St Albans

I did finally motivate myself to take a day trip yesterday. I caught a train up to St Albans, a city just outside London to the north. I've long had it on my radar as a place to visit, with its medieval cathedral and Roman ruins. Weirdly, it always makes me think of the actress Maggie Smith. When I came to London for the first time back in 2000, I saw "The Lady in the Van" on stage in the West End, and there's a line in the play in which Smith's character says of her beloved van: "I came down from St Albans in it and plan to go back there eventually. I’m just pedaling water at the moment." At the time I had no idea where St Albans was, but that always stuck in my memory.

Anyway, it's about the easiest thing in the world to catch the Thameslink train in West Hampstead and make the 20-minute journey to St Albans, where a short walk leads to the city center and the cathedral. Most of St Albans appears quite prosperous but of course my camera lens was attracted to the lonely-looking closed shop above.

I got caught in a downpour and darted into a coffee shop for a quick cup while the rain stopped. Then I made my way...

...to the cathedral. Much of the building is said to be Norman architecture of the 11th century, with Gothic additions from the Victorian era.

Here's the inside, with its ornate tiled floors and intricately carved altar. The ceiling is quite colorful, too.

These medieval oak doors (there are two of them, though my picture only shows one) used to stand at the church's main entrance. They're from the 1400s.

After exploring the cathedral, I went looking for lunch.

I did not go to this pub, which was back toward the train station and thus out of my way, but I liked the name (Robin Hood) and the sign. Instead, I went to a pub called The Peahen, where I had a yummy CBLT (a BLT with chicken added), some excellent sweet potato fries and a pint of local brew. I also learned via the sound system that Morrissey did a cover version of "Wedding Bell Blues," and it was entertaining to hear him pleading with Bill to marry him.

From there, I walked to Verulamium Park, named for the Roman city that stood at the site of modern St Albans back in AD 50 or thereabouts. It was the second-largest Roman settlement in Britain, after Londinium, and in fact Saint Alban himself was martyred by the Romans there.

Today the park contains fragments of Roman walls and an excavated Roman villa with an impressive mosaic floor:

It dates from about AD 180 and contains 220,000 tiles cut from natural stone.

I also visited the Verulamium Museum, which contains a lot of Roman artifacts such as pottery, coins and other objects of everyday life in Roman Britain, and explains something of the lives of the people who lived at this site.

And I visited the old Roman theater, which included some funny informational panels: "Welcome to the Roman town of Verulamium: Queen Boudicca gave it the thumbs down." (Boudicca, a Celtic queen, famously sacked and burned Verulamium back in the day.)

At this point, there were scary-looking storm clouds blowing in, so I high-tailed it back to the train station and caught the train back to West Hampstead, where Olga was patiently waiting, no doubt wondering where I'd gone. (Her dog walker visited while I was out so she got some entertainment, too.)

More Garden Bugs

I had vague plans for taking a day trip yesterday but I just could not get motivated to leave the house! And it's just as well, because I found plenty to do around here -- like photograph more bugs in the garden.

That's a flower crab spider, above, waiting on an inula blossom for a careless bee or other bug to come along. Rather than spin a web, these spiders ambush insects that come to feed on flowers.

Here's a green shield bug on a lupine leaf.

I'm not sure what this is -- some kind of legionnaire fly, I believe, hanging out on our burdock.

And here's a fly of some sort on a geranium.

All this photography occasionally has practical value. The night before last, I was lying in bed editing my pictures from the day, when I zoomed in on one and saw that a plant in the background was very wilted. So I ran outside and watered it in the dark of night -- which must have made the Russians wonder what I was up to -- and in the morning it was fine. Whew! Funny that I didn't notice it when I was taking the picture.

I did succeed in making a dentist's appointment, so I have that next week. A week from today, in fact.

I'm reading a fascinating book called "My Autobiography of Carson McCullers," by Jenn Shapland. It's a combined study of the life of McCullers and her writing, and a sort of memoir of Shapland's own evolution as a writer and lesbian. Shapland believes that McCullers was also a lesbian and biographers and other scholars essentially forced her into the closet in the years after her death, in 1967, by minimizing her relationships with women. She tries to more fully explore that aspect of McCullers's life and identity, even living for a time in McCullers's former family home in Columbus, Ga. I'm not sure I entirely buy Shapland's premise that McCullers's sexuality wasn't acknowledged, because I'm sure I've known for years that she was at least bisexual -- and where I learned that I have no idea -- but it's still an interesting book. (And granted, bisexual and lesbian are not the same thing!) It's making me want to read some of McCullers's writing again -- it's been years since I read anything by her.

Noisy Wednesday

I had a couple of tasks I wanted to achieve during our summer break. The screen of my iPhone is cracked, and I thought I'd get it replaced. I need to get another eye exam and possibly get some new glasses. And I need to get my teeth cleaned, because I haven't been to a dentist since before Covid.

Well, the eye exam is going to happen Saturday. I was home on Tuesday in the late afternoon when the lens popped out of my glasses, and though I tried to pop it in again, I just couldn't get it to fit. So I raced down to the optician, who not only fixed the lens but readjusted my glasses. They were badly askew -- I'd probably sat on them multiple times without really noticing -- and now they feel much better.

He asked me how long it had been since my last eye exam. About five years, I told him.

A man browsing a rack of eyeglasses nearby laughed. "And I thought I was bad!" he said.

So, shamed into it by a perfect stranger, I made an appointment for an eye checkup.

I decided to just let the iPhone slide. I have one of those plastic protectors over the screen, so even though it's cracked, it's basically intact and it works fine. I can live with it.

So that just leaves the dentist, and my goal is to get that appointment settled today.

There's a lot happening in the garden. The butterfly bushes are attracting all sorts of critters -- I saw a peacock butterfly yesterday as well as this red admiral (top photo).

And our agapanthus, also known by the much more poetic names African lily or Lily-of-the-Nile, is blooming away in its sunny position on the side patio. You can also see that the jimsonweed, or Datura, in the foreground is fading, I assume because it's setting seed. (It's also been quite cool lately, and jimsonweed likes heat.) It bloomed several times, so I consider it a successful experiment. I'm hoping to save the seed and plant it next year.

I'd like to say it was a lovely and peaceful day, but in all honesty, it was noisy as hell. I sat out on the bench trying to read, but there's construction going on in one of the apartments behind us, and they were using some kind of saw that just NEVER STOPPED. And then, an hour or so later, the gardeners came next door and were running hedge trimmers and leaf blowers. I thought I was going to jump out of my skin.

I made a video so you could share my experience. You're welcome.

Valuation Day

I passed this house in Golders Green yesterday while walking up to the antique dealer's "Valuation Day" event. By my count, there are 15 rubbish bins and six shopping carts in that front garden, plus a weird section of wooden fence that's not attached to anything except a tree, and lots of assorted bags of debris. Quite a display!

The "Valuation Day" was interesting and somewhat successful. I took a wristwatch and a silver coin belonging to Dave, and the dealer bought the coin for exactly what my earlier Internet research had determined it was worth. He made an offer on the watch, but we didn't think it was enough, so we kept that -- even though Dave never wears a watch and it hasn't seen the light of day for as long as I've known him.

Best of all, the dealer also bought that box of clay pipes I found on the sidewalk back in February. He gave me £20 for all of them, which was fine by me, considering they cost me nothing. I thought they were cool but I didn't really want them. Now they're back in the hands of someone whose business is antiquities and who will properly appreciate them. I wish I'd also thought to take that weird silver vase (or whatever it is) I found years ago.

Anyway, it was good to get out and walk. The event was held at a hotel almost three miles away, and I walked there and back, so I got a fair amount of exercise.

I passed this groovy dry-cleaners' sign on the way. Why is it that dry cleaners and laundromats (or launderettes as they're called here) always seem so retro?

Otherwise, yesterday was pretty chill. I read some in the afternoon -- remember how I'm trying to read all the Newbery medal winners? Well, I'm working on the most recent one, "When You Trap a Tiger," just to make even a tiny bit of progress over the summer. I still have about a third of the list to go and I don't want to stall out now, but I probably won't get back to reading Newbery books in earnest until school begins again in a few weeks.

Oh, a sad note. Someone -- I assume from the council -- finally came and cut down the once-viney tree, which did indeed die. I feel so terrible about that situation. I still can't understand what killed it. Taking that vine away shouldn't have hurt it, unless it was already weakened, either by the burden of the vine itself or in some other way. (There was some street construction beneath it just before I removed the vine, and perhaps that had damaged the roots?) I've even wondered if someone unhappy with my project deliberately killed it with an herbicide. Maybe they didn't like me coming around and paying attention to it. But that seems a little paranoid.

Anyway, I do feel guilty, and I've learned my lesson. Next time I'll think twice before involving myself unasked in something like that. It sounds extreme but I think it will literally bother me for the rest of my life.

I've been on a Faye Dunaway movie kick the last couple of nights: "Three Days of the Condor," which was good, and "The Eyes of Laura Mars," which was less so. I should really watch "Mommie Dearest" again. I haven't seen it in years and I remember it being a hoot.

Belated Blackberries

This is the haul from one day of picking up walnuts in the garden. You can see what I'm dealing with here. I'm being inundated.

I guess I could just leave them -- they'll eventually decay, and that would be very much in keeping with our casual back-to-nature approach to gardening.  But meanwhile it would feel like walking on golf balls, and I'm not sure my ankles could take it.

Yesterday a friend from school came over for lunch and brought his mother, who's visiting from the states. She saw our video on Gardener's World and wanted a first-hand look at the garden! (Maybe I should start charging admission?) We sat out and chatted for a while about the plants and then went to lunch at a local Lebanese restaurant -- and come to think of it, Chris bought my lunch, so in a way he did pay admission.

It's finally blackberry season in our back garden. The berries have taken their time this year -- I'm usually picking them by mid-July, but this year I didn't get my first handful until right around the end of the month.

Our temperatures are ranging from the 50's to the low 70's F, or between 13º and 22º C. I think that cool weather is affecting not only the berries but some of our flowers, too. I have zinnias and sunflowers that are taking their sweet time to get big enough to bloom.

This is where I eat breakfast when the weather is nice -- on the back garden bench, with Olga on her bed by my side.

Today I'm going to visit a "valuation day" being held by a local antiques and jewelry firm looking to buy inventory. Dave has a few items that I think we could sell and I'm curious about what they might be worth -- though I'm not sure we'll sell them until I hear what their offer might be. (Obviously I've sought Dave's permission -- he knows I'm doing this.) I've never attended anything like this so I'll tell you more about it tomorrow!

Hotel California (and Florida)

The former council office building down the hill on the high street is slowly being demolished, finally. It's been mostly empty for at least the seven years that Dave and I have lived in our current flat, except for some live-in "guardians" who occupied it to keep vandals away. This whole area, which used to include a shop for kitchen and bathroom fixtures and a building-supply yard, is being redeveloped into new housing.

There's a high plywood fence around the building site so it's hard to see what's going on, but I stuck my camera up over the barrier and shot blindly, and got this picture.

Written on the black plywood itself:

I don't want to be insensitive, but..a lover named Fingers? (Surely not really with an apostrophe.)

This poster, celebrating the 30th anniversary of the formation of the Eagles (1971-2001), portrays the cover of the album "Hotel California." It's been hanging askew in this window for many, many months and possibly years. I can't remember how long ago I first noticed it but now I always see it when I'm walking the dog. I'm curious what the inside of that apartment looks like.

But before I make fun of anyone else's hoarding instincts, let me tell this story. You know Dave signed me up for a craft gin club, in which a bottle of special gin and some other goodies are sent to us once a month. Well, a recent box contained a drink recipe that demanded Grenadine syrup, which the club did not send. So I went rooting around in our liquor cabinet -- which is mostly empty -- and lo and behold, we had this bottle! I couldn't believe it. It's at least ten years old, having come (I'm sure) from the flat we rented when we first moved to London. I think the previous occupants left it behind. But anyway, I used it, and it didn't kill me.

So there's a testament to the value of keeping things.

Last night's movie: "A Hole in the Head," from 1959, starring Frank Sinatra. I watched it mainly because it takes place in Miami Beach, and I wanted to see footage of the city as it looked back then. Sinatra plays a ne'er-do-well hotel owner, and the hotel scenes were shot at the Cardozo, which you can see in this post. It had a great cast: Edward G. Robinson, Thelma Ritter and Eleanor Parker, best known for playing the baroness in "The Sound of Music." It was entertaining despite its terrible title, which makes it sound like a crime drama -- and it's not that at all. It's a warm-hearted family film featuring the song "High Hopes." Go figure!

Olga Gets a Burst of Energy

I mowed the lawn yesterday and picked up as many of those infernal walnuts as I could. Then Olga and I went for a long walk, the first time in about two months we've visited Hampstead Heath. These days I'm thankful whenever she feels like walking that far.

She moves much more slowly than she used to, but we completed our usual loop through the West Heath, Sandy Heath and the Extension before coming home through Golders Hill Park. It used to be a two-hour walk for us; now it takes about twice that.

Still, she loved it, chasing squirrels and immersing her belly in some mud. (That's duckweed on the pond, making it look like a green lawn.)

This is a new butterfly for me -- it's called a silver-washed fritillary. I don't recall ever seeing one before.

And on the same stand of ragwort, near one of the ponds on the Extension, I saw two peacock butterflies.

We found this peacock, too -- a colorful apple cider bottle cap.

After this adventure, Olga came home, ate dinner and went straight to bed -- and she hasn't shown any interest in moving around much since then. She's snoring next to me right now. I gave her a paracetamol and her anti-inflammatory meds to ward off any arthritic aches.

Last night I watched "Poltergeist," which remains one of my favorite old movies. It always makes me nostalgic for my teenage years -- it captures that period of time so well, the architecture and clothes and pop culture, despite the supernatural storyline. And the night before I watched "The Hindenburg," with George C. Scott and Anne Bancroft. There's nothing like a good '70s disaster flick. (Or even a mediocre one!)