Florida Water and Charlottesville

Dave grew sweet peas this year, a new thing for us. They looked terrific for a couple of months, and then the plants began to get kind of grey and moth-eaten, and laden with seed pods. The blooms began to diminish, and too late we learned that picking sweet pea blossoms encourages the plant to bloom more. Oh well.

I picked these, the last few blossoms of the season, before Dave cut down the plant. I put them in my Florida Water bottle, an antique that my British friend Liz (as opposed to my two American friends named Liz) gave me. It says on it: "Florida Water, Murray & Lanman, Druggists, New York." Liz thought it was the perfect gift for me because I come from Florida and she and I first met in New York.

It got me thinking: What was Florida Water, anyway?

Turns out that it was basically a citrusy perfume. There's a whole Wikipedia page about it. Apparently Murray & Lanman held the trademark for the Florida Water name. I'm not sure how old my bottle might be, but apparently you can still buy Florida Water. From what I read on the Interwebs, it has magical or religious uses (if you're into that kind of thing).

I borrowed that image above from Pinterest. Turns out there are a lot of great Florida Water ads from the old days. Here are a few others:

Actually, that looks a lot like my bottle!

Anyway...

I took Olga to the Heath yesterday, where we both had a long romp. Mud was involved (for her), necessitating a back-garden bath (also for her). I've discovered that hauling my shoulder-strap camera bag long distances is starting to really stress out my back. I may have to find a better way to schlep my equipment -- a backpack, maybe?

Mrs Kravitz is on us again about our rubbish and recycling bins. They are well-maintained and neatly tucked into the alley beside our house, right next to her bins in her alley -- but as she told me when she collared me on the street yesterday, she thinks we have too many. (We have four, which for two flats isn't so bad.) She asked me to get rid of some of them, or to petition our landlord to build a higher fence between our property and hers. (She has three bins for her single-family house, for the record.) I'm going to ignore her. Sometimes, when someone's all up in your business, that's the most reasonable response.

I'm horrified by the news from Charlottesville. The worst among us feel emboldened and, indeed, invincible, because they believe the man in the White House has their back. It's terrifying, and also just incredibly sad. For the record, I too have doubts about the wisdom of dismantling Confederate war memorials -- they're part of America's history, and rather than removing them we should be explaining them, and balancing their message with monuments that more accurately reflect our modern society and expectations. But violence only begets more violence. Trump, through his words and actions on the campaign trail and in office, has propped open Pandora's box.

Spider Time

Dave and I have been noticing hordes of little spiders all over the garden. They've been hanging their webs and, presumably, feasting on the bugs that are attracted by the ripe blackberries and the late-summer blossoms.

It must be the season for them. We definitely weren't seeing as many a month or two ago, though maybe they were out there and they're just now getting large enough for us to notice.

Remember our balcony arachnopet, Pat, from five (!) years ago? Pat was this same variety of spider, I think -- a common garden spider. We first noticed him/her in June, so he/she was a bit ahead of this crowd, and was a pretty good size by the time August came around. Pat disappeared in October, as I recall, when the weather got blustery and autumnal.

But Pat laid a cluster of eggs, which hatched the following spring. And I guess that's what's happened here. The circle of life! (To quote "The Lion King," which I'm sure did not originate that phrase.)

I spent yesterday morning trimming and weeding the front garden and the side alley, which we almost never use. The alley was full of weeds and detritus like a stray Coke can (from who knows where, because neither Dave nor I drink Coke). I definitely disturbed lots of little critters living in their weedy sanctuaries, but the job had to be done and I must admit it looks much better now. I tried to relocate the critters when possible. I carried shovelfuls of buggy dirt to the back of the yard, where the pillbugs and millipedes and ants could escape on their own time -- and then I saw a couple of robins pecking it over later, no doubt relishing the feast I had uncovered. Circle of life again!

Nemesis

Olga hates this cat.

To be clear, she hates all cats. But this cat, in particular, is her sworn enemy. It lurks behind this brown gate, which has a little cat-sized hole cut into it. We pass the gate every morning on our walk. And every time, Olga has to....

...shove her face as far into that cat-hole as she can get it. If the cat is on the other side, it often comes out swinging.

They've never actually fought, because I always pull Olga back. But that cat sometimes follows us out onto the sidewalk, just to make sure we're leaving. It's a tiger! And you can't blame it, really -- it's just defending its turf.

I'm always afraid whoever owns the cat is going to come out and yell at me, but I just can't resist allowing the animals a frisson of excitement.

In other news, the management company for our flat sent a handyman over yesterday to take care of some minor problems -- cracked floor tiles, a ceiling that needed painting, a broken doorsill and a gate that wouldn't close, among other things. He worked pretty much all day, and supposedly will get answers about a few other repairs we'd like to have done, including carpet replacement (or simply removal) in the dining room, repainting the kitchen and possibly re-enameling the bathtub.

Meanwhile, Dave made plans for a tree surgeon to visit us next week and give estimates for removing the holly (won't Mrs. Kravitz be thrilled?) and trimming a few other trees. Now that we're leaning toward staying here as renters, we're trying to spruce things up!

A Baggy Book and Rain, Rain, Rain

Yesterday may have been the rainiest day of the year so far. According to The Guardian, we were set to receive a month's worth of rain in a single day. I spent the whole day on the couch reading, and every time I looked up, it was pouring outside. I didn't even go out into the garden.

Olga, needless to say, was not thrilled at the prospect of leaving with the dog-walker. I wondered if it would feel more like punishment than pleasure. But we sent her along anyway and dried her off well when she got home.

We watched the second episode of the BBC's "The Man in the Orange Shirt" last night, a two-part miniseries with Vanessa Redgrave exploring how gay men coped with social and familial pressures and expectations both back in the 1940s and in the modern era. Vanessa Redgrave is a few months older than my mother! I think it's pretty impressive that she's still acting, and so effectively. Anyway, it's a good show -- I recommend it if you have the opportunity to watch it.

I also learned, happily, that I don't have to be at work until the 17th -- and not the 14th, as I'd previously thought. Woo hoo! A few extra days of vacation!

I am not enjoying this Arundhati Roy book as much as I had hoped. I was following the initial story really well at the outset, and then the book leaped to another set of characters and circumstances that I didn't follow as well, and now it's coming together but it feels very...loose. I think there's an excellent novel in here somewhere, but it's still buried in what feels like a very long, overstuffed draft. Someone needed some more rigorous editing -- that's my non-novelist's take on it.

(Photo: Our inula plant, through the rain-streaked living room window.)

Escape to Downton Abbey

I'm sure many of you recognize this view -- the approach to Downton Abbey! This is not a film still, but a real photo taken by yours truly. Yesterday Dave and I visited Downton, or actually its real-life alter ego, Highclere Castle, in Hampshire.

We took the train from London early yesterday morning, and after an hour's ride and a 15-minute taxi trip -- which we shared with two women visiting from Finland, to cut costs -- we were at Downton's door.

What you can't really see in the picture is that it was pouring rain when we arrived. We bought our tickets about two months ago, so weather wasn't a factor in choosing our date to visit, and we had to simply make the best of it.

We started by touring the interior of the house, where, unfortunately, visitors are not permitted to take photos. Let me just say that it looks almost exactly like it does on TV. The furniture, the paintings -- nearly all of it is featured in the show. So if you want to see what we saw, watch some Downton reruns!

We saw the public rooms on the ground floor, the large central atrium and grand staircase, and the bedrooms on the second floor. Other parts of the house we did not see, which is perfectly understandable because since the late 1600s Highclere has been home to the Earl of Carnarvon and his family. They really do live there, at least part of the time, and there are signs of modern life here and there, like James Patterson and John Grisham novels stacked on bookshelves. Highclere is not a museum.

Fortunately, by the time we finished walking through the house, the weather cleared a bit and we were able to explore the gardens (above.)

We had a great time checking out all the plants, peering into the greenhouse, crossing the wildflower meadow and watching pheasants wandering around on a hill where a columned temple once stood. The landscape around Highclere was designed by Capability Brown, a legendary landscape designer to the British nobility, in the 1770s. The house itself was rebuilt beginning in the 1840s, according to a design by Sir Charles Barry, who also designed the Houses of Parliament. The interior wasn't completed until after Barry's death, about 35 years after the work began.

There's a columned architectural folly across the lawn called the "Jackdaws Castle," from 1743. As Dave and I approached it, we began hearing something peculiar. It sounded like a huge crowd murmuring in a sort of monotone. The sound was coming from beyond the temple, so we went to check it out. It turned out to be...

...sheep! Lots and lots of sheep, hundreds of them, crossing a field some distance behind the temple. I'm giving you a video so you can hear them. You can also barely hear the excited Japanese children who followed me to the edge of the field to watch the passing parade.

Anyway, it was a fun day out, and aside from the brief burst of rain at the beginning of the morning, we were pretty lucky with the weather. (Watching the forecast, we'd been afraid it might rain all day.) We caught an afternoon train back to London and were home soon after Olga got in from her walk...just in time to watch a few episodes of Downton Abbey!

The Bomb

This is the view looking out our front window. I needed a picture that conveys domesticity, because we spent all yesterday at home, except for a shopping trip to Sainsbury's which hardly counts as adventure. (Even though we went to the big Sainsbury's at the O2 Centre, which is like an American grocery store, with all kinds of exotic things on offer like tofu and tamarind seeds and even clothing.)

While we were at the store, a stooped older lady came up to me and said, "Excuse me? Can you help me?" And I said "Sure," even though I was inwardly thinking, Am I dressed like a Sainsbury's employee?

"There's a bottle on the floor over there. I think it could be a bomb," the lady said.

She began to guide me around the corner, but then she peered down the aisle and said, "Oh, it's gone now. You know, you can't be too careful!" And with that, she tottered away with her shopping cart. I thought, it's a sad state of affairs when little old ladies feel like they have to fear bombs in Sainsbury's.

Dave and I also went to Homebase, where I bought some completely unnecessary geraniums -- or pelargoniums, to use the proper name -- that were on sale for a pound apiece. You can never have too many geraniums. Dave bought a showerhead, in his ongoing quest to make the flat more comfortable. (He thinks our existing showerhead is clogged with lime deposits from the water. I'm not necessarily disputing this, but I'm not necessarily confirming it, either.)

Mrs. Kravitz came back from vacation and I confessed to her that I climbed into her yard to retrieve Olga's dog toy. I felt compelled to say something in case she had a security camera filming me. She didn't seem too fazed, but seized the opportunity to argue once again that we should cut down our holly tree.

I finished that questioning book I had to read for work -- thank God. Now I'm just working on Arundhati Roy's newest. I'm about halfway through, and there are millions of characters (well, it does take place in India, after all) and I'm not exactly loving it. I'm hoping it all comes together by the end.

Juggling and Dancing

Thanks for all your feedback on yesterday's post. (Except for the Thai spam commenters who keep leaving links to mysterious football blogs that I suspect are actually phishing scams or something. You have been deleted.) I will certainly keep everyone up to date on our discussions! I hope I don't come across as a whiny brat -- I'm perfectly aware that I'm privileged to even be considering buying in this place and time.

Dave and I took Olga on a rare joint outing yesterday to Kilburn Grange Park. The Kong was enthusiastically pursued.

Oh, and speaking of the Kong, remember how it disappeared overnight from our back garden several days ago? Well, we gave Olga another one, and that disappeared too! This time I was really kicking myself, and then yesterday morning I saw it in Mrs. Kravitz's back garden, lying in the long grass. Apparently whatever fox absconded with it didn't get very far. Mrs. Kravitz and her family are away somewhere, so I wound up climbing over the garden wall to retrieve it. Let me just say: Climbing a garden wall is a lot harder than it looks. And then, as I struggled back over the wall to our own garden, a neighbor in one of the apartments behind us leaned out his window and said laughingly, "Everything OK, gentlemen?" He probably thought we were up to no good and was checking up on us. So we explained the situation and fortunately everything ended without the involvement of police or an ambulance.

I also bought two more Kongs from Amazon, just to be safe. And by the way, I grossly overstated their price the other day. I got two for about £14, so that's not so bad.

At Kilburn Grange Park, we came across this guy juggling five balls at once. Pretty impressive! Olga laid down next to him, because he was standing in the shade, but then she tensed up the minute he began throwing those balls around and I was afraid she would spring for one of them. We had to lead her to a less stimulating shady place.

On the walk back home, we saw this. I love the Burt Reynolds tire cover. Unfortunately no mac n' cheese was being served at the moment, or we might have had some.

Speaking of '80s nostalgia, on Saturday I got a sudden urge to watch the movie "White Nights," from 1985, with Gregory Hines and Mikhail Baryshnikov. I don't think I'd ever seen it before. It was pretty good, with a youthful Isabella Rossellini and lots of Cold War intrigue. It's so weird to watch a film like that, produced when the Soviet Union seemed mighty and mysterious, and think that the country lasted just four more years. (Of course, it didn't go away entirely -- now we're left with its mysterious, meddling successor, Putin's Russia!) It was also great to see Baryshnikov and Hines dancing to Twyla Tharp's choreography. A worthwhile rental!