Quiet

My god, yesterday was wonderful. Dave's parents climbed into a taxi at 6:15 a.m. and headed for Heathrow and their flight home. Dave went back to work. And I was left quietly, blessedly alone for the entire day.

I did laundry. I cleaned. I read. I took a nap. I was so happy.

I thought about running, but instead I took a leisurely walk over to a neighborhood graffiti spot and took photos.

Oh, I forgot to relate some exciting news on the photography front -- Yahoo requested two photos from my Flickr stream for their gallery of Olympics images. As a result, each photo has received more than 6,800 views -- many, many more than any of my other photos on Flickr. It's kind of exciting, even though I still don't get any money. I like to think I'm building a reputation and collecting points for my resume, but I might just be a sucker.

(Photo: Globe thistles and bees in Hyde Park, August 7.)

Hairy Flaming Jesus

I call this photo "Self-Portrait with Westminster Abbey in the Indian Ocean." Or at least, I would if I gave my photos titles.

I took Dave's parents to Westminster Abbey yesterday, on the last, wild day of their visit. (I'm up early this morning to help them get out the door and on their way to Heathrow.) A rather tacky sculpture stood on the Abbey grounds featuring a gymnast balanced atop a globe, and fortunately the globe was highly reflective. And what's funny -- after I took this shot, two or three other groups of people who were watching me did exactly the same thing. I started a trend!

After Westminster we went to lunch, and then to St. Paul's Cathedral, and then to the Imperial War Museum.  I didn't go into Westminster or St. Paul's -- I've seen both before, and they're too expensive for repeat visits. Instead I just sat outside and watched the crowds, and took photos here and there.

I did go into the War Museum, even though I'm not all that into military stuff. (It's free, and Dave's dad really wanted to see it.) Standing among all those tanks and missiles, I couldn't help but wonder why humanity couldn't have invested half the effort and expense of blowing each other up into just getting along. Call me crazy. And here's a weird coincidence: I saw an exhibit about British poets of World War I, and among them was Edmund Blunden, whose poem about ice skaters I posted just two days ago. I hadn't even heard of Edmund Blunden before that, and now he's popped up twice in one week.

Popular opinion about the closing ceremonies of the Olympics appears to be divided. (Sam Leith in The Evening Standard: "Hairy flaming Jesus: what was that all about?") Apparently the failure of Kate Bush and David Bowie to make anticipated personal appearances, the fashion segment and the mishmash of other musical artists threw some people for a loop. I really liked Ed Sheeran singing Pink Floyd, for what it's worth. I like that no matter where he plays, Sheeran stands there in jeans and a hoodie, with only his trusty acoustic guitar. He's like a musical granola bar.

When I got up at 5 a.m. this morning, there was no light in the sky -- unlike in June, when the sun began rising at 4:30. We're inching toward the darker days of autumn!

Short Items

Yes, we had more tomatoes. I just can't help posting a photo. I'm like a proud parent! These were a mix of the tigrella striped variety, black cherries, and red alicante. We simply cut them up and ate them with an olive oil vinaigrette. Some of them seemed a bit thick-skinned -- probably those really tiny ones -- but they tasted great!

When Dave and I were in Tesco last week, we came across Bassett's Jelly Mascots -- on sale! I never buy candy, but I couldn't resist this bizarre bit of Olympic paraphernalia, featuring mascots Wenlock and Mandeville. I've been eating them as enthusiastically as a six-year-old.

(By they way, did you watch any of the closing ceremonies last night? I was surprised at the use of John Lennon's song "Imagine," which praises a world without religion, and George Michael's "Freedom," which is about coming out of the closet. I mean, I love both songs, but would such potentially controversial material have made it onto the stage in an American production? I doubt it. Europe just isn't as obsessed about the petty politics of "family values.")

I picked up this sad onion pot in a vintage store near Notting Hill Gate, after watching it sit in the store window for a week. I'm not sure how old it is, or why we need a special pot for onions, but I think it's pretty clever. Dave fruitlessly tried to discourage the purchase, but claims he likes it nonetheless. I'm not sure he's telling me the truth.

Death and Ice Skating

Elizabeth suggested on her blog that we open up a book of poetry and see what we find. I chose a book called "Poems of Our Time: 1900-1942," from the Everyman's Library, which I rescued recently from a Portobello Road market vendor known to me as "The Guy Who Breaks Things." He has boxes of stuff that he spreads out haphazardly on bedsheets on the ground, and at the end of the day he throws it hard back into the boxes, smashing the glass and the ceramics and anything else breakable. Most of his stuff is junk already, it's true, but I hate to see someone be so rough with things. My hunch is that he gets it somewhere almost free, brings it all to market, and throws away whatever doesn't sell in a day.

Anyway, I rescued this perfectly good volume from a stack of otherwise rain-warped, blotched, torn and unreadable books, offered for sale by The Guy Who Breaks Things. Here's a random selection.

----

The Midnight Skaters

The hop-poles stand in cones,
The icy pond lurks under,
The pole-tops steeple to the thrones
Of stars, sound gulfs of wonder;
But not the tallest there, 'tis said,
Could fathom to this pond's black bed.

Then is not death at watch
Within those secret waters?
What wants he but to catch
Earth's heedless sons and daughters?
With but a crystal parapet
Between, he has his engines set.

Then on, blood shouts, on, on,
Twirl, wheel and whip above him,
Dance on this ball-floor thin and wan,
Use him as though you love him;
Court him, elude him, reel and pass,
And let him hate you through the glass.

-- Edmund Blunden

(Photo: Litter on the ground, Westbourne Terrace, London, last August 26.)

Back in the Nest

I need to make this my new mantra. Seriously.

I've been so crabby the past couple of weeks. I feel like a pressure cooker -- like I'm going to explode if someone looks at me cross-eyed, or commits any one of a million minor urban offenses like walking too slowly in front of me or blocking the stairs to the tube.

I feel better now, as I'm writing this at home, than I did yesterday. The stress of catching our train from Amsterdam and dealing with the crowds, the connections, customs and immigration, and an extraordinarily grumpy fast food cashier named Marta at the Amsterdam train station all caught up with me. I snarled at Dave in line at customs and he let me know in no uncertain terms that he wasn't going to put up with that. And I don't blame him.

The back-to-back days and weeks of catering to other people, as housekeeper and tour guide, have taken their toll. (I don't mean that as an attempt to sound selfless, believe me. If anything, I'm too selfish. I normally require a lot of me time.) Getting away to Amsterdam was nice but it was only one full day -- and Dave and I agree that the train is really not the way to go. That trip was long and hard. Next time, we're flying.

Overall, I haven't had as much time to exercise as I'd like. I've been eating a heck of a lot of restaurant food, which gets old after a while. Lots of beer and wine -- probably too much, at least for me. The resulting dent in our bankbook has me a bit concerned. And there's just been no break.

I did have my stay in Kent, but even that was a little weird, immersed as I was in an unfamiliar social and work environment, with people I didn't know. (Not to mention an ocean's worth of rainfall.)

I don't mean to say I'm not appreciative of our visitors -- I am. I'm glad each and every one visited, and I love them all. I'm fortunate for this life I lead and the fact that I'm even able to go to too many restaurants. (What a whiner! Really!) But this summer has been an interesting lesson for both Dave and me. We need to space our visitors out more, and "ring-fence" (as the British would say) some down time for ourselves. We will not repeat the summer of 2012.

Plus I have this new job coming up -- my first non-journalism job in 20 years -- and I'm stressed about that too.

I need to get back to meditating. My backside hasn't seen a cushion in months.

Meanwhile, forgive me, blog readers, if any of my grumpy old man tendencies have crept into my recent posts. I'm doing my best.

(Photos: "Relax" graffiti in a field in the Netherlands; a giant spider threatens Brussels; and some enthusiastic train graffiti in Amsterdam.)

The Red Postman

Dave and I were sitting in a sunny cafe yesterday, watching the parade of humanity, when this butterfly settled on a nearby umbrella. Only after we got home and I did some research did we learn it's either a Heliconius erato, known as a red or small postman, or a variety of Heliconius melpomene, a common postman. Here's the weird part -- it's native to Central and South America! What it's doing in Amsterdam, I have no idea. We think maybe it's an escapee from an exotic butterfly garden. (Apparently hobbyists breed them...?)

Strange encounters in lepidoptery aside, Dave and I spent yesterday exactly as we planned -- lounging in and around the Leidseplein, having lunch and watching the crowds. I went for a couple of longish walks, taking photos and scouting out the local graffiti and street art. It was great to have a day with no formal sightseeing and no agenda.

In the afternoon I stopped at a coffee shop that sold curious, oblong chocolate-covered goodies labeled "chocolate dadel." I asked the woman behind the counter what was inside.

"Dadels," she said. "I don't know the English word for them."

Fine, I said, and taking a gamble I ordered two. (I wouldn't order unknown snacks in just any Amsterdam coffee shop -- God knows what narcotic substances I'd encounter -- but this was almost like a Starbuck's, and thus risk-free.) The woman and her coworker asked me to tell them the English word for "dadel" once I figured it out. It wasn't difficult -- one bite and I knew they were dates. They were yummy, too.

This morning we're catching an early train back to London. Dave's parents return tomorrow for part two of their visit!

Pain on the Train

I'm lying in a hotel room overlooking the Amstel in Amsterdam, with Dave snoring beside me. It's about 8 a.m. and I've already been out on a wander around the city, photographing some graffiti that we saw while on our way to dinner last night. It's a beautiful clear morning, but I only saw about ten other people on the street. This is evidently not an early morning town.

(I could have guessed as much. I'm sure the five boisterous men and women who were rolling around with each other on the sidewalk beneath our window at 4 a.m. are asleep now, for example.)

The last time we came to Amsterdam, we flew. This time, we thought we'd take the train. So yesterday morning we hopped the Eurostar in London and went to Brussels, then switched to an Amsterdam-bound InterCity train.

The Eurostar leg of the journey went smoothly -- the train glided like an eel beneath the English Channel. But the InterCity leg proved more problematic. There were lots of stops, then a delay to fix some kind of problem on the tracks near Leyden, and then the train turned around early, short of our destination, to compensate for that delay. So we had to transfer to another train to get to Amsterdam Central.

For some reason, I neglected to bring any kind of nutrition along, and all we could buy on the train was a mini-can of "paprika" flavored Pringles (known as barbecue flavor to those of us from the States). So we were starving by the end of our six-hour journey. I grabbed a brie-and-walnut sandwich and none-too-fresh apple at the Amsterdam train station, and they were the best things I ever ate.

We love our hotel, though, and we had a great dinner at Restaurant De Kas last night with Dave's friend Annie from Michigan, and her husband and two sons. We met up with them last year in Reykjavik, and when we heard they'd be passing through Amsterdam this summer on their way to South Africa, we decided to rendezvous again. We plan to make our dinner an annual tradition. Next year: St. Petersburg! (Russia, not Florida.)

Dave has already vowed to spend today parked at a cafe, people-watching. Sounds great to me. First he needs to wake up, though.

(Photos: From the train platform in De Vink, a town outside The Hague where our train was delayed yesterday.)