The News

There's some squabbling going on at the bird feeder, as usual. When the parakeets aren't squawking and nipping at each other, they're battling the great spotted woodpecker.

But the woodpecker has an advantage with that long pointy bill! I always love watching the birds against the colorful backdrop of the roses.

So let's talk about yesterday's news. Here's the headline from The New York Times web site:

That was delicious, wasn't it?! Dave and I were about to go to bed last night when we heard a verdict was forthcoming, and we sat up together in the living room as those wonderful red words marched across the top of the Times' site, one beneath each count: GUILTY GUILTY GUILTY.

Our initial reaction was jubilant laughter, but that was followed almost immediately by uncertainty about what happens next. I was glad to wake up this morning and see that the country is apparently not in flames, but of course the right-wing sites are parroting Trump's allegations that the whole trial was a sham and his followers are still pledging him their votes.

I hope what it will do is give the Republican leadership some cover to break from Trump and nominate a more stable, palatable candidate. If ever there was a time to snap out of the Trump trance, this is it. A lot of lawmakers don't like Trump, despite backing him publicly, and I wouldn't be surprised if some turn on him now. You know, they either believe in the American justice system -- the grand juries, the judges, the jury of one's peers -- or they don't.

As for Trump, he has always been viewed as a reprehensible figure in New York. When you make a career out of being a narcissistic, abusive arsehole, obsessed with your own name brand and weaving back and forth across the line of legality, karma is bound to come back and bite you. He says the decision was "rigged" but he's the one who rigged it over many, many years. And of course, the bottom line is, he committed the crime.

I wonder what Melania is thinking?

Anyway, as someone famous supposedly said on their deathbed, "This should be interesting." That's how I feel about politics at the moment.

Here are our lobelia (left), ravaged by slugs and/or snails, and our sage. I've put both of them up on a chair to give them a fighting chance in the battle against garden pests. I know snails can climb chairs but I'm thinking it will be just that much harder for them to get there, and that may help protect the plants. I'm not kidding when I say that lobelia was two or three inches high and leafy just a couple of days ago. While I have taken a rather fatalistic approach to the garden this spring -- what gets eaten gets eaten -- I'm also fine with making it a little more difficult.

Here's one of our dahlias. I've elevated them as well, and this one is also wearing a copper slug ring to keep away slugs -- apparently they don't like crawling over copper. Most of the dahlias at least have some greenery so there's hope. Several of you have also recommended diatomaceous earth and although I haven't tried it yet, it's on my radar. Maybe I'll finally invest in some.

My Newbery talks went well yesterday, at least in terms of my presentation. I got some questions, but fewer than I usually get with younger kids -- so yeah, overall engagement is lower in 7th Grade. Which I expected. I have two more talks today and then I'm done.

The Ghost of Elvis Returns

This mysterious shopfront in Childs Hill, a neighborhood north of us, has looked like this for as long as we've lived here. (And even longer, according to Google Street View.) I've always found it interesting that some building owners apparently feel no urgency whatsoever to find occupants for their properties. We've seen some shops stand vacant for years. I guess this happens in the USA too, particularly if building owners live overseas or their estate is locked up in some kind of legal dispute.

Speaking of which, did you all see this wacky story about the identity thieves who had the audacity to try to foreclose on Graceland, Elvis Presley's former home in Memphis? Apparently operating from Africa, they somehow managed to file legal paperwork in the name of a fictional company to make a claim on the estate. They even publicly announced the foreclosure sale. Presley's relatives were knowledgeable and well-connected enough to fight back, but you gotta wonder what would happen if the the thieves tried this on someone less aware. It shows that our legal system has yet to catch up to the new realities of global crime.

The story is vague on who actually perpetrated this fraud, and even whether the reporter's contact with the fraudsters is authentic. After all, when you're communicating with a nameless person through e-mail, it could be anybody. My favorite reader comment on the story was this:

(I am unfamiliar with Mojo Nixon, but apparently he's a musician whose best-known song is "Elvis is Everywhere," from 1987. His musical style is defined as "psychobilly," a mix of rockabilly and punk. You learn something new every day, right?)

I am giving a presentation about the Newbery Awards to two seventh-grade classes today, and two more tomorrow. This is going to be interesting, because I seldom talk to the older Middle School students about the Newberys. I tried to shake it up and find some Newbery-winning books to recommend that would appeal to that age group -- more mature books with teen or young adult themes, like "Jacob Have I Loved" by Katherine Paterson and "Rifles for Watie" by Harold Keith. We'll see how it goes down. Seventh graders are not known for enthusiasm and open-minded receptivity.

The slugs and snails are continuing to ravage our plants as they enjoy our cloudy, damp spring. I noticed yesterday that our pink lobelias, which had been leafing out beautifully, have been eaten back to the ground. Sigh. Dave and I have basically decided we're not going to fight them. If something dies because of slugs, then it's just not meant to grow here.

Angus and Julia

You may be thinking, "Who are those people?"

Well, they were my evening entertainment last night. My friend Colin came to my desk last week and asked if I wanted to see some shows with him, because he'd bought tickets with a friend and then the friend couldn't go. He was seeing Jane's Addiction twice, and this Australian duo, Angus and Julia Stone. I like a few songs by Jane's Addiction but that seemed like a little too much excitement for a 58-year-old on a school night -- and definitely on two school nights -- so I passed on them. I did, however, take him up on seeing Angus and Julia.

I'd never heard of them and I walked into Royal Albert Hall last night completely unaware of their music. Colin had told me they were acoustic singer-songwriters, and that's the genre where I feel most at home as a listener, so I was pretty certain I wouldn't hate their sound.

In fact, the show turned out to be wonderful. I really enjoyed their harmonies and their easy stage manner, and they were unsurprisingly (given the venue) gifted and capable musicians, playing not only guitar but trumpet and other instruments. They had a three-member band to back them up.

 

Here's a quick video of the opening of their song "Big Jet Plane." They asked audience members to hold up their lighted phones, and this shows the magical effect in the big round arena of the Royal Albert. I also especially enjoyed their songs "Love Song" and "Chateau." (I tried very hard not to take many photos or videos, in order to just enjoy the experience and not be annoying, but some people around me were recording whole songs -- so maybe I didn't need to worry!)

Before the show, we went to the Verdi Italian Kitchen at Royal Albert, where I had a melon salad and the Merluzzo Mediterraneo: "Spicy marinated poached cod, potato foam, cherry tomatoes, capers, Taggiasche olives, garlic oil." Yum!

And before that, having gotten off the tube in South Kensington about an hour before I was to meet Colin, I killed off a pint of "Old Speckled Hen" at the Zetland Arms pub, where I sat reading "Little Women." Louisa May Alcott is more palatable with a beer.

Walking Lupines and a Piano Lesson

So here's a garden mystery.

That, above, is one of our blooming lupines. It's growing in the pot where the Persian Slipper lupine was, and when I saw the flower stalk I naturally expected blue flowers. (And it really is the same pot, as photos from previous years prove -- a distinctive terra cotta pot that looks unlike any other in our garden.) But then this emerged -- a pink-and-white Rachel de Thame, a lupine hybrid we once had growing in a different pot. I am completely confused about how this happened, unless the Rachel de Thame re-seeded itself in the Persian Slipper's pot.

It's been an interesting year for lupines, after the surprise survival of our Beefeater red lupine. (See here.) I think those plants all played musical pots on some winter's night, uprooting themselves, dancing in a circle and then re-settling in new containers.

I spent yesterday morning in the garden reading, with Olga sprawled out like exhausted Super-Dog right next to me. I'm still plugging away at "Little Women." I can see how it has remained a popular book but I'm finding it rather boring, to be honest. I feel like I have to read at least until Beth dies, and I'm not there yet.

I also did a bunch of gardening. I picked up a whole trug full of fallen camellia blossoms and dumped them behind the shed, in an effort to give the irises growing beneath the camellia bush a fighting chance. The poor things were buried in floral detritus and I don't think we have any iris flowers this year.

I walked Olga on the high street a couple of times, and that was about as far as she was interested in going.

The blanket flower on our front porch is looking good, and I bought a little orange African daisy to keep it company.

And a persistent pink geranium has managed to raise its head above a sea of betony, grass and English ivy in the back garden.

Finally, one of the Russians upstairs was practicing piano again. I made a video so you can hear what it's like in our dining room, though you may have to turn up the sound a bit. They play this same tune OVER AND OVER AND OVER, along with one or two more -- and I know practice makes perfect, but we're talking YEARS here. I keep thinking they'll want to vary their repertoire, but so far no. Still, it's better than a power saw.

There's also video of Olga wiping her face on the shrubbery, as she does every single night after she eats dinner. If we don't let her out in time she wipes it on the couch.

Brick Lane

I got out of the house yesterday by taking a midday trip to Shoreditch and Brick Lane, in East London. I used to go there all the time for the excellent photography opportunities -- the colorful streetscapes, murals and densely clustered street art. For some reason I hadn't been in years, and when we went to dinner at nearby Brat on Saturday it made me nostalgic for that area. So back I went.

I loved this maniacal clown (the hair looks like Boris Johnson...?) and several other pieces by this same crayon-wielding and possibly demented artist.

The whole area has changed a lot. I encountered numerous street-art walking tours, which are a thing, and many older buildings have now been replaced by big, shiny modern apartments. Ironically, the older buildings were the canvases for much of the street art, but despite the gentrification there are apparently still plenty of places to paint and paste.

There were tons of people out, which isn't a surprise on an intermittently sunny bank holiday weekend. Getting there was interesting in itself, because a big football match was scheduled at Wembley -- the English Football League's championship playoff, between Leeds and Southampton -- and in the tube stations I encountered a couple of trains rammed with singing, chanting football fans, all in team jerseys. At least I was headed in the opposite direction.

That's just a general view of Brick Lane, above. You can get used furniture or a bagel, whatever you prefer. (Interesting spelling of bagel -- not one I can ever remember seeing before.)

I found some beautiful murals...

...including some that were quite large. Some were too large, at least for my camera, covering basically an entire building. At least this one (above) by artist Jim Vision on a curved corner wall fit into a single frame.

There were lots of small pieces too, funny and bizarre. This one made me think of blogger Linda Sue, not for lustful reasons but because she loves her neighborhood raccoons.

Here's a long wall of smaller works that I couldn't possibly fit into a single photo. Pause the video when it gets to the posters of the world leaders -- I lingered on them so you'll have plenty of time. They're worth a closer look. There's also a video of a gigantic, colorful mural by Dotmasters.

As I was lingering on some of the smaller pieces of street art, a couple of young guys passing by said, "Hey, do you want this?" They held out a can of Lynx "Africa" body spray. "We're going to a party and we can't take it with us," they said. (They did smell good, I must admit.) When I demurred they insisted, and that's how I wound up with a free can of Lynx "Africa" body spray, which I will probably never use. No one's ever handed me deodorant on the street before. Should I be offended?

On my walk back to Liverpool Street station I passed Kenny Hunter's sculpture "I, Goat" -- or as I called it when I posted it way back in 2011, right after we moved here, "Goat of the Empire" or "Goat of the Realm." I love that it's still there, looking as proud as usual.

Garden Successes

I'm sure you are sick to death of pictures of our lawn. Sorry about that! But I wanted to show you some of the work I did yesterday. I pulled out all the spent forget-me-nots that would have been on the left-hand side in the photo above, and mowed the grass around the edge of the flower bed. That will give more light and air to the plants there, which were buried in tall grass and forget-me-nots. I also did some weeding (that darned dock!!) in the middle, and ultimately filled two yard-waste bags with trimmings. I feel like I accomplished a lot, even if it's not evident to the casual observer.

As I've said before, our garden creates a ridiculous quantity of what my marine-biologist friend Liz would call "biomass." It's amazing how much grows over the course of a season.

I did a lot of other stuff yesterday, too.

First of all, remember how my white Christmas cactus (from reader Frances) got root rot? At the time I took cuttings and replanted them in fresh soil. Well, they're showing new growth, as are the sprigs of my salmon-colored cactus. So it looks like they've rooted and I've salvaged both of those plants. Whew!

This is what's called the "side return" of our house. The gate at the end leads to the street. This area was littered with construction detritus -- brick dust, chunks of pebble dashing, old roofing nails -- from the various projects the Russians have done upstairs (as well as our recent shed roof repair). I swept it clean and threw out a big bag of debris, and weeded some of the campanula from the edges. I probably should pull all those weeds, but it's nice to have a little greenery there, and they have purple flowers in the summer. I'll weed in the fall.

This is a Nicotiana that Dave bought at Waitrose not too long ago. I cleaned out the weed-filled planter at the side of the house and planted it there, where it will get lots of sun. (The shards will keep the squirrels from uprooting it, ideally.)

A couple of weekends ago I dug our one remaining foam flower (Tiarella) out of our flower beds and put it in a pot -- it was so deeply buried beneath some big ferns that I had trouble finding it, and it wasn't getting any light or air. It has since sprouted new leaves and seems very happy. And we can see it -- big plus!

I also staked up the leaning rose, using the heavy-duty tree stakes and rope I bought from Amazon. It seemed very secure but we had rain all night, and when I woke up early this morning the rose was leaning again. I haven't been able to tell whether the stakes pulled out or what. I had to wake up Dave to help me put the chair back in place as a brace. "We're definitely cutting this f*cker down," he said.

(Don't worry -- I'm continuing my campaign to save it.)

All our dahlias are also showing growth, and our canna lilies have sent up a single shoot. I'd feared they were dead because they've been dormant until now. Woo hoo!

Last night, Dave and I went out to a restaurant in Shoreditch where the main claim to fame is whole turbot, served with the head on. We went with two of our co-workers, and the four of us split one turbot and got a variety of other entrees and side dishes as well. We had fun but I think Dave and I both came away thinking we'd spent a lot of money on good but not mind-blowing food. I did love the olive oil ice cream!

Stay Free

Well, I survived the week, thank goodness. And now we have a three-day weekend, with our late May bank holiday on Monday. I guess this is the seasonal equivalent of Memorial Day in the USA, but without the memorializing.

I honestly do not have a thing to write this morning. So I'm just going to leave you with this photo from Soho, taken last week (above), and this one from our garden:

That yellow lily just bloomed yesterday, our first of the season. But as you can see behind it, we have several more lily stalks waiting in the wings. Things to look forward to!