Ugly Coffee Table

Here's another little gem that Olga and I found on one of our walks. With its faux marble laminate top, its worn gilded legs and its ceramic medallions of lords and ladies, it surely would qualify -- even in pristine condition -- as perhaps the ugliest coffee table ever.

(I apologize in advance if any of you have one just like it.)

I can't help but wonder who thought this was a good idea -- from either a manufacturing or purchasing standpoint. And why is it so chewed up?

So many questions.

In other news, our dog-walkers posted an item on Facebook the other day that said they planned to begin walking cats. Envisioning an imminent tragedy and subsequent lawsuit, I immediately thought, "I'd better warn them to keep those cats away from Olga!" But before I had a chance to send an e-mail I mentioned it to Dave, and he said, "Are you sure that's not an April Fool's joke?"

And of course it was.

Some people do walk their cats, though! So I don't feel too silly for being fooled.

Wayward Le Creuset

Neither Olga nor I want to get out of bed this morning. We took a long walk to Hampstead Heath yesterday, and I seriously thought we weren't going to get back home. I was just so worn out after Liverpool, and my photo walk on Saturday. Plus we had some of Dave's coworkers over on Saturday night for mac & cheese (because kids were involved) and wine, and they were here pretty late -- so I didn't sleep all that well for a few nights running.

As the saying goes, I need a vacation from my vacation!

The day went well, though. Dave got tons of gardening done and Olga and I found a blue Le Creuset pan (with lid!) on our morning walk. I think Dave was pretty impressed that I could find homeless Le Creuset while wandering around the neighborhood.

And today, it's back to work!

(Photo: The Japanese magnolias are in bloom -- this tree was near its peak when I took this photo last weekend.)

Top Hat

When I was in Liverpool I came across this old shopfront near my hotel. I loved the ghost sign, and doing a little online research I found that this was a music store called the Top Hat Record Bar. You can see old pics from its heyday here and here.

Apparently the sign was uncovered in 2009 or so, after having been concealed behind newer signage for years.

Musicians like Lonnie Donegan and Frankie Vaughan made appearances there. Another smidgin of Liverpool's storied musical history!

My last French class of the term went well yesterday, and I am weirdly conflicted about whether to continue. After a year of study, I would love to have my Saturday mornings back, and I could do without the homework. It wouldn't be bad to save the money, either, I suppose.

But I still have plenty of room for improvement, and there's a camaraderie in my class that I hate to give up. We were all going to go to lunch yesterday to celebrate the end of the term, but we wound up canceling because several classmates couldn't be there. C'est dommage.

(Actually it was fine with me. I went walking and the day was beautiful and photography called!)

Another Place

On the recommendation of my fellow bloggers Mr. Pudding and John from Wales, I went to see Sir Antony Gormley's sculpture installation "Another Place" on Crosby Beach, northwest of Liverpool.

The installation consists of 100 cast-iron replicas of Gormley's own body, spread out over two miles of beach, all gazing out to sea.

Some of them are quite far out in the water; I think I was there at a relatively low tide, based on the barnacles I saw on some of the statues, and I could see only see the heads and shoulders of those farthest out. This one made a good perch for a cold crow.

I got to Crosby Beach by train from Liverpool -- it only took 15 or 20 minutes, I think. Well worth it to experience this mysterious creation.

This fellow was obviously headed off to work.

I walked up and down the beach, which was littered with razor clams. At one point I tried to walk out to see one of the distant statues...

...and I stepped into some deceptively soft mud. I turned right around, but...my work shoes!!

(I thought they were ruined, but I just waited for the mud to dry a bit and wiped off what I could. Then I bought a brush at Poundland and, when they were completely dry, brushed the rest away. Good as new!)

Anyway, it was an interesting visit! After I made my way back to Liverpool, I had lunch at Moose Coffee (Canadian/American coffee and food -- I had a reuben!) and then caught my train for London.

This morning, back to the grind -- my last French class of the term!

The Fab Four

So here I am in Liverpool, on my Beatles pilgrimage. It certainly isn't hard to find references to the Fab Four in the city of their birth. There are Beatles cafes, Beatles shops, Beatles tours and Beatles statues. And why not? Although Liverpool was a vibrant shipping center and musical nexus even before they came on the scene, when the vast majority of people on the globe hear Liverpool, they think John, Paul, George and Ringo.

I myself took one of the aforementioned tours, with a likably garrulous taxi driver named Alan who regaled me with tales of the Beatles (and lots of other tangential stories) for almost four hours.

We certainly didn't miss anything. For example, we went to Penny Lane, which is an actual street, and we saw the bank, the barber shop, the nearby fire station and even the "shelter in the middle of the roundabout." You could get fish, and presumably finger-pies. Every lyric in the song came to life!

Beneath the "blue suburban skies," we visited childhood homes of all four Beatles. Ringo's birthplace is looking a little rough these days...

...but Paul's tidy childhood home is owned by the National Trust.

John's house is in good shape, too -- Alan, my guide, said it's still owned by Yoko Ono, though it is open to the public. George's is rather nondescript and still lived in by some poor inhabitants who have to put up with a bunch of nosey tourists.

We saw the church social hall where John and Paul first met...

...and in the nearby graveyard, the resting place of one of their most famous muses. (Apparently Paul McCartney has described other origins for the name in the song, but my guide thinks he's simply trying to protect this woman's peace and quiet.) There's a tombstone for a McKenzie, too, although there's no indication that he was a clergyman.

Strawberry Fields is a real place, too -- once a grand old house and then an orphanage, it burned down and was rebuilt as a rather bland-looking institution. And now it's closed completely. Beyond the gate are lots of weeds and a shuttered building.

After my tour, I had to go find the Cavern Club myself -- I suspect because the club owners are somehow associated with a competing tour. I didn't go in. Apparently it was demolished after the Fab Four played there and later rebuilt, allegedly with the same bricks.

It's not a Beatles song, but I just have to point out that there really are Ferries 'Cross the Mersey!

In the evening I went for a walk down by the waterfront, which is built up with a combination of elegant old wedding-cakey palaces devoted to shipping and industry, and sleek, modern museums and entertainment complexes. I found a pub and had a pint, and then found another pub where I intended to order dinner -- but despite large signs out front that said "FOOD," they did not serve food in the evening. So I had another pint, and then embarked on what proved to be a fruitless search, at 8 p.m., for a pub with food. I stopped in four or five before finally giving up and eating a sandwich from Tesco in my hotel room, watching an episode of "The Good Wife."

Tax Man

As if to compensate for our day of fun on Tuesday, yesterday was the opposite -- Income Tax Day.

As I've mentioned before, as American citizens, we're required to file income taxes each year with the IRS, even though we no longer live in the country. We are not, however, required to pay the IRS, because I pay taxes here and our income falls below the amount of foreign income we're allowed to exclude. Nor do we get any kind of refund. So it's really just an exercise in paperwork.

Every year I find myself wrestling with the same issues -- how to show my earnings on one line and then fill out the Form 2555 or whatever it's called and show those earnings as excludable foreign income. I have to document all the days I spent in the United States (keeping a blog helps in this regard!), and then this year, I had to turn around and do the same for Dave. (We filed jointly -- a first!)

It took me all morning but I did finally get everything settled.  H & R Block, whose online tax prep software I was using, passed the return with flying colors. And then, weirdly, the IRS wouldn't allow us to e-file because the number of days stated on one line (for our housing exclusion) didn't match the number of days stated on another line (for income exclusion). I'm getting into the weeds here, but I thought I was supposed to deduct the days we spent in the states from our income exclusion, but not from our housing exclusion -- because, after all, we pay rent every day of the year, whether we're here or not. And perhaps that's incorrect. Anyway, in the end, I just changed both figures so they match. From all I could tell, it didn't make a difference.

I e-filed. Boom. Finished.

I know I say this every year, but taxes are ridiculously complicated. I mean, if I have this much trouble with them -- a college-educated (but admittedly mathematically inept) professional with no bipedal dependents -- imagine  how daunting they must seem to anyone with less education and more kids. It's absurd.

Anyway, thank God that's over. Off to Liverpool!

(Photo: Pedestrian barriers stacked in West Hampstead.)

Sky Garden

In our vacation quest to catch up on some London activities we haven't yet had a chance to enjoy, Dave and I went to the Sky Garden on Tuesday morning.

The Sky Garden is an enclosed indoor garden and cafe at the top of the relatively new building first nicknamed the Walkie-Talkie, and then (after reflections from its glass windows melted plastic parts of cars on the street) dubbed the Walkie-Scorchie.

Indoors there's no sign of scorching. The multi-level Sky Garden is full of tree ferns and other plants, all looking quite lush and healthy.

This is the view that greets visitors when they come off the elevator. Wave to The Shard!

Morning turned out to be a great time to visit -- the light was quite dramatic. Dave and I had reserved a table at the Sky Pod bar, where we had pastries and coffee. (Dave indulged in a bloody mary as well.)

The view was not bad.

After we ate we stepped out onto the terrace, which offered a blustery panorama of the Thames. The architecture does amazing things with sunlight -- aside from melting cars, I mean. (And actually, in all fairness to the building, that problem has apparently been fixed!)