Tabebuia and Pinky

It's not quite 6 a.m. in Florida and I'm back at Dunkin' Donuts, because although my stepsister and her husband have a coffee machine, they had no coffee that I could find -- so I decided to just take a walk up the highway. Nobody else will be up for hours so I imagine I will not be missed!

February and March are great times to visit Florida, because many of the trees are blooming -- the red kapok, the purple jacaranda and the yellow Tabebuia, above. I haven't seen the first two yet, and in fact I'm seeing a lot of frost-scorched plants from a freeze that struck this area several weeks ago. Fortunately the Tabebuias weren't set back by the cold.

I took a walk around the neighborhood yesterday morning and was struck by how many birds I was hearing. It was a chorus! I made a recording:

Steve Reed · Florida Birds

According to my Merlin bird app, here's what you're hearing in just that one-minute clip:

Pretty amazing, right?! This really is an incredible, diverse jungle of a state. I have no idea why the Parula warbler is my "bird of the day," whatever that is. Speaking of which, I haven't checked the wildlife cam yet, so I don't know whether I'm capturing video of any critters. I'll download everything right before I leave and post whatever video results when I'm back in London on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, here's a video of another exotic (to me now, anyway) creature, a limpkin. Doesn't it sound positively prehistoric?

I spent yesterday morning running some errands with my stepbrother and his wife, including going to Target, where I was amused to see this:

It's kind of surreal to be on the other side of the planet and stumble across a picture of a crosswalk that's right around the corner from the school where I work!

Soon afterwards, my stepbrother's son, daughter and her husband and kids woke up after an all-night drive from Louisiana, and nine of us went to Alfonso's, a pizza restaurant that has existed since we were kids and still operates out of the same storefront near our house. I think the staff were a little horrified to see our loud gang (including three preschoolers) come through the door but they handled everything well, and it was good to sit and catch up with people I haven't seen for at least a decade (or in the case of my niece's husband and kids, never). It struck me that as much as memorials are about the people who died, they're also an opportunity for a reunion of sorts, a convergence of family members who are normally flung across the face of the planet. People say funerals are really for the living, and I guess that's true.

My brother arrived in the afternoon and we went to Starbucks and caught up there.

The actual memorial is today, and I've prepared some remarks along the lines of my blog post from a month ago. We'll see if I get brave and actually deliver them.

Last night we all gathered for another loud meal, and brave Pinky watched all the activity mostly from the couch, where she snuggled up against me. (I was sitting where my stepmother normally would.) Pinky was very happy to get a few tiny nibbles of pizza. Her little tail was wagging like crazy.

Who ever imagined that Pinky would wind up being the survivor of her whole household, outliving not only her chihuahua companion Manny but also my dad and stepmother? (My stepsister's son, who lives in my stepmother's house, is caring for her now.)

I'm Here

That's my plane, above, sitting on the tarmac at Tampa International Airport after we landed yesterday. Is that a Florida sky or what? Coming down through it wasn't hard at all -- it looks much stormier than it actually was. In fact my whole flight was mercifully easy.

It started in an annoying fashion when I got to the Thameslink train platform in West Hampstead just in time to see the 8:09 a.m. train pull away. I actually hit the button to open the doors before it began moving, but I was too late. It left anyway. I had to cool my heels on the platform for half an hour waiting for the next train.

But I left plenty of extra time so I wasn't stressed, and checking in and going through security at Gatwick was a breeze. I guess this is the first time in recent memory that I've taken a mid-week flight not somehow attached to a school holiday period, because there were no queues at all. As I told Dave, "I'm going to always fly on a random Thursday from now on!"

The flight wasn't full either, so I had an empty seat beside me and the flight attendant was the biggest enabler in the world when it came to serving alcohol. I asked for a gin & tonic and she said, "Would you like two?" Not one to refuse such a generous offer, I accepted, and then when I got wine with my meal she said, "Would you like two?" And then brought me a third later.

So I was fairly blotto for much of the flight, but if there's one safe place to get tipsy it's in an airplane, where you have no control over anything anyway. I watched two favorite Florida movies that I happened to have downloaded onto my computer, "Condominium" and "A Flash of Green," both adapted from John D. MacDonald novels. It struck me that "Condominium" captures a sort of class resentment that is particularly relevant in our Trumpian era -- a blue-collar disdain for the wealthy and educated. (I actually opened my TextEdit app and made a note about this so I could remember to mention it on the blog, a sure sign that I was buzzed: "Captures the experience of the blue collar male — resentment toward wealthy people. Insulation of the wealthy — decamp to Switzerland!" As you may remember from college, everything seems deep and insightful when you've been drinking.)

Anyway, if there's anything better than watching a favorite old movie accompanied by wine, I'm not sure what it is.

When I landed in Tampa I said hello to Phoebe, our airport mascot, as I always do.

My stepsister, stepbrother and brother-in-law all met me at the airport, and I'm now staying at my stepsister's cat-themed house. (They have two cats and lots of cat-related paraphernalia. Thank goodness Dave's not staying here, because he's allergic to cats and he'd be having fits -- although everything is very clean and not "catty" at all, if you know what I mean.)

I did bring my wildlife cam. I'm not sure how successful I'm going to be in capturing some interesting Florida critters, because my stepmother's property is surrounded and divided by several fences, but I'm going to try. After all, the walls of our garden in London do nothing to keep out the foxes!

Unicorn Magic and the Two-Minute Garden

Here's my find from yesterday's walk home from work -- someone's unicorn charm. I left it on the sidewalk hoping whoever dropped it will retrace their steps to find it again. Maybe the magic of the unicorn will help guide the owner back.

I am about to take off for Florida. I'm pretty much packed and I will be in the air in a matter of hours, insha'allah.

I took down the wildlife cam, intending to bring it with me to Florida. I've always wanted to get some video of whatever's happening in my stepmother's yard at night. I'm imagining the place is rife with possums, raccoons, armadillos and maybe even an alligator or two. But I'm not sure I'm going to bring it. There will be a ton of people around this weekend and it's probably not the best time to try to get wildlife footage. We'll see.

Meanwhile, here's what came off the camera from the beginning of this week:

There's not that much exciting, to be honest. First, Pale Cat making his or her rounds, passing one way and then four minutes later passing another, just at the time when the light dimmed enough to make the camera switch from color to black-and-white. Then there's some random fox footage, and then I take the camera off its mount so I can use the terra cotta planter it was sitting on for the rescued primulas.

At 1:07, a fox runs by with something in its mouth and buries it in one of the hydrangea pots. Probably one of those dog treats someone gives them. (Not me, I swear!)

Then there's more fox back-and-forth, followed at 1:38 by two nearly identical "Loch Ness Monster" style videos of Tabby passing by, once at 4:30 a.m. and again after 7 p.m. That cat is out at all hours. Finally the fox comes sniffing around once more, maybe looking for its buried treat?

I haven't seen the fox with the bare tail tip in a while. But maybe its tail fur has grown back?

Written in About Three Minutes

I passed these daffodils growing at the Alexandra and Ainsworth Estate last night on my way home from work. Can you ever have too many daffodils? If so, you're seeing them on this blog.

Not much to say about yesterday. Work work work.

Dave and I have finally started watching "Broadchurch," which came out more than ten years ago but which we somehow never managed to watch. Based on the name I thought it was a sort of "Downton Abbey" or "Bridgerton" type show, a period costume drama, but no -- it's actually a contemporary police and family drama. Really good so far! It's amazing how effectively Olivia Colman can cry on demand.

We're also finishing Laura Linney's show from fifteen years ago, "The Big C," in which she plays a woman with melanoma. For the first three seasons she's the healthiest cancer patient I've ever seen, with time in her life for affairs and family hijinks, but the fourth season takes a darker turn and that's where we are now. Dave doesn't care for it much but I'm pressing on because I like her as an actress, and some of her co-stars too.

There are workmen in front of the house right now erecting another scaffold at the neighbors'. I assume it's because her roof work was never finished. I'm not sure what happened there -- the roofers vanished, the scaffold came down, but the place clearly still required work. Or maybe she's having it painted. Time will tell.

Meanwhile, we've had a bush die in our front garden, a Pernettya, I think as a result of Mrs. Russia's overharsh pruning last spring. When I get back from Florida I'm planning to take it out and plant a hydrangea and/or a buddleia in that space -- we already have both plants in pots and they need permanent homes. The landlords offered to pay for the plants but how do I bill them for plants we already own?

Thoughts on Iran

The once-glittery drag queen hyacinths are looking better and better. They smell great, too. I have them just outside the back door so I can see them from inside, and every time I step out onto the patio I get a whiff of their scent.

I've avoided writing about this Iran thing in order to give my thoughts some time to settle. I think it's a potentially disastrous mistake on Trump's part, and I'm opposed to what he's done -- as I wrote in a comment on someone's blog recently, I'm against starting wars on general principle. Call me crazy! But I'm willing to entertain the idea that this could ultimately lead to a better situation in the Middle East.

I'm kind of in the same position of uncertainty as Thomas Friedman. As he wrote in his most recent column, "Everything -- and its opposite -- is possible." We could wind up with a weaker Iran, less willing to meddle in the politics of its neighbors and less able to act as an anti-Western destabilizing force in the Middle East. Or we could wind up with chaos, as we did in Libya and Iraq following the US-backed overthrow of their dictatorial governments.

Bret Stephens seems to think Trump and Netanyahu have done the world a favor. It was interesting to read his take, given that I've felt sick to my stomach over the whole thing and he helped me see this action in a more positive light, but I still feel like that initial burst of relief is a little too easy. (Stephens is more conservative than I am on many things, but both he and Friedman have been Trump critics so I doubt they're toadying in any way to the Great Leader.)

Ultimately, though, I think Trump remains delusional and is biting off more than he can chew. Remember how he wanted to turn Gaza into a resort? And he's talked about running the governments of Greenland and Venezuela and now Iran? He has a real god complex and, on top of that, he's a blustering idiot. So if this does turn out to be a positive step for the Middle East in the long term, it will be a surprise -- and one that comes with the cost of hundreds if not thousands of civilian deaths.

Closer to home -- more pottery being given away on a garden wall down the street. I kind of like the two little handmade pieces, but I left them there. Dave will kill me if I keep bringing things like this home.

Emergency Primula Rescue

Another day of domesticity yesterday. I cleaned the flat, took the sheets to the laundry, archived my photos and took a walk to the cemetery in the afternoon. The ornamental plum tree outside the chapel is blooming away, as is the one in our garden.

I wanted to go see the daffodils at Fortune Green. It was an annual ritual for Olga to visit the daffodils and meander through them willy-nilly. To my eye, they look a bit forlorn and lonely without Olga trampling them.

The wild primroses are blooming in the cemetery, as they always do. I learned something new the other day when I referred to the Primulas in our garden as primroses and Gwynneth corrected me. Apparently wild-type Primulas are primroses, but cultivated hybrids are properly called Primulas. Thus, all primroses are Primulas, but not all Primulas are primroses. Have I got that right, Gwynneth?

Speaking of cultivated Primulas, I passed a trash bin in the cemetery that had about eight of these battered plants in it. Someone had obviously swapped out the annuals on a grave, but these plants didn't look quite done to me. They have so many flower buds still coming! So I grabbed the three healthiest-looking ones (and one sad fourth one) and brought them home and put them in a planter.

After deadheading, here's what they look like. Steve's Plant Rescue Service strikes again! If they survive their trauma they should keep blooming through the next month or so, at least. They may even survive to bloom again next year. And they were free, except for the cost of the Miracle Gro potting compost I put them in.

And speaking of plant rescuing, here are the teasel seedlings I plucked from that seed head a couple of weeks ago. As you can see, four of the six have survived and have little secondary leaves, so we may get some viable teasel plants.

Violets and a Final Squash

This violet grew of its own accord next to our patio. Signs of spring! I like violets but they do spread like crazy and they are very hard to pull up when they grow where they're not wanted (like between the patio paving stones or in a potted plant). The plant above is safe because it's growing in a good place.

Yesterday felt amazing. Just staying home, reading on the couch, cleaning the house, being domestic. I needed that so much!

I've had a mental list of small projects that needed doing, and I was able to scratch off some of those -- like repotting the "Wandering Dude" (Tradescantia) cuttings I took when the painters came and we had to cut back our existing plants. Now we have two new Wandering Dudes, which thrills Dave, who thinks they are basically weeds.

I know, I know -- don't I keep saying we already have too many plants?

I also baked the last of our front-porch squashes, which has been cooling its heels (do squashes have heels?) in the closet under the stairs for the last four or five months. I pretty much forgot about it and only remembered recently that it was there. Fortunately, it's a very hard, durable squash -- a Japanese variety known as a kobucha. I read online about how to prepare it and took the simple route -- baking with olive oil, salt and pepper. I had a wedge at lunch yesterday and it's good, more dense than a butternut but creamy and flavorful. Some people liken the flavor to chestnuts, and I can see that.

My Rhipsalis cactus is blooming once again! (I could not figure out how to take this picture without getting myself in it.)

I downloaded the garden cam, which has spent the past week on the patio. You'll see Ronald the Rat, various birds and squirrels, and a couple of quick drive-by foxes. Also, Tabby and Pale Cat make separate appearances, sniffing around the area beneath the bird feeder where Ronald seems to appear most often. Let's hope one of them catches him. (Sorry, Ronald.)

The most interesting moment, to me, comes at 2:06, when we see two tiny dunnocks in the lower left corner of the screen doing something that looks like a courtship or mating dance. One rapidly flutters its wings and tail, and the other hops around frantically behind it. If there was ever consummation, the camera didn't record it, which is just as well. Let's give the poor dunnocks their privacy.

Also, the fox at the end looks like it's hunting, and then it runs away with something in its mouth. The prey doesn't look like Ronald -- in fact it looks like a dog treat. Maybe the fox had a treat or a bone buried near the patio. They have been known to hide food like that. Who knows?