Scotland

Tomorrow is the big Scotland vote. It's all we've been hearing about on the news here. It seems kind of crazy to me -- or did, until recently -- and I sincerely hope the Scots don't vote for independence. The vote is apparently so close that there are bound to be a lot of hard feelings either way and I hope this doesn't irreparably disunite both Scotland and the greater United Kingdom. (The way the George W. Bush / Al Gore presidential race disunited the United States for years.)

Alex Salmond, the Scottish leader who's pushing for independence, seems a bit megalomaniacal. I think he wants statues of himself as a modern-day "Braveheart."

But what I have gradually come to understand -- as an American who has only lived here for a few years and is admittedly new to much of this conflict -- is that this isn't just about flag-waving. The Scots see themselves as a progressive society chained to the more conservative causes of Westminster. I suspect this feeling gained a great deal of momentum from Britain's participation in the Iraq war, and the Scots apparently chafe at British nuclear submarines being harbored in their ports. Billy Bragg argued in an interesting piece in The Guardian that Scottish nationalism is a positive, civic cause, not xenophobic jingoism.

Scottish nationalists, he said, are "people who are no longer comfortable with the direction that Britain is travelling in; with the extremes of poverty and wealth that go unchallenged; with the dominance of the privately educated in positions of political and economic power; with the undercurrent of xenophobia that animates the Conservative party; with a Labour party that has too few MPs from working-class backgrounds."

In fact, he argues that an independent Scotland could lead to greater self-determination for working class regions within England that feel themselves marginalized by London-centric, pro-business policy makers.

I think independence is a drastic step, and one for which I suspect the Scots are not fully prepared. The cost of building international relations and trade agreements, military infrastructure (even on a small, solely defensive scale) and the like seems staggering. North Sea oil won't sustain them forever. I hope they vote to stay in the UK, and I hope Alex Salmond slinks away with his tail between his legs.

But I also hope that Westminster learns a lesson, that the Tories are chastened and that advocates for Britain's progressive, pro-labor society are galvanized in a positive way.

(Photo: A crushed flower on a street in West Hampstead.)

Adventures in Tie-Dye

Here's what our patio looked like Saturday as my coworkers and I tie-dyed some white shirts for our annual group photo at school.

As I mentioned before, we try to have a theme for the photo each year. Last year while weeding the collection -- thinning out the unread books -- one of the librarians found a vintage 1960s book on tie-dyeing. It inspired us to tie-dye for ourselves.

The book, however, is quite sophisticated and went way beyond anything we wanted to attempt in a single afternoon. So we bought a commercial tie-dye kit on Amazon. It came with squirt bottles to mix the dye, as well as spare dye packets and basic instructions.

I'd only tie-dyed once before, about 25 years ago at the groovy home of my friends Kevin and Suzanne, but I don't remember anything at all about the process we used. (Back then I was ahead of my time -- in addition to t-shirts, I tie-dyed two pairs of briefs. It seemed crazy, but tie-dye style underwear is commercially available now!)

I had a vague idea that tie-dyeing would involve buckets and string and messiness. But we put down some newspaper and with the handy squirt bottles to administer the dye, it wasn't difficult or messy. We wound up with neat, cling-wrapped packages that we had to let sit overnight to allow the dye to fix.

The next morning, I hand-rinsed the excess dye out of my two shirts (my hands were blue for the rest of the day!) and washed them separately in the washing machine. I was worried about this step, as you may recall, but everything turned out fine.

The dye in the finished product is much more faint than the vivid colors in the bottles initially promised, and the green washed out so much that it looks a lot like the yellow. (Two of my coworkers hand-washed their shirts, despite the kit's directions, and their dye jobs stayed brighter.) But aside from that, I'm happy. I got a nice spiral effect, didn't I?

I did another shirt too, which you can see lying flat in the top photo, but it was less successful. It looks like a big, blotchy easter egg. Maybe I'll sleep in that one.

A Day in East London

This weekend has gone by in a flash! I spent yesterday in East London, mostly around Upton Park and Forest Gate. It's a predominantly South Asian area, with women fluttering like brilliant tropical birds and men in pristine white robes and caps.

I chose this area for a walk because it had not yet been covered for Bleeding London. I photographed 65 streets, nearly all in the E7 and E12 postcodes.

I found another French Mastiff, out for his walk!

I glanced inside this plastic garbage bag, containing an old suitcase, and was surprised to find someone's cat! It must have been awfully warm in there, sitting in full sun, but she didn't seem to mind. She came out after I took the picture. I advised her that probably wasn't the safest place to hang out and she promised not to go back in.

Even trash in the gutter was colorful.

I also happened onto a funeral procession. It reminded me of the horse-drawn carriage that came for the funeral of one of our neighbors back in Notting Hill, a couple of years ago.

I asked a couple of people for portraits, with varying degrees of success. Francis (above) complied. He was so dressed up I figured he'd go for it. He only asked that I e-mail him copies of the pictures, which I did last night. He seemed amused that his photo would represent his entire street in Bleeding London!

There were many, many more photos -- it was a very productive day!

The Mystery in the Washing Machine

Dave and I took pictures during yesterday's tie-dyeing extravaganza, but I'm holding them back until my shirts come out of the wash. I want to be able to show you the finished product. I'm a little concerned that they're going to be a solid muddy brown, but we'll see.

The dyeing itself was fun, helped along with some hors d'oeuvres and a bottle of prosecco provided by a coworker. I'll describe the process, such that it is, when I show you the photos.

My problem is, the dye kit we used specified that after letting the dyed fabric sit for six to eight hours, we should hand-rinse it and then wash it in the hottest possible water with the washing machine set to a high water level. Well, our washing machine -- being one of these fancy European ecologically-minded models -- never gets very full. It sloshes the laundry around in a minimal amount of water, and already that water is bright blue.

I'm telling you, this shirt is going to be monochromatic. Stay tuned.

I took Olga for a long romp in Hampstead Heath in the morning. We were out for a couple of hours and she got exhausted. I love to see a tired dog. It gives me a sense of satisfaction, like I've done my job as a dog owner.

By the way, we didn't tie-dye her. I seriously considered making the white tip of her tail bright pink, but I was afraid the dye would be poisonous if she licked at it -- which she surely would.

(Photo: Greencroft Gardens, a street near our flat, on Aug. 16.)

Large Rose Sawfly Blues

Waking up at 7 a.m. this morning, after a work-related reception and dinner last night that ran until midnight. I haven't been out that late in ages. It was fun -- a reception at the Museum of London for all faculty and staff, where we could walk among the exhibits with our glasses of wine. Seems a bit risky -- mightn't someone spill their cabernet onto the Roman coinage? -- but as far as I know there were no incidents, at least not by the time I left. I realized that I need to go see that museum and spend some real time there!

We have a work-related event today, too -- the librarians are coming over to our flat to tie-dye t-shirts in our back garden. (Doesn't that sound like the plot of a farcical movie? "The Groovy Librarians," or something like that?) Every year we take a group photo and we try to have a theme. This year, tie-dye is the theme. I can't even remember why.

We have jokingly threatened to tie-dye Olga, who is after all mostly white, and thus the perfect canvas.

Daniel, our gardener, came back yesterday to mow the lawn. Dave had him plant some bulbs, even though we already have about a million dormant bulbs in our garden. So next spring will be bulb-a-palooza. I suspect we've overdone it, actually.

Also, I just realized that some of our roses are being devoured by tiny green caterpillars. I'm thinking these. I'm going to go out this morning and pick them off by hand.

(Photo: Reflections in West Hampstead, a few weeks ago.)

Leopards and Hippos

Yesterday morning as I went to work, two boys sat down in the seat across the aisle from me on the bus. They looked about 12 years old, had proper British accents, and were clearly on their way to school. During the five minutes we rode together, they had the most hilariously wide-ranging conversation.

When they got on, they were talking about Nazis, and how some had fled to Argentina after World War II. They debated where Hitler was when he and Eva Braun killed themselves -- one said Berlin, the other argued for Poland. (Answer: Berlin.)

"I could never kill myself," one said.

They then proceeded to discuss the worst way to die. One decided the electric chair had to be pretty bad, and described in great detail the employment of the wet sponge that helps deliver the electric current to the chair's occupant. (This led to a digression into the plot of the movie "The Green Mile.") The other argued that being mauled by an animal would be worse. And of the big cats, being mauled by a leopard would be worse than a tiger or lion, he said.

"Tigers and lions go for the neck, but leopards go right for the brain. They have special teeth that can go right through your head," he said.

Then they debated whether or not it was possible to drown a hippo. One said yes, of course, but the other argued that hippos can hold their breath so long, it would be impossible to drown it before it killed you.

And then, much to my chagrin, I had to get off the bus.

(Photo: A sunny evening in Kilburn, last week.)

Goings-On in the Garden

While I've been out madly traipsing around London, Dave has been continuing his work in the garden. Things are looking pretty good out there.

The rose bushes are flourishing, now that we've cut back the surrounding greenery. Some bushes back in the shadowy hedge are seeing sun for the first time this year, and all have put out new growth. Many are blooming. You saw before that we have yellow and red ones -- and here are pink and salmon ones. We've got white, too, and several that we haven't yet seen bloom, so we don't know what color they might be.

All of the rose bushes are very gangly. I think it's been ages since they were pruned, and Dave is chafing to get at them, but we've been holding back because it's not pruning season. I suppose it's still possible that the landlord will hire a gardener to do it, but we haven't heard any more from her about that.

The horseradish plant is quite gigantic. Its lower leaves are looking a bit ratty and spent.

Something has been gnawing the hell out of it, but I haven't been able to find many creatures. I did find a slug once, and I just left him there -- why disturb his dinner? -- so maybe he's what created these holes. I've seen cabbage whites flitting around the plant but no caterpillars so far this year.

The firespikes that Dave planted are blooming healthily. Out of all the plants that we've put in the ground, they seem to have adapted best. Some of the others have barely grown at all or -- like our lilies of the valley -- have been trampled by the dog.

Finally, our hebe bush is blooming. This is another plant that we freed from encroachment by the surrounding forest. It's definitely looking more healthy and happy.

After I turned out the lights last night and prepared to go to bed, I sat in the living room for ten minutes or so, enjoying the moonlight. Lo and behold, the neighborhood fox returned, trotting through the grass and right up to the back door. He circled the patio and seemed to pause beneath the bird feeder, but I can't imagine he found much to eat in our yard. He was much prettier than our Notting Hill foxes -- red and glossy. I think if we'd left the back door open he'd have been in bed with us! (Well, maybe Olga would have fended him off.)