Legalese

Well, we haven't covered the avocado yet, and so far, so good. It's only 40º F (about 4.5º C) out there this morning, but the temperature is supposed to plunge this evening so I have to get a cover on today. I'm debating whether to do it this morning before I leave for work, or this evening when Dave will be here to help but it will be dark. Or maybe I'll even come home at lunchtime. Decisions, decisions.

I've been having a back-and-forth with the attorney I hired to do our estate planning. This guy has done legal work for others in my family and I chose him for that reason, asking him to write a will for me and Dave. I paid him for his services, and then the will turned into a trust, which turned into multiple trusts. It seemed to be getting very complicated and he was having doubts about his approach because we have assets in two countries, so he brought in another lawyer with experience in Britain. This lawyer consulted with us once and said the trusts could be a problem, but then stopped returning my calls, which often happens when they see how complicated our situation is relative to how much money we have (not much).

The funny thing is, it's really not that complicated. We don't have kids. We don't own real estate. It's all liquid assets. But since the first lawyer bailed, I've tried three more on both sides of the pond, and after an initial consultation they've all either declined to take our case or simply stopped calling me back. (It's not my personality, I swear.)

So estate planning is still in limbo. The back-and-forth is resulting from the fact that I pre-paid the first lawyer. He offered to refund part of our money, and I've been pressing him to follow through with that, but getting money out of a lawyer is not easy. I do want to pay him for his time, because I sort of talked him into taking our case, but after all, we didn't get a finished product -- so I feel like I'm due something. He has finally agreed to refund us $500, which is about an eighth of what I paid him. It's better than nothing.

(I can tell already this post is going to attract all kinds of spam comments from estate planners. Please refrain, spammers! I will not hire you based on a blog comment!)

I'm also trying to schedule a meeting with my financial planners, given that I'm about to retire, to talk to them about options. I blew the last meeting on Zoom because I totally forgot about it -- unlike me, but it's been busy around here.

It's hard to be a responsible adult, you know?

Meanwhile, in the library, my days have been nonstop. Yesterday was particularly crazy: multiple classes, several carts of re-shelving, two stints in the Lower School, a stack of new books to cover and of course my regular checking in and out. One of the librarians organized a family book club that involved setting up an "Everest Base Camp" in the library. Fortunately, I didn't have to help with that, but just as I left yesterday evening someone was erecting a tent in the middle of the floor! Get me out of here!

(Photos: A flower shop in West Hampstead, and graffiti on my walk to work.)

Chilly

My phone says it's 33º F out there right now -- just a hair above freezing. I brought in the pelargoniums and the citrus, as I mentioned yesterday, but the avocado is on its own. We didn't even cover it, gambling that the temperature wouldn't dip below freezing, and I don't think it has -- certainly not in the comparatively cozy concrete recesses of our patio. I guess this will test my theory that the avocado can handle a light frost.

We need to cover it tonight, though, because temperatures are going to get colder before they warm up again. Covering that plant is a pain. For one thing, it's about 12 feet tall, but also it's dark by the time we get home from work (and it's dark now) and we'll be out there thrashing around with a sheet without the benefit of sunlight. The new upstairs neighbors haven't witnessed this show yet. Should be entertaining for them.

I also brought in the pumpkins/squashes that have decorated our front porch for the past month or so. I think I'm going to bake them this weekend and see how they cook up. I don't know what kind they are and I'm not even 100 percent sure they're edible, but I don't think they'd kill us in any event. I can probably tell when I cut them open whether they'd taste good or not.

I had strange dreams involving rescuing animals -- a kitten that somehow turned into a frog, and leapt into the brush on the swampy lakefront of my stepmother's house in Florida. I must be mentally preparing to go home for Christmas in December.

(Photos: From my walk to work yesterday morning.)

Pigeons and Patriotism

I took a walk past West End Green yesterday afternoon and saw this well-dressed woman being positively mobbed by pigeons. She must have been carrying food, because not only were they around her, they were on her -- perched on her arms and eating from her hands.

She doesn't seem at all concerned about bird flu, which would be my first thought. I am scrupulous about washing my hands after putting food in the bird feeders. Wild birds are beautiful, and I love them, but they're fairly filthy.

I took this walk after a long morning of more media management! I posted all the Australia photos on Flickr, where they are now in their own album, organized and annotated as well as I could manage. You can see them here. That was a fun project, so thanks again to the mysterious C. for enabling it.

I also read more of "The Old Curiosity Shop," but not as much as I'd hoped. And I helped Dave splice together a video for a job application -- one that would not require us to leave London. He's applying for an evening job with a local community band, as a sort of secondary gig. (He wants something new to stretch his artistic muscles.)

Finally, about 2 p.m., I felt like I had to get out of the house. I hadn't been for a photo walk in a while, even locally, so I grabbed my big camera and went out for an hour or so. I got the shots above, and then the battery promptly died. Sigh. I wound up taking other pictures on my phone.

I found this framed photo sitting on someone's garden wall next to their bins -- an idyllic tropical beach scene, complete with driftwood and thatched shacks. It's a nice picture but the whole thing was sopping wet. I considered trying to rescue the clip frame, but the clips were rusty and I was sure the back would warp as it dried. So I left it behind.

I walked through the cemetery, which made me a little sad because I can't help picturing Olga on all the paths, romping through the grass. What I wouldn't give to have her with me again.

I noticed the grave above, bedecked with pictures and flowers. It's the grave of Darrell Figgis, an Irish patriot, revolutionary, writer and publisher who died in 1925. I'd never heard of Figgis, who had a busy and ultimately tragic short life. Apparently his grave was "rediscovered" in 2008, according to his Wikipedia page. My guess, knowing Hampstead Cemetery, is that it was overgrown with brush before that (as many graves there still are).

In the evening, Dave video-chatted with his friend Annie back in Michigan (hi Annie!) and his parents. And after watering all the houseplants, I lugged the citrus tree into the living room to prepare for this week's freezing temperatures. I spent only slightly less time on plant management than I did on media this weekend!

Managing My Media

We have a determined rose that's doing its best to bloom out there, matching its deep red color to the yellows and russets of the fallen leaves. I'm not sure how far that rose is going to get, though. We're supposed to have barely freezing temperatures Monday and Wednesday, and below freezing a few days after that. I should probably cut the rose bud and bring it in, along with the pelargoniums and the citrus tree. We're probably going to cover the avocado too, though I doubt it will get cold enough for long enough to do it harm.

I was just buried in media yesterday. Photos, videos, blog-reading, news-reading, book-reading, you name it!

For one thing, I went through the Australia album and scanned all the photos that I want to put on Flickr. I scanned a total of 66 pictures, and I hope to have them all posted within a day or two. I identified a few more locations and made a few more connections between the images themselves, so that project is coming together.

I also made some headway in "The Old Curiosity Shop," and hope to make more today. And in between I did two loads of laundry and some cleaning, blah blah blah.

I also downloaded the wildlife cam. We had a lot of videos this week -- more than 150! But most of them were disposable clips of pigeons and squirrels, and after skimming them all I managed to condense the good stuff into just four minutes. There were a few clips of two foxes together, which is pretty exciting. I almost never see multiple foxes at once.

The video starts out with Q-Tip and Guy Fox separately trotting back and forth. Twice, they're carrying something in their mouths, but I can't see what it is. I suppose they've been hunting. I'd assume pigeons, but it's at night and I don't think pigeons are generally on the ground when it's dark. Maybe rats, but you'd think a tail would be visible.
-- At 0:44, Pale Cat strolls casually across the lawn, then runs back in a full feline freak-out and leaps into a tree. A bird flies out of the tree. Was he trying to catch the bird? Who knows.
-- At 1:10, one of the foxes trots by on a very misty/rainy morning. Eventually all you can see in the fog is its glowing eyes! Very Halloween.
-- There's some more fox back-and-forth, and then, at 1:50, we get footage of Q-Tip and Guy Fox exploring the back of the garden together.
-- At 2:32, a squirrel freaks out.
-- At 2:42, pigeons march in regimental formation.
-- At 2:51, Q-Tip trots by with his mouth open, which is odd. It's like he's panting. He goes over the fence, and then we see him trot by at night, still with an open mouth. I wonder if he injured his mouth somehow.
-- At 3:36, Blackie casually strolls across the grass. I haven't seen Blackie in several weeks.
-- At 3:50, Tabby runs under the garden bench. Again, I haven't seen this cat in a while. Meanwhile, Bell the Bengal was among the missing this week. The cats, they come and go.

A Post From Thin Air

Another very Novemberish photo. That is exactly what it looks like out there right now.

I pass these garages on my walks to work and I always wonder who they belong to -- common sense says the houses adjacent on either side, or perhaps opposite. I wonder if occupants pay extra for a garage? It's kind of a weird configuration. I'd be afraid I'd forget which one's mine, though I guess if I could always find my locker at school I could manage this.

Yesterday was just a blur of a day. I had so much to do -- shifting one book display, creating a second one, two stints working in the Lower School, a big stack of books to cover and plenty of re-shelving. No reading time for me! Maybe my boss read my blog and was determined to keep me busy. Well, you know what they say -- don't put anything online that you wouldn't want the whole world to know.

I built this display on Thursday, using pennants rescued from the college counseling office. (We have a huge stack of them -- many more than this.) It's focused on "Dark Academia," a sub-genre of fiction involving academic settings like colleges or boarding schools where nefarious things happen. I was happy to be able to include my mom's alma mater, Goucher, up at the top. We don't have pennants for any of the big state schools that my dad or Dave or I attended, sadly.

We've started watching "The Beast In Me," with Claire Danes, on Netflix. It's very good. And we just finished "The Feud," a British show that was both compelling and fairly ridiculous at the same time, featuring the unbearably sexy Rupert Penry-Jones. It was one of those family dramas taking place on a supposedly typical suburban street, yet by the end there are not one but two murders and potentially another dead body in a backyard. Not like any typical suburb I ever saw!

Reading Update

OK, back to real life today -- even though I'm not sure I have much to tell you about the past few days. We'll return to the story of our Australia heroines when I post more of the pictures to Flickr, but for now, let's let them recuperate from their travels.

The day before yesterday I was walking to work when I saw a flash of bright color across Finchley Road -- a busy six-lane traffic artery that carries lots of cars and buses down into Marylebone and Westminster. I wanted to look more closely, but Finchley is not a road that anyone can readily cross because of all the congestion. So I walked to an underpass -- here known as a "subway," not to be confused with the subway in New York City, which is a train -- and used that to cross under the street.

And here's what I found, sitting on the windowsill of a closed shop. Dropped from a baby stroller, perhaps? Anyway it disappeared by the time I walked home so either its owner found it again or someone adopted it.

I have made virtually no headway in "The Old Curiosity Shop," which is so far rather plotless, and I'm about 250 pages in. I just haven't had the time to pick up a book and read. I used to read at my desk when I had downtime, which seemed especially justifiable if I was reading a library book, but my current supervisor has put a stop to that. So much for modeling the behavior we'd like to see in our students.

I should do it anyway. What are they going to do, fire me?

"Plotless" may be too strong a word -- "Curiosity Shop" has a plot, but directionless is a better way to describe it. It's just Little Nell and her gambling-addicted grandfather wandering, encountering various characters, pursued by the malevolent Quilp. I'm making it sound like there's more dramatic tension than there actually is, though I'd probably feel it more if I could read it more regularly. I think I'll have time this weekend.

I won't be reading these, that's for sure! I saw this book display in the window of a shop on Finchley Road. Three for £7.50! A bargain, if you don't mind the nightmares.

Another thing I haven't been able to read lately is The New Yorker. It's partly because of time, but I've also temporarily lost the will. Maybe it's because with Trump president, I find any political news so soul-sucking. I usually pass on my New Yorkers to a guy at work, and he asked me the other day why the flow had stopped. I confessed that they're all stacked up on my end table and I can't quite bring myself to pick them up. I took them all to him yesterday, unread by me.

To Australia, Part 2

We continue the story of our mysterious travelers, having left them in Perth. It's hard to tell exactly what happens next. There are photos of another ship, and no photos of any overland travel through Australia, so I'm guessing at least some of them boarded another vessel and headed eastward.

Google tells me another photo of an old building was taken in Mount Barker, which is outside Adelaide. So it's possible they docked in that region. But I'm not convinced Google is right, and the Mount Barker photos aren't that good -- blurry and lopsided. The first real clue we get about location comes from the photo above.

When I saw the word Bendigo on that bus, I figured it had to be a neighborhood or some other locality in Australia. Turns out, it's a whole city, north of Melbourne in Victoria.

And here we are, in Bendigo. There are quite a few photos from this area, so I'm thinking this is where at least one of our travelers was based.

The photos include several great street scenes of the town. Here's a modern view of this same streetscape. As you can see, many of the buildings remain today, including the Shamrock Hotel, the structure with the fancy roof in the background.

Another view of Bendigo. Here's the same row of buildings today. Astonishingly, that Myers store still exists, though they seem to have dropped the "S" off the name at some point.

And here's the street looking the other direction, during what appears to be a Remembrance Day or ANZAC Day parade. You can see the Hotel Shamrock in the background. The two-level structure between that and the Myers store, which I believe was called the Hotel Australia, is gone now. Here's the modern view.

And here's the old Bendigo post office, which is now used as a tourist information center.

There are other photos of Bendigo, too -- in the nearby public gardens and outside the adjacent law courts. So, as I said, it seems like our travelers spent quite a bit of time there. Or at least took a lot of photos.

There are also visits to the countryside, though -- perhaps I should call it the "bush" -- including a series of pictures of these men employing a scary-looking saw to cut down trees. I'd have been hiding in the long grass, too!

After all that, it's time for a cuppa.

There are photos of some of the women with livestock and/or on a farm. Perhaps this was a visit to relatives, because the travelers seem a bit unaccustomed to being around cows.

Finally, there are some scenes of travel within southern Australia. I thought the Buffalo View Hotel was a curious name until I realized they weren't talking about the animal -- Mount Buffalo is a place, and is now a national park. This hotel used to be in the nearby town of Porepunkah.

And here's the Mount Buffalo Chalet, a historic structure that still stands, but endured a long period of disuse in recent years. Apparently it is set to reopen (or perhaps already has). You can see the snow on the hedges -- there are several pictures of our travelers cavorting in snow and building a snowman. I had no idea it ever snowed in Australia, so this was eye-opening for me.

The snowy scenes are the last images in the album, which has several more blank pages before the end. For whatever reason, the person who kept it didn't take any more pictures. Did they remain in Australia, or come back to England? It's hard to tell.

Perhaps one clue is that luggage tag I mentioned yesterday. If you're in southern Australia and you're traveling to Darwin, in the far north, that seems to suggest you may be headed back to Europe. My suspicion is that our traveler went home again. It must have been after a period of at least several months, given that the photos of their outgoing voyage seem to have been taken in winter (remember the coats in Italy?) and they experienced a wintry season in Australia, as well. But who knows?

I will eventually upload all these photos to Flickr, along with more from the album. Once I've done that I'll post a link so you can check out the rest. Thank you, C., for prompting this fascinating exploration!