Back to Routines

About a week ago I came across this guy cleaning the brass kickplate on the door of this pub near Colindale. When I started snapping photos, he asked if I wanted him to move out of the way. "Not necessarily, unless you want to!" I replied. So he stayed put and I kept snapping. I think there was a pole on the right -- or maybe a parked car -- that kept me from centering the door, but I like the unconventional framing and the books piled in the window.

Yesterday morning I took Olga for one last Spring Break romp on the heath. We found some bluebells beginning to bloom under a tree, and now I'm certain we also have them in our yard. We should be getting some interesting flowers soon!

Dave and I saw our visiting friend David off to the airport before joining our former neighbor Chris for lunch -- apparently our old apartment in Notting Hill still isn't occupied. Then we came home to enjoy a quiet afternoon of alone time. I cleaned the house and watched "Moon Over Miami."

I like having visitors, but it's always such a relief to get the house back in order, get the routines back in place. Today we're back at work, as usual, and I feel ready, to tell you the truth.

Oh, and I finally got all my Singapore photos uploaded to Flickr. You can see them here, if you're interested.

Easter Wrap-Up, with Satanic Overtones

Well, here we are, our last day of Spring Break. In fact, today is a bank holiday in the UK, known as Easter Monday -- so pretty much everyone is off work. It will probably be impossible to get anything done!

We're wrapping things up with our friend David, who is flying back to the states today. He rejoined us in London on Saturday after his jaunt around the Continent. He helped me walk Olga yesterday morning, and then he and Dave and I went out for Easter dinner to one of our local pubs, which put on an amazing roast. We feasted on chicken and yorkshire pudding and huge desserts, and then couldn't eat anything else for the rest of the day.

Easter doesn't mean much to me theologically, but the food is always nice.

In the afternoon I continued working on a photography project involving my old negatives, which took hours of sorting. I never did find a couple of old film rolls that I'm sure I used to have -- photos I took in Miami Beach with some friends back in 1989-90. Who knows where they went. I don't remember seeing them recently and it's entirely possible they've been missing for a long time. My plan is to get high-res scans made of some favorite photos from the past, and put them all together in a book.

In the evening I was supposed to Skype with my mom and brother, but Dave, David and I started watching "The Jinx" -- the HBO series about Robert Durst -- and polished off two episodes before I realized I'd missed my Skype appointment by an hour. Oops. Hopefully we can reschedule!

Finally, last night we watched "The Omen," which David had never seen. (How is this possible?!) I only belatedly realized it's a completely inappropriate movie to watch on Easter.

(Photo: Self-portrait with cat pillow, North London, March 28.)

Garden Close-Ups

One of our ongoing garden mysteries has been these clumps of strange, grass-like plants that sprouted a few months ago. We knew they weren't grass, but we weren't sure what they were, so we left them to grow. Turns out they're grape hyacinths!

To me, these are ornamental and kind of fun. But I have a feeling they might be considered invasive here, as I've seen them all over the place, growing through cracks in people's driveways and that sort of thing.

We've got a couple of other odd-looking plants that we're watching. No flowers yet, but I have a hunch they might be bluebells. I'll keep you posted!

The dewy mornings have made for some interesting photos. These water droplets are on a huge oxalis plant that sprouted at the back of the garden. We've just left it to grow. The leaves are so soft.

This is an intriguing little weed that's sprouted around our roses, bearing both blue and pink flowers on the same plant. I have no idea what it is. Dave was planning to mow this week, and I asked him to mow around them. As it turned out, it's been too damp to break out the lawn mower.

Which means our dead nettles have also won a reprieve for now, blooming in all their hairy splendor!

Heath Explorers

Olga and I took a three-hour constitutional through Hampstead Heath yesterday. I've felt a little guilty sending her off with the dog walker every day this week, when I'm right here and could easily walk her myself -- and she would so obviously rather go with me. Every time the dog walker hooked her to a leash, Olga looked at me with sad eyes and slunk out the door, as if she thought we were sending her away for good.

I tried to cancel the dog walker for Thursday, but he reminded us that Friday and this coming Monday are holidays, and he wasn't planning to come then anyway. So we let him come as usual on Thursday, leaving Olga to me for the rest of our vacation.

Back to our three-hour walk:

Olga was the mighty huntress, Kong in mouth, scanning the underbrush for squirrels. We had a great time and even encountered a ghostly presence (top). She got completely muddy and required a bath afterwards, a sure sign that the walk was a success.

Dave's colleague Gordon came over yesterday afternoon and he and Dave went to the pub to talk shop. I stayed home and sorted photo negatives for yet another project, so as not to be in the midst of discussions about trombones and tubas for two hours. By the time I went to meet them a few hours later, some of the band talk had left their system; we were joined by our friend Keith, and Dave and I had dinner before zipping off to the theater!

For several weeks I've been wanting to see a play called "My Night With Reg." It's a revival of a 1994 production about a group of thirtysomething gay men in the age of AIDS -- and, surprisingly, it's something of a comedy. Or at least it has comedic moments. I finally bought tickets a few nights ago and Dave and I both enjoyed it -- though I must say, I had a lot of gay friends in the '80s and early '90s, and I don't remember us being quite so casual about sex as the guys in this play!

Reporting to Uncle Sam

I have paid Uncle Sam. Or, to be more accurate, I have reported all my income to Uncle Sam, as is required of me as an American citizen. I don't actually pay him, because I make less than the amount of foreign income I'm allowed to exempt from U.S. taxes.

I do, however, pay Her Majesty, in a slow trickle throughout the year. Which is fine. Living in England, I have to do my part, right?

I sat down yesterday morning and polished off my U.S. tax return in about an hour. It's a tremendous relief to be done with it. Dave still has to do his, which is going to be more challenging, since he's the principle breadwinner.

I've always prided myself on doing my own taxes, but at some point I think we're going to have to hire someone to help us. When Dave and I get legally married (as opposed to our current civil union) or if we buy or come into property -- particularly property, or a share of property, both here and in the U.S. -- things are going to be more complicated.

Fortunately I could breeze over the Obamacare questions -- a long checklist of "do you have insurance and where and which of these kinds?" Rather than a long checklist of options it would be nice if the U.S. simply created a universal health care system, like the NHS, which covers me. Then there wouldn't be that quagmire of "choice." But that would be too easy, and god forbid poor and well-off Americans should sit side-by-side in the same waiting room. (To be fair, lots of better-off British people have private insurance, too.)

We spent the rest of yesterday "puttering" (that word again!) around the house and garden. Dave ordered more plants (argh!) which he put in the ground, and I took my camera out with my macro lens and got some interesting shots, which I'll share here at some point.

Last night we started watching "The Jinx," the HBO documentary series about former real estate magnate Robert Durst -- who over several decades was suspected of murdering his wife and another female friend, went on the lam, posed as a mute woman to escape the law, was believed to have killed and dismembered his next-door-neighbor and finally got arrested after shoplifting a sandwich with $38,000 in the trunk of his car. You can't make this stuff up!

(Photo: A pair of birdbaths in front of a house in North London, on Tuesday.)

Short Takes, With Birds

-- Yes! I finally got a clear shot of one of the eurasian jays that occasionally swoop through our backyard! I have been trying to photograph these birds for ages, with no luck. Until yesterday, when this one landed on our birdbath and posed just so.

-- Also yesterday on the birdbath, a goldfinch! He stayed just long enough for one (slightly blurry) shot.

-- These are our amaryllis at the moment. Two stalks of blooms, two stalks of buds. The blooms have become somewhat intertwined, forming a Giant Eight-Headed Beauty Monster.

-- Did you see the upsetting news about Joni Mitchell? She's had health problems for years, and still smokes like a chimney, but all the same I was shocked when Dave told me yesterday morning that she'd been taken "unresponsive" in an ambulance to a hospital ICU. (Dave saw the story on Facebook, which apparently gave it greater prominence than The New York Times, which is what I was reading.) I know she's 71, but it feels wrong that she should be infirm. New York Magazine recently did a lively interview piece with her, including some terrific photos.

-- Bleeding London is apparently, officially, over. After walking all day Monday and Tuesday and uploading my pictures to the online gallery, I tallied my work over the past seven months and found that I shot 2,454 streets! I'm giving myself a pat on the back. On Tuesday evening, when all was said and done, and a soft rain had begun to fall, I also gave myself another kind of reward:

Yeah, baby!

-- Yesterday I had another neighborhood celebrity sighting: British actress Imelda Staunton. She walked right past me and we made eye contact but I gave no sign of recognizing her. Got to respect the privacy of the neighbors, after all. She's married to Jim Carter of Downton Abbey fame, whom I've already mentioned seeing out and about.

-- Finally, I spent much of yesterday cleaning and purging. I took three bags of clothes and an old mirror to a local charity shop, as well as some knick-knacks like the Cuba car and the poppet. I was sort of sorry to see them go, but I have enough stuff without keeping items I find on the street, don't I?!

French Gothic in Leicester

Another building we discovered in Leicester was the former Leicestershire Banking Company building (more recently Midland Bank and HSBC). David and I were having coffee at a cafe across the street when I noticed the bank's amazing stained glass windows. "Wouldn't it be great to see what they look like from the inside?" I asked David.

After our pick-me-up, we crossed the street for a closer look.

The building was designed by Joseph Goddard and built in 1875 in the French Gothic style. Just like Notre Dame it has amazing gargoyles, including this pair -- one gnawing on the other's tail!

Apparently HSBC moved out in 2008 and although it's a Grade II Listed Building, which means it has historic or architectural significance, there have been fears that it is endangered.

We noticed there was some activity inside, though, so hoping to get in to see the stained glass, I went to the door and peered in. A sign on the door said ISKCON, which meant nothing to me.

A guy in robes, who seemed to be setting up for some kind of religious service, saw me looking and motioned us inside. I was a little concerned that we were intruding but he was very friendly.

I should have been tipped off by the colorful mandala on the steps -- the building is now occupied by the Hare Krishnas. (ISKCON stands for the International Society for Krishna Consciousness.) They plan to turn it into a community center of sorts. They've submitted plans for a restaurant, library and other features.

We were graciously invited to look at the windows.

They actually go up even higher than this, and I couldn't begin to get photos of the vast beamed interior ceilings and the other amazing features of the building. It has a web site here.

Pretty cool, huh? I'm glad we just happened to come by at a time when it was open!