Official Business

Yesterday was my appointment at the embassy to get a letter notarized. Why I needed this is a long story related to banking bureaucracy and my mother's estate, but basically I had to send it in lieu of flying back to Florida and being there personally to complete some business.

So yesterday I took the tube down to Vauxhall and walked to the embassy, which is relatively new. It's a boxy glass building with a rather exotic sunshade that makes it look much more architecturally interesting than it otherwise would. That's a corner of the building above. It would have been a better photo on a windy day, with the flag on the pole fluttering instead of hanging limply, but as the Rolling Stones famously said, you can't always get what you want.

The building is surrounded by a wild-looking sea of grasses and wildflowers, as well as a pond and a waterfall.

In the background you can see the Sky Pool suspended between two nearby apartment buildings.

I went through security, was sent to a sterile, cold-looking white marble waiting room on the second floor, and maybe half an hour later emerged with my document done. I was intrigued to see a quote from Robert F. Kennedy etched into one of the embassy walls -- and now we have his crazy son running for president.

Other than seeing the embassy for the first time and absorbing something of the surroundings, it wasn't a very interesting visit. The only hiccup occurred when I presented my letter for notarizing and they said it didn't include any "notary language." I was given two sheets of paper featuring slightly different phrases, and had to choose one to append to the letter, basically attesting that I'd proven my identity and signed the document in front of the notary. So I did that, praying that the bank wouldn't kick it back to me for using the wrong language.

Then I zipped back to work, scanned the letter and sent it off. So far, so good.

Workwise yesterday was very busy. We took down two displays and put up two new ones, and I bet I re-shelved three cartloads of books. I also found a couple that had been missing -- I think some kids mischievously moved them during a recent class exercise -- so that was a bonus.

We Have Sunflowers!

After all my carping about my sunflowers and how late they are, we finally have two blossoms -- and several more buds in various stages of opening. Whew! I really thought we might not get any flowers at all this year. The weather is growing cooler and most of the commercial sunflower farms are already done for the season, I think.

I planted the seeds back in mid-May, but maybe that was too late. I probably should have started them indoors about a month earlier.

Anyway, they're here now, and looking good, and the bees are already paying attention!

I like the color variations. They're all supposed to be the sort of burnt orange of the one at the top, but the one above seems to have gone more yellow.

I was supposed to go last night to a stand-up comedy show at the London Palladium -- someone named Russell Howard. My friend Colin had the tickets and he invited me, so I said yes, even though I haven't the slightest idea who Russell Howard is. That and the fact that stand-up makes me incredibly uncomfortable. It feels very awkward to me, and as an obviously bald guy in the audience I always suspect I'll be called upon as the butt of a bald joke. (It sounds paranoid but it's happened several times! Maybe not at a big classy show like something at the London Palladium, but still.)

Anyway, this was the plan. But then Colin texted me yesterday morning to say he'd called in sick, and could I use the tickets or find someone else who wanted them?

I spent all morning asking around and messaging people, including friends I offered to accompany, but I had no takers. Finally around 1 p.m. Colin found someone willing to go, so I was off the hook. Whew! I'm sure Russell is very funny, whoever he is, but I was glad to just come home and watch TV.

Cooking With Gas

Apologies to any arachnophobes in the house, but here's one of our garden spiders. They come out in force at this time of year and one of their favorite spots to build a web is over the red flower spikes of the persicaria, which are usually humming with insects.

I wound up making my Morocco earthquake donation through the High Atlas Foundation, a charity founded by a couple of Peace Corps volunteers I knew when I was in Morocco. The organization has existed for about 20 years and focused many of its efforts -- tree planting, water projects, community economic cooperatives -- in the very area that was hardest hit by the quake. They are appealing for money for those communities and have infrastructure and contacts to help. Because I know them I was confident making that donation -- and the HAF also has a solid charity rating. But of course, any reliable charity is a good choice if you're thinking of giving.

While walking Olga yesterday morning I came across this box of discarded (I guess?) books. I didn't take any of them because a) they all seem to be about astrology and the occult, which I think is balderdash, and b) I wasn't sure they were being thrown out. An interesting assortment, though.

Yesterday I had to take a half-day off work to get our gas appliances inspected and serviced. This happens every year around this time and it's an inconvenience, but I suppose if it prevents a gas leak or malfunction it's worth it. (Although I'm always a little afraid the inspection will cause a malfunction, like the engineer will forget to close a valve somewhere and the house will explode. Am I a catastrophist? Probably.)

Next up: I made an appointment next Tuesday for the contractor to visit and assess the hallway wall to see if it's dry enough to finally, finally paint. If it's not dry by now I think we have to assume there's a deeper problem!

Being Social

Yesterday was a bit cooler than Saturday, thank goodness, and I think after today we'll be back down in our "normal" temperature range -- an ideal high 60s and low 70s during the day.

I went to Willesden Green yesterday for a librarian gathering at the home of our co-worker Staci. She and her husband Max just bought a house there, so we got to see it and all the work they've done to it. It's a great place with a nice garden (about a third of the size of ours, but they own it) and beautiful architectural details like fireplaces, original windows and ceiling moldings. We sat in the back garden and had snacks and chatted for an hour or two.

I walked home from there to get myself some exercise, and on the way passed this guy, painting a shopfront near the tube station. Someone is also inside painting the interior -- you can barely see them on a ladder through the window. The heat wasn't stopping them!

Ms. Moon often talks about making "purple cows" for her grandsons. I feel certain this is not what she has in mind.

It's an interesting quirk of the English language that you can remove vowels from a phrase and still pretty much make it out.

Anyway, I had a good walk home. And then, surprise surprise, the Russians knocked on our door and wanted to paint the dining room ceiling. It was about 5 p.m. and Dave wasn't crazy about the idea, but I said, "Let them do it! Let's get it done!"

The backstory is that I e-mailed our landlord in the morning saying the ceiling -- which you may remember was damaged NINE MONTHS AGO by a leak caused by the Russians' renovations upstairs -- remained unpainted. I sent photos and said it wasn't too bad looking since it had been cleaned and we were leaning toward leaving it alone rather than pressing the Russians to finish it. But apparently the landlord had other ideas, and sent a rather forceful message to the Russians, who almost immediately wound up on our doorstep.

Anyway, they painted the problem spot in less than an hour and it looks fine now. As far as I'm concerned the matter is settled. The landlord is still rattling swords about whether they did a good enough job, but I'm going to send photos and say we're satisfied. I'm ready to move on.

Heat and Quake

There are very few days in England when I wish I had an air conditioner. Yesterday was one of them! We got to around 90º F (32º C) in the afternoon, with not a whisper of moving air. I spent pretty much the whole day out on the garden bench in the shade, reading "Demon Copperhead." (I'm about halfway through it.)

We have a second flush of roses on some of our rose bushes. The pink ones above pair well with the purple Michaelmas daisies...

And the young teasels are flourishing in the unmowed section of the lawn. We're going to have a teasel forest out there next year.

This video pretty much sums up the day -- a red admiral butterfly on our plumbago, Olga dreaming on a blanket on the lawn, and the same red admiral back on the same bush later in the afternoon.

Of course it sounds whiny for me to complain about the heat amid the disaster unfolding in Morocco. As many of you know I lived in Morocco for a couple of years when I was in the U.S. Peace Corps in the early 1990s. (More on that here and here, among other posts.) I lived south of the current disaster zone, in the Anti-Atlas Mountains, but I knew volunteers who were stationed right in the middle of what is now a devastated area. I've communicated already with one Moroccan friend who says his family in Agadir is safe.

When I lived there I was always aware an earthquake was a possibility. Morocco suffered a legendary quake back in 1960 that leveled most of Agadir and killed 12,000 people. But at the same time, it seemed like a very remote risk, one I just didn't think about in day-to-day life. I lived my first year in a modern but probably not very well built concrete apartment building in a small town, and my second year in an old rock-and-mud walled house in a village -- the same kind of construction that collapsed in the old city of Marrakech in Friday's quake. I was never worried about the village house's stability. I was more concerned about the scorpions that lived in cracks in the rock walls.

Anyway, I will be looking out for ways to help the Moroccans as they recover from this disaster.

A Case of Mistaken Identity

I had the funniest exchange with a parent from work.

A mother wrote me an e-mail titled, "Garnet Stone's contact details." She said, "Henry is trying to get in touch with Garnet. Would you happen to have his contact details?"

Now, I had a vague memory that Henry is her husband, but I had no idea who Garnet Stone is. I figured Garnet must be someone associated with the world of books and for some reason she thought our library might be able to get in touch with him. So I did a Google search and found that there is indeed an apparently self-published author named Garnet Stone.

"No idea!" I wrote her back. "I can only suggest trying to contact him through his publisher." And I sent her the same link.

Anyway, she wrote back and said, "Apologies! Wrong Steve. Garnet is an elderly gentleman who sells us wood in Quebec. Garnet Stone is his improbable name."

Which left me laughing because what are the odds there would also be a book author with the same improbable name?! I wonder who she meant to send that message to?

Here's my haggard little foxglove, rescued from the sidewalk grate where it took root. It doesn't look like much now, but foxgloves are hardy plants so I hope it flourishes now that it's growing in some actual dirt. (My plant-identifier app confirms that it's a foxglove, for those of you who doubt me. 😀)

I had to track down a notary public yesterday to get a letter notarized related to my mom's estate. You might or might not be surprised to find that this is not an entirely straightforward task in the UK, which has a slightly different system for legalizing documents. I found that I could get something notarized at the US Embassy, so I made an appointment to do that next Wednesday. Believe it or not, in the 12 years we've lived in London, I've never been inside the embassy. It's not even in the same location it was when we moved here, on Grosvenor Square -- it's now in a fancy new building down near Vauxhall. So that should be interesting.

Meanwhile, happy weekend, everyone!

(Top photo: Fallen rose petals on teasels in our garden.)

A Foxglove and a Controversy

Remember that orchid I found in the trash in Fortune Green Park last January? Well, it's blooming -- so this is the first flower I've seen from this particular plant. Not too shabby!



Olga and I had an interesting walk yesterday morning. Not because she wandered around next to the (fenced) railroad tracks behind the housing estate -- which she does almost every time we walk -- but because I was carrying a foxglove plant at the time.



At least, I think it's a foxglove. It was growing in a recessed grate in the sidewalk where it would surely never get any bigger than this because people would keep trampling it. So I gingerly pulled it out and brought it home and stuck it in some water, and I'll move it to a pot after I finish this post.

Wasn't I just complaining about all the foxgloves I had to plant?

Yes, I know. I am insane.

Here in the Beverly Hills of West Hampstead, my celebrity neighbors are apparently up in arms about a scheme to tear down and replace a house that, frankly, I didn't even know existed. It's tucked behind the houses along our street, and not visible from the road. I've lived on this street for almost ten years and I had no clue! But I can see how its demolition and replacement would be a huge headache for people who overlook that property -- including several of the celebs. Plus it poses concerns for the nearby cricket club.

This is not the first time controversy has visited our street. About nine years ago one homeowner was forced by the council to replace the pebble dashing on the outside of her house after a renovation left a smooth (and I think nice-looking) exterior wall. I didn't know about it at the time -- we hadn't even moved in yet -- but I read about it later.

Isn't it ridiculous that I live on this street? Life is unpredictable, that's for sure.