The Hive at Kew

Dave and I got motivated yesterday and went to Kew Gardens, partly to see an exhibit called "The Hive." It's an art installation based on a beehive, with thousands of LED lights that flicker and represent the bees communicating with each other. (The Hive is somehow linked to one of Kew's actual hives, apparently.) It's surrounded by a meadow of bee-friendly flowers (now mostly past their peak) and it's supposed to get us thinking about how to protect pollinators and our own food supply.

You can step inside The Hive on two levels. From the upper level, the top looks like this.

It's a cool construction, and very mathematical with all its geometric metal "cells."
 

On the way to The Hive we passed this Japanese pagoda tree -- planted in 1760! America was still a British colony, and the French monarchy hadn't yet been guillotined. The folks at Kew call it an "old lion." I like how the trunk has been braced with bricks on the right.

We also visited the palm house and the ridiculously humid waterlily house, where I had to wipe down my lens several times but finally managed to get a decent picture.

I also bought us a membership to Kew, so I hope now we'll go back a bit more frequently.

Before we went to the gardens, Dave and I visited a terrific restaurant in Clapham called The Dairy. We saw it a couple of years ago on one of Mary Berry's cooking shows, where she toured the herb garden on the roof. The food was spectacular. We loved it. And we asked to visit the roof and got a little tour of our own!

The Striped Moth

I am not going to talk about Donald Trump or his foul-mouthed, homophobic minions. I've been reading about them all morning and I just can't stand anymore. But I will celebrate the fact that Senate Republicans can't seem to manage to repeal even part of the Affordable Care Act, and I'm going to focus on good news like the rescue of these poor zoo animals from Aleppo.

There are good things going on in the world. I don't know about you, but I have to occasionally remind myself of that. The path of humanity is not being entirely dictated by a man who makes Richard Nixon look dignified.

Meanwhile, here in our garden, I've seen a couple of these vivid Jersey tiger moths. (Or maybe I've seen the same one a couple of times.)

And our cardoon is blooming and attracting bees like nobody's business.

I barely left the house yesterday. I took some stuff to our local charity shop, and I took a bag of used coat-hangers back to the cleaners. I also tried to get the broken strap on Dave's sandals fixed, but the man at the local shoe repair shop said he couldn't do it because he doesn't have a machine to sew leather. So I have to look farther afield to solve that problem.

I've also been on a neighborhood anti-litter campaign. Someone -- and I think I know who -- is dumping bags of bloody meat wrappers on a street corner near our house. I don't believe it's a local business. It's happened over and over, and animals tear the bags open and distribute the contents all over the street. It happened again yesterday morning and I reported it to the council, and it has allegedly been cleaned up, but I am collecting evidence against the perpetrators and I expect to take it to the council at some point. Whether there's any enforcement will be up to them.

I'm also reading a very entertaining book called "The Last Pink Bits," in which author Harry Ritchie travels to a few tiny remote outposts of the British Empire -- places like the Falkland Islands, Gibraltar and St. Helena. He's a funny writer and the book -- even though it's about 20 years old -- is a good antidote to the dreary, frustrating dispatches coming out of the White House these days.

More Old Photos

Some more old photos, rescued from negative oblivion by my new scanner. Most of these were taken in the '80s with my 35-mm Canon, so the photo quality is better than the Magimatic pictures I posted earlier.

First, a shelf fungus in our old yard in Florida, growing beneath (or possibly on) a silk oak that has long since died.

This isn't a great picture -- it came from the Magimatic -- but it's a memory that has long perplexed me. I took it around the time of the Bicentennial (1976), on a trip to Washington, D.C. It's of some sort of memorial wall erected to George Washington. I never saw this wall again on my many subsequent trips to Washington, and I've often wondered where it was.

Well, I did some research, and it turns out this wall used to be located near the Washington Monument. Soon after I took the photo, it was taken down and later relocated to the George Washington Masonic National Memorial in Virginia. So it's still out there, but in a different place.

These bright red seeds used to grow on the maple trees at our house in Florida. Like the silk oak, those maples are long dead now.

This is our old dog Hoover. She was fun but she could be a bit ornery, especially when she got older. She liked lying around in the shade! She died in 1992.

I've mentioned the Circle Restaurant, in Sebring, before. Here's a 1988 shot of the front window that I've never been able to have successfully printed. In fact, I had to do a lot of manipulation to get it to look this good. My film was way too underexposed.

My grandmother, like a lot of grandmothers, had a window full of little tchotchkes in her living room. (Two of them, actually.) Here's a look at one. My brother and I used to help her wash all those little objets when we visited each year.

A shot of some dry beach grass in early evening on Sanibel Island, Florida. I took this on a day trip there with my high school friend John.

And finally, the front porch of my grandfather's summer retreat in the mountains of West Virginia. My family still owns this property, but none of us have been there for many years and we're allegedly in the process of selling it. We always ate our lunches on that porch when we drove up for the day from my grandparents' in Washington, but I've never slept in that house -- which, among other issues, has no indoor plumbing!

False Alarm

Yesterday morning, I followed up on that mysterious letter from the dermatologist. I called his office and explained to his secretary that I was confused about the tentative nature of the diagnosis and I needed more information before agreeing to any further surgery. She promised to have the doctor contact me. And he did.

It turns out his letter referred back to my biopsy in May, not to my surgery at the end of June. In other words, it's very old information. He meant it as notification that I would need surgery -- which I have now already had, nearly a month ago! So all is well and I don't need any more.

Good grief. Why did they just send me this letter now? After I've already had surgery, received follow-up letters and moved on with my life? DON'T SCARE ME LIKE THAT, PEOPLE!!

Around lunchtime, Dave and I went to see the Royal Photographic Society's newest London exhibit, at the Croatian Embassy. It features work from a yearlong project called "Breathing London" -- an effort to photograph the city's parks and open spaces. About 70 photographers participated, including yours truly, and in this shot of the gallery wall you can see one of my photos -- with the yellow flowers and the caterpillar. (You can view it close-up here.) I have two others in the show as well, this one and this one. The exhibit is very well put together and I couldn't be happier.

(Photo: Near Fortune Green, last weekend.)

The Wonders of Croydon

Yesterday Dave and I went down to Her Majesty's immigration office in Croydon to apply for Indefinite Leave to Remain, or permission to stay in Britain indefinitely. This was the culmination of our months of paperwork and test-taking, and the good news is, Her Majesty likes us. Our application was approved.

It turned out to be a daylong adventure. We had a "premium" appointment, which sounds very Hyacinth Bouquet -- "I really must have a premium appointment, Richard. In a room bearing the royal warrant." We turned up at 10:30 a.m., shortly before the appointed time, and within an hour and a half we'd made our application, which involved a considerable stack of pay stubs and bank statements and all sorts of other stuff.

The man who took our documents, photographed and fingerprinted us said everything should be ready for pickup in a couple of hours. Meanwhile, he said, we could wait around, or we could go see "the wonders of Croydon." This was sort of an inside joke, because Croydon is not known for any wonders whatsoever. Nonetheless we decided to explore. We left the building and passed through the tired-looking shopping center across the street, which we first visited a couple of years ago when we got our visas renewed, and then went walking down an outdoor pedestrian mall. Ultimately we found a pub with the rather provocative name of The Spreadeagle, where we had an alcohol-free lunch.

We got back to the immigration office around 1 p.m., but apparently things were busier than usual because our documents weren't ready until after 4 p.m.

The good news is, I used the time to finish "Herzog," which was one of the more challenging novels I've read in a while. I enjoyed parts of it, and I can appreciate Saul Bellow's writing and his genius. But parts of it definitely got bogged down in philosophical questions and conundrums, which I understand were meant to show us the state of the protagonist's mind, but at the same time were exhausting to read. So, overall, a mixed bag.

We arrived back home last night relieved to have that task completed. But then waiting for me was a frustrating letter from the National Health Service, in which my dermatologist said the procedure performed on my forehead in July "showed the presence of scaly sun damage called actinic keratosis. Looking at the specimen at the deep margin, there was a suggestion of possible early development of a type of low-risk skin cancer but nothing certain." He went on to suggest another surgery, "removing the scar with some stitches," and said he would put me on the schedule to have it done.

So it sounds to me like they're concerned that more cancer cells, or pre-cancer cells, may remain. But even their original diagnosis was quite tentative. If all we have is an uncertain possibility of low-risk skin cancer, is that really a good reason to cut more tissue out of my face? Can't we just wait and see whether another spot develops? I mean, this spot they removed was tiny. Even the doctors kept talking about how small it was. So I'm going to consult with them and see whether another immediate surgery is really necessary. I may seek a second opinion.

(Photos: The wonders of Croydon! Top, some buildings near the immigration office. Bottom, an artwork depicting Winston Churchill in the words of his "We shall fight on the beaches" speech.)

Garden Engineering

We've had some storms recently, and the winds knocked down our tall teasels. As I've mentioned before, these two plants are huge -- the tallest is about eight feet. So bracing them upright is no easy matter.

When they were shorter we could simply prop them up with a stake. But now, as you can see above, we've resorted to tying them to nearby plants with twine. So far, so good.

It's strange that they need this extra support because the teasels at Wormwood Scrubs grow upright all on their own. Maybe ours have too much nutritious compost or something.

Olga, by the way, was barking at me as I took this photo because she wanted to play with her new Kong Wobble toy, sent by the generous Linda Sue. The toy has a heavy bottom and is meant to be filled with treats, which the dog accesses through a hole in the side. It's a bit like a Weeble -- remember those?

Anyway, Linda Sue sent this thing months ago and I don't know why, but we never got around to giving it to Olga until yesterday. She is indeed enthusiastic about it (as she is about anything involving food or playing) and I'm sure she'll spend many hours trying to figure out how to get those treats out of there. (She hasn't quite figured out that she doesn't need me to help -- she can play with it on her own!)

Also a couple of garden updates. Remember the rescued foxglove, which we were rooting on our windowsill for a while? It's gigantic now. It's evidently not going to bloom this summer -- I guess that comes next year. (I've read that foxgloves bloom in their second year.)

And here's the rescued fig tree, all leafed out and doing well on the side patio. I'm so happy with how well this plant has prospered!

Olga's Summer Day

Olga had a busy day yesterday! We went back to the main part of Hampstead Heath, where we hadn't been since well before I left for Florida. (According to my blog search function, the last time was June 3. Can that be right?!) It's definitely looking more late-summery there, with the long grass turning dry and the rosebay willowherb (aka fireweed, a much better name in my opinion) and ragwort blooming. I love that purple/yellow combo.

Anyway, Olga ran to her heart's content. This was immediately after she went for a visit to the vet. She doesn't mind the vet -- in fact, she gets treats there, and sometimes she tries to pull me in that direction. She pretty much demands to go.

We took her because she acts somewhat stiff after long walks, and Dave wanted to get her joints checked. She also has a skin nodule on one of her legs that I thought should be evaluated. (No doubt because of my own recent experiences!) The verdict is that her joints seem well and the skin nodule is small and not connected to anything, which is a good sign. So we're going to simply monitor both.

She weighed 24.8 kilos, or almost 55 pounds. She's put on a bit of weight -- another reason to get her to the Heath!

The bill for the exam came in at £45, which I suppose isn't too bad, and I'm happy that she doesn't need anything more.

After our Heath romp, she got a bath and a special marrow bone from a restaurant where Dave and I went with our coworker Lisa and her boyfriend on Friday night. This was a hip little place in Hackney with amazing grilled meat. Olga loved her bone, which admittedly probably didn't do her weight any favors!