Big Ball of String

Yesterday was a day of peculiar events.

First, I'd noticed over the past few weeks some string lying on the sidewalk and street near our flat. It wasn't a small quantity of string, but one long piece that ran downhill for about a block and a half before slipping into a storm drain. It looked like a ball of twine had rolled downhill, unspooling as it went. I was envisioning animals getting tangled in it and people tripping and who knows what else, and of course no one was going to take ownership of this situation.

So, being my busybody self, I finally took some scissors and clipped the string, which was tangled in someone's rubbish bins (probably where it originated) at the top end, and rolled it all up. I then clipped it at the point where it disappeared into the storm drain, and the loose end shot into the drain with an energy that surprised me -- I think it must have been caught up in running stormwater somewhere below the street. (I told Dave I hoped it wasn't tied to anything important -- or alive!) I threw the collected twine in the trash.

And then, while walking the dog, I found a red wallet lying in the street. I really didn't want to have to deal with finding the owner and it didn't seem to have been there long, so I thought they might come back for it. Olga and I walked our normal route around the neighborhood, and when we got home half an hour later, the wallet was still lying there. So, grumbling, I picked it up and went on Facebook to find the owner.

"Why can't people hold onto their sh*t?!" I asked Dave.

The owner of the wallet turned out to be a teenager who lives down the street. He texted me back in the early afternoon -- probably about the time he finally rolled out of bed -- and collected his wallet soon afterwards.

I took Olga to the cemetery in the afternoon, where the insect life is humming. I saw ladybugs (top) and a grasshopper -- and look at that bright red mite just to the right of the grasshopper! It's tiny enough to fit on the head of a pin but it's so colorful it stands out. I tried to figure out what kind it is -- there are clover mites and velvet mites, both bright red, but honestly I can't tell them apart.

Our first dahlia blossom has appeared, and as you can see, we have many more on the way. All the dahlia plants are looking great -- I'm so happy with how well they've grown. Hard to believe they were just bare pots of soil two months ago! The flower seems more pink and less yellow than last year, at least so far.

Otherwise, we had a pretty placid day. I read a lot, or at least tried to, when our upstairs neighbors weren't sanding and pounding on their patio floorboards above my head. That guy is a home improvement maniac! 

Oh, and speaking of home, our landlords e-mailed me back and said they're renewing our lease. So we should be hearing from the management company with the new documents any day. Whew! What a relief!

A Caterpillar and a Monster

When I was out walking last Monday, I came across this street art on a housing estate in Kilburn. Isn't that fantastic? I hope you can see it past the fence -- it's a long centipede with a ladybug, a bee and a grasshopper inside it.

I photographed it that day, but it was really hard to get the right exposure because the upper left part of the photos was so bright, with all that sky, and the lower right was so dark, beneath the trees. So I went back yesterday morning while walking Olga and took some more pictures, including this HDR shot (above), which basically layers three different exposures to get the most range.

Here's another angle (not HDR). I have no idea who the artist is.

The area across from this estate is woodland, which borders some railroad tracks. As is often the case, lots of household rubbish had been dumped in the woods, on the other side of a fence running along the street. As Olga and I walked past, I spotted this guy among the debris:

He was muddy and sodden, but basically intact. Later, through the magic of the Interwebs, I learned that he's a character named Brobee from a children's television show, "Yo Gabba Gabba."

Inspired by Sarah and Fresca, who have blogged about rescuing vintage stuffed animals, I thought, "I'm going to salvage this guy!" So I tucked him into a plastic bag and brought him home. I unstuffed him -- fortunately his back was handily sealed by velcro -- and found a plastic inner component that apparently once allowed him to make noises or speak. It didn't seem to work, and I threw it out. Let's keep things simple, shall we?

I ran him through the washing machine on "ready to wear," which seemed to be the shortest wash cycle. Unfortunately it also included a dryer cycle, which I hadn't intended, but it didn't seem to harm him except to slightly yellow his plastic eyes. He emerged clean and fluffy.

I ordered some new polyfill stuffing, and when that arrives he'll get re-stuffed. And then I have a plan for him.

See? It's not so hard to stay busy during lockdown!

A Rainy Day, and J. K. Rowling

Yesterday's rain was the ideal type for the garden -- long, steady, soaking. Some of our plants got a bit weighed down by the water, like the delphinium above, so I went out during a pause and staked a few of them. Otherwise I didn't leave the house all day.

Olga, however, got her walk as usual. When Francisco brought her back he called into the house from the doorway, "She's a little bit wet!" Which turned out to be an understatement -- she was wet and dirty. But that's fine. I gave her a bath and all was well.

Some starlings on the bird feeders had a big noisy squabble in the afternoon.

Remember those antique bottles I found in the trash on my way to work several weeks ago? Well, I put six of them in a little row on our windowsill, but the rest have been wrapped up and sitting in the dining room all this time, and I finally decided I need to move them along. So I listed them on eBay! I haven't sold anything on eBay for years -- maybe even decades -- but it seemed a good way to find them a new home and ensure they won't simply get discarded again. I listed both the medicine bottles (above) and the Bovril bottles. I set the starting bid at £1 because I simply want to find them a home, not make a killer profit -- and someone already bid on the medicine bottles!

I also bit the bullet and went on Amazon and bought some masks to wear when I go shopping. The mayor of London has said we should wear them in shops now that more of them are reopening. The national government has still said basically nothing, but I guess I have my head in the sand given that all over the world people are adopting them and I may as well get on the bus. (Block that metaphor!)

Bravo to the Supreme Court for pulling the USA back from the brink of insanity! The ruling protecting LGBT people under existing anti-discrimination laws was, of course, fabulous, and the DACA ruling makes me so happy because it's a big ol' finger in Trump's eye. Checks and balances, baby! Many Americans have believed for years (wrongly) that federal laws already protected LGBT people from discrimination, so this makes their mistaken assumption official.

Speaking of LGBT issues, J. K. Rowling has been in the doghouse lately for voicing her concerns about transgender issues. Some people seem to think Rowling, who is generally quite progressive, has gone to the dark side by expressing skepticism about trans cultural orthodoxy. I honestly think a lot of the hostility aimed at her comes from people who haven't read anything but Twitter. Rowling herself wrote a long essay about her beliefs that I found quite compelling.

I absolutely support transgender people -- the right of anyone to live, free from discrimination, as the gender they believe themselves to be. I think Rowling does, too. But among other things, she's worried about young people who may want to transition before they're really ready -- and as a gay man, I completely understand that concern. I think a lot of young gay boys (and probably girls) go through developmental periods when they identify with the opposite sex -- I know I did. That might manifest as a desire to transition rather than coming to terms with what it means to be gay, and the social baggage that goes with that. (Not that there isn't also social baggage with being transgender!)

I also get her concerns about women. As she said, "one of the objectives of denying the importance of sex is to erode what some seem to see as the cruelly segregationist idea of women having their own biological realities or – just as threatening – unifying realities that make them a cohesive political class." It makes sense to me that some women would question whether women who used to be men really understand women's perspectives, their lived experiences and their political and social goals.

Anyway, it's a super complicated issue, and I don't have the answers. But the bottom line is, I don't believe Rowling is the enemy. Read her essay, if you're at all interested. (I think her concern about changing rooms is a bit of a red herring.)

Finally, I was sorry to hear that Vera Lynn died yesterday. Just a few weeks ago, around the time of VE Day, I was marveling that she was still alive!

Tree Ferns, Hedgehogs and Statues

It poured rain yesterday and it rained all night, too. The garden is sighing with relief! And I know Dave's new precipitation-loving tree fern is probably very happy.

Speaking of which, here's a photo I took in November 2004 in New Zealand, showing tree ferns growing in the wild. Aren't they beautiful? Like little palm trees. This was a park on the North Island, somewhere north of Waihi. When I bought Dave's fern I got to thinking about the photo, and I wanted to show it to Dave, so I dug it out of my "archives."

From my trip journal at the time: "Stopped at Waihi Beach and an old gold-mining town where I saw a parrot called an Eastern Rosella burst up through the tree ferns in a flash of color."

Here in London, the rain was so intense yesterday afternoon -- we had thunder and a little bit of hail, even -- that I cancelled Olga's dog walk. She stayed inside on the couch. I think we'll send her out today, now that we're having a steadier rain without the sound and light show. It won't kill her to get wet.

Fortunately, I'd already taken her on a long walk in the morning. We went to the cemetery, where we found...

...wildlife cameras set up along several of the paths. They're part of a London Zoological Society survey of hedgehogs, called the "London Hog Watch." I didn't know hedgehogs were even present in our part of London, but the survey's twitter feed has nighttime videos of them near Hampstead Heath, so that's exciting! I'd be surprised if any are in the cemetery, though, given how many dogs walk there. (Of course, the same could be said about the Heath. Maybe hedgehogs are more enterprising than I think.)

In other news, Oxford University is finally moving to take down a statue of Cecil Rhodes on the front of one of its buildings. That's a good decision. I agree with one of the local politicians who said it should go into a museum, where it can serve as a discussion point in larger conversations about apartheid and racism. I wish that had happened with Bristol's statue of Edward Colston, instead of its being torn down and thrown into the River Avon -- although apparently the city has retrieved it and it may eventually be museum-bound. To my mind, simply destroying these objects is an erasure of the past, and dishonors the victims of racist crimes as well as the perpetrators. Removing but preserving the statues helps us consider the fact that these men were once held in high regard, and ponder what that says about society at the time and how it is changing.

(I wonder if the Rhodes Scholarship program will also change its name?)

There are some imperialist paintings in Parliament that are also the subject of a similar discussion, and I hope they meet the same fate. (Removal but preservation.)

You've probably seen on the news that London's mayor has covered statues in Parliament Square -- including Winston Churchill, Nelson Mandela and Gandhi -- with sheet metal to protect them from protesters on both the right and the left. Right-wingers are particularly concerned that the Churchill statue will be torn down, and held a violent, alcohol-fueled demonstration around it on Saturday. Churchill is several orders of magnitude above Edward Colston in terms of national importance, and he also seems less personally complicit in the brutalities engaged in by Rhodes and Colston, so I doubt that statue will come down anytime soon. (Nor should it, in my opinion, although I'm certainly not allied with the right-wing demonstrators either.)

These symbols are very potent, aren't they? Like the Confederate monuments in the American South. I'm glad we're re-evaluating their place in modern society.

Hurry Up and Sleep

We're at that time of year when my sleep is suffering -- the daylight comes so early and departs so late. Sunrise this morning was at 4:43 a.m., and sunset is 9:21 p.m. Every year I mention this and people say, "You should get some heavy blackout drapes." And I say, "Yeah, that's a good idea." And then I don't do it.

I'm not sure it would bother me, except that the dog goes on RED ALERT as soon as she sees daylight. She basically lies in bed and stares at us, and if either of us so much as twitches her tail begins frantically thumping the mattress. Which, of course, makes us open our eyes, which leads to more frantic thumping. She just can't wait to get out of bed and come out to the living room so that she can do this:

That's her next to me right now. Snoring.

We've put her on glucosamine supplements for her joints, and it seems to have helped a lot. She hasn't been reluctant to go on her morning walks, as she was for a while. Of course, the weather's better now too, so that might be a factor.

You know how every year around this time I get stressed out about renewing the lease for our flat? Well, this year is turning out to be even more interesting than usual. Our lease expires in early July, and although the managing agent asked us months ago if we wanted to renew (and we said yes), we've heard nothing since. I wrote on Monday and asked what was up, and the agent said they haven't been able to get a response from the landlords about renewing. They suggested I write the landlords directly, and I did so, but I haven't had a response either. So we don't know what is going on. Normally I'd suspect they were traveling, but that seems unlikely at the moment.

Apparently even without a lease we'd need three months' notice before being forced to move, under new protections for renters during the coronavirus epidemic. So that's something. But I'd much rather have a lease and know we're settled for another year.

I just can't read our landlords. When they visited in January they seemed so comfortable about our staying. "It should feel like your home," one of them told me, and we discussed several improvements to the property. But they've also behaved a bit oddly in recent years, asking for a clause in the lease that would allow them to break it early, and coming for that inspection.

So who knows. Dave and I are resigned to the possibility that we may be asked to move. We'd hate to leave our garden -- where we've invested so much time and effort -- but many of our plants are in pots and could come with us. And honestly, moving would solve some problems. We could finally ditch our antiquated bathrooms and kitchen, not to mention Mrs. Kravitz!



Speaking of plants, I found this tag on my walk Monday, attached to a plant box discarded in the street near Queen's Park. The nursery label on the box said "basil," but let's assume it really did contain "rosemerry!" Perhaps it was a gift from a child. What is that creature? A parrot?

A Walk with a Blowfish

Yesterday turned out to be sunny and warm, so I set out in late morning with my camera. I had a vague idea I might go to the historic Kensal Green Cemetery, where I haven't been in several years, and I headed in that direction, westward through Brondesbury Park, Queen's Park and Kensal Rise. Of course I came across some interesting shops and other street scenes.

As it turned out, though, the cemetery is closed to casual visitors because of coronavirus. According to a sign on the gates I could have gone in to "visit a grave," although how they would know I was visiting a specific grave as opposed to just meandering about I'm not sure. I considered visiting Harold Pinter, or at least saying I was doing that if asked, but I decided to skip it altogether. When I'm walking Olga I spend enough of my time in cemeteries!

Olga didn't go with me, by the way. She was out with her dog-walker on the Heath. This would have been too far for her, even in her younger years! I walked all the way to Scrubs Lane before turning around.

I had lunch in Queen's Park after buying some small avocado-and-egg and salmon sandwiches at a nearby shop. That park, although beautiful, is a pain in the neck. It's fenced and I always find myself wandering the perimeter trying to find an access point. I don't really understand why a fence is necessary if it's a public park. Fortune Green, Hampstead Heath, Gladstone Park -- none of them have fences.

Anyway, I sat beneath a tree and had my lunch, and then wandered homeward, where I finished "The Italian Boy," the book about the body-snatchers in 1830s England. It was a good read -- a fascinating glimpse into a sordid time.

I've been offering to cut Dave's hair -- with all the barber shops closed, he's looking pretty shaggy these days. I told him he looks like a member of the Moody Blues. But for some strange reason he's reluctant to let me at it. Maybe he worries he'll wind up looking like me! (Once again I'm happy that I shave my own head. Coronavirus hasn't changed my look one bit.) A lot of Londoners have very '70s locks at the moment -- one of the upstairs neighbor kids has a head of hair like a young Robby Benson. Will the virus prompt new long-standing fashion trends, or will people streak to the barber the minute the doors open?

Tall Spiky Flowers

Here's another new flower that's blooming in our garden at the moment. This is a hybrid foxglove called "Firebird" that I picked up at the supermarket several weeks ago. It's unusual because of its red hues -- foxgloves are usually purple, pink or white. It's apparently a cross with a species of foxglove native to the Canary Islands, and its flowers and leaves both look quite different from our standard foxgloves.

As long as we're talking about tall, pointy flowers, here's our bear's breeches (acanthus). You may remember it bloomed last year for the first time since we rescued it, and it only had one flower spike. Well, this year it's got at least five. So things are looking up for the acanthus.

I spent yesterday mostly reading and doing stuff around the house. I mowed the lawn, which always makes the garden look a million times better.

Dave and I started a new show on Netflix called "Reckoning," a mystery involving a serial killer which looks OK. We're also watching "Snowpiercer," about a dystopian future in which the surviving humans circle the world -- now a frozen wasteland immersed in a new Ice Age -- on an immense, perpetually moving train. It's a weird idea and if it sounds like a comic book, that's because it is -- it's based on a French graphic novel from 1982. I like it so far, and Jennifer Connelly is great as the train's chilly guest-relations coordinator.

Dave got a birthday card from my stepmother in which she sent us a bunch of old pictures. Among them was this note:

I think I wrote that in mid-1973, when my mom, brother and I went to Washington, D.C. to visit my grandparents. I would have been six. Talk about a run-on sentence! I remember my brother falling on the driveway -- I hope Mom sent Dad a more explanatory note, because if he only got mine he must have been alarmed! I have no idea what garden I was talking about. We occasionally planted radish seeds or marigolds and it could have been something like that. Anyway, Dave and I got a kick out of this blast from the past!