Finally!

Summer vacation has begun! Yesterday was our last day of work until mid-August. Many faculty and staff went to the graduation ceremony, but I stayed behind and finished up in the library, shelving all the remaining books and checking out a few things to last-minute patrons. I feel guilty about missing graduation because my boss's daughter was among the graduates -- but someone had to stay and keep the place open, right? Hopefully my boss sees that as a plus rather than a minus.

Anyway, it was nice putting everything in order and turning out the lights.

I came home and relaxed a bit. I read, I studied my French. I found this green spider in the garden, and spent some time trying to get just the right photo of it. I hope it's that lovely emerald green color because it's eating all our aphids!

Incidentally, I've seen no recent sign of all the ladybirds we released. I think they flew away or became dinner for the sparrows and tits.

One of my coworkers, who is retiring, got this orchid as a gift, but she was reluctant to try to carry it all the way back to her house. (She lives in a distant suburb and is in the process of moving.) So she gave it to me, and it has taken up residence in our bathroom.

(Top photo: A pigeon meeting around our bird bath.)

The Wedding that Wasn't

Dave and I had big plans this summer. We thought we'd get married.

I'm using the past tense here because the bureaucratic powers that be have indicated otherwise.

As you may remember, we got a Civil Union back in New Jersey in 2010, before New Jersey had same-sex marriage. A Civil Union, at the time, was the only option available to us.

Fast forward to now, when we live in a country that offers same-sex marriage nationwide. Dave and I thought our Civil Union would be seen as something of a stepping stone to the end goal of full-fledged marriage.

So we picked a date for an informal garden party at the end of July, sent e-mail invitations to our friends, and called our local borough council to arrange a wedding at the Town Hall. We hoped to marry on July 21, which would allow us to keep our anniversary date.

The council registrar, however, threw a wrench (or a "spanner," as the British call it) into the works by saying we can't get married, because in their eyes we've already been married. "You can only get married once," she told me.

Apparently our Civil Union acts as a wedding under English law. (Which we sort of knew, given that I can legally live here as Dave's spouse.) People who got a Civil Union in Britain can have it converted to a marriage, now that Britain has gay marriage -- but ours can't be converted because, according to the registrar, they "don't have jurisdiction" over civil unions from other countries.

In short, we would have to dissolve our Civil Union in New Jersey in order to get married here -- and since my legal immigration status depends on that Civil Union (as Dave's spouse, I am here dependent on his visa) we are loathe to do that. (Besides, I don't want to leave a public record somewhere indicating that we got divorced!)

I also called New Jersey to see if our Civil Union can be converted to a marriage -- and the answer is no. Apparently there we'd need to get married. I'm not sure whether dissolution of the Civil Union would be required or not, but in any case, Dave says he's not setting foot back in New Jersey under any circumstances.

So, we're kind of stuck.

It's not a big deal to me at this point. In fact, I wonder if our friends are a bit surprised at the casualness with which we've treated this development. Maybe if we learn that there's a significant material advantage -- legally, or tax-wise -- to marriage, we can pursue it further. But as it turns out almost no one can come to our party on the date we selected, so we moved the date and we'll just have a party, contingent on no nuptials. Marriage will have to wait for another time.

(Photo: Hillman butchers, Kilburn, yesterday.)

Horsetails, and Other Mysteries

These are horsetails, prehistoric plants that have been called "living fossils." I came across a thick stand of them in the cemetery while walking Olga. I think they're pretty cool. They were growing densely, even out into the lawn, and only after reading about them did I realize they're considered an invasive garden pest. Well, I guess that's why they've been around such a long time -- they're very fit in the Darwinian sense!

I may have mentioned that I planted an envelope of wildflower seeds in some of our pots on the patio. They're just tiny sprouts now, but this one is already blooming! Unfortunately the squirrels have repeatedly visited the pots and churned the ground over a couple of times, digging for god knows what, so I'm not sure what's going to grow to maturity. Supposedly there are poppies in the mix -- I'd love to have some poppies.

This is a flower on one of our St. John's Wort plants, which were growing here naturally. (Well, we didn't plant them, and they're growing in some unlikely places, so I think they're natural or at least garden volunteers.)

And finally, I keep trying to photograph our little fox, but that guy is so quick and timid he's hard to capture. This is the best I could do -- his back end disappearing beneath the fence to the neighbor's property. We've seen him up close many times, though, running back and forth across our patio by the back door. His tail is filling out a bit.

Why won't he pose like Fred Fox up in Yorkshire? Maybe he does during the day when we're not around.

The appliance repair guy came yesterday and sorted out the washing machine. He simply tightened a couple of pipe joints, and when I ran a load last night I saw no evidence of leakage. The dishwasher, on the other hand, may have breathed its last -- he said some circuit boards were fried, so the landlord will have to decide whether to try to fix the machine or get a new one. I have a feeling I'll be doing dishes by hand for a while.

Connected Again

Well, we've solved a third of our household malfunctions. The telephone repairman came yesterday, and I raced home from work to meet him.. He discovered that our phone line, outside our house, was disconnected. He reconnected it and everything works fine.

I asked him how that could have happened -- was it accidental or intentional? He said he wasn't sure but that it wasn't just loose. Multiple wires were completely disconnected. That sounds a little suspicious to me. I wonder if we'll get our phone bill and find a dozen calls to Botswana or Belarus.

A more likely possibility is that our neighbor -- who has been carrying on numerous home improvement projects including rewiring the lighting over his front door, near the phone box -- disconnected it, perhaps not realizing what it was.

Doesn't it seem silly that we're still dependent on data running through phone lines, in this age of Wi-Fi and such? Seems like we should have moved past that by now. We ought to have an instant satellite uplink. Or something.

Anyway, it's working now, thank goodness, and it's pretty great to sit here and blog from the comfort of our own couch.

The appliance man is allegedly coming this afternoon to attend to our dysfunctional washing machine and dishwasher.

Otherwise, there's not much to tell. Today is a half-day at school and if the weather is decent I might try to take some photos afterwards. It's been cold the last few days -- it was 47º F yesterday morning! I am continually surprised by how cold London can be in June.

(Photo: A clematis flower growing near some graffiti at Hampstead Cemetery, May 23.)

Hanging on the Telephone

No repair people have been in touch. We linger in stasis. We're hanging on the telephone, like Blondie, except that the telephone line -- where we get our Internet -- doesn't work. Nor the washing machine, nor the dishwasher.

Maybe I should just write my blog from school or Cafe Nero every day? Take the laundry out every week for a "service wash"? (Ah, the luxury!)

Meanwhile, we're almost finished with students. I think today is the last day many of them will be around. Tomorrow is still technically a school day, for half a day, but I'm not sure we'll see many kids. 

We've successfully retrieved almost all our library books. I think at this point one eighth-grader and one 11th-grader still have books, and the latter plans to pay for hers, because she packed it up with her other belongings and shipped it back to the states.

Dave and I are both feeling a profound level of exhaustion. A lot of energy goes into these last weeks, and when the concerts are over and the books have been retrieved, we sort of collapse!

(Photos: Top, DIY in Chelsea, on May 24. Bottom, found art in the library -- a robin, I presume? I like his knobby knees.)

My Photo Panel

We are still Internet-less. I'm writing this from work, when I can grab a moment between students. It's crazy how everything in our house has broken all at once. But we're managing -- as I said, I left the laundry with the laundromat yesterday for a "service wash," and I've been doing the dishes by hand. I just called the repairman so hopefully he'll get back to me soon. (Like, today!)

I haven't yet heard from our Internet provider, but they said they'd send an engineer within four days, so presumably we're on someone's agenda.

Here's one thing I did manage to get done this weekend -- I mounted the prints that I plan to submit to the Royal Photographic Society for judging. You may remember these shots from my blog -- I think they've all appeared here. They're all shots I took for Bleeding London.

The prints will be viewed on two shelves, like this, and in this order. I think the mounting went mostly OK, except that the balloon photo and the one vertical photo are a bit crooked. What can I say? I am not perfect. (The photos won't be this close together when they're judged, so I'm hoping that minor differences in their placement on the mats won't be as obvious.)

The advisory day, when the judges give me advice and feedback about my photo panel, is scheduled for June 18. Actual judging won't take place until later and I may change the panel before then, depending on what the judges say.

(Top photo: Blue fescue grass seed heads in the garden, backed by some of our roses.)

A Gorgeous Day, Despite Broken Wi-Fi

Coming to you today from Cafe Nero, because the Internet at our house has spontaneously gone bust. We lost our connection yesterday and I called our provider, and they confirmed a fault somewhere in our line. They're sending an "engineer," as the British call repair people.

Olga and I had a fabulous afternoon yesterday. The sky was blue, the temperatures cool but not chilly, the air fresh. We joined the hordes of people at Hampstead Heath.

Parliament Hill was packed with visitors checking out the views of the London skyline. (When Dave saw this picture, he said, "It looks like a bike crash!")

Olga appreciated the wide open spaces and the long grass, where she could roll and run. She leaps like a gazelle when the grass is high. It's pretty funny to watch.

Then, on the way home, we stopped at the cemetery, where she happily scratched on someone's tombstone. That's the best use of a tombstone I've ever seen -- and maybe the only real reason to buy one, to give friendly dogs a place to scratch their itches.

Our friend Carolyn and her 5-year-old daughter visited this weekend, and they spent yesterday out and about in London. They were very low-maintenance guests, and by this time they're probably already on their way back to Belgium. Dave, meanwhile, spent yesterday in the garden, and last night -- partly to keep Zoe occupied -- we all watched "The Sound of Music."

Today, Dave and I had lunch with our friends Mike and Sally and Anna and Lawrence, in Greenwich. I am a bit bleary-eyed from the long schlep to South London, a long lunch and having to search out Wi-Fi after getting back home. One smart move: I took our laundry out, in order to avoid using our crippled machine, which we are still trying to get fixed. It was pretty terrific to pick it up on the way back from lunch, all clean!

My posts may be a bit later in the day this week, until we get this Internet problem sorted out!