Prolific Petunias and Insidious Bugs

Our "Blood Sky" petunias (not their real name) are cranking along, more than three months after I bought them. I gotta say, I am very impressed by their durability and prolific blooms. All our petunias, in fact, have had an excellent summer, though I have to water them practically every day.

It's been ridiculously dry here. England is in the middle of a "nationally significant" water shortage, according to The Guardian, and water companies are mulling over further restrictions. We've had below-average rainfall for each of the last six months, and much of the middle of the country is in an official drought. So far we in London haven't had a garden hose watering ban (a "hosepipe ban," as it's known), but it may still happen.

Thanks for all your comments and suggestions yesterday about my weird itchy arms. I did find that taking an antihistamine helps, and it was only last night that I belatedly realized I've been in this situation before. Remember the insidious flower bugs? This is the time of year that they show up in the garden and begin biting the heck out of me, and they are so tiny that it's entirely possible I just haven't noticed them. In fact I went out just now to look at our banana tree, where I've seen them in the past feasting on mites, and sure enough, there they are. Insidious indeed!

I was standing in the borders yesterday morning picking blackberries ("brambles" to you northern language purists) for my cereal, and I know I have been ravaged by insidious flower bugs while doing that in past years. So yeah, I'm belatedly thinking most of this itching is down to the bugs. I suspect UV sun exposure hasn't helped either.

That's probably the last batch of blackberries I'm going to get this year. The crop is pretty much done.

The boiled egg I set out for the foxes disappeared yesterday around midday, while Dave and I were at lunch at Chipotle on the high street. I was excited for some daytime footage of the foxes on our garden cam, but no! The camera, for some reason, picked up nothing of the egg being eaten. There are some clips from around that time showing a magpie hanging around near the egg, and I'm thinking the magpie is actually what ate it. That's fine. As long as it didn't go to waste.

We had our annual flat inspection yesterday by our property management company. An agent came in, looked the place over, tested the smoke and carbon monoxide alarms, took some pictures, asked some perfunctory questions and that was that. I showed her a few areas that could suggest a problem -- bubbling wallpaper here, peeling paint there -- and pointed out that the front of the house probably needs a paint job. But I don't expect much to come of it. The landlords told us months ago they intended to redecorate the sitting room, but we've heard nothing about that since so I'm not even sure it's still happening. Anyway none of it's an issue for us. I'm happy enough with things as they are.

Writing this post, I have buried the lede (as we used to say in journalism) because today is a momentous day. Not only is it our last day of summer vacation -- we both go back to work tomorrow -- but this is the day Dave and I become British citizens! Woo hoo! Our citizenship ceremony is at 10 a.m. In fact we were really supposed to go back to work today, but we postponed our return to get this done. I've planned a fancy lunch afterwards and I am looking forward to being able to vote in future British elections, just in time to do my small part to oppose Nigel Farage. (Yes, Nigel, I am an IMMIGRANT!)

Birds and Itchy Arms

I'd hoped to have video of the fox eating the boiled egg I left out, but it didn't come by again last night. I suppose I ought to throw that egg out. After sitting out more than two nights, and expired to boot, it might not do any favors even for the fox.

While digging around in the garden shed the other day, I came across the bird feeder above. We used to have it hanging in the center of the garden but as I recall it attracted too many pigeons, so we consigned it to disuse. Well, I decided to try it out again, so I put some seed in it and hung it from the mock orange in the shady back of the garden, and it has proved a major hit with the tits. I see little blue tits (above) on it...

...as well as coal tits and great tits. The tits are manic, fussy eaters, discarding certain kinds of seeds to hone in on the ones they prefer. The pigeons, meanwhile, seem content to patrol the ground below for the tits' discards.

It amazes me how fast those tits can empty that feeder. For such tiny birds, they can plow through seed like nobody's business. I thought squirrels or even rats were to blame, but I've seen no sign of rodent activity at all. I think it's just those little birds.

Steve Reed · Starlings

Yesterday afternoon, as I sat out on the bench reading, I was amused by the sounds of the starlings in the trees over my head. I love their whooping, rattling, chirping sounds. It's like they're so happy they just can't contain themselves.

Some readers asked yesterday about our new upstairs neighbors. I gotta say, there's not much to tell so far. There's a man, his wife (who I have not yet met) and two boys, young teenagers I'd guess. They're from Israel, they seem like very nice people and we hear them much less than we used to hear the Russians. There is no construction, no banging, no noise beyond normal snippets of day-to-day conversation. It's such a welcome change! The dad even gave me a nice bottle of wine as a thank-you for helping him manage the stacks of cardboard boxes that came from their move. Might they actually be normal people?! That would be a nice change.

I have the weirdest medical problem. Several days ago, I began getting itchy areas on my forearms. There were no marks to speak of beyond a generalized redness, which I assumed came from sun exposure. Well, this itchiness has spread all over the top surface of both my forearms. It is intense as heck and the only thing that relieves it is running my arms under cold water. Hydrocortisone does not help. I haven't tried an antihistamine yet but that's in my plans. There are some almost invisible raised bumps or nodules but they don't seem like insect bites or anything like that. They seem more like hives. Generally speaking, aside from slight redness, my arms look perfectly normal.

I haven't changed anything like diet or soap and I haven't been out in the sun any more than usual in recent days. But I suppose I have been in the sun quite a bit this summer, overall, and I rarely use sunscreen in the UK. So this could be a reaction to cumulative sun exposure over the course of the season. I'm wondering if I have this, although as far as I know my cervical spine is perfectly healthy. It could also just be this, I suppose. All I know is, it's driving me crazy to the point where it's been hard to sleep. Sunblock from now on!

Starling Squabble Close-Up

I know I've been hitting you with a lot of videos recently, but indulge me one more time. When I've videoed the starling squabbles at our bird feeder in the past, I've used my iPhone -- which works OK to a point, given that the bird feeder is out in the backyard and I have to film from the doorway of the house. But the other day I experimented with my big camera -- with its big zoom lens -- which is also capable of videos. I never use it for that purpose and wasn't sure I'd even remember how, but I managed to make it work.

So, there you have it -- the daily (or at least as often as I feed them) starling squabble, close up! (This one is also much squabblier than the previous video. All the water you see being flung into the air is coming from starlings in the bird bath, which is just below the feeder.)

I know the Russians didn't particularly like our bird feeders because of crazy episodes like this. I'm not sure how the new upstairs neighbors feel about them, but someone did come out and clap their hands at one point to scare the birds away, so they may not be thrilled either. We do get other, quieter birds -- tits, robins, the woodpecker -- so I don't want to put the feeders away completely, but even I will agree that the starlings are a bit over the top.

I thought I might have a second video for you, because I found a long-expired egg in the refrigerator (July 20) and boiled it to feed it to the foxes. It's sitting out there in the garden, with the camera trained on it, but the foxes didn't come around last night. Maybe we'll get lucky today or tonight.

Otherwise, yesterday was pretty quiet. I finished my Inspector Rebus mystery and washed a bunch of my shirts in preparation for the new school year. I also took stuff to charity and then reorganized the linen closet, during which I found more stuff for charity. So I have yet another bag going.

In the evening I re-watched one of my favorite movies, "The Year of Living Dangerously" with Mel Gibson and Sigourney Weaver. Mel certainly was a looker in his youth. It's a shame he's become such a loon.

Alligator Doubt

I had a somber task this week -- figuring out what to do with Olga's leftover food, treats and other dog items. She left us with six cans of food, two big unopened boxes of Dentastix, a box of brand-new rolls of poop bags (probably about a thousand of them!), and some towels and dog blankets. Oh, and her tennis balls.

I would never throw any of it out, but I also didn't want to save it all for if and when we get another dog. Who knows when that will be? Even canned food has a shelf life, and tennis balls deteriorate. I e-mailed the organization where we adopted Olga back in January 2013, thinking they might want the stuff, but I never heard back from them. So I looked around online and found that the Battersea Dogs & Cats Home accepts donated pet items. I made sure everything was clean and on their list of requirements, packed it in two big tote bags, and took it to Battersea yesterday morning.

I did not give away her collar and leash, her Kongs, her food bowls or her dog bed. Stuff like that will last until we get another dog. And remember that silly alligator dog toy we bought her in Florida a couple of years ago? She would never play with it -- I think it was too unlike her balls and Kongs and she never understood that it was a toy. We just kept it on our bed as a decorative item. Well, I put it in the donation bag, and then took it out again, and then put it in again. (Repeat cycle about three more times.) Finally I kept it.

I actually feel OK about the donations. I'm glad that other dogs will benefit, and Battersea is a wonderful organization. I am happy to support them. But of course it was still not a fun task.

I've also been trying to clean out some other stuff around here. I have two bags ready to go which I will take to Oxfam later today.

Oh, and remember how I said Dave would be back today? Well, never mind. It's actually tomorrow that he gets home! I guess I got the date that he leaves the USA (today) confused with his arrival date in the UK (tomorrow). So I'm on my own for one more day of meals. I think I'll manage.

These photos show a few flowers blooming at the moment. We only got one globe thistle (top) this year, for some reason. The cardoon (middle) has also not had an especially robust year, though it does have several flower heads, which as you can see the bees and hoverflies love. And that hydrangea (bottom) is the one I rescued on my walk home from work in the spring. It has leafed out quite happily and has loose white flower heads.

I'm finally making headway in my latest Ian Rankin paperback, "Even Dogs in the Wild," which I've been carrying around since before Blackpool. I like his books but it took me a while to break into this one, with all the distractions of travel and life in general. I'm about halfway into it, following retired detective John Rebus on his adventures in the Edinburgh criminal underworld, and will probably zoom through the rest.

Last night I watched an excellent documentary on Netflix, "Aftershock," about the 2015 Nepal earthquake and its effects not only on the Nepalese but on climbers on Mount Everest and a team of backpackers in a remote valley. Some harrowing stories, made worse by a cultural misstep by one of the backpackers. When I first started it I was ambivalent, because I'm not into mountaineering at all, but I ultimately found it riveting.

A Displaced Spider

I did some late-summer garden clearing yesterday morning, taking down most of the teasels and the burdock. They were past flowering and I didn't want to give any of them a chance to re-seed. I chopped down all the teasels on the lawn and all the burdock, period.

While working I tried my best to spare any little creatures I found, including several grasshoppers and this rather large garden spider -- a couple of inches long, I'd estimate. It scurried off a section of cut stem and I moved it to another teasel that will stay standing (for now). It was there all day yesterday but gone this morning, so who knows what's become of it. Hopefully it found a new home after being so rudely displaced.

After all the clearing I mowed the lawn, and this is how things look now. Quite a difference from the teasel forest!

That plant out in the middle of the lawn is one of next year's teasels. We seem to only have one out in the grass, which is ideal. I'd like to keep them in the flower beds if possible! (I left several standing in the central bed so they could set seed.)

I also noticed that our canna lily, which normally has dark red foliage, has generated a prominent bright green streak in one of its leaves. I think this is known as a "chimera," when a portion of a plant's cells mutate and generate a different color pattern than the dominant one. I remember seeing this in citrus when I was a kid -- sometimes an orange would appear that was mostly orange with a wedge of green, for example, with a very stark line between the two colors.

Anyway, I'm not sure that's what's going on here, but it's interesting. It makes me think of Tulsi Gabbard.

In the afternoon I went to the optometrist to have my eyes checked. It's been several years since my last exam in 2021 (!) and I suspected I might need new glasses. Sure enough, my prescription has changed -- my distance vision has deteriorated a little, for one thing -- and I have ordered new lenses to put in my existing frames. They're going to be "varifocal" rather than just reading glasses, so I'll wear them pretty much full-time. We'll see how this works out! Fortunately my eyes are healthy otherwise, although my right eye is significantly weaker than my left, which surprised me.

Finally, I met up last night with my recently retired friend Gordon at a very floral pub in Islington (above). We had a couple of pints and some Thai food. He knew I was alone this week and after having lost Olga, I might need some company. People are looking out for me.

I love how the pub doesn't even have a sign, though it's pretty obvious it's a pub!

Errands and Another Old Friend

So here I am, back in London now, settling into spending the rest of the week in an empty house. Dave won't be home from the USA until Sunday, and of course I am really missing Olga, whose presence I could always count on to keep me company. (Almost exhaustingly so -- she followed me from room to room!)

Fortunately, I have a lot to keep me busy. Yesterday I met up with an old school friend, Lenore, who was passing through London on her way back to the states from Scotland. (Linda Sue, she lives in Bellingham!) She'd spent six days hiking in the Scottish highlands with two friends, and it all went well until Storm Floris complicated their plans and they had to skip the last segment of the hike -- they were getting fierce wind, even worse than what I was seeing in Blackpool. Anyway, it was great to see Lenore, who went all the way through school with me, from first grade to 12th. Like my recent visit with Alan, another high school friend, I had a great time reminiscing and catching up with her life since. It's always interesting to see what people wind up doing. (In Lenore's case, she's teaching science, so we were able to compare notes on working in schools!)

On the way home I stopped into a stationer and bought a small, strong mailing tube so I could send Gwynneth those rescued cake knives with the ruined handles. She spoke up for them and has a plan to give them a second life. I packaged them up with bubble wrap and put them in the post. I was concerned about the legality of mailing knives, but the Royal Mail web site says it's OK as long as they're not legally prohibited blades and they're packaged securely, among other things. I told the clerk at the Post Office what they were and emphasized that they are not at all sharp, and she was unconcerned. So hopefully Gwynneth and I won't be arrested.

In the afternoon I had yet another conversation with some lawyers back in the states about estate planning. You'll recall that Dave and I have been trying for at least a year now to get a will (or something) written, and it's incredibly complicated because we have assets in both countries, and we're planning for two legal systems. We thought we had a solution until a financial adviser here raised a red flag about it. Now my first lawyer has essentially bailed on the project, and has referred us to a second lawyer who has more experience working with ex-pats in Britain.

And it's time to start gathering stuff for UK taxes, too. Argh! The bureaucracy never stops!

Meanwhile, the garden is in its late-summer phase, with the red-hot pokers (Kniphofia) blooming, as well as Japanese anemones, Michaelmas daisies, cardoons and other August flowers.

I was pleased to discover two little cherry tomatoes turning color, deep in our tomato plant. We have at least a handful of tomatoes on this bush but most of them are still green. I feel triumphant knowing we will have at least a small harvest! I'm saving them for Dave to pick when he gets back.

The Blackpool Tower

I came across this place while walking near my hotel in Blackpool. I wondered what on earth a "giant gut-buster barm" could be. I've heard the word "barmy" to describe a crazy person, but I've never heard of a barm as a noun. Turns out it's this, a big bread roll often served as a sort of sandwich. Apparently bacon, black pudding, chips and even a whole pasty can be used as a barm filling -- that's according to Wikipedia.

Well, yesterday was my last day in Blackpool and I had to make it count. The wind died down, so as soon as I'd had breakfast (an egg sandwich, so not quite a barm, but close) I made my way over to the Blackpool Tower. And it was open!

Look! There are people up there!

I got in line and bought my £18 ticket, skipping all the other related attractions like the circus and the dungeon. I suppose if I had kids I might do those too, but I only wanted the tower (and besides, my train left at 2 p.m. so I didn't have all day to kill.)

The "tower experience" began with a short 3-D film in the "cinema," which involved soap bubbles, getting sprayed with a mist of water and occasional puffs of wind. I went in thinking I'd tolerate it but it was actually very fun. It helped us imagine the tower's construction back in the 1890s, when a Blackpool mayor named John Bickerstaffe -- maybe or maybe not having seen the Eiffel Tower, depending on who you ask -- pushed to have it built. When it opened in 1894 it was the tallest structure in the British Empire!

Not only did I go up in the tower, but I made a video of the experience. You'll see what it's like going up in the lift, standing on the glass viewing platform (terrifying), and being at the very top, where it's open to the air (except for some netting). There's a spiral staircase to a still higher platform that is unfortunately closed.

The song that accompanies the video is one of my favorites, "In a Funny Way" by the band Mercury Rev. It's very cinematic (and it's permitted on YouTube by the copyright holders).

You'll also get a good view from the tower of the "Comedy Carpet," the tribute to British comedians that I mentioned a few days ago. Here it is from the ground. I suppose because yesterday's weather was better there were lots of people out enjoying it. I gotta say, every time I walked across it I saw something else that made me laugh out loud.

Finally, I had lunch and a final pint in Blackpool before heading to the train. I left slightly earlier than I'd originally planned -- I had an all-day return ticket so my time was flexible -- and I got back to London around 4 p.m. I spent my train time editing photos and putting together that video of the tower, which made me feel darned efficient.

Here's a final snippet of Blackpool, a mural I found on a side street incorporating all the local landmarks -- the piers, the tower, the ferris wheel and roller coaster, even the "Albert and the Lion" pub -- into the shape of a giant dragon. Pretty cool!