The Plant Ladder

Another day, another walk in the cemetery. I really want to go inside this chapel. I'm dying to see what the interior looks like. But for the six years we've been walking here, it's been locked up -- much like the one at Paddington Cemetery. (At least this one's not fenced off, though.)

It looks like they've continued to clear some brush in the cemetery, revealing graves that were previously engulfed in ivy and blackberry. Here's a headstone I don't remember ever seeing before, shaped like a pillow, on the grave of a 14-year-old boy who died in 1914. "At rest after long suffering," the inscription reads. Wonder what the story was there?

We may all be going through a rough patch, but medically speaking, we still have it much better than people did 100 years ago.

So what else did I do yesterday? Well, I managed some gardening. The area where the fox-and-cubs (aka hawkweed) grows in our flower beds has been invaded by thick, tenacious grass. It seemed to be choking out the plants -- which, granted, some people consider weeds themselves. I pulled as much of the grass as I could and uncovered quite a few tiny fox-and-cubs sprouts, thus hopefully ensuring this year's flowers.

Also, Dave and I bought a new plant stand for the side of the house.

No, this is not the new one. This is the "before" shot. That crappy little wooden thing was something I found set out with someone's trash. It has served us well for several years but we thought we'd get something a little nicer.

Here's the new and improved version -- although, as you can see, we wound up having to keep the crappy one too, because we couldn't fit the agapanthus onto the shelves of the new model.

I also did laundry, including our bedsheets, which always require a sort of origami-like hanging technique. They're so big they drag on the ground and in the plants if I don't pin them up carefully. Fortunately, yesterday was a perfect drying day -- breezy, not a cloud in the sky. London felt like Los Angeles -- and believe me, it's rare that I can say that. We have another two days of cloudless weather ahead and no rain forecast all week, adding to the already weird Groundhog Day sameness of our lives.

Bathed in Pink Light

Here's an indication of my current state of mind: I spent all day yesterday thinking it was Monday.

I decided to try a new-ish dog walk and shake up our routines. I took Olga north to Childs Hill Park, and then rather than going west from there toward the Clitterhouse Playing Fields, we went east toward Golders Hill Park and the West Heath. That probably doesn't mean a whole lot to you, but it's something we've never done and it turned out to be a nice almost five-mile walk.

On the West Heath we came across these trees with fresh pink leaves. One of them is the Lulu tree. I'm not sure what kind of trees they are -- beech, maybe? -- but standing underneath them felt like being beneath a pink glass cloche. They eventually turn a hardy green, and then yellow in the fall.

When we passed the little zoo in Golders Hill Park, Olga went on red-alert at the sight of a wallaby. Can't you just see her thinking, "What the heck IS that thing?!" She nearly jumped out of her skin when it energetically bounded away.

We saw several signs created as a tribute to the National Health Service. The rainbow has become a symbol of encouragement and thanks during this virus crisis -- I guess the idea is, after a storm, there's often a rainbow.

This curious-looking creature was suspended from a fence with a sign: "Cover up: Keep yourself safe. Keep others safe. That will help keep the NHS safe. Thank you everyone"

(For the record, the British government has so far stopped short of recommending masks for the general public, even after the CDC and authorities in some other countries have suggested them. The London mayor has asked that we wear a cloth mask when out in public in places where social distancing is impossible. Fortunately, I've been able to maintain distance almost everywhere. The grocery store and a narrow footpath near the cemetery are my only tricky spots.)

Back home again, I lay in the sun on a blanket in the back garden and read more of "City on Fire," which as I've said previously is about New York City in 1977.

A few days ago, I quoted a couple of sentences from the book. Here's another passage I liked: "It seemed impossible to believe he'd chosen to live here, at a latitude where spring was a semantic variation on winter, in a grid whose rigid geometry only a Greek or a builder of prisons could love, in a city that made its own gravy when it rained. Taxis continued to stream toward the tunnel, like the damned toward a Boschian hellmouth. Screaming people staggered past below. Impossible, that he now footed the rent entire, two hundred bucks monthly for the privilege of pressing his cheek to the window and still not being able to see spectacular Midtown views. Impossible, that the cinderblock planter on the fire escape could ever have produced flowers."

Saucer Men

I almost feel like I should apologize for showing you another picture of the dog. But during the lockdown, walking Olga is the only time I get out of the house, so naturally she appears in all my photography!

Yesterday morning our walk took us down the mysteriously caged path that runs alongside the railroad tracks between West Hampstead and Cricklewood. If those purple flowers look a little familiar, that's because they're honesty, the same plant I grew from seed and planted in our garden. (And pictured on the blog many times.) In fact, I gathered our honesty seeds along this path. So these plants are the parents, I suppose, of ours.

I braved another trip to the grocery store, so we'll survive another few days without going hungry. And Dave had to deliver a French horn to the father of one of his students, which posed an interesting problem, given that school is closed and none of us are supposed to meet with anyone else. It just so happens we had a French horn here at the house, which I had schlepped home from school for Dave's use during the lockdown. We set it on the front porch and the father came and collected it, no face-to-face interaction required. (I was a little nervous someone else would walk off with it, but I guess demand is minimal.) The upside is, I won't ever have to schlep it back to school.

Last night, we had a Zoom happy hour with Sally, Mike, Liz and Andy -- friends in South London -- which was fun. We caught up on what we've been watching on Netflix and what we've been reading, and I showed them a picture of our stepping stones. It's the closest Dave and I have come to socializing in weeks!

The other day Dave and I were watching an old episode of "Perry Mason," from 1959, featuring a handsome young actor named Steve Terrell. I'd never seen him before but I wondered what else he'd been in, and when I looked online I came across this fantastic poster. (Apparently this was the high point of Terrell's cinematic career.) I love the expression on her face. She's like, "My God, will this date ever end?!"

Dave and I watched the movie on YouTube yesterday. It's a good old-fashioned, teenage drive-in flick, entertaining in its campiness and probably never intended for viewing by anyone over 20 years old.

Olga Gets Her Wish

I allowed Olga to direct me toward the Heath yesterday, abandoning our routine walks through the neighborhood cemetery in favor of a longer and more naturalistic ramble. Doesn't she look thrilled, rolling in those dry leaves? And she was, believe me.

We went in the morning because rain (blessed rain!) was predicted for the afternoon.

We usually walk this footpath between some houses to get from the West Heath to Sandy Heath. But as you can see, it's been closed -- presumably because it's so narrow that social distancing is impossible. (For the record, I've never passed another human being on this path, but I guess it could happen.)

There's a similar but much busier path we must navigate on our walks to the cemetery -- not quite so narrow -- and it's still open. Go figure. All these decisions seem very arbitrary.

Anyway, it wasn't a problem to skip the path and walk a little residential street to get where we were going...

...and in a way it was better, because we passed this field of blooming cowslip and forget-me-nots.

I found this note on a bush on Sandy Heath. What got rescued? A pouch? A pooch?

A woodland shoe planter. How does someone lose one shoe on Hampstead Heath? Did they hop home?

Olga found a good spot for a dip with her tennis ball...

...and I found this weird-looking long-legged bee buzzing around some bluebells. I later realized it's not a bee at all but a bee fly. If I've ever seen one of these before I never took the time to figure out what it was. Interesting!

As usual, on the way home we cut through Golders Hill Park, so Olga could detour through the stumpery and salivate over the squirrels. Fortunately for them, they're behind a fence and Olga wears her lead in the park. (Except for photo opportunities like the one above.)

Otherwise, yesterday was a sort of numb day. I finished my few library projects, to the extent that I could, so my slate is now clear and I can go on furlough (as of Monday) in good conscience. More time to read! As for rain, we got a light drizzle in the afternoon, and maybe some more overnight, but I don't think it was much.

Jesus Wept

I think Olga is getting sick of the cemetery. Yesterday afternoon as I turned in our usual direction for our walk, she dug in her heels (to the extent that she has heels) and tried to go the other way, toward the Heath.

I always figured it was all the same to her, as long as she got outside. But apparently not.

As you can see, though, we went to the cemetery as usual. I amused myself by taking photos of all the little religious figurines on some of the graves. I love how weathered they look.

In other news, I have been furloughed from my job. This sounds more dramatic than it actually is -- I'm still employed long-term, and I'm still getting paid my usual salary. The difference is that the school isn't footing the bill. Most of it is being shifted to a government program that supports businesses so they can survive this coronavirus epidemic without laying people off. (I guess our re-enrollment figures for next year, and thus our revenues, are up in the air given that no one knows what the future will bring, and the school has to cut costs.)

This means I can't do any work for school after Monday, when my furlough begins, until at least May 11 -- not even my meager little side projects. The furlough could be extended depending on what happens after that date, or shortened if by some miracle this crisis subsides. I have no negative feelings about it whatsoever. It's basically a bookkeeping change. Dave is still working as usual because he has students, whereas I'm a support worker whose job is vastly curtailed now that I can't go to school. Strange days!

I'm enjoying Garth Risk Hallberg's "City on Fire," though I'm still not convinced it needs to be 900 pages long. The book is so big I can barely hold onto it, and at the risk of sounding like Donald Trump, I do not have small hands. Hallberg has a vivid writing style that produces some terrific sentences. For example: "When Mercer felt that he'd had enough -- that he would explode literally this time, leaving bits of brain hanging from the wallpaper -- he volunteered to let Sally out, followed the arthritic old collie out to the dead grass the porchlight didn't reach. He was shocked each time by all the stars you could see out here, the same ones the Greeks and Trojans had looked upon, a reminder that you were adrift in an insane vastness where nobody knew your name."

What Happens in Vegas...

It seems like the coronavirus is the only thing anyone's talking about anymore. Which I guess makes sense, given that so much of the rest of the world has stopped as we wait this thing out. When I pass people on the sidewalks, it's inevitably the topic of their conversations. Yesterday I heard a guy with a thick East London accent saying to another man, "There's no cure, nuffing. And people are gettin' it again!" And a man talking to a woman as they walked together: "Every time I breathe I picture one going right up my nose."

I've heard many people say they're in a state of anxiety, subconsciously or otherwise, and that anxiety often manifests in strange dreams. I can definitely say the same, though I think my anxiety has lessened a bit as the lockdown stretches on and becomes a new routine. I had a weird (though not particularly worrying) dream early yesterday morning, and I can never remember the storyline of my dreams but this one tangentially involved the comedian Shecky Greene, which is so bizarre. I barely know who Shecky Greene is! It makes me wonder what information is stored in the depths of my brain. My mother was in it too. Maybe she wanted tickets to Shecky's show, which would be even more unlikely.

We're seeing a bit of mouse activity in the kitchen again. They've been getting into the food composting container under the sink. I've been emptying the container more regularly and yesterday I re-baited the mouse traps. I was surprised to find two dead mice in the traps, which I haven't checked in months. I thought we'd solved our mouse problem, but I guess not.

Aside from dreaming about Las Vegas comedians, being invaded by rodents and dodging a deadly pandemic, life goes on as usual. I spent a couple of hours in the garden yesterday, where (as you can see) there's a lot happening. It's so pleasant to sit out there in the sun, reading, hearing the neighbor kids bouncing around on their trampoline and the birds singing.

One of our camassia lilies (top) has bloomed. We have four of them, but only one managed to send up a flower stalk this year, and I've been fiercely and so far successfully protecting it from Olga's wandering. (She tends to walk over them and break them off.)

The comfrey has sent out its magenta spirals.

The aquilegia is blooming too, in the shade of a twiggy shrub.

And the bleeding heart, or dicentra, has sent out arcs of flowers.

Yesterday afternoon was sunny and after a quick Zoom call with a colleague, who is teaching me some video editing techniques for work, I took Olga to the cemetery. Its popularity seems to be growing as people look for outdoor places to recreate -- there were quite a few people around.

One grave at the cemetery has always perplexed me. It's a large gravestone with bolt marks and a shadowy figure on the stone, obviously left behind when something was removed. Coincidentally, I read an article about it yesterday -- it's the grave of a sculptor and his wife, and the missing element was a bronze statue of her. The sculpture has been missing for years and is presumed lost, probably melted down for the scrap metal. People!

Despite the underlying anxiety and weirdness, I'm appreciating the beauty of these days. Walking the dog in the sunshine, gardening, reading -- provided we all stay well, it's a magical time.

Like a Giant Greenhouse

As long as we're talking about windows, here's another one -- our front window, in our dining room. Like the kitchen windowsill I showed you yesterday, this has grown steadily more cluttered over the years, mostly with plants. This window has an eastern exposure and it gets great morning light. (Here's a photo from almost three years ago -- it looks so bare!)

Isn't that tall fiddle-leaf fig crazy? We're going to have to trim it at some point -- like the dracaena in the bedroom and the avocado and yucca in the living room, it's almost up to the ceiling. And we have high ceilings! I shudder to think how we're going to maneuver all these plants if and when we need to move.

Here's our back door, looking out onto the garden from the living room. You can see the avocado on the left and the yucca peeking into the frame on the right. We've pruned that avocado once already and now it's even bigger than before.

Do you see Olga out there on the lawn? She's become obsessed with the ivy-covered elder tree at the back of our property. It's pretty jungly back there, and I suspect some critters are nesting in that tree. She just lies on the grass and stares and stares, with periodic forays to sniff around its base.

Anyway, back to the dining room -- we keep five of our orchids there, and they've been very happy in the bright morning light, blooming again and again. All but one of them is flowering this year. That's one above, and I showed you another already. The rest haven't fully opened.

We have four other orchids in the living room, and two of those are flowering:

Despite the tropical ambience in the house, our weather has become a bit wintry again. I walked the dog early yesterday morning wearing shorts and a sweatshirt, expecting it to be balmy like it was all weekend, and I got cold. I looked at the temperature on my phone and it was 42º F! I needed a coat!

I did get some things done work-wise yesterday, so that felt good. Not as fulfilling as going to work, but it's something.