Tattered Admiral

The bees and butterflies don't seem fazed at all by our hot weather. The butterflies, like the large white above, love our buddleias, which are fading a bit now but still have plenty of blooms and nectar. 

I got out yesterday morning before it got hot and watered everything. Then I spent most of the day in the garden shade, reading "The Tender Bar" and catching up on blogs. I belatedly realized that our WiFi reaches into the back garden, so I can sit out there on my computer -- and if I'm in the shade I can see the screen just fine. Did I really not know this before, or had I just forgotten?!

Dave and I made a brilliant decision in early afternoon -- we went to a movie. The theaters at the O2 Centre (which is within walking distance just down Finchley Road) are blissfully air conditioned. We saw "Good Luck to You, Leo Grande," starring our down-the-street neighbor Emma Thompson, and we liked it a lot. Surprisingly, the theater had only five people in it. Why aren't people flocking to the cinema in this weather? We emerged around 4 p.m. into 99º F temperatures (37.2º C) and stayed home the rest of the evening.

We were so happy with our movie decision that we bought tickets for another movie this afternoon. Today's supposed to be even hotter than yesterday by a few degrees. 

This red admiral butterfly has been fluttering around our garden for several days. The poor thing looks like it's been through the wars. Look how tattered its wings are! It looks like Lord Nelson after the Battle of Santa Cruz de Tenerife. (Well, in that case, I suppose one of its wings would be missing entirely, so maybe it's not quite that bad.)

Here, for comparison's sake, is another red admiral I saw yesterday:

That's what they usually look like. I'm sure that tattered one must have some stories to tell. I wish I spoke butterfly, like Doctor Dolittle.

Death Star and Dragon's Egg

Since our heat wave is making international news, I'll keep giving you my day-to-day temperature report. Right now, just after 6 a.m., it's only 63º F (17º C), so it's pretty comfortable. But by 5 p.m. we'll be in the high 90's, not quite to 100º F -- and then even hotter tomorrow. Or so the forecasters say.

I've just finished hauling a pair of old lawn mowers through the house. Talk about things I never imagined having to do! We're getting rid of them, but they're so big I couldn't take them down the side return and squeeze them through the narrow gap between our garden shed and Mrs. K's fence. They had to come through the house. At least I could carry them rather than having to roll them across the floor.

I've set them out at the street, and they're supposed to be collected by the council later today. I've tried for weeks to offload them on Freecycle but there were no takers, surprisingly.

Yesterday was very quiet. I fixed one of our lawn chairs, which Dave broke during our dinner party on Saturday evening. (They're somewhat creaky chairs and if a sitter moves wrong on uneven ground, all bets are off. We use the creaky chairs and put our guests in sturdier ones.) Several of the joints popped apart but they were easily re-glued with the tail end of my tube of Super Glue and they seem to be holding. And I even managed to make the repair WITHOUT GETTING SUPER GLUE ON MY HANDS! It's a freakin' miracle.

Speaking of our dinner, some of you asked about Dave's culinary skills and training. He has indeed been professionally trained -- he completed a yearlong course at the French Culinary Institute in Manhattan right before we met in 2009. Hence the fancy menu. (If I were cooking we'd have been eating tuna fish sandwiches.)

Otherwise I sat outside and read. Today's photos are just a look at what's blooming in the garden at the moment. Above, a variety of campanula that grows of its own accord near our back steps.

Our globe thistles have started to bloom as well. This one looks a bit like the Death Star, floating through intergalactic clouds of yellow ragwort.

Gazoinks! It's a gazania! I bought two gazania plants this year and both of them are this white variety. They're fine, but I wish I had at least one yellow one.

Here's the dahlia that appeared from the bud I photographed about a week ago -- the one Linda Sue memorably likened to a dragon's egg.

Our penstemon is blooming. This is a tough plant that we though had died several years ago. It keeps bouncing back, if not exactly flourishing.

Some of our garden phlox. We have at least one more phlox plant but it didn't produce flowers this year.

And finally, this orchid just opened indoors -- on a plant I rescued from a baking windowsill at school just before our first lockdowns in 2020. We'd never seen it bloom so I didn't know what to expect. I think it's identical to another of our rescued orchids that I pulled from someone's trash. We've now seen all of our orchids in flower. There are no more mysteries!

Lobster in the Gloaming

It's 63º F (17º C) right now, with the high today projected to be 88º F (31º C). Not too terrible, right? We don't really get slammed with heat until tomorrow, apparently.

Yesterday morning Dave said, "I think we should go get breakfast in Hampstead." Now, when Dave proposes doing something out of the house, I know to say yes -- he's such a terminal homebody that it's a very rare event. Turns out he wanted to visit a fishmonger on Hampstead High Street to pick up some stuff for our friends Gordon and Donna, who were having dinner here last night. So we leashed up Olga and walked to Hampstead, where we sat out on the sidewalk at Gail's and had coffee and pastries. I enjoyed the bright morning sun and the hallucinogenic reflections in a nearby shop window (above).

We had a little trouble finding the fishmonger, but when we did, Dave busied himself with his purchases while I took the dog for a short walk on the West Heath.

On the way home, we passed this impressive house, with its sculpted hedges and masses of white hydrangeas banked against the walls like a snowball fortress. When we first moved to West Hampstead in 2014 this place was a bit of a wreck, as I recall, but someone has since invested a lot of money in it.

We got home to find that Dave had purchased lobster (pre-cooked, not live, thank God). He spent the day mostly in the kitchen, preparing his four-course meal (green gazpacho with frozen feta cheese and radish flakes, scallops with pureed parsnips and orange sauce, lobster with fresh artichoke hearts, lemon posset).

I, meanwhile, sat out in the garden with Olga:

I'm reading "The Tender Bar," which I've been meaning to read for years, and I'm really enjoying it. It's a 2005 memoir by J. R. Moehringer, who grew up on Long Island the son of a single mother, and whose neighborhood bar served as a locus of male camaraderie in his life. It was made into a movie last year which I haven't seen yet.

Finally, Gordon and Donna arrived at 7 p.m., and we ate out in the garden in the gloaming. In England, in the summer, that's a long period of time -- evening and twilight last for ages, the sky staying bright behind the darkening trees. We had time for three of our four courses before moving indoors for our posset.

I'm still cleaning up the kitchen. I have one more dishwasher load to go and things will be back to normal, much to Olga's relief.

Going Electric

It's a cool and comfortable 57º F as I sit here with the back door open, Olga sprawled on the couch next to me. I'm trying to appreciate every minute of these temperatures because all we've been hearing for several days is warnings about how apocalyptically hot it's going to get. Monday may turn out to be the hottest recorded day in England EVER, with temperatures up to 104º F (40º C).

We canceled Olga's dog walks for Monday and Tuesday. I figure she doesn't need to be out riding around in a van at those temperatures.

Her ear pillow, by the way, has returned. Drat! I guess we'll just wait and see whether it goes away on its own. If not, or if it worsens, she may need surgery. Argh!

I went to the dentist on Thursday for a cleaning. When our Covid lockdowns ended last summer and I went for my first post-pandemic dental cleaning, I remember thinking that it wasn't very thorough -- perfunctory, I called it at the time. Well, I have since changed dentists, and this time I got a hygienist who knew what she was doing. She was very thorough, explaining each step to me, and she said I did have some plaque and tartar buildup -- which isn't surprising, because I really hadn't had a decent cleaning since before Covid.

She also talked me into making some changes in my dental routine. For quite a while now I've had dentists and hygienists telling me to get an electric toothbrush and I've resisted the idea -- it seemed like a ridiculous extravagance when a hand-held brush worked just as well. But this woman finally convinced me that the hand-held brush is, in fact, inferior, so I went out and plunked down the money for an electric Oral-B. I'm also going to use those interdental brushes to clean between teeth. I am GOING TO DO THIS, I swear.

She wants me to come back for another cleaning in about a month just to see how I'm getting on. I feel like I have neglected my teeth over the past several years, Covid and all, so I'm cool with the increased attention.

I am also girding my loins to apply for British citizenship. Dave and I have been meaning to do it for ages and we've been dragging our feet for no good reason. The hard part -- passing the Life in the UK test -- is already done, so really all we need to do is pay a chunk of change and fill out some forms. Once again, I am GOING TO DO THIS. 

(Photos: A shopfront and old sticker on Finchley Road, on Thursday.)

Dogs of Yesteryear

It's time to break out some of the old photos I picked up at the Covent Garden antique market. These all have a dog theme. Interestingly, I didn't find any pictures of cats -- only dogs. I suspect that cats, at mid-century, were seen as more utilitarian than "man's best friend," and may have less often merited a photo. Just a hunch.

Anyway, our first shot looks like it's from the 1930s, given that guy's trousers on the left. Are the younger man and woman holding the older man's hands? Some kind of dog-club secret handshake? On the photo's reverse side, the photographer is shown as Lewis W. Gale, "specialist in animal photography," of Clissold. Gale clearly knew how to grab the dogs' attention.

A girl and her dog on a boat. Looks like a typically pebbly English beach.

More pebbles. The dog looks very satisfied. The guy on the beach chair in the background is keeping an eye on things.

Remember doghouses? Do people build doghouses anymore? I think nowadays we're all much more likely to let our dogs come inside. Someone might even call the RSPCA on a situation like this! Our society's standards for animal care have changed. Still, this is how many dogs lived, back in the day. When I was growing up, our dogs had a doghouse and never came indoors (unless my brother and I snuck them in).

I will say that this particular doghouse looks pretty ramshackle.

There is a dog in this photo, in the woman's arms. I bet that book store was a wonderful old place. It makes me think of the terrific book and movie "84 Charing Cross Road," about an American woman's transatlantic friendship with an English book dealer beginning in the 1940s. (Which you should read and/or see if you haven't already -- the film stars Anthony Hopkins and Anne Bancroft.)

And finally, there's this rather spectral image of a ghostly greyhound or whippet hovering over these unsuspecting women and babies.

Here's a close-up:

I'm sure the poor dog is just yawning, but still -- that's pretty creepy.

Pillow Ear

Last Saturday, I noticed that somehow, Olga injured her ear. It was substantially swollen, with a fluid-filled blister -- like Olga was carrying her own little pillow at the side of her head. It didn't seem to hurt her and I left it for a couple of days thinking it might go down on its own, but when it didn't, I called the vet for an appointment.

Normally we go to a vet right around the corner from our flat. But the receptionist there said they had no doctor on duty because the vet was out with Covid. If I wanted an appointment right away, I would have to go to their sister practice in Belsize Park.

So that's how Olga and I wound up walking 45 minutes each way to the vet yesterday morning. It's not even that far -- 1.2 miles, according to Google Maps -- but Olga walks slowly and does a lot of sniffing. The doctor seemed unbothered by the ear and said it's actually pretty common -- dogs scratch their ears or knock them against something and break a blood vessel, causing an internal hematoma. She drained the blood and said it might come back, and if it did, I should just leave it to slowly heal on its own.

The vet used a tiny needle to drain the blood, but there was still a pinprick wound and then Olga's ear was bleeding. Every time she shook her head she'd smear blood on her white fur. She looked like some kind of trailer park fighting dog. I asked the vet for a Band-Aid (or "plaster," as they say in England) to stanch the bleeding, and she fashioned some ridiculous thing out of a gauze pad and yellow tape that made Olga look like Pikachu, and that flew off the minute she shook her head. So, no Band-Aid.

Fortunately, the bleeding stopped on its own pretty quickly.

As long as we were in a new neighborhood I figured I'd stop for coffee before the long walk home.

We went to a cute little outdoor cafe where everything seemed to go wrong. First, I took the dog inside when I ordered, and even though I said I was going to sit outside, I was chided for that. "I cannot allow that dog in here," the counterman said (no doubt noticing the fierce and deadly Olga's blood-streaked fur). I told him again that I intended to sit outside, and he took my order and eventually brought my coffee out. But then there was no sugar, so I had to go find that, and then later I had to track someone down in order to pay my bill --  the whole thing seemed a bit star-crossed. Let's think positive: it was nice to sit outside, beneath the fluttering flags and the blue sky.

After dropping Olga back at home, I had another dental appointment -- this for a very minor filling to cover the top of a tooth where there had been some gum recession. It wasn't a cavity so there was no drilling, and I was out of there pretty quickly. Today I go back for a cleaning, and then hopefully I'm done with the dentist for at least six months.

The weather has briefly cooled, thank goodness. Even so, I watered the heck out of the garden last night. Watering takes a surprisingly long time. Temperatures are supposed to spike again in a few days.

On Netflix, Dave and I watched "The Girl in the Picture," which I thought was very good, and now we're on a promising documentary series about the mysterious '70s airplane hijacker D. B. Cooper. What is with our human tendency to turn certain criminals into folk heroes? Jesse James, Bonnie and Clyde, and yes, D. B. Cooper -- these people deserve prison sentences, not idolatry. And yet people think Cooper was a courageous mastermind to be admired. It's bizarre.

Flowers for Florence

When I walked past the Crimean War memorial in Pall Mall on Monday, I saw that someone had left flowers for Florence Nightingale. For most of my life, the Crimean War seemed like a conflict remote in both time and place, and now that part of the world is once again bathed in strife.

It's HOT here. It was about 90º F (32º C) again yesterday, and although we're supposed to have a few days' slight respite, it's going to hit the mid-90's again next Monday and Tuesday. This in a country with little air conditioning. And rain is about as likely as Donald Trump conceding the last presidential election. We haven't had any measurable rainfall at all this month, and it looks like that's not changing.

So aparently I'll be keeping myself busy watering the Russians' plants! You know, I was thinking -- rather than watering from the ladder, I should just climb onto their terrace and water from there. That way my time on the ladder is much shorter and I don't have to wrangle a running hose while climbing. (They have their own hose.) Sounds much safer, right?

Yesterday I did manage to get the last four datura seedlings into pots -- a single pot, in fact, which may be too many plants for one pot, but it was all I had. It's amazing how quickly they grow once they get into better soil with more water and nutrients. The ones I potted a few days ago are already about twice as big as they were.

I also gave our larger canna lily a bigger pot, above. Our smaller canna is still, well, small. Puny, even. It wasn't healthy when I first received it and it has never thrived. I'm on the fence about whether I'm even going to keep it past this year. This is its third summer and it still looks terrible.

Finally, I carried two watering cans (20 liters) of water down the hill to the sad street tree. Given that it's already been struggling, it might not survive this hot, dry summer. This is what it looks like:

I know -- you can barely even see it, right? It looks dead, but it's not. Those tiny leaves are, in fact, green. I keep thinking if I can just pull it through this season and help it get established it might leaf out more fully next year. But it also has several strikes against it -- as you can see, it barely has an opening in the pavement, and the soil is baked hard and mounded up around the trunk so unless one waters it very, very slowly, all the water runs off into the gutter. Even if we do get rain I'm not sure how much will reach that tree's roots.

When the council first planted it (replacing the once-viney tree that inexplicably died after I removed its burden of vine) I swore that I was NOT GOING TO GET INVOLVED. And here I am, bringing it water. I'm making myself crazy.