Elstree to Cockfosters

I tackled another 10-mile leg of the LOOP yesterday, this one supposedly the longest of all 24 segments. It was an interesting walk, partly through scenic countryside and partly along busy roadways, including one bit along the A1, which the British quaintly call a "dual carriageway" and we in the USA would call an Interstate or a freeway.

Fortunately the rural bits were more extensive than the urban ones, and I saw signs of spring everywhere -- apple blossoms, budding chestnuts, vivid tulips in front gardens of houses. Even along the A1 I saw some bright purple-flowered dead nettles and budding horsetails.

I got confused three times on this route, more than on any other. In one place, for example, the directions said, "Turn left at the waymarker and follow the path close to the woodland." Well, there was no waymarker, and I was already in the woodland.

Another time, the directions said, "Follow the grass strip straight ahead with the houses on the left and join a tarmac path just above the brook." If there was a tarmac path anywhere in that vicinity, I didn't see it. And what does "above" the brook mean? Like, a bridge?

Finally, at one point, I was told to "go left through the gap in the hedge and follow the path right up the hill." Does that mean directly up the hill, or turn right and go up the hill? (To make matters worse there was a trail marker at this location and it confused me, too -- I wound up wandering around in the wrong field until I climbed through a blackberry hedge and got to the right one.)

Whenever I get to an ambiguous spot like that I just follow what looks like the most likely path, and I'm usually OK. In these particular areas the LOOP maps (and the maps app on my iPhone!) helped.

I passed Livingstone Cottage in Barnet, once the home of the famous "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?"

In the village of Monken Hadley I passed the Church of St. Mary the Virgin, "which dates back to the 12th century," according to the LOOP directions. I was more taken with this adjacent building, which looks like it might have been the vicarage.

Then my instructions said, "Follow the path beside the road past two huge cedar trees." (NOTE: Two roads, two paths!) "Just beyond a big mansion, Hadley Hurst, cross and enter the woods." I never saw the mansion -- and how do you miss a mansion? -- but I managed to wind my way through the woods along the correct roadway.

Remember the horse log I saw in South London? Well, here I found a frog log!

The path went over Pymmes Brook, where there was a rather unsightly lake as well as a quaint old bridge. I wound up at the Cockfosters tube station, mud-splattered and exhausted. At least it didn't rain!

Sunshine!

Yesterday's forecast called for clouds and, initially, rain in the afternoon. What we got instead was SUN! It was fabulous. Spring shook off its winter jacket, at least for a day.

Dave and I worked out in the garden in the morning, and I took Olga for two walks, one around the neighborhood and one to Hampstead Heath.

Olga was pretty thrilled with the weather, too!

Someone Stole My Tooth

Remember how, a few weeks ago, I packaged up my gold dental inlay (removed during my recent root canal) and mailed it to a gold reclamation company for reimbursement? Well, I waited and waited and never heard anything, and this week began calling to find out where my gold went.

You may remember that after mailing it off, I cavalierly wrote that I didn't care if it was a scam and I never saw a penny. Well, scam may be too strong a word, but it appears my inlay never reached the gold buyer. They never booked in my claim, which means it was intercepted somewhere along the way -- either in the mail or at the firm itself before it could be booked.

This is solely my fault because I mailed it with no registration or confirming signature upon delivery -- which was stupid, but as I said at the time, I only stood to make about £10 from it and I didn't want to spend half of that on postage.

So, anyway, c'est la vie. Someone stole my tooth!

Olga and I found some interesting things on our walk yesterday morning. First we found a little white-and-red bracelet hanging from a yellow forsythia bush on Finchley Road (top). There's a tradition in some cultures of hanging a red-and-white beaded bracelet on a flowering tree in spring -- I usually find them as pieces of thread tied to cherry trees. I wonder if this is the same idea -- or did someone simply drop their bracelet, and someone else hung it from the bush?

And then Olga and I found some discarded DVD towers. I thought about bringing them home, because we have a bunch of DVDs stacked in a closet, but the fact is they're fine in there and we don't use them that much anymore, so towers are probably just more unnecessary clutter. I left them in the trash.

Later in the day I found this lovely (?) painting. Which, needless to say, I also did not pick up.

Finally, at the risk of stuffing too much meaningless information into this post:

...I'm going to show you our amaryllis. Remember how I said there were no flower buds this year? The plants grew quite big and leafy but we saw no sign of blooms. It was very strange and unlike what they've done in past years, when the buds were often the first thing to appear.

But finally, finally, we're seeing little buds at the bottom of two of the plants. We'll see if they fully mature. I think the anti-fungal treatment I gave them last year to rid them of "red blotch" significantly diminished that problem -- the plants look much healthier -- but I wonder if it also delayed their flowering?

Pancake Batter

I have been really lazy about taking pictures this week. The weather's been terrible -- gray and rainy and drippy and soggy, and I just haven't been motivated to get out and walk around with the camera. I haven't seen sun since Hungary.

Spring in the UK feels like it's about a month behind. This is March weather.

So, anyway, the only picture I have today is this one, of the ceiling of the Apollo Theater, where we saw "Everybody's Talking About Jamie" on Wednesday. I wish I could have zoomed even farther out, to show the ornate gilded walls, statuary and balconies, but this is the best my phone camera could do.

As I've mentioned, Dave is now on a gluten-free diet, and he feels very strongly that it's helped him better control his Crohn's. Among other now-inedible-to-Dave food items in our kitchen, we had an unopened box of Aunt Jemima pancake mix and an unopened bottle of Aunt Jemima syrup. They were both bought in London, but imported from the USA, and I hated to throw them out. (The syrup is obviously gluten-free, but I didn't see how we were going to eat that without the pancakes -- and besides, we have some real syrup that Dave's sister in northern Michigan made from maple trees.)

I took them to work a few days ago and offered them to a co-worker who has children -- I figured, anyone who has children is going to appreciate pancakes!

Dave said he thought that was a weird thing to do, and I must say, when I conceived of the idea it didn't seem weird, but actually doing it felt a bit strange. Is it weird to give unopened food to a coworker? What do you think?

Beans and Jamie

You know the video I posted yesterday, of my grandparents and other relatives? I posted that same clip on Facebook, and both there and here a few people commented that everyone seemed to be walking very slowly. I think they were being careful because the house was newly built and there was lots of sand and probably some uneven ground around it. My grandmother and great-grandmother were trying hard to stay on the stepping stones. (Funny how I never really noticed that slow pace before!)

Also, someone mentioned the dog in the background -- that was Beans, our Boston Terrier. My mom always said Beans was crazy, but she hadn't had any experience living with pets up to that point. I suspect Beans was just being an enthusiastic little dog when he did things like chew on the corner of her stamp collection.

Yes, I know, I was a fat baby. My dad mixed my formula incorrectly. That's the story I always heard, anyway.

In other news, I finally got the health insurance app on my phone to talk to my Apple Health app, and thus track and record how much I walk each week -- which in turn will supposedly earn me free movie tickets and other goodies through my insurance plan. (I wish they'd eliminate all that folderol, charge less for the insurance and thus allow me to buy my own movie tickets -- but no, that would be too simple.) Anyway, I did manage to get a free coffee yesterday at Starbucks as a reward for walking so far during the week. Success!

Last night I went with a group of coworkers to see "Everybody's Talking About Jamie," a show on the West End about a teenage boy who wants to be a drag queen. It was a cute show, with some excellent performances, but also with a story trajectory that was entirely predictable. Apparently actress Rebel Wilson was in the audience -- I wouldn't have recognized her, but someone in my group did and chatted with her a bit. Can I call it a "brush with fame" if I barely know the famous person?

(Photo: A rain-laden white daffodil in our garden. The yellow daffodils, which always come first, have faded and we're on to the white ones now.)

Packing the Car

About a month ago I mentioned that I was having my family's home movies digitized. They consist of six Super 8 film reels shot by my father between 1966 and 1971 or so, and I wanted to convert them into good quality digital copies. I brought the reels back from Florida when I visited in February, and early last month I took them down to a film lab near Tottenham Court Road and paid to have them converted.

When I dropped them off, my contact at the lab told me it should take about a week to finish the conversion. Well, the weeks dragged by, and just before Dave and I went on Spring Break I called the lab to ask what was happening. I received a bland assurance from the receptionist that they'd be in touch when the films were ready.

Up until Monday, I heard nothing, and frankly I was beginning to get a little freaked out. Had they lost my movies? Were they more likely to get lost, the longer the lab kept them? What was taking so long? I e-mailed a polite inquiry and engaged in gallows humor with Dave about the possible responses: "Who are you again?" "Films? What films?"

But lo and behold, the lab called me yesterday and said the job was done. I didn't waste a second in getting down there and picking everything up. And indeed, I now have digital files of all six film reels and several DVD copies for my family.

I watched some of them last night. A ridiculous amount of the footage is of me as a baby (above). I guess Dad did what many first-time parents do -- he went a little nuts making a record of his first child's first days on the planet. My younger brother is in two of the reels, and most of the adults are incidental players.

The short scene at the top of this post is an exception -- no children at all, just three generations of adults. The time: Christmas, 1966. The place: Outside our newly built house north of Tampa -- the same house my mom sold just a few years ago. The participants: My grandmother, grandfather, great-grandmother, mom and uncle.

It's not an action-packed sequence -- just people wandering back and forth as they packed the car to leave after a holiday visit. My grandmother's "luggage" was a paper bag, typical for her on short stays. Everyone studiously avoided acknowledging the camera, until my great-grandmother, who was in her late 70s, decided to clown around. Such a slice of nostalgia -- and what great old cars!

Mike

When I was in college, I met a guy named Mike. Like me, he was a reporter at the college newspaper, and like me, he was gay. This magical combination of journalist and gay guy made Mike pretty interesting to me, and at a time when I hadn't yet had a serious boyfriend, I thought Mike could be one.

He was a character -- he wasn't from the South, but at times he affected a funny southern twang. He called people "Sugar Beet" and said things like, "I'm serious as a heart attack!" Our friends always joked that he was a black woman trapped in a white man's body, which is terribly politically incorrect, but seemed pretty accurate.

He told a hilarious story about going to Denny's with some friends after a night of clubbing. They were all drunk and being loud, and sitting at the next table was someone eating (probably very patiently) a late-night meal. Mike, bleary-eyed, looked over at this person and shrieked, "My LADY be eatin' an ICE CREAM SANDWICH!" Only when "my lady" stood up did Mike realize that a) he wasn't a lady, and b) he was actually eating a grilled cheese. The man walked over to Mike's table and hurled the sandwich into his face. Mike was too stunned to react, which is probably a good thing, but as he later said, he sobered right up.

Whether Mike's stories were completely true in every detail is beside the point. We didn't care.

One night in early 1988, after a party at a friend's house, he and I finally got together. We dated for three or four months, and we had a ball going to thrift stores and a kitschy '60s diner near his house that he called "Wiener World" (not its real name). I spent weekends with him in his rented old-Florida house full of flamingo-painted souvenir plates and '50s furniture, walking his Weimaraners Honer and Sheba. Once we visited a primate rescue sanctuary in northern Pinellas County, and although I found it incredibly sad, I saved the pamphlet for years.

But our relationship wasn't well timed. I was just starting an internship with a newspaper in Polk County. Mike was working for another newspaper in Clearwater, where he lived. Commuting from Tampa, where I lived, to Lakeland, where I worked, and then all the way to Clearwater to see Mike proved a challenge.

Also, I was 21. I wasn't particularly serious about any of this. I was the definition of a callow youth.  Mike was about ten years older than me, and thus more mature. Mike's sister once accompanied us on a day of thrift shopping, and as we sat in the car while Mike ran some errand she turned to me and said, "I hope you won't hurt him. He really likes you." I assured her I wouldn't.

But of course I did. Life just got busier, I got more serious about my job, and I suppose, in the end, I really wasn't all that crazy about dating a black woman trapped in a white man's body. Mike's theatricality grew a bit tiring. I didn't intend to break up. It wasn't a decision I officially made. But I simply stopped calling him.

One night, he showed up at my door in tears, demanding the return of his house keys. "You broke my heart," he said, and I could only stammer that I hadn't meant to. But that was that. No more Mike.

And then, a few years later, there really was no more Mike. He died of pancreatic cancer in 1992 or so. It was a development that shocked all of us who knew him. When I heard he was sick, I mailed him a copy of the Weekly World News, a kitschy tabloid newspaper that published obviously fictionalized articles about aliens and UFOs and freaks of nature like "Bat Boy." Mike loved the Weekly World News, and I promised him it held remarkable recuperative powers.

He wrote me back a short postcard, telling me that he'd actually bought a subscription -- but thanking me just the same. I still have the card. "Float on!" he wrote.

And that was the last I heard from him. When he died soon afterwards, I believe I was already living in Morocco and unable to go to his funeral -- or maybe I was still in Florida and simply felt it wouldn't be appropriate. Maybe I couldn't face his sister. In any case, I didn't go.

My college friends and I still remember Mike, though, whenever we get together. We laugh about his ice cream sandwich story, and part with his famous phrase, "Keep on keepin' on!"

(Photo: Some colorful boxes on the street near our flat.)