Shiny Health

Dave and I walk past this men's skin care place every day on our way home. It must have the most reflective shopfront in the city, not to mention the most awkward name. Apparently someone doesn't distinguish between "health" (noun) and "healthy" (adjective).

I wish I could have waited for my usual passer-by to accent the photo, but I'd seen several burly guys going in and out of this place (in fact one came out just before I snapped this photo) and I decided to take my picture quick and get out of there -- just in case they weren't keen to be photographed.

Our sweet peas are still going strong -- or at least some of them are. A few haven't bloomed at all. It's interesting that we got so many bright pink ones this year -- I have a dim memory of collecting several seed pods last fall from a plant of that color because I like it, but this year they're virtually the only ones that bloomed.

The once-viney tree is looking a bit parched these days. I felt so bad for it that I filled a two-gallon watering can and carried it down there yesterday afternoon. The ground soaked up the water like a sponge. Once again, I'm sure the neighbors think I'm crazy. But I feel continued responsibility for that tree, having removed its mantle of vines. No good deed goes unpunished, as they say -- I'll probably feel a nagging sense of tree-maintenance duty as long as we live here.

The Sign-Maker

Dave and I pass a house on our walk to work that has these colorful posters hanging in the window. Clearly someone's not a Boris Johnson fan! The one above appeared a few months ago, I believe during the controversy over the country's exams program...

...and this one's even older, appearing in the spring when everyone was standing outside their doors weekly and applauding for the NHS and other essential workers. I like the sentiment -- "Don't just clap, pay them more!"

It's not just the messages that are appealing, but also the artistry. It would have been easy to slap up a hand-scrawled poster, but someone put some time and effort into these signs.

Another busy day in the library yesterday, although I did get to finally finish my latest Newbery book, "The Wheel on the School" by Meindert DeJong, from 1955. I really enjoyed this one -- about a group of Dutch children who undertake a project to bring nesting storks to the rooftops of their village. It was lively and adventurous and had some memorable characters, and yet seemed very old-world, with people riding in horse-drawn wagons and clomping around in wooden shoes. One of my more pleasurable Newbery reads.

At some point during the day I checked on our home security cameras and saw this! Apparently our living room camera was upside-down! Doesn't Olga look confused?

Don Francisco de los Perros

I couldn't resist another gazania picture -- this one with a hoverfly.

Yesterday was one of those blessed work days that just seem to vanish. I was so busy that mid-afternoon rolled around quickly and smoothly, and before I knew it, it was time to go home. I got a lot done, mainly contacting parents who left the school with our materials.

As Dave and I walked home on Finchley Road, we found ourselves behind a woman wearing a shirt that said this:

Corona Virus

Cancer Virulent

Vast Conspiracy

I have no idea what this means. Is she a conspiracist, or is she making fun of conspiracists?

Speaking of conspiracies, these stickers appeared on signs along our street. (To be fair, the signs are portable, and maybe the stickers were affixed elsewhere and simply arrived with the signs. My neighbors aren't necessarily responsible!) I still can't believe some people think 5G technology is the source of our latest microbial woes.

Here's some happy garden news. Years ago we planted a sedum, and it's never done all that well. In fact, we thought it had died. Imagine my surprise when I found it blooming at the edge of the flower bed. I wouldn't say it's prospering, but it's hanging in there!

Finally, I got some more pictures of Olga on her daily walks from Francisco, her dog walker. Here she is with her pals. I don't know where Francisco is from, but I assume he's of Iberian extraction -- doesn't he look just like a subject in a Velasquez painting? All he needs is a sword and a hat with a plume.

Pictures like this, although cute, always make me wince. Olga does love a good stick. Unfortunately, depending on how much of it she ingests, they don't always love her.

Indian Summer, or Not

We're due for a warm spell this week, and yesterday's weather was so beautiful -- sunny with temperatures that were just about perfect. A red admiral butterfly returned to the garden, settling on our verbena, and Dave and I watered plants and mowed the lawn.

I was going to write that we were having an Indian summer. Is that term racist? Dave and I were wondering. I found an interesting article on Slate about its origins, and the authors acknowledged it has a rather colonial flavor. They proposed calling it "second summer" instead.

Although Indian summer is the North American name, apparently in Europe that second summer is called other things, often after a saint (depending on whose feast day it falls near) or "old wives' summer."

But in any case, I guess this can't be an Indian summer, because they occur in autumn. And technically, until Sept. 22, it's still just summer. So I'm getting ahead of myself.

While we worked in the garden, Olga lay amid the ivy and irises beneath the camellia bush. She's so funny. I've never known her to lie in that spot but I guess the shade appealed to her.

When I walked her later, there were tons of people out on the high street, sitting in all the cafes. I think every table was full. As usual, my iPhone shot doesn't quite capture how busy it was -- partly because all those people on the left are hidden by a planter.

New rules come into effect today specifying that people in England can't gather in multi-household groups larger than 6 people. Our Covid-19 numbers have been climbing, so this is an attempt to nip that in the bud. Maybe people were getting their socializing in before the tighter restrictions? (Of course that rule doesn't apply to schools, so it will be work as usual for me!)

Olga and I came across several large stands of sunflowers on some nearby streets. Pretty impressive!

I attempted another plant rescue -- some ferns I saw in a rubbish skip in front of a neighbor's house. I guess they're clearing their garden. The ferns had roots attached, so I grabbed them and planted them behind our garden bench. We'll see if they survive, and if they don't get dug up by foxes. (We have a hydrangea back there that the foxes keep excavating -- I suspect it was grown using bone meal, which, as we've seen, the foxes love.)

Oh, and Dave used our beans and peppers to make vegetable soup that we ate this weekend. He thought it was bland, but I liked it.

Six Minute Disco Cemetery

Well, after yesterday's depressing post, let's move on to lighter and happier subjects. How about the overpopulation of aphids in our garden? Can you see them on the stem of the teasel, above? In the case of the teasel it doesn't really matter, because it's already dying back and going to seed, but they're on the gazanias too. I probably should get out there with some soapy water and spray them down.

You may remember about a month ago, I mentioned ordering my credit reports because I was afraid my identity had been used by someone in Massachusetts to get a loan. Well, happily, that appears not to be true. My credit reports look fine. But before I got them, I used an online service called Spokeo to run a report on Internet activity associated with my e-mail address. When I did it, Spokeo said the report would cost something nominal -- a dollar or two. Imagine my surprise when my August credit card bill arrived and I was charged $25 -- and then another $25 this month! Apparently, by running my report, I bought some kind of "membership." Lord! So I had to get that cancelled, and at my insistence they refunded the $25 for September. I'm not sure I got any good information from them anyway.

Fortunately, Dave got a £25 gift card from one of his students to John Lewis, a British department store chain. We used it to order a new vacuum cleaner. Our vacuum is nine years old, and although it's been great, the hose is broken and the carpet-brush no longer reliably revolves. There's enough wrong with it that buying a new one seemed justified. So I figure we broke even -- $25 lost to Spokeo, £25 gained from the gift card.

More drama: Remember our rat problem? Well, although the rats are long gone, we've been waiting all this time for the management company to get the hole in our exterior wall repaired. (It's been covered by temporary screening and a chunk of concrete in the meantime.) The repairmen finally came on Wednesday, and now the outdoor wall looks great, but whatever they did damaged the indoor side of the same wall:

Argh! So I've told the management company and I guess we need another repair -- which hopefully won't take another four months to arrange. I copied the landlord directly on my e-mail so they know the contractors did the damage and not us.

It occurred to me that I haven't made an Olga-cam video for a while, so yesterday I got out the GoPro and took Olga to the cemetery. Woo hoo!

When I first put the harness on her, she didn't want to move. She hasn't worn it in a while and she definitely doesn't like it. I got her going by throwing her Kong.

Some highlights: About a minute in, she begins chasing squirrels -- or, more accurately, the sounds of squirrels -- and I paused the music so you can hear her barking. At 2 1/2 minutes, she manages to get the harness off her back and the camera films just her wagging tail against the sky. Near the end we passed the headstone where the dolls have been -- you'll see me point to it -- and they're entirely gone now. Oh, and at the very end, I took the camera off Olga and filmed her walking. When we come up the steps to our house, you can see our new autumnal chrysanthemum by the front door.

Anyway, it gives you a sense of our cemetery walks. I had more than half an hour of video which I reduced to six minutes, and I apologize because it's probably still too long. I chose the music based on length -- I had a six-minute video and needed a six-minute song -- but I think it works pretty well, don't you?

Gazanias, Beans and Another Population Screed

Our gazanias are finally blooming up a storm, despite only intermittent direct sun. We're supposed to get much warmer temperatures at the beginning of next week -- into the mid-80's (F) during the day. They ought to be happy with that. Our canna lilies put out some buds, but then the temperatures dropped and they never flowered. I think the buds are dead now, but we'll see.

Did you see the news about the recent WWF/ZSL report that found humanity is destroying wildlife and wilderness areas at an unprecedented rate? Wild animal populations have dropped an average of 68 percent since 1970, and an astonishing 94 percent in Latin America. Humans are now overusing the Earth's "biocapacity" by at least 56 percent -- meaning we're taking far more out of the planet than it's able to regenerate.

The report attributes this to "an explosion in global trade, consumption and human population growth, as well as an enormous move toward urbanization" in the last fifty years. Biodiversity and animal populations have fallen on every continent -- 65 percent in Africa, 45 percent in Asia and the Pacific, 33 percent in North America and 24 percent in Europe and Central Asia (which I'm guessing had less biodiversity to begin with, considering its longer history of industrialization).

Most of this has occurred because of changes in land and sea use and habitat destruction, including intensive farming and overfishing. Direct exploitation of certain species through hunting and poaching is also responsible.

The report maintains we can turn the tide on biodiversity loss, but it will take "a global, collective effort...increased conservation efforts are key, along with changes in how we produce and consume our food and energy." While I don't doubt that is true, particularly regarding responsible farming, fishing and land use, I think the report pulls its punches when it comes to human population control. (I confess I haven't yet read the whole thing, though I intend to.)

When I was born in 1966, the human population of the planet was about 3.4 billion. Now, merely 54 years later, it has more than doubled to 7.8 billion -- and it's steadily climbing.

I don't see how we can have a conversation about saving the planet and all the creatures that live on it unless we also talk about having fewer humans. I know some people find this anathema, but I think there are various "soft" ways to achieve that goal, especially through advocating better birth control (male and female) and family planning, and providing for the education and liberation of girls and women. (Obviously there are cultural barriers to that in some parts of the world, but they must be overcome.)

Otherwise I think we're inevitably headed toward a world that will more forcefully restrict the number of children any couple can have -- similar to China's old one-child policy (which China abandoned in favor of short-term economic gain). I have no idea what that conversation would look like, but I hope we can find less authoritarian solutions. We must, however, confront and discuss the problem.

Dave and I harvested more beans last night. This is our bean vine, clinging to the side of the house, where it grows up some twine and along our TV cable. Above is before the harvest...

...and this is after. Dave is pretty sick of beans but I think we can manage to eat our way through this last small haul. We let some of them get too big; the pods are a bit fibrous.

You'll also see two peppers on the left. Mrs. Kravitz gave us a pepper plant, and she said those were ready to harvest, but we have no idea what kind of peppers they are or how to use them. We've got to do some experimenting!

A Rubbish Message

I've complained before about this corner near our flat, which is always piled high with garbage bags. Literally, always. Doesn't matter whether it's trash collection day or not. I was amused to see this week that another equally annoyed person dubbed it the "Crap Corner." So true!

Well, the book delivery changes that I wrote about yesterday aren't happening after all. I walked in to work prepared to make an argument that we should stick with the original plan, and to my surprise my co-workers all seemed to agree. So for now, the middle school librarian will still take the books to the kids and I won't have to deal with them. (Much.)

I'm now writing all the parents whose children are no longer enrolled but who still have library books, to try to get those books back. We'll see how productive that is. Some of them have responded saying they intend to return the items, but others aren't even in London any longer. More than a few items have inevitably gone walking.

This was my after-work project yesterday -- planting foxglove seeds! I've never tried planting them in the summer, but apparently if they start growing now they may bloom next year. I'm a little late, actually -- August is the ideal time -- but we'll see what happens.

See the tray in the foreground labeled "Peter"? He's one of my co-workers, and I gave him some foxgloves last year which he planted in his garden. They bloomed and I suggested he harvest and plant the seeds. He brought me a bunch of empty pods in a granola bag and said he was disappointed because all the seeds appeared to be gone. But when I looked I found tons of them -- it's just that they're so tiny they're easily overlooked. I planted them and hopefully I can surprise him with some baby plants from his very own seeds.

I should charge a germination fee!