Unsprung

Here are some spring trees on our street. Aren't they beautiful? In fact, the pink one in front is the once-viney tree -- but don't get too excited because, yes, you've seen this picture before. It was taken one year ago, last April, and I blogged it then.

Here's the same view this year:

It's as if spring hasn't even happened. Or, it kind of happened, around the end of February when we had a burst of warmth, but then everything went refrigerator and now, as I type this, it's 34º F outside. That's 1º for you Celsius people.

Moaning about the weather makes for a boring blog post, but I just can't get past how enduringly cold it is. It's as if the pause button has been pressed on all our gardening. I was talking to a co-worker who said her seedlings, in her greenhouse, aren't growing at all, and we're in the same boat. Our seedlings have sprouted, but that's it. Nature has withheld the warm embrace they need to grow.

On Monday it's supposed to become slightly milder -- around 60º F (16º C) during the day, and low 40s at night. After that I think we might, might be done with nighttime temperatures in the 30s. Fingers crossed, because I am over it.

I'm happy that our shops have begun to open, though. I cleaned some stuff out during our lockdown and then was unable to donate any of it to charity -- I just stacked it in a closet. Yesterday, FINALLY, I took two bags of books to the Oxfam used book shop, and three bags of clothes and other stuff to the charity shop. It feels so good to get that debris out of here.

I've also given away some items at work -- like the blue teapot. I've found that if I put stuff in the faculty/staff lounge with a "FREE" sign on it, it disappears in no time!

Dave and I are still watching "The Walking Dead," but the show has taken an incredibly dark turn and I'm not sure I like it. For those of you familiar with it, we're at the start of Season 7 and Negan has just appeared. I don't mind zombie-killing, because that's like cartoon violence, but now there's a level of human-on-human brutality that's hard to tolerate.

We have "The Walking Dead" graphic novels in our library at school, and we don't check them out to anyone younger than 8th grade. Younger kids sometimes argue that they've watched it on TV so they won't be bothered by the books, and I am horrified at the possibility that young children have seen this show! Even I have trouble processing some of the violence.

Dave and I have both agreed that in a zombie apocalypse, we'd rather just be dead. Or undead, as the case may be.

The Queen Gets Trashed

Hampstead Heath has a lot of interesting old trees, and this is one of my favorites. Talk about scars, lumps and bumps! The area around it is fenced off to prevent root compaction, according to a nearby sign, which calls it a "veteran tree" but doesn't say how old it is. I'd love to know.

When I logged in to Blogger just now I got a message saying that the "follow by e-mail" widget will no longer work after July. So if you've signed up to get my blog posts via e-mail, I'm sorry to say that's apparently going to stop. Technology! I'll have to look into whether I can migrate my e-mail subscriber list to another similar service, but meanwhile, if you want to keep up with my pathetic life, you might have to bookmark my blog and visit it that way.

I had a doctor's appointment a couple of days ago to follow up on my blood tests, which were all fine except, of course, my cholesterol levels. This is a perpetual problem with me, as it is with my mother. It's a genetic thing. The good news is, we have no heart disease in the family. I was afraid the doctor was going to try to talk me into taking statins, but she said because I have a healthy BMI and no family history of heart problems she's not worried. She poked and prodded me and said otherwise I appear to be in good shape.

Oh -- I have to fill you in on the saga of the shopping bag! Dave and I have two identical re-usable grocery bags, which I bought several years ago at the British Museum. We love them because they're big and durable, but the other day, right after a shopping trip, one of them mysteriously disappeared. We looked everywhere, and I mean everywhere, and we couldn't find it. I finally decided it had to be in one of two places -- in the bag with our bedsheets at the laundromat, or in the trash, which I had recently taken out to the bin at the street.

So yesterday morning I went out to the bin, pulled the trash bag out, opened it up and began to wade through. And sure enough, there was our shopping bag.

A bit rumpled, but otherwise none the worse for wear.

Dave and I cannot figure out how this happened, exactly, but at least we got the bag back.

You may remember that several years ago I worked on a project to edit and digitize my old paper journals. I did this because I wrote many of them at times of desperation or unhappiness, and a lot of that stuff isn't really for public consumption. I didn't want to drop dead and have someone read them all or, God forbid, sell them in an estate sale.

So I transcribed the good stuff, skipped the repetitive drama and angst (hopefully preserving enough drama to present an accurate record), and put it all online. (It's a private blog for now but one of these days I might open it up, not that anyone except me would ever want to read it.)

The other day, as you can see, I finally got around to doing some shredding. I disposed of the first three old journals, from the late 1980s and early '90s, which contained some of the more embarrassing content. (Is there anything more cringe-inducing than a lovelorn 22-year-old?!) I'll eventually shred the rest, with the possible exception of my Peace Corps journals. (And my childhood journals from the late '70s and early '80s, which are perfectly innocent, if incredibly goofy. If I destroyed those my brother would kill me.)

This is the problem with journaling. It's a great way to work out problems and record events, but then you're left with physical artifacts that you don't necessarily want to leave behind for the world to consume!

Beyond the Barricades

They're doing road construction all around us in West Hampstead. I'm not sure who "they" are, but at least some of them are from Thames Water. This long stretch of torn up road goes toward Fortune Green from our house. I took the picture because it was a windy day, and as you can see the barricades had blown down, and because it was Easter weekend nobody was working to pick them back up again. If anyone had to drive a wide truck through there it was probably a bumpy ride.

And with that, let's take a look at more of my random iPhone photos! Because I have no other significant news.

This is another unusual headstone at the cemetery where I walk Olga. It's off the beaten path so I didn't see it until recently, when I wandered in its direction to find Olga's ball. It's a sort of odd, tilted half-pyramid shape. The inscription is on the right side and the lettering is so faint it's hard to make out, but it seems to say "Margaret Stapfer nee Woollam, the dearly beloved wife of Dr. Heinrich Stapfer." And there are some dates, but I can't read them.

I wonder what inspired that design?

This is a burger box in someone's recycling. I just thought it was a clever name. Apparently WTF specializes in vegan burgers.

I came across this odd building while walking to the hospital for my blood test the other day. I wonder what it's like inside?!

This month's cocktail from the craft gin club wasn't bad. It featured club soda and a special cocktail syrup along with the gin, which is very floral. And once again, it's pink. They love their pink drinks.

Take that, Jeff Bezos!

Dave and I spotted this wacky car on our walk home from work. I had to make a special trip across Finchley Road to take the picture, and he had to get to a hair appointment so he kept walking. I then ran a couple of blocks to catch up with him, and I'm only mentioning it because I think it's the fist time I've run any distance in ages. It felt good. Why don't we run more?

Our neighbors across the street re-did their front garden last spring, during our first Covid lockdown. They put in a nice lawn and lots of new plants, but for some reason, they never took the tags off their trees. A year later, there's still a tag on this magnolia and tags fluttering from two bay trees. THIS MAKES ME CRAZY.

And finally, this pansy (or viola) sprouted in the crack between the wall and the sidewalk in front of our house. Durable little devils, aren't they?

Squelching

I found this piece of Ben Wilson's chewing gum art in Hampstead over the weekend. I can't quite figure out what's going on there -- it looks like a woman attacking someone with a vacuum cleaner?! Surely that can't be right.

It was supposed to freeze on Sunday evening, and I went out just before bed and covered the banana tree. (Over Dave's protestations -- "It'll be fine," he insisted.) And sure enough, when I woke up Monday morning, there was no frost and the bird bath was entirely liquid. (We did have snow flurries, though.) Last night, with more freezing temperatures predicted, I didn't bother with the banana -- and this morning there's ice on the birdbath and frost on the lawn, and my phone says it's 30º F (-1º C).

I just can't win.

I think Dave's right, though -- the banana will be fine. It looks like it's been through a World War, but I imagine when spring really does finally get here it will recover.

You may have read that our lockdown began easing yesterday. The government allowed non-essential retail and some services, like hairdressers, to reopen, as well as restaurants and pubs with outdoor seating. Dave, who has been grumbling about his long hair for months, had an appointment with his barber right after school and came home well-shorn and much happier. It's been interesting to watch everyone walk around with early-'70s hair, but I guess we will all tonsorially modernize now.

I was surprised to read yesterday that we in the UK have "lived under the most strenuous level of government restrictions for the longest period of time in the world," according to The New York Times. I mean, I know our three lockdowns have cumulatively lasted for what seems like forever, but I didn't realize we were so different from what other countries were doing. And yet we still had relatively high death rates, at least until vaccinations came along. Go figure.

I don't even remember what it's like to walk into a department store or go to a pub. Part of me wonders why I would ever do that, when I could just come home and order from Amazon and have a glass of wine on the couch. It's all part of re-acclimating to social situations, I suppose.

Dave and I just finished Season Six of "The Walking Dead." We've taken to watching several of our shows with the closed captioning on, because the dialogue can be hard to hear -- and this cracks me up because my dad and stepmother used to do the same thing and I always wondered why. Now I get it! Anyway, in "The Walking Dead," whenever a character stabs a zombie in the head (which is how you have to kill zombies, just FYI), the closed captioning reads, "flesh squelching." It intrigues me from a linguistic point of view. I associate "squelch" with radio transmissions -- a setting on receivers that allows us to adjust reception. But apparently it also means "a soft sucking sound made when pressure is applied to liquid or mud."

So there you go -- the word of the day. Let's all try to use it in a sentence while we're out and about. 😀

Post Box and Telephone Box

I am excited to be able to finally post a picture of this mysterious orchid, which has not bloomed in the several years we've owned it -- until now. It's a plant I rescued from someone's trash on the street, and I knew the flowers would be white because it had a wilted flower stalk attached at the time. I brought it home and repotted it, and we kept it in the living room, but it refused to bloom.

Finally, last year, I moved it to the dining room, which seems to have optimal conditions for orchids, because all the other ones bloom like crazy in there. And that did the trick.

Here's the whole lineup, with all seven of them in flower. This truly is the magic orchid windowsill. I think they like it because it's east-facing and gets morning sun, but it's also partly shaded by shrubbery and it never gets too hot.

We have four more orchids in the living room, and none of them are blooming. I really need to just make space in the dining room for all of them, but then I don't know what I'd do with all the rest of the junk treasures on that windowsill.

Speaking of treasures, here are my finds of the day for yesterday -- two coin banks, set out for the taking on a wall along Finchley Road. Don't you love those?! They're made of wood. I'm thinking I might give them to my nieces. 

I found them while walking Olga, who was eager for an outing in the morning. But later in the day, when we went to the cemetery, she plodded along like she was dying. Moody, that girl.

"Would you STOP TAKING PICTURES!!!"

I also finished Doctor Dolittle yesterday. Although it's a hefty book, it reads quickly and it's pretty entertaining. Definitely one of the better Newbery medalists from the 1920s, a decade of otherwise mediocre winners. I could see modern kids reading this book -- in fact, I have seen them check it out -- while I can't imagine any of them picking up "The Dark Frigate" or "Gay Neck: The Story of a Pigeon."

Back to work today. Spring Break has officially ended.

Whitbread and Cuckoo Flower

Olga and I went walking on the Heath yesterday, and we managed to make pretty much the full circuit. Now that she's back on her anti-inflammatory meds she seems a little more energetic. We had a good walk involving some tennis-ball throwing and photography.

"Would you STOP TAKING PICTURES!!!!"

We found this patch of delicate little wildflowers blooming near a damp creek bed. It's cuckoo flower or lady's smock, which I don't remember ever seeing before but I probably just didn't stop to notice it.

In some woods I found the lower part of this bottle protruding from the ground. I thought it was whole, and got a bit excited, but it turned out to be only a broken portion of a bottle, as you can see. Still, I managed to identify it -- it's a Whitbread & Co. beer bottle, age unknown but probably Victorian. Here's what it looks like intact.

Otherwise, yesterday was full of small household tasks. I changed the sheets and dropped them off at the laundromat. (Yes, we have a washer, but it doesn't handle king-size bedsheets very well so I always have them washed for me. I usually throw our towels in too. A wonderful luxury!)

All the geraniums are back inside and the cannas are in the shed. Freezing temperatures are predicted for tonight. (Sigh)

Snail and Tortoise

This gate or garage door or whatever faces out toward Finchley Road and was recently repainted. It used to look like this.

I had astonishingly bad timing in choosing yesterday to make silly references to the Queen. Of course I had no idea about Prince Philip when I published that post, but oh well. I can't say I feel any sadness about his death -- he was, after all, 99 years old and led a longer and more interesting life than most of us could hope for. It was kind of refreshing to have someone so ornery and occasionally unpredictable in the monarchy, I'll give him that. I wish he'd made it to 100. It seems a shame to get to 99 and not cross the century line.

Some of the TV channels were "all Prince Philip all the time" yesterday and you could tell they'd been preparing for this event for years. As I told Dave, all those news directors and editors are probably relieved they can finally run those stories they've had stacked up and waiting. (I'm thinking like a journalist here.)

I stayed home yesterday and read my newest book, "The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle," which won the second Newbery Medal back in 1923. I've never read it -- in fact I never saw the movies either, though I know some of the songs from the '60s film because a friend had the record when I was a kid. I was horrified to realize the book is 440 pages long! It goes pretty quickly, but it needs an editor.

Later, I had to go to the Royal Free Hospital for a routine blood test. When I made the appointment online yesterday morning, I was given several options for Friday afternoon, so I grabbed the earliest one at 5:10 p.m. Only after arriving at the hospital did I realize my appointment was actually for Friday, April 23! Bloody hell! Fortunately they squeezed me in.

On the way home, I was stopped on a street in Hampstead by a somewhat shabbily dressed older man wearing a single brown work glove, a la Michael Jackson. "In that garden across the road," he said, pointing, "a pack of snails attacked a tortoise!" I laughed, thinking what the hell is up with this guy, and started to walk away, but he stopped me and proceeded to tell a joke that seemed to last for five hours. I only understood about a third of it, but the punchline was that the tortoise was suffering from shellshock. I laughed again (and escaped successfully), but I must admit I smiled all the way home at the sheer weirdness of the encounter. Maybe he saw me carrying "Doctor Dolittle" and assumed I'd appreciate an animal story.

And as I sat here writing this post, a fox came right up to the back door, sniffed the doorframe and looked inside! "If I could talk to the animals..."