Blustery Bench Watch

Another cat sticker, found on my walk to work yesterday morning. Whoever this artist/cartoonist is, they've been busy.  I'm seeing more and more cats all up and down Finchley Road!

I realized after I posted yesterday that I'd already told you about my political buttons in an earlier post, about five years ago. Oops! I try very hard not to be repetitive here on the ol' blog, but occasionally my mind slips a gear and it happens. Oh well. At least the sloths were new information.

We are having a blustery, rainy morning here. This is part of Storm Benjamin, apparently. It's not particularly windy from what I can tell, but I do hear rain coming down. I always dread going to work on mornings like this. If it's windy I don't want to walk, but cramming into the tube with a bunch of other damp commuters and their drippy umbrellas is no fun either.

Here's the latest on "Bench Watch." The seat of the broken bench, which had entirely come away from the anchored frame, has been removed and the cones are back, along with more warning tape. Why someone chose to carry off the seat but not the back is a bit of a mystery, and there's still no functional place to sit, after at least five months.

And here, next to Prince Head Wound, are the last of our tomatoes, which I had been ripening in a paper bag with an apple. There were more in the bag but after a week or so I took out all the ones with any sign of color and I tossed the rest. Most of the discards were too small to ever ripen, like that little green one in the middle above. Anyway, I ate the ripe ones with my dinner last night -- a scrambled egg concoction that I made with all the random leftover ingredients I could find in the fridge. Dave didn't feel like cooking and I wanted to head off any takeaway orders, because we had plenty of food on hand. Cleaning out the fridge always gives me a sense of accomplishment.

In further evidence that the world has gone insane, did you see that a woman in Richmond was handed a £150 penalty by police for pouring the dregs of her coffee down a storm drain? This is the stupidest, stupidest thing I have ever seen. If the police can't tell the difference between a harmful chemical and a harmless, organic cup of coffee, well, it doesn't bode well for our society. (To the council's credit, they dropped the fine.)

Towernaut and Tree Sloths

Fellow blogger JayCee posted some photos on Monday from a trip she took to Costa Rica several years ago. Her post included pictures of sloths, which triggered something in my memory that led me to go burrowing into a box of old documents and other items in one of our closets. Here is some of what emerged from that burrowing; the sloth connection will soon become apparent.

I found the certificate above, which was given to eight-year-old me during an elementary school field trip to a Florida Division of Forestry fire lookout tower. These metal towers used to be found all through rural Florida, where the forest rangers could use them to spot wildfires. This one was known as Gower Tower, near the small community of Gowers Corners (which is now heavily developed suburbia, but back then was little more than an ancient gas station and a lumber mill).

As you can see, I was  deemed a "Towernaut" for making the "grueling ascent" to the top of the tower -- along with my entire class, I'm pretty sure. Did I ever take advantage of the "rights and privileges thereunto appertaining," whatever they were? (They also misspelled my name, which hopefully won't nullify my rights and priveleges, which I fully intend to exercise at some point in the future.)

Note Smokey the Bear in the lower right corner, reminding us that "Only YOU can prevent forest fires."

I also found this fancy parchment-paper certificate for "community and civic participation" during the Bicentennial. What on earth I did to deserve this, I have no idea. Again, it was probably some class project and we all got one. I'm not sure why it came all the way from Atlanta. I think the Constitutional Press had something to do with the newspaper, which was known at the time as the Atlanta Constitution. It later merged with a competitor to become the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, or AJC.

Dave and I have often wondered at many modern schools holding commencement ceremonies to mark students' passage from elementary to middle school, or from middle to high. I'm sure I have confidently exclaimed, "We never had anything like that when I was a kid!" And yet I found this certificate of promotion from the sixth grade -- so apparently we did get some kind of recognition. I'm pretty sure there was no ceremony, certainly nothing involving parents. I'd remember if my mom or dad darkened the door of the school, because that was a rare occasion!

OK, now we're coming to the sloths.

I found my collection of buttons and badges, including two I had made in our high school library featuring tree sloths. My erstwhile high school girlfriend, Barbara, had adopted the panda bear as a personal "spirit animal" -- she even used to sign things PQB, for Panda Q. Bear. That year, our school library got a machine that could custom-make buttons -- as I remember, we could bring a picture or message on a circular piece of paper, pay something like 50 cents, and the librarian would turn it into a button. Barbara had a button made featuring a picture of a panda bear she'd cut from a magazine.

I decided I needed a spirit animal too, and I chose the sloth. I'd like to say that I was trolling Barbara -- that I had some awareness of how silly this whole spirit-animal thing was, and thus deliberately chose a modest underdog of an animal as my totem. But I don't think I was that smart. I think I just liked sloths.

I used to wear those sloth buttons on my jacket, which must have perplexed my classmates, to the extent that any of them noticed.

The other buttons are just things I picked up here and there. The Nixon button came from a flea market, purchased as a kind of joke (as Nixon was thoroughly disgraced by that time). I genuinely was a Reagan/Bush fan when I was in high school, though I ultimately wound up voting for Mondale in 1984 -- me and about twelve other people.

A few years later, I was much more politically active and actually campaigned for Dukakis at my university, as well as Steve Pajcic, a Democratic candidate for Florida governor. In both cases, we know how well that went.

The anti-George W. Bush button is something I picked up when I lived in New York, during the run-up to the Iraq invasion, which I was steadfastly against. Remember when George W. Bush seemed like the worst thing that could possibly happen to the American presidency? Ah, those were the days.

Pigments

The honesty plants are changing color for autumn, their chlorophyll fading to reveal the same inner pigments that give them such bright purple flowers in spring. I love these plants. We have a couple of them that re-seeded in one of the lily pots (above) as well as a few that sprouted in the flower beds, which is a minor miracle. Despite the fact that we don't weed much, plants seldom seem to re-seed well in our garden. Foxgloves, for example, never carry over from one season to the next the way they do for other people. About the only plants that reliably sprout are green alkanet, of which we have waaaaaay too much, and forget-me-nots.

Here's a status report on our Thanksgiving cacti. We now have five plants -- the salmon-colored one in front, two white ones behind that, and two pink ones in the back. The pink ones are by far the most robust. I think one of my white ones has a bit of root rot, and as you can see there's also some kind of weed growing in the pot -- I think it's a forget-me-not. (They re-seed so well they're growing INDOORS!)

All the cacti have buds so it looks like we'll get lots of flowers this season. I'm trying to back off my watering a bit. I usually water them weekly, and try not to let them sit in watery saucers, but with root rot showing up I guess even that is too much.

My mind is swirling a bit these days with all the potential changes in our lives. The contract for my buyout next spring is in the final stages of preparation, and I've been dealing with a lawyer to get that done. And there's still this mysterious "opportunity" hanging off our bow like an iceberg (an image that illustrates pretty well how I feel about it) -- though I still can't get into the details. I probably won't be able to write about it, in fact, for at least another month or two. Just know that it's out there, and I will reveal all at some point.

All this makes it very hard for me to focus. I spent yesterday writing to some kids and their parents and/or teachers about overdue summer books, so I'm still trying to mop those up. When I print out our library's overdue report it comes to 13 pages -- all students with books that were due on Sept. 1 or before. Some of them were due last spring! It seems like it's getting harder and harder to motivate these kids to get things back to us.

There is the occasional screw-up on our end. Yesterday a boy came into the library and said he thought he'd returned his book, but he agreed to bring money the next day to pay for it. After he left, I thought, "Let me check the shelf, just in case." And there it was. Why it was never scanned so it came off his account I don't know. Sometimes kids put books back themselves, sometimes the scanner doesn't work right, sometimes it's human error, blah blah blah. Anyway, I e-mailed him and said, "Good news! You're off the hook!" But I pointed out that the next time he receives an overdue notice for a book he believes he returned, he needs to SAY something -- not ignore the situation until I write his teacher.

Back to Work

The climbing hydrangeas are looking properly autumnal.

It's pouring rain outside as I type. As always, I am loving the sound, from the sanctuary of my warm, dry bed. I have to get myself up in short order because we return to work today. Weird to think this was my last October break!

Otherwise, there's not much to report from yesterday. I literally spent the whole day on the couch, archiving my photos and reading "Tomorrow, When the War Began," a dystopian YA novel set in Australia about the country being invaded by an unnamed military force. Six teenagers on an overnight hike in the wilderness return to find their parents gone and their town occupied, and become a force of resistance. It sounds silly but it's pretty good. We have the whole series in the library and I'd never heard of it before I worked there, but apparently it was a big hit when it first came out back in the early '90s.

Dave and I are watching "Boots" on Netflix and really liking it. It's especially appealing because it pisses off Pete Hegseth.

Foxes and Flowers (More of the Same)

It feels good to be back home after our short Cornwall excursion. Mostly it felt amazing to sleep in our own room last night. I did sleep on the train, but that's nothing like sleeping in a familiar -- and stationary -- bed!

I spent yesterday morning running laundry, catching up on blogs and finishing "Auntie Mame." I also mowed the lawn in the afternoon. Even though we're well into autumn, the grass continues to grow and must be kept at bay. The lawn mower also grinds up and vacuums up the fallen leaves from our walnut tree.

This toadflax plant (above) is blooming right outside our French doors, so we have a nice view when we look outside.

The dusty miller is blooming as well, as are the Michaelmas daisies (below), our purple wallflower and our verbena, among other things. So although the golden autumnal shroud has descended on the garden, it's still got some floral color.

I didn't go to yesterday's "No Kings" activities and in fact I'm not sure there was even a demonstration in London -- since obviously the "No Kings" moniker is problematic in a country with a king! (I think here it's called "No Tyrants" for that reason.) Last spring a demonstration was held near the U.S. Embassy and I imagine there was something similar this time around. Dave and I talked about attending but having just disembarked from an overnight train we weren't up for it. That seems lazy as heck now that I write it down, so thanks to those who did go to resist the Trump juggernaut.

I downloaded the garden cam to check out recent activity, including during our absence. I moved it again, to a different location on the patio, and it's interesting to see what animals come right up close to the house -- both foxes and a few of the cats. Here are some highlights:

-- We start with the brown-tailed fox, who is curious about the camera. The weather wasn't great in these first few clips so they look a bit dim.
-- At 0:24, the fox with the white-tipped tail shows up. I've taken to calling him or her Q-Tip. From this point on we get both foxes in repeated visits, mostly just making a quick circle of the patio. (And yes, I know our patio looks like heck. It needs to be weeded and swept.)
-- At 1:19, we have an obligatory squirrel video.
-- After dinner one night, I put the crispy skin from a roasted duck breast out on the patio for the foxes. At 1:42, the brown-tailed fox grabs it. (I almost never feed them and they eat street garbage anyway, so please don't take me to task for that!)
-- At 2:39, Pale Cat shows up.
-- At 2:57, we see Pale Cat in the daytime, looking much more orange and much less pale!
-- At 3:15, Bell the Bengal passes through.
-- At 3:38 we see Tabby, our least frequent cat visitor. Blackie did not make an appearance this week, though I've seen him or her on the patio on other nights.

Seven Wives, Seven Sacks, Seven Cats...

Yesterday was a crash course in Cornwall tourism, with us packing as much as possible into a single day. And I gotta say, we did an excellent job -- saw lots of sights but not too many, with plenty of leisure time for pints at a pub and some photography walks.

After a quick, light breakfast at our hotel, we took a taxi out to Land's End, at the far southwestern tip of Cornwall. I mainly wanted to see it just to say I'd been there. We started at the Land's End attraction, a kind of touristy complex (which we did not enter) with entertainments and a hotel, and we walked the coastal path from there up to Sennen Cove, a little more than a mile away.

It was a beautiful stretch of coast, with sculpted rock forms and windswept vegetation. We saw porpoises in the water and lots of seabirds, the rusted hulk of a shipwreck, and several lighthouses.

Remember the old postcard I bought of the First & Last House in England, back in 2022? I'm sure you don't, but I posted about it here. Well, we saw the First & Last House, which is still there and serves refreshments, though it wasn't open when we passed by. You can see it in the top photo, on the cliff at upper left.

At Sennen Cove we called our old friend the taxi driver, and he collected us and took us all the way up to St. Ives. These two taxi rides -- from Penzance to Land's End and from Sennen Cove to St. Ives -- were our one great indulgence, as they cost altogether about £90, but they got us around fast. I'd thought we might take a bus but apparently the bus is pretty slow and we wanted to use our limited time more wisely. We passed through little towns like St. Just, Pendeen, Morvah and Zennor on the way.

St. Ives is an artsy community and quite well-known as a tourism hotspot. It made me think of the nursery rhyme, and I kept singing to Dave, "When I was going to St. Ives, I met a man with seven wives..." He had no idea what I was talking about, so I played him a Sesame Street rendition on YouTube, which made even me laugh. Do you all know that song? I had it on a record when I was a little kid so every time someone mentions St. Ives I think of it.

(Apparently there's some dispute about whether the St. Ives in the song is the Cornwall town or one up in Cambridgeshire, but I'm not taking a position on that.)

Anyway, we walked down to the train station to look at train times back to Penzance, and then explored the town. We went to a swanky pub for lunch with big glass windows overlooking the harbor, where I had a "charred watermelon salad" (if there was charring it was very subtle) and Dave had mussels.

We wandered through town, did a little shopping, and then we went to another sculpture garden -- because this is apparently what one does in Cornwall. This one was the former home and studio of Barbara Hepworth, one of Britain's most famous sculptors. Several years ago I posted a picture of her "Winged Figure" outside the John Lewis store on Oxford Street. We saw lots more of her works here.

Peering into her studio made me realize I could never be a sculptor. The dust! The shavings! The chips and shards! I'd go crazy.

From there we walked down to a bench on the waterfront, where we had coffee while watching the passing crowds and the seabirds. This seagull (above) was obsessed with that ball, which I think was a dog toy it found on the beach. I swear it was playing keep-away with the other birds, all of which were trying to snatch it.

I left Dave on the bench while I took a walk out to the pier and then around some back streets. Some poor woman sat next to him with an ice cream cone, only to have a seagull swoop down and carry off the ice cream! Maybe that's what the seagull above thought he'd found -- a scoop of ice cream.

We went to a pub for a couple of pints and then had an early dinner at a modest-looking restaurant called Silco, which was recommended by one of Dave's co-workers. The food was excellent. From there we walked to the train and headed back to Penzance, getting there in plenty of time to collect our bags from the hotel and return to the train station for our overnight train back to London...

...which is where I am now, home in bed!

Tremenheere

Yesterday was our first opportunity to look around Penzance. We were too early to check into our hotel, having just gotten off the overnight train, but they were happy to store our bags so we could explore unencumbered. We decided to head to the Tremenheere Sculpture Garden, a secluded ravine just out of town filled with artwork and exotic plants.

We caught a taxi just in front of our hotel and wound through the streets of town and then rural roads past hedgerows and farmland. St Michael's Mount was visible offshore, a tidal island topped by a medieval castle (much like the famous Mont-Saint-Michele in France).

The park was just opening when we arrived, and we might have been the first guests of the day. We wandered up and down the hilly terrain, checking out artworks like David Nash's "Black Mound" (above).

The ravine is its own little microclimate, with a burbling brook at the base and lots of tropical or semi-tropical plants like bananas, palms and even gingers. I was astonished by some of what I saw growing there. I kept telling Dave, "We need to bring our avocado tree here!" Maybe they'd take it as a donation.

The kniphofias, which have been finished for weeks in our garden, were still blooming brightly.

More tropical foliage surrounding Sheila Williams' sculpture "Heliotrope."

There's a surreal oval structure called "Skyspace," a chamber with smooth, white walls and a cobbled floor, and an oculus in the ceiling allowing observation of passing clouds. (Or a blanket of clouds, in our case!)

Here's Lisa Wright's "Three Graces."

After winding along the pathways, boardwalks and steps of the sculpture garden, we descended to the restaurant where we had lunch -- Cornish mussels for me, dressed crab for Dave. Then we called our taxi and headed back into town, checked into our oceanfront hotel room and lay down for what we thought would be a brief nap.

It turned into a two-hour nap, which meant by the time we got up it was too late to go to Land's End, which had been our plan. (We could have done it if we had a car but we are subject to the vagaries of public transportation.) We may try to squeeze that in today.

This curious seagull landed on our windowsill and tapped gently at the glass with his beak for several minutes. Whoever had this room before us must have been feeding him. I was impressed by how mannerly he seemed and I wanted to give him a cracker but Dave was against it -- and it is true that if I put so much as a crumb out that window we'd probably have about 400 of his friends there in three seconds. They would have been smashing through the glass like Hitchcock.

Last night we went to a mediocre restaurant where dressed crab was on special. I thought about getting that with a side of rosemary-dusted chips (french fries), but then I noticed there was a dish called "crab-loaded fries" and it was cheaper. I asked the waitress, who was possibly still in high school, what she'd do, and she steered me toward the crab-loaded fries, which turned out to be dreadful.

"This is what happens when you ask a teenager what to order," I told Dave.