Yew Berries and a Garden Video

This is one of my favorite spots in Hampstead Cemetery. I just love that old pine tree. The middle grave used to be covered with an elaborate ivy headdress, but that was stripped away some time ago and I must admit it now looks better.

So, as you can guess, taking the dog to the cemetery was one of yesterday's activities. We actually hadn't been in a while but she was in a walking mood. She took me for a long walk in the morning, up the high street and around the neighborhood, and then she was raring to go again in the afternoon. Now, this morning, she's flat-out unconscious and snoring!

We saw another grave covered with bright red yew berries. Olga seemed quite upset by it.

Otherwise, the day was pretty uneventful. I did two loads of laundry in the morning, and then the tree guy came and I showed him what we're thinking about doing in the back garden. As I told you, I haven't really been able to photograph any of it very well, but I did make a video if you're interested in a more thorough explanation:

My original plan was to post the video alone -- hence the now somewhat redundant intro -- but oh well. Plans change!

Anyway, the tree guy seemed to understand that while we want to thin that barrier and remove the dead stuff, we don't want it gone entirely. He's going to get back to me in a few days with numbers, which I will pass on to the landlords.

And that's about it for life around here. Dave was at school yesterday afternoon helping students prepare for honor band auditions, and he'll be doing that today, too. So I'll be on my own, probably reading more of "Mecca," which is pretty good so far. I'm about 45 pages in and still unsure where the plot is going to go, but the writing seems promising.

Bling Horse

Another of our orchids has decided to bloom. They don't really seem to have a season, these plants -- they just produce flowers whenever they feel like it. I guess in the tropics there's no real need to pay attention to a calendar. This is the second time this particular plant has bloomed for me.

Speaking of calendars, I bought one for my desk at work -- a blotter where I can write things down. No sense in depriving myself of that simple and inexpensive organizational tool!

And speaking of appointments, you know how I was supposed to meet with the tree surgeon yesterday for an estimate? Well, I got home from work in plenty of time for our 11 a.m. meeting, and I waited. And waited. Finally, at 11:30 I called him -- and he said I wasn't on his calendar for the day and he was nowhere near me. I said, "Well, I got a confirmation e-mail from your assistant!" (I checked the e-mail to make sure I hadn't misread it, and I hadn't.) He mumbled something about their scheduling software and rescheduled to come today. He's supposed to show up this morning.

Once again, I'll channel my mother: "Everything has to be done at least twice."

I tried to take pictures of the part of the garden we're thinking about trimming, but in photos it just looks like a wall of green leaves with some sticks in it. It's very hard to photograph. I'll try again today. Maybe a video will work. Because I know you're all DYING to see it.

Here's a bit of fun from my desk at work. This wooden horse sat abandoned atop the mailboxes in the staff lounge for years -- it was dusty and cobwebby and not too long ago they renovated the staff area and the horse was set out with a bunch of other stuff for disposal. I grabbed it, cleaned it up and put it in the library. It's been knocked around a bit, and it's missing some of its bling, but I think it's hilarious. I especially love its beady eyes. I assume it was someone's long-ago student art project, but we don't have a wood shop at school -- so how they carved the horse is a bit of a mystery.

Book Weeding and Rinad

I am feeling so discombobulated these days. My work days continue to be busy, and I'm trying to keep certain appointments and obligations in my head -- like the tree-trimmers' visit this morning to give me an estimate, and a meeting with my financial advisers this afternoon. I think I have something Monday, too, but right this second I can't remember what. And Olga's vaccinations on Tuesday. Argh!

I should put all this stuff in my phone, but I'm not an electronic calendar person. I usually just keep everything in my head. It's rare for me to forget a meeting, though it does occasionally happen. Actually, what I miss is a paper calendar. When I worked at the Times I used to keep a big blotter calendar on my desk and I wrote everything on it -- work stuff, personal stuff, and it helped me stay organized. I don't even know if I could get a calendar like that now. Do they still make them?

I've been weeding more books at work. My new boss is convinced we have a lot of under-circulated dreck on our shelves. I weed fairly frequently so I don't think that's quite true, but I'm being pretty brutal this time around and I've managed to pull a cartload of stuff out of fiction. Does anyone still read Sara Paretsky books? High school kids apparently don't!

I found this photo (R) at the Maidenhead train station when we were on our recent trip. It's kind of haunting, isn't it? It says on the back, "Rinad K., 10/12/2015" -- which, now that I think of it, would have been exactly eight years ago yesterday. (Or it could be Dec. 10 if written British-style.) I wonder where Rinad is now? Is that date his birthday or the day the photo was taken?

Thanks for your continued input, readers, on our possible tree-trimming project. I love your skepticism about Mrs. Russia and her motives. Dave actually said the same thing when I told him the story of her conversation with the caretaker -- "She's making that up!" I honestly don't think she cares about that part of our garden, though, because it's the farthest area from her terrace and there are plenty of other plants in her sightline.

Ah -- but she does hate birds, particularly pigeons. She's obsessed with keeping them off her balcony railing. And a lot of pigeons hang out in those trees in the back. Maybe that's why she might want them cut down! Hmmm...

(Top photo: One of the late flush of rose blossoms we're getting in our garden. And I feel like I have to keep typing something here to make the line extend all the way across the blog template. Done!)

Ghosts, Ghouls and Textile Care

Some fun Halloween decorations have appeared in the window of the cleaners around the corner. This is the shop with the wonderful Welsh dragon mosaic on the doorstep, which I've blogged a few times before. It's looking ready for the season!

Olga is curious about what it all means.

I got my reading glasses in the mail from Oakley Court yesterday, none the worse for wear. I'm so glad to have them back. I left the hotel a glowing review on Google despite the dead houseplants and slow restaurant service. Those are small hurdles compared to the overall pleasant time we had there, and they more than made up for everything by saving my glasses!

Many of you offered up opinions about the possible tree surgery project I mentioned yesterday. Yes, a landlord would normally be responsible for trees. However, under the terms of our lease, Dave and I are responsible for maintaining the garden -- so removal of brush and ivy overgrowth could arguably fall under that requirement. My plan is to get an estimate and if we proceed, we'll pay for the brush while the landlords pay for the trees. We made a similar arrangement when we had the walnut tree pruned last year. Of course I would never do anything to the landlords' trees without their permission.

We watched an old James Bond movie Tuesday night -- "The Man with the Golden Gun." Unlike most of the Roger Moore Bond films, this isn't one I know well. In fact, I'm not sure I'd ever seen it. Apparently it didn't do well at the box office when it came out back in 1974 and I wonder if it never found favor on TV either. In any case, I can now cross it off my list. I thought it was OK -- certainly no worse than "Octopussy" or "Moonraker" -- but it has possibly the worst theme song of any Bond film. (No fault of Lulu, who sang it. It's just a bad song.)

Another Tree Job

Here's another red admiral butterfly, fluttering around in our garden. We won't see these critters after just a few more weeks -- they'll be winging their way south to spend the winter in continental Europe and North Africa. It's hard to imagine tiny butterflies migrating across the English Channel, but that's what they do, according to the experts.

This one rather stubbornly sat in a position that made it hard to photograph with its wings spread.

I spent most of yesterday doing laundry and reading. I finished "The Last Cuentista," a recent Newbery winner that I hadn't yet read. A guy at work loaned me his copy and I felt compelled to finish it so I could get it back to him. I liked it -- a book that interweaves Hispanic folklore and storytelling traditions with science fiction. It was unlike anything I've ever read, and I would definitely recommend it to kids who are looking for sci-fi.

Now I'm going to tackle "Mecca," a novel by Susan Straight about Southern California that I read about in The New Yorker. I checked it out in June to read over the summer, so it's been in the stack for a while! It's the last of my so-called "summer books."

Mrs. Russia told me the other day that the caretaker of the property behind us, a large apartment complex, knocked on her door. He wanted to complain about the condition of the trees and brush in the back of our garden, which faces their building. You'll remember that we consider that our "wildlife area" and I don't do any cutting or trimming back there.

It is true that the trees -- a pair (I think?) of old elders -- are spindly looking and perhaps dying in a few spots. And they have become heavily burdened with ivy. So I e-mailed our tree surgery company to ask if they could give us an estimate on cleaning up that area. I don't want it too clean because I want to leave some bushy growth for the birds and to screen our garden from those buildings. But it's a bigger job than I could do myself, particularly with the equipment we have. If they have to remove the elders we'll ask the landlords to help pay for it.

It's always something!

The Captain and His Mate(s)

Dave, Olga and I are all home now, back in London safe and sound. Olga is sleeping like a log, once again fully relaxed after a couple of days of tension and uncertainty. She is never fully at ease in new surroundings.

Not to say we didn't have fun on our weekend getaway! In fact yesterday, after breakfast but before leaving our hotel, we had another adventure. Dave used to go boating with his family in Michigan and he's always talked (jokingly, I hope) about getting a boat. After I realized the hotel has boats for the use of guests, we arranged to rent one.

We took "St. Trinian's" (see yesterday's post) out on the water for an hourlong cruise up and down the Thames. Dave piloted and made "Gilligan's Island" jokes, but we survived without running aground or making banana cream pies or having to fashion a telephone out of coconuts.

I made a four-minute condensed version of our cruise so you could experience it too! (Jazzy soundtrack courtesy of my copyright-free Apple iMovie jingles.) Some of the things you'll see include Bray Studios, a riverfront movie production studio; the Bray Marina; the pedestrian footbridge where I crossed the Thames on my bike ride the day before; Olga watching some swans; the big bridge carrying the M4 highway, which runs all the way to Wales, over the river; and a guy feeding waterbirds. And of course the three of us.

Olga didn't like the boat at all, at least not at first. She shook like a leaf, which is why I'm holding her on my lap. She eventually calmed down. I don't think she'd ever been on a small boat before.

After our aquatic outing, we went back to the hotel, gathered our stuff and caught an Uber to the train station. Unfortunately, about five minutes into our train journey back to London, I realized I didn't have my reading glasses! Where were they?! I racked my brain. I was afraid I'd left them in the Uber, or at a coffee shop at the train station, but the more I thought about it the more convinced I was they were back at the hotel, on a table in the lounge. Sure enough, when I called the hotel, they were found on that very table. The hotel staff are mailing them back to me. Whew! I love those glasses and I would hate to lose them. (Besides, they're prescription!)

I know I mentioned slow service when we had dinner that first night, but I must say, every other aspect of our stay at Oakley Court was wonderful and I would definitely go back. And I'm not just saying that because they're holding my glasses hostage.

Meanwhile, in our garden, our second miniature sunflower is blooming, and something knocked down two of our big sunflowers during our absence. Their stems were broken and their heads dragging on the ground. Squirrels, I'm guessing, trying to get at the seeds. I tied them back up again, although it really doesn't matter because the flowers have already faded.

It's good to be home!

Bike Ride and Big Lunch

This is what the newer hotel-room wings look like at Oakley Court. Not as grand as the grand house -- in fact, rather bunker-like -- but softened by colorful Virginia Creeper growing up the walls.

We had beautiful weather yesterday. I borrowed a bike from the hotel and took a long bike ride after breakfast in the morning. I haven't been on a bike in years, but what they say is true -- you never forget! I rode up in the direction of Bray, crossed the Thames at a pedestrian bridge and then rode down the other side of the river on a public pathway.

Here's what one stretch of the path looked like. Very woodsy! I wound up directly across the river from our hotel, and then kept going south around the bottom of Dorney Lake.

I found an old country church down there, no longer used and managed by an organization called Friends of Friendless Churches. Its members work to protect disused historic church buildings across Britain.

The church is known as St. Mary Magdalene of Boveney. The oldest parts of the building are probably 12th century and apparently it's a good example of "galletting," or applying decorative slivers of flint to the pointing.

Here's the interior. It looks like that back wall needed extra bracing, both inside and out! The building does have some nice stained glass windows.

I got back to Oakley Court in time to change and go with Dave to lunch at the Waterside Inn, a fancy restaurant in Bray. Dave made the reservation and has been looking forward to this for weeks! I had scallops as a starter and duck as a main course, and Dave had lobster. Everything was wonderful.

By the time we got back to our hotel it was about 4 p.m., so Dave took a nap while Olga and I explored the grounds. We discovered in a back corner of the property a gigantic, bouncy Stonehenge for kids to play on. One of the more peculiar things I've seen recently!

But not as peculiar as...

...the coat this man was wearing when he came to breakfast yesterday!

Down by the river, Olga and I found a couple of boats bearing the names of productions filmed at Oakley Court. "St. Trinian's" is a film series about a girl's boarding school, based on a series of cartoons. I'm unclear which Trinian's films were made at Oakley Court, but presumably at least one was.

Incidentally, in all my talking about "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" yesterday, I failed to explain what it is. Unlike the old British horror films made here, "Rocky Horror" is not meant to be scary -- in fact it's a musical pastiche of old-fashioned horror movies, best known for promulgating a dance known as the "Time Warp." It's fun, not frightening. Just so you know.

Olga and I settled on a couch down by the river, me reading and Olga watching the boats go by.

Dave and I had such a big and long lunch that we couldn't begin to entertain any thoughts of eating dinner. Instead we stayed in and watched the Neil Simon farce "Murder By Death," which some sources (IMDB and Wikipedia among them) say was also filmed at Oakley Court. Having now seen the movie, I think they're wrong. I didn't recognize any element of Oakley Court in the film, and indeed its Wikipedia page says it was entirely filmed in California. Fake news alert!

Oh, and I did manage to watch the last third of "Rocky Horror," too, so I can now say I've watched the entire movie IN the house where it was filmed, which is pretty cool.

Back to London today!