Yesterday was just miserable. There's no way to sugar-coat it. The warmest it got was about 50º F (10.6º C), the coldest not too many degrees below that -- that chill was penetrating. And rain, rain, rain. According to our local weather website, we're still about 12 percent short of our normal annual rainfall and 28 percent lower than usual for this month -- the reservoirs remain low and we still have a hosepipe ban. So I should be happy about the rain, and I am, sort of, as long as I'm not out in it.
Unfortunately I had to be out in it in the morning to go to the dentist for a routine cleaning and exam. I have a tiny cavity forming between two of my teeth which the dentist said we should take care of -- but she was strangely noncommittal about when we should do it. "Some time within the next few months just give us a call," she said. I suppose I should do it more promptly than not but it's funny that they didn't ask me to schedule something right then. I'll get back to them eventually.
As you can see above, the Halloween decorations are coming out. Sweet Corner has plastered its windows with painted ghosts and pumpkins.
There's even a creepy clown (Pennywise?) having coffee with a mummy (possibly the Mummy?).
And another jack-o-lantern has appeared around the corner. That's pretty impressive carving, isn't it? Now that I think about it, I didn't see the blingy one when I took Bailey for her walk yesterday -- so maybe, as expected, it has already deteriorated beyond keeping.
Meanwhile, Fortune Green is looking very autumnal.
Otherwise, I mostly stayed in and read, except for a brief foray to pick up our cleaning. And I archived photos, which somehow I hadn't done properly for more than a month. I was way behind. It's a two-step process -- culling everything I don't want to keep, and then saving all the keepers on a portable hard drive. (This is in addition to uploading them to Flickr, but I'm usually running at least a couple of weeks behind on that task -- often, as now, more like a month.)
Did you hear about Trump's envoy to Russia calling Putin a "humanitarian"? The mind reels. As a columnist for The Guardian pointed out, an old saying fits the moment: "The first casualty of war is truth." Pennywise is St. Francis compared to Putin.
I would have any cavity requires prompt attention, or it will become worse. That's rather curious. Being small, it shouldn't be a big deal.
ReplyDeleteI love the work on the cafe window with the couple drinking heir hot drinks.
I know, I was surprised at how casual she was about it!
DeletePerhaps the nice envoy man confused humanitarian with vegetarian ... you know, eats people instead of veggies.
ReplyDelete(Sorry but it's hard to try to make light of all this darkness)
As one of my former co-workers used to say, "You gotta laugh to keep from cryin'."
DeleteThe Guardian journalist is not wrong with that statement.
ReplyDeleteI agree. I thought that was a good column.
DeleteIf you think London is cold, try up North. It is 6 degrees on my screen, but has been below that over the last days. I might even consider 6 degrees good! And we need the rain 80% of England under drought conditions. As for the Putin/Trump affair I get a little despondent,
ReplyDeleteYeah, that's chilly! Seems like you often get walloped by weather in the north.
DeleteThe local pumpkin carver did a fine job of capturing your likeness. He or she must have observed you trudging around (perhaps haunting!) the mean streets of West Hampstead. What fine diplomacy by Steve Witcoff! His surname means "lapdog" but his first name means "grinning pumpkin".
ReplyDeleteThat is a fair approximation of my "resting bitch face."
DeleteToo bad about the trash bags at Sweet Corner. Beautiful to begin with and the patrons sitting at the window are classy. Currently 68 and sunny here. Cold enough for me. But also wishing for rain. It’s nice when it rains all night and the sun shines all day. When I read the description of Putin last night, BY AN AMERICAN DIPLOMAT, I was sure I had read it wrong. I feel like I’ve stepped into an alternate universe.
ReplyDeleteThere are ALWAYS trash bags in that spot. I don't think I've ever passed that post without stumbling over them. There is definitely an "alternate universe" quality to life right now.
DeleteGreat Halloween decorations 🎃🍁☠️👻
ReplyDeleteHealth care professionals seem to like the pronoun "we", instead of you or I.
It's suitable vague, I suppose 🤔
Fun foto of Bailey in the previous post, reacting to squirrels 🐿️
Well, I guess "we" is accurate. I need to be there, obviously, and so does she!
DeleteGood point 😁 I was thinking about cases like "How are we today?"
DeleteThat café window is beautifully decorated, spooky but brilliant. I mean who doesn't want to sit near to Pennywise and the Mummy at Halloween. :-)
ReplyDeleteWhile I love to see a lot of Halloween decorations, that fake spiders webbing is very dangerous to the smaller wild birds that frequent our gardens and hedges, it does make me sad to see it.
Don't worry too much about waiting for that cavity to be fixed, I've found over the years that with good care and the right application of toothpaste twice a day, even previously painful cavities have somehow got better. Dentists now seem to hold off on drilling out parts of our teeth and prefer the 'wait and see' method.
Toothpaste fixing cavities? I have a mouthful of dentures that say otherwise.
DeleteI have heard that webbing is bad. I've never seen a bird trapped in it, though. I wonder if that's more of a "theoretical" risk than an actual one? I like the "keep an eye on it" approach in dentistry!
DeletePutin is a humanitarian as long as you stay away from the tops of stairs or open windows on higher floors.
ReplyDeleteHe is far more terrifying that Pennywise.
How we wound up with a government that does his bidding is a mystery to me. And Republicans, no less!
DeleteI suspect Witkoff's job is a quite difficult one trying to say the words Putin needs to hear so the U.S. can get the desired results, in this case, a released American citizen who has been Russia's prisoner. I would be willing to bet Witkoff didn't mean it in any other sense than the American who was released, but of course with the media the way it is these days, they are going to run with it and milk it for the shock value headline it makes. If the headlines said, Witkoff called Putin a humanitarian for releasing an American prisoner who has been held unjustly for four years, I'm not sure many eyebrows would have been raised.
ReplyDeleteWitkoff's exact quote was: "You talk so much about my president, President Trump, being a humanitarian. You are a humanitarian also, sir, and I salute that, I commend you, and I thank you again." So yes, he was thanking Putin for releasing Hubbard -- who, as you point out, had been imprisoned unjustly for years by "humanitarian" Putin and his regime. Ed, you tend to fault the media in most circumstances, but in this case, I don't think it can be argued that the media is distorting anything. Witkoff said what he said.
DeleteI'm not sure I fault the media more than I fault humanity. We gravitate towards sensationalistic headlines which is why they sell and why the media uses them.
DeleteDon't go to tea with Putin. That weather sounds a bit miserable, but not so cold, though I know there's a cold that penetrates the warmest gear.
ReplyDeleteBut I like a bit of Polonium in my tea!
DeleteSweet Corner , Way Flipping Cool
ReplyDeleteCheers
It was a derelict cafe for years but then Sweet Corner moved in, and it seems to be doing quite well in that space.
DeleteRegime change starts at home,
ReplyDeleteYes, Please!
DeleteAmen to that.
DeleteMy youngest son is in London right now for a conference. I think he has meetings at the University of Reading. He teaches International Business and Strategy at Loyola University in Chicago.
ReplyDeleteSome people in my city go wild with Halloween decorations. Lots of inflated creatures and giant skeletons in the front yards.
He won't have good weather for his stay, I'm afraid. We're getting hit by two named storms in a row! (As I mention in my subsequent post.)
DeleteThat's an excellent pumpkin. And some very excellent window paintings. Still no rain here.
ReplyDeleteI am thankful for the rain, even though I'm complaining about it.
DeleteWindow art in London is so well done, wouldn't mind sitting down with Mummy and Penny for a cuppa.
ReplyDeleteJust catching up with you- I missed the last report on Bailey. I fully expected to see her snoozing in a cone. Good luck next Monday.
Hopefully that will be the day! I'll be sure to report back!
DeleteSorry to rain on your party. Th Christmas candy is out!!!
ReplyDeleteI'm not seeing any Christmas stuff here, fortunately. It's pretty crazy to be that far ahead.
DeleteYes, my mind was reeling when I heard that. Earlier this week I saw a reporter interviewing several Trump voters about if they still support him. One guy said he was feeling the pain of higher prices for food and gas but he "knew Trump was a man of his word" so he will fix things soon. That one had me reeling in disbelief too. How can anyone think or say he is man of his word. Every word out of his mouth is a lie.
ReplyDeleteWe have had some rain and gray skies the last two days. However our temps are still a lot higher. Today is supposed to be the lowest this week at 77.
It's amazing the degree of denial and tunnel-vision that some Trump voters display. They only hear what they want to hear. I wonder what his news sources are. If he only watches OAN and reads Breitbart, I can understand why he thinks the way he does. Then again, maybe he HAS no news sources and just does what his pastor tells him to do.
DeleteThe drought conditions are terrible. No rain in MA and the light rain throughout the Summer never filled the stream on my property. Sadly, the ground is bone dry.
ReplyDeleteThe large orange pumpkin is carved beautifully.
VP identified as a humanitarian is laughable. It could not be further from the truth.
I hope you get some rain soon! Surely the winter will bring levels back to normal. We're counting on that here and I hope we're not wrong.
DeleteCostco is full-blown Christmas at this point.
ReplyDeletePennywise and Mummy look deep in conversation. Perhaps discussing how ridiculous those blow-up Halloween yard things are.
Your weather does sound miserable. We're getting cold at night and very warm during the day. It is disconcerting. But rather lovely.
Do you remember the picture I took years ago of my chickens surrounding a carved pumpkin and pecking at it, creating their own version of a Jack-o'-lantern? I need to find that. It is a great photo.
I can't believe there's already Christmas stuff in your stores. That's ridiculous. I'm not seeing that here, fortunately, but then, I'm not going to big-box stores (we don't really have them in our urban area). Yes, find the chicken photo! I don't remember it!
DeletePardon me if I've already said this (a million times), but I would LOVE to have some of your rain. Last report I saw said we would need 38" of rain in the next six months to get us out of our drought status! I didn't think the UK went all out for Halloween.
ReplyDeleteI hope winter brings your rain, though 38" seems like an awful lot! In our area of North London, Halloween seems to get more and more attention every year. There are quite a few Americans living in our immediate vicinity, which may be part of the reason.
DeleteI love the painting; the person who did it is very talented! We've had an abnormally dry October which is great for recreational activities but not good in other ways. That's a disgusting comment by Witkoff. Humanitarian, my you-know-what!
ReplyDeleteYeah, that's a good window painting, I agree! Pennywise is quite expressive.
DeleteI like Pennywise and The Mummy (although I would never ever watch a movie with the two of them - unless it was a comedic opera like Rocky Horror). I need a crown. I've been putting it off for about 2 years, but now here in the middle of my shoulder replacement recovery, it has decided to bug me. THIS IS NOT AN IDEAL TIME, TOOTH!
ReplyDeleteYeah, you have enough on your plate at the moment. Tell that tooth to hold it together!
DeleteI love the decorations and that green park too. A cavity can quickly become a cave, so I'd suggest sooner rather than later. At 10.6C I probably wouldn't even get out of bed except to turn on the heating and then back under the covers until it warmed up the room.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I don't want to let it linger too long. But then again, she seems confident that it won't progress too quickly. It's VERY tiny.
DeleteI find ALL clowns creepy, not just the "creepy" ones!
ReplyDeleteWe've had a completely wet and grey day on Wednesday, but yesterday was gorgeous. Of course I spent nearly all of it at the office but did manage to walk for a couple of hours after work, probably for the last time this year; changing the clocks on Sunday will mean it'll get dark before 6:00 pm.
Same with us -- yesterday was beautiful. Now, today, we're back to rain (and supposedly wind). I wonder if our clocks change too? It's about that time.
DeleteYes, we change on Sunday too!
Delete