of course his famous mother was there (above), on loan from the Musee d'Orsay in Paris. (Her official title is "Arrangement in Gray and Black No. 1.") This is the second time I've seen her. When I went to Paris in April 2000, I visited the Musee d'Orsay and wrote in my journal afterwards: "There were lots of spectacular paintings there -- just amazing stuff -- 'Whistler's Mother' even -- who knew that was in France?!"

I read a biography of Whistler back in 2014, but some of what I thought I knew about him when I wrote that post is incorrect. He did in fact marry, albeit later in life, and apparently it's still unclear how much he sympathized with the Confederates in the American Civil War. Maybe I just hadn't yet gotten to that point in the book. I still persist in believing that he might have been just a little bit gay, against all evidence to the contrary.

Here's a smaller work in pastels that shows Whistler's genius at capturing form and movement in just a few strokes. This is called "Four Ladies in Japanese Costume," from about 1870.

Anyway, after taking in the show, I took a long walk across the Vauxhall Bridge and came across this horror:

Apparently these young people were protesting Pret a Manger because the chain (according to them) buys inhumanely grown chicken, from animals that have been genetically engineered in such a way that they can't even move. Certainly an eye-catching protest.

From there I walked down Wandsworth Road to Clapham Junction. This is a walk I took many years ago, in early 2013, and I'm not sure I've been back since. So I was curious to see what the area looks like now.

Uncle Tom's Cabin is still there, and it has even been refurbished since I photographed it back in 2013.

This apartment building looks pretty much the same.

I had a good long walk, and enjoyed listening to my iTunes and just taking in the scenery and people. I even popped into this little shop, which is amazingly still in business, and bought a vintage creamer that I need like a hole in the head. (But it matches another vintage creamer I bought ages ago, so why not?!)

Because I walked through the neighborhood known as Lavender Hill, I was inspired when I got home to watch "The Lavender Hill Mob," an old Ealing comedy starring Alec Guinness. I've meant to see this movie for years and years and I'm happy to report that it remains delightful and enjoyable.

Dave was out last night, at a party with some co-workers, so I had leftovers and watched a couple of shows he doesn't like -- "The Lincoln Lawyer" on Netflix and "Invasion" on Apple TV (which I am doggedly trying to get through even though I don't like it much myself).

Overall, it felt good to get out and about!

Fig and Cosmos

I just realized yesterday that I waltzed past my 20th Blogaversary with nary a mention! As of May 24 I have been writing this blog for 20 years. It blows my mind to think I've been going that long -- and pretty consistently, too, with the exception of about seven months in 2010-11, when I briefly quit because I was too busy writing for work. (So maybe technically my 20th Blogaversary is next year.)

When my friend and former colleague Kenneth (whose gay-culture blog is still linked in my sidebar) inspired me to try this platform out way back in 2006, I never imagined it would have such a long-lasting effect on my life. And yet here we both are, still blogging away, along with many of you.

Once I adopt an online platform, I tend to stick with it. Hence I'm still on Blogger and Flickr and Facebook -- all very mid-aughts -- and I never adapted to Twitter or BlueSky or Threads or Instagram, which came later. I've periodically experimented with Instagram but I just don't like it. I know my photos would get a lot more attention there but I just can't bring myself to use it.

Anyway, that's my first cosmos flower (above). Woo hoo! It's always gratifying to plant tiny seeds and see them grow and blossom. Frankly, I would have preferred some colored cosmos as opposed to white ones, but beggars can't be choosers. (I got those seeds free in the mail with a magazine subscription at work.) The zinnias and sunflowers are still plugging away and not yet ready to bloom.

As predicted, the squirrels have knocked a couple of figs off our tree. I cut this one open just to see what it looked like inside. Nowhere near ripe, as you can tell. But they're a nice size, and I'm hopeful I'll get at least one or two to taste.

This was yesterday's plant project. These begonias have been looking straggly and the leaves get crispy and dry, and eventually they fall off. I think it's because I put the plants in that terrible sawdust-and-wood-chip compost I bought last year, which dries out quickly. I bought better quality houseplant compost yesterday and repotted both of them (one in front and one behind on the windowsill), and I'm hoping that will give them a boost.

I cut off one lanky stem, and of course I couldn't bring myself to throw it away, so now it's rooting in two pieces on the kitchen windowsill. Like I need another begonia!

This was my treat yesterday evening. One of Dave's students gave him a tiny bottle of pink champagne at the end of the school year, and Dave can't drink it because alcohol affects his Crohn's disease. So it got passed along to lucky me!

Weeds, Feeders and a Spanish Procession

This oxalis is growing in our front garden, right on the street. It's putting on an amazing display of flowers this year. Those strap-like leaves are crocosmia that also grows there -- it has orange flowers that will appear later in the summer.

I took this picture while weeding the front garden the other day. I usually don't do much to that space, but since Mrs. Russia had it drastically trimmed last year, sunlight reaches the ground and weeds have appeared. I let them go for a while but I finally had to dial them back because we were starting to look like "The Munsters."

I've also made some changes to the back garden bird feeders. I removed the one on the patio because it was creating too much chaos out there -- mainly from pigeons flapping around and damaging plants, but also from squirrels and our unwelcome garden rat. The rodents are drawn by the seeds that birds throw out of the feeder. I moved the whole thing into the rose bed in the middle of the garden, near the other feeder. I want to keep that rat away from the house.

I'm also feeding a lot less in the hopes that less food will encourage the rat to find accommodation elsewhere. We shall see. I feel bad depriving the parakeets of their suet balls. They land on the feeder pole and squawk and stare morosely.

I read recently that the RSPB says we should stop putting out birdseed and peanuts between May 1 and Oct. 31 to reduce the risk of spreading trichomonosis, a parasitic disease that affects certain finches. Apparently it spreads more in the summer, possibly via bird feeders, and the theory is that birds don't need supplemental food then when so much is available in nature.  "Small amounts of mealworms or fat balls can still be offered safely through the year," the article said.

We don't get many finches here -- only occasional goldfinches, which usually don't use the feeders. (Trichomonosis primarily affects chaffinches and green finches, which we never see). I'm putting out a mix of mealworms and seeds mixed together, so I guess I'm only partially violating the advice. My general plan is to just put out less of everything, encouraging the birds to find more food naturally and hopefully discouraging pests.

I also trimmed the straggly alkanet in the back garden, and I started to cut the seedheads off the euphorbia, but then I found this little pupating ladybird (ladybug) on one of the stems. I carefully reattached its perch to a remaining stem with a tiny bit of tape, as you can see above. In a few days it will emerge as a full-grown insect so my repair job doesn't have to last forever. I'll keep an eye on it -- maybe I can catch it hatching.

I only found a couple of larval ladybirds, unlike the last time I removed alkanet stems. I think most of them have grown up by now.

Here are some more interesting pictures from my slide-scanning project. These come from Spain in 1964 -- some kind of parade or procession featuring large effigies, maybe for Semana Santa? I think they were taken in San Sebastian.

I'm not sure how racially sensitive they are by modern standards, but historically and culturally they're interesting. These are the kinds of pictures that I try to preserve with this project, to add to the record of people and events long past. Those little kids trotting alongside those figures above would be about 70 now!

The Early Bird Gets the Dickens

Remember how I said the garden was beginning to feel a little claustrophobic? Here's a good example -- the path leading up from the patio. That gigantic dusty miller -- which grew from a tiny little plant I bought back in 2022 -- is encroaching from the right, and we have a rambling rose and the crocosmia "Lucifer" leaning in from the left. You can still see the stepping stones I made during the pandemic from some of the pottery shards I'd collected on my walks, but just barely! We can sidle through here without too much trouble but I do feel a bit like Dr. Livingstone in need of a machete.

I did a bit more gardening yesterday, trimming and neatening and repotting a fern that lives in the back atop our celebrity plant pedestal. The older fronds on our tree fern were in a sort of in-between zone between life and death -- substantial portions were alive and green but some bits and pieces were brown. So I painstakingly trimmed away all the brown parts, thinking it would be good to save what's still photosynthesizing and benefitting the plant. And then a few hours later Dave marched past holding the entire fronds, having cut them off himself and thus negating all my work.

Oh well.

The Brugmansia seems happy, with five flowers (two of them hidden in this picture).

Here's what I found early yesterday morning on my way to buy a carton of milk. Someone discarded a trash bag full of old books, which had clearly been sitting out overnight as the top volumes were a bit damp. I took about half of them (above). I've never read "The Woman in White" or anything by Elizabeth Gaskell, Oliver Goldsmith, Richard Harris Barham or Len Deighton. I might try all of those. I have read "Great Expectations" and I'm not sure why I took it except that I hated to see it thrown out. "Straight to the Mark" is a Victorian novel supposedly meant to teach morality to young people. It could be incredibly tedious -- it was published by a company devoted to religious tracts -- but it has a beautiful cover so I took it anyway.

I left behind some practical nonfiction ("How it Was Made") and religious books, as well as Robert Browning's poetry and half of "Tom Jones" and "The Count of Monte Cristo," which were published in two volumes but both had one missing. The funny thing is, by the time I went to the store and came back with my milk, all the rest of the books were gone too. Someone must have come along behind me and scavenged the rest.

Here's a peculiar set of images I found while scanning slides. Back in 1991, someone took pictures on a beach of a distant person doing what looks like yoga poses. (Or maybe just acrobatic ones.) They're mysterious pictures, aren't they? Did the photographer know that person? Were they aware in advance that the person was going to bend over backwards? Why are they so far away? So many questions. I love the colorless sort of moonscape, though -- it adds to the surreal quality.

A Walk and an Inability to Center

I worked on my slides all morning yesterday, and managed to go through all the boxed slide cartridges. I looked at every slide, chose about 45 to scan, and packaged up the rest in a plastic tub according to the organizational scheme I described yesterday. And then I vacuumed the corner where those cartridges were stacked, because those things were filthy. It will be a miracle if I don't get hantavirus.

After that I needed some exercise, so I took a long walk over to Hampstead Heath Extension and up into Hampstead Garden Suburb. I came across the tree above in the wild part of Golder's Hill Park. I think it's a redwood, or some kind of cedar maybe. Not very typical for this area. It reminded me of Georgia O'Keeffe's painting "The Lawrence Tree."

It felt great to get out and walk and I was struck by how much I'm still missing Olga. The fireweed is blooming on the Heath and that brought tears to my eyes, because I took so many pictures of her romping in front of it. It's been almost a year since she died, which is hard to believe. The pain seems recent, and yet it does seem a long time since I held and petted her. We are long overdue for another dog but we've got to hold out until our Italy trip is past, in late July.

It wasn't a sad walk, overall. In fact it was beautiful out -- dry and sunny and cool, very Mediterranean -- and I put on my music and had a great time thinking about London as my personal property. (That's one of the songs I heard on my iTunes!) I'm glad I got that walk out of my system because it's looking rainy again this morning.

And I had a close encounter with a slightly muddy fox! As you can see from the video, it was in a quite populated part of the park near the tiny Golder's Hill zoo. I feel like the fox whisperer, but I know it's just that those varmints are everywhere. You'll also see video of the blooming fireweed, also known as rosebay willowherb.

In the evening Dave and I watched our usual TV lineup, which has lately included "The Four Seasons" and "The Pitt," both of which we love. "The Pitt" is so good we're reluctant to stop it -- we often find ourselves bingeing a couple of shows together. We watched "The Boroughs" on Netflix, which wasn't bad, mainly because of the cast, but it wasn't as compelling as "Stranger Things" (an earlier project by the same filmmakers).

I'll close with a couple of the slides I came across yesterday. Remember how I mentioned that some photographers seem to have trouble framing their shots? Here are two excellent examples, both from the mid-1950s:

There's a person to the left of the woman in pink, and all we can see is a smidgen of their jacket. But thank goodness the photographer included that lamp! (I like the right-hand woman's bouquet of passionflowers.)

I don't mean to be snide about anyone's photographic ability, but COME ON, MAN! Why are we cutting the tops of people's heads off? Why include so much under the table?

Blogger Boud commented many posts back that with some of those old-style cameras, you couldn't always clearly see the parameters of your image in the viewfinder. I think something like that must be at fault here, because this person's framing is completely bonkers. The main subjects of many pictures tend to be shifted upward and to the left, which leads me to suspect the photographer was using a camera with the lens below and to the right of the viewfinder. Fortunately, I still have enough well-centered shots that I have some scannable images, which I will post to Flickr over the next few weeks.

Cutting Down the Ramblers

I took that photo of the lawn yesterday just as five pigeons took flight from beneath our bird feeder. It looks like one of those time-lapse photos showing a single bird in flight -- but it's really multiple birds. I'm not that photographically sophisticated!

I always like to show off the tidied garden -- not that it ever gets very tidy. Especially at this time of year when everything is growing and blooming it even feels a little claustrophobic out there. Greenery encroaching from all sides!

I mowed the lawn and cut back the rambling roses, which had stopped blooming.

That's one of them on the right -- the one that fell against the house a couple of years ago. You may remember I bought special cables and braces to tie it upright, still visible around its trunk. It gets huge, sending out gigantic arching branches that catch the wind. So, gotta keep it trimmed.

Here's another shot of the newly mowed lawn -- except for my little "No-Mow May" patch behind the teasel, which I'm keeping for now.

Anyway, I filled three yard waste bags with rose clippings, and I'm glad to have that job done!

It is indeed the "Iron in the Fire" dahlia that survived the winter -- not the purple one.

This shows the planter where Nicole Nicotiana lives. She's still in there, but she's been overshadowed by two magenta spreen lambsquarts* and a good-sized sunflower (tied up at right). I'm hoping Nicole keeps growing because eventually she'll win the battle for that space, but she may give up the ghost if she doesn't get enough sun. I'm astonished she's still alive, truth be told. I never expected her to live beyond one summer, and this is her third year.

Other than garden stuff, I read more about Sandra Dee and Bobby Darin, and I sorted some more slides. I've moved on now to the slide projector cartridges, which are stored in boxes and filled with slides:

I have 25 of these boxes. I don't want the cartridges, which take up too much room, but I also didn't want to just pull the slides out and mix them all up -- as you can see, they are somewhat organized by topic and in some cases labeled with the year they were taken. The context and labeling need to be preserved.

So I'm keeping the end piece of each box, with the labeling, and putting it into individual Ziploc™ sandwich bags along with the slides from that box. That keeps everything sorted and labeled but allows me to save a ton of storage space.

I'm pretty proud of that system, I must say.

*Yes, I realize this is not really the plants' name. My plant identifier app called them that, apparently because it ran out of characters, and I just think it's funny. In reality they're known as lambsquarters, magenta spreen, or tree spinach.

A Final Farewell

Yesterday was the end-of-the-year luncheon at the school where I worked until mid-April. It's a tradition at these annual luncheons to say farewell to staff and faculty who are leaving, and people who have worked there more than 10 years have the option to have a short speech given in their honor, and to make remarks themselves.

Some of the 30-plus people who left this year chose not to attend, but I wanted an opportunity to say goodbye to everyone so I went. I sat with my librarian pals and when my name was called, I marched up to the stage and got my engraved tankard, which I'm sure I will never use. I worked there 14 years so I could have had a speech, but I chose not to, and I didn't make one, either. I didn't want to make everyone sit there and endure reminiscences about my career. But I did wave from the stage and say thanks and I think that was enough. Less is more.

I also visited the library for the first time since I left. There have indeed been a lot of changes, and more are coming, because at least one of the librarians told me she's not happy with the current shelf organization. I could have adapted if we'd done all this when I was there, but I'm happy not to have to deal with it. I still feel a sense of ownership over the space. I found myself walking around, picking up bits of paper and neatening things. (I must say, the person who took the job in my stead doesn't appear as meticulous as I am, and this makes me secretly happy, because I am an egotistical bitch and I want to be missed.)

On my way home I passed a planter filled with violas (above). This planter, outside a shop on a street where I used to walk Olga, has historically been a deathtrap for plants. It gets baked by the sun and it's infrequently watered. But the violas look like they're prospering. They're tough plants.

I found more cat art on my way home.

Here, with that tadpole-like graffiti I've been seeing around the neighborhood.

And then there was this...

...a dose of realism to go with the cartoons!

Anyway, by the time I got home I was exhausted so I'm once again behind on blogland but I'll catch up today.

Birds and More Dumpster-Diving

I bought some "robin insect mix" bird food at Waitrose and the birds are crazy for it. It's a mixture of seed and mealworms, and it seems to have an advantage over the suet balls in that the bigger birds -- pigeons and parakeets -- don't monopolize the feeders like they do with suet. The little birds come in swarms and though they throw a lot of the seeds on the ground, the pigeons stay below to mop them up, so they get fed too.

I filled that entire feeder and it was empty by the end of the day. And the lid stayed on, so squirrels weren't to blame! I saw lots of coal tits, blue tits, great tits and robins. I even made a video so you could see how busy it was:

It's a bit shaky, for which I apologize -- I took it from a distance using my big camera and zoom lens, and that thing is heavy, and it makes even the slightest inadvertent quiver look like an earthquake. (Here's a stabilized version if the shaking bothers you. I don't care for it because the stabilizing software gives the video a shimmery effect, but at least it's not moving around as much.)

It was also rainy and downright cold yesterday. I went out at 2 p.m., taking my neighbors' cast-offs to the charity shop, and it was 56º F (or 13º C) on the high street. The low at night was supposed to be 49º F (or 9º C). Is it winter?! I'd put away all our jackets and blankets and we've had to take some of them out again. It's supposedly going to warm up over the next few days and I'm hoping that's true.

I confess I did survey our trash bags to see what else the neighbors discarded in their move. I retrieved some new-looking clothing, a couple of plastic and glass refrigerator containers that I can use for my slide project, and a few other odds and ends. Any bags containing food or kitchen debris I just closed right back up again. Now I can sleep soundly knowing what's going out in the trash really is trash.

Of course, just as I pulled the bags from the bins and opened them up, someone drove up in a blue minivan and went into the apartment above us -- not the neighbor moving out, but perhaps the one moving in? I said hello as he passed. Way to make a great impression, right?!

Dumpster-Diving, Hungry Foxes and a Huge Cat

Our passionflowers are awakening from their winter slumber. The first blossom appeared the other day and there are plenty more buds. This vine really needs a trim job. Frankly I'm impressed it survives at all, since it's crammed into the same pot as our olive tree (where it grew of its own accord from a seed).

Yesterday I took out the trash and found a bunch of stuff in the bin, apparently discarded by our departing upstairs neighbors. Some of it was in a nice reusable fabric bag from John Lewis, so I grabbed it and brought it inside to salvage the bag. I found another reusable Waitrose bag and some rather fancy clothing -- pleather pants, a heavy pleated skirt, a jacket, some trainers (running shoes), even some earrings in a red box from Valentino. Who throws away earrings?! I couldn't put all that stuff back in the trash, so I folded it up and put it in a bag for the charity shop.

Also...

...a perfectly good Raggedy Andy. I don't really want a Raggedy Andy for myself, so right now he's in the charity bag too. I did wash him to brighten him up and I think he may find another home.

I shudder to think what's in the other trash bags in our bins, but I'm not going to dig through them too. Let's maintain some semblance of dignity.

I keep wondering what will happen if I take that stuff to the charity shop and it appears in the window, and the neighbors walk past and see it. Would they be surprised? Would they be angry? Is it a gross violation of their privacy for me to pull their stuff out of the trash and try to give it a second life? Hmmmm...the ethics of dumpster-diving.

I realized yesterday that Dave's birthday is coming right up in 11 days. Yikes! I have some ideas for things to get him but I haven't moved on any of it and I guess I need to do that. I was going to make us a dinner reservation but when I asked him about it last night he seemed unenthusiastic about going out. This is a bit of a surprise, coming from him, but it may stem from his recent medication changes and the fact that he hasn't been feeling all that great. I told him to tell me if he wants to move ahead on that and I'll arrange something.

Maybe I could give him Raggedy Andy?

(That's a joke.)

I cobbled together another wildlife video with the almost two weeks' worth of footage I've collected. We start with some nice daytime images of one of our foxes, including at 0:14 where it is clearly hunting. (And it ate something, so whatever it hunted it apparently caught!)

-- At 0:56, Pale Cat walks by.
-- At 1:09, a fox gives us a quick drive-by.
-- At 1:17, two little bouncy birds. (Dunnocks?)
-- At 1:25, I put down some pork chop trimmings for the foxes.
-- A couple of hours later, at 1:36, Crooked Tail shows up and spends the next 15 minutes eating the pork. (Don't worry, I condensed the footage so you don't have to watch all the chewing, which isn't all that interesting.) By the way, sorry this part of the video is so dark. That branch in front of the camera was reflecting infrared light back at the lens. I trimmed it the next day and the images got much better.
-- At 3:51, the next night, the foxes are back, first Q-Tip and then Crooked Tail.
-- At 4:17, who is this cat?! I've never seen this creature before. It's huge. Is it pregnant or merely overweight? Henceforth to be known as Huge Cat.
-- At 4:39, an amusingly hyperactive squirrel.
-- At 5:11, the proverbial early bird. (Not getting a worm.)
-- At 5:24, GET OFF THE CAMERA!
-- At 5:35, a little bird lands and spreads its wings to sunbathe. Another bird shows up and they have quite a violent tussle!
-- At 5:50, another treat for the foxes, fish skin this time.
-- At 6:01, an hour and a half later, Crooked Tail shows up and eats it.
-- At 7:02, Sharpie shows up but the fish skin is long gone.
-- At 7:54, Huge Cat is back, also entranced by the smell of the fish.
-- At 8:28, a quick drive-by from Q-Tip.
-- At 8:43, more spazz squirrels.

Tiny Dramas All Around

In the garden yesterday, I noticed that a minuscule blossom from our olive tree had fallen into the middle of a seed head on the clematis. That's a design worthy of a jeweler, isn't it? Or a fireworks display.

Dave wasn't feeling well yesterday so he stayed home from work. The school year is basically over anyway -- his last classes were Monday -- so "work" at this point is just a matter of tidying up the department and filing and that kind of thing. Instead he stayed home and camped out in his chair. He plans to go in today.

In the morning I heard a lot of thumping around above us and on the stairs and realized our upstairs neighbor is moving out of the Russians' flat. Apparently his family is back in Israel so he's downsizing to a smaller flat closer to his office. I'm sorry to see him go because he's been a terrific neighbor, and I told him so. He said another family is scheduled to move in at the beginning of July. We'll see what that's like.

In the afternoon I took a long walk and spent some time looking at the bugs in the butterfly garden at the cemetery:

You'll see some thick-legged flower beetles, Oedemera nobilis, which I have often likened on this blog to David Bowie in his Aladdin Sane costume. And at 0:14, if you look at the left-hand flower, you'll see a white crab spider (Misumena vatia) that has grabbed some poor fly, or possibly two poor flies. I left the natural sound in the video, so you'll hear birdcalls and wind as well as the shouts of some teams on the athletic field adjacent to the cemetery. Summer sounds!

I didn't see any butterflies in the butterfly garden, oddly, but I did find this Angle Shades moth (Phlogophora meticulosa) in our living room yesterday morning. Maybe it flew in when we had the light on the night before. I gently put it outside on a buddleia. Hopefully it promptly moved where it would be better camouflaged.

Dahlias and a Rodent Houdini

Our first dahlia blossom of the year has appeared -- one of the "Bishop's Children" variety. It was a race between that one and this:

Remember how I said the "Iron in the Fire" dahlia appeared to have died over the winter? Well, I think that (above) is "Iron in the Fire," which means the dahlia that died was actually the purple one -- "Dalaya Dark Aruna." (You can see them both here.) I'm not broken-hearted either way, and I guess we won't know for sure until the flower opens, but that bud sure looks more like an orange flower than a purple one.

I spent yesterday almost entirely indoors. It poured rain in the morning, which was fantastic. It's cooler out there than I'd like it to be but I'm so happy for the moisture. I stayed on the couch reading about Bobby Darin and Sandra Dee, and in the afternoon I watched "A Summer Place," which is definitely a melodrama but better than I remember. I learned that the real-life house used in the film -- which was in Monterey, California, and not Maine as specified in the plot -- burned down last year. A shame.

Apropos of nothing, here's a quote I came across yesterday from author Michael Chabon, who wrote "The Mysteries of Pittsburgh" and "Wonder Boys" and "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay" and "Telegraph Avenue," all of which I enjoyed:

"Every morning I wake up and in the seconds before I turn my phone on to see what the latest news is, I have this boundless sense of optimism and hope that this is the day that he's going to have a massive stroke, and, you know, be carted out of the White House on a gurney."

Let's just say that struck home.

And here's the sight that greeted me when I looked out the window yesterday afternoon. I don't know if you can see what's going on there, but that squirrel is head-down in the plastic interior tube of that bird feeder. Having emptied the peanut feeder, Houdini-squirrel found a way to unlock the lid of this one, which is supposed to be squirrel resistant. I can't turn my back for a minute!