Beaded Sheep

I was sitting in the garden on Thursday when this speckled wood butterfly passed through. It fluttered around the roses before settling on our fig tree, and obligingly sat with its wings spread so I could take pictures.

It looks like we have new upstairs neighbors. I don't know anything about them yet -- I've only met the man, and apparently there are (or will eventually be) kids as well. He got some stuff delivered yesterday and the driver left it with us, so I met him when he came to pick it up -- a fortyish guy, nice enough. Strangely, the real estate listing for the flat is still up, though it does say that it's "under offer." Maybe the broker leaves it up for a while just to attract eyes to their other listings.

I would love to know if the Russians are really getting £5,200 a month for it. But of course that's not something one can ask, is it?

It was very warm yesterday -- about 89º F. Today is supposed to be slightly cooler and by next week our highs will be back down in the 70's. I ordered a new patio table and chairs, and they were delivered yesterday in a disturbingly flat box that seems to indicate a lot of assembly is required. I'll probably be working on that today.

When I was near Hampstead Heath on Thursday, I passed a house with a box of stuff sitting outside, free for the taking. Included was this little sheep, made of beads strung on stiff pieces of wire. Of course I grabbed it, because who could resist? Besides, I have a couple of other beaded animals that I got while in Botswana -- a frog and a pig -- and this goes with them quite well. A beaded farmyard!

I finished "The Man with the Golden Arm." Good, but not for the faint-hearted. I'm glad I read it, but literally everything that happens in that book is depressing.

As I was sitting in our garden and typing this post, some small creature ventured behind me -- a squirrel, probably. Olga streaked to the corner of the garden and chased it over the wall, then promptly got very dizzy and staggered back to where I was sitting before awkwardly collapsing on her haunches. She thinks she's very fierce.

Highgate in the Heat

We are supposedly in the middle of a heat wave, but to me it doesn't feel that uncomfortable. It's warm -- about 30º C or 86º F yesterday -- but we've had much worse. I took a walk over to Highgate yesterday and I debated whether or not I should go, given the heat, but it turned out not to be a problem.

I wanted to see a show of paintings by an artist named David Evans at a Highgate art gallery. I read about it in the paper a couple of months ago and made a mental note of it, and I didn't have a chance to follow up on it until now. (The gallery is only open on Thursdays and weekends.)

In the decades before he died in 1988, Evans owned a classical music record store in Kensington and made fanciful and highly detailed watercolors of city life -- nightclubs, concert halls, traffic jams -- as well as landscapes, portraits, drawings and collages. The show is small but I'm glad I went as I loved his large colorful paintings, which seemed both very '60s and timeless. I bought the catalog for £15.

To get to Highgate I took the overground to Hampstead Heath and walked from there, after fortifying myself with a coffee from Starbucks.

I crossed the Heath and walked up Parliament Hill to check out the view. That's looking southeast toward Canary Wharf (L) and the city (R). That view has changed a lot in the 14 years we've lived in London. If you look at the last picture in this post you'll see what it looked like back then -- there was a lot more open space, rather than the wall of buildings we see now.

I also passed that yellow house in the top photo. I was taken by the painter's orange overalls. That road had so much traffic I only had a chance to take two shots and I'm glad that one worked out.

I found this six-spot burnet on knapweed on the Heath -- the first one I've seen this summer.

After checking out the show and wandering up and down the Highgate high street, I walked back across the Heath to home -- about two and a half miles. It felt good to get some exercise and cross something off my list of things to do.

I've been posting so many pictures of Olga sleeping that I thought I'd show you a more lively video. This was yesterday morning, as she sniffed around where the foxes tend to wander in the back of the garden. The old beast still has some bark in her, though as you can see, she is a bit wobbly!

A Better Day

This bug may look intimidating, but it's harmless. It's a hornet-mimic hoverfly (Volucella zonaria), which as its name suggests, makes a career out of looking like a scary hornet. Supposedly that helps keep away predators. It's the biggest hoverfly species in the UK.

Here it is next to another, much smaller type of hoverfly. I've seen this hornet-mimic hoverfly in the garden for several days now, usually around this dusty miller plant (Senecio), but I didn't have my camera handy until yesterday.

I promise I won't turn this blog into daily updates about Olga, but she seemed to have a better day yesterday. We have not scheduled another vet appointment. We got some medication from our vet visit earlier this week that's supposed to help blood flow to her brain, which might help her balance -- so we'll try that first. Despite my desire for more specific diagnostics, I don't want Olga to spend her last days or weeks going back and forth to the vet, if we can help it.

I think we've entered a phase when she's going to have good days and bad days, and that's just how it is.

She spent most of yesterday snoozing in the garden...

...with me either beside her on a blanket or sitting on that bench in the background. I've been reading more of "The Man with the Golden Arm" and it's growing on me. I'm about 160 pages in -- basically halfway through. I have developed an attachment to the characters, which helps, because this is a very character-driven book, as opposed to plot-driven. The more I read it, the more I focus on the people and their motivations instead of the card games and boozing.

Olga's Twilight

Our "Stargazer" lilies are blooming once again. I'm putting "Stargazer" in quotes because, although that's what we've been calling them ever since we planted them many years ago, I'm suddenly not convinced that's what they are. Stargazers are supposed to point upward -- hence the name -- but ours do not. They also don't have any speckles on the petals, which I think are a Stargazer thing. When I search this lily with my "Picture This" plant-identifying app, it says it's Lilium brownii var. viridulum, which seems possible.

This little ant doesn't really care what kind of lily it is, as long as there's sweet sticky stuff on the flower.

Despite my good news yesterday about Olga's checkup, she is still struggling. We took our walk yesterday morning, but then in the afternoon she got kind of agitated and seemed unable to get comfortable, and she kept making strange coughing/panting sounds. A couple of times she got suddenly weak or dizzy and collapsed at my feet. She did the same this morning -- I got her out of bed, she ate some breakfast and came out to the garden and wandered around, did her business, and then suddenly seemed unable to walk further. She lay down abruptly next to where I was sitting and didn't move for ten or fifteen minutes.

I think we're going to take her back to the vet tomorrow. I'd like some more precise diagnostics than I've gotten so far. The vet says her heart and lungs sound fine, but we've had nothing more than a superficial (it seems to me) physical exam. No blood tests, no x-rays. Maybe I'm thinking like an American, but if we're going to make decisions about Olga's care, it would be nice to have more specific information.

The bottom line, though, is that Olga is coming to the end of her life. I understand that much. Of course this isn't a surprise -- she's about 15 years old. It's entirely possible this is all merely old age, in which case we just have to deal with it. We'll take care of her until she seems like she's no longer enjoying herself. On the other hand, if it's something treatable, we need to know so we can address it. Right?

"If I lie with my face in the sun, then I am sunbathing."

I started a book yesterday that I think I might hate -- "The Man with the Golden Arm," by Nelson Algren. It's a famous book from 1949 about drug addiction. I'm about 60 pages in and so far I'm a bit overwhelmed by all the references to card sharps and wise guys and dive bar culture. Everything seems rough and bleak and smoky and gray. I don't know what I expected but I think it may all be too macho for me. I find nothing more boring than cards and gambling, except possibly fishing and auto racing.

King Zack Stands Deprived

Another day, another butterfly! This comma showed up on our buddleia yesterday afternoon, flashing bright orange as it fluttered through the air. I love how nature seems to color-coordinate both the comma and the peacock (see yesterday's post) with the flowers they feed on.

So much happened yesterday I'm not even sure where to start. Let's go with Olga first -- we took her to the vet, and despite her recent dizzy spells she got a pretty clean bill of health. She weighs 23.4 kilos, which is normal. The vet said her heart and lungs sound good and she looked in Olga's nose and mouth and palpated her abdomen and saw no sign of abnormality, beyond all of Olga's regular lumps and bumps. She has a lot of lumps and bumps, as many old dogs and particularly bulldog breeds do, and the vet said there's no way to know what they are without biopsies -- and honestly there are so many of them it would break the bank and cause the dog no end of misery to try to biopsy them all. But she said that none of them felt worrying. I think they're all benign lipomas and other harmless growths, so we'll just take our cues from Olga and how she feels overall. As long as she's eating and enjoying life, no need to meddle with all of that.

We did get a prescription for a medicine that's supposed to help dilate blood vessels in her brain, perhaps increasing blood flow and reducing dizziness. We'll see how that goes. Unfortunately vestibular disease, if that is in fact what's going on here, is not something that can be cured -- it has to subside on its own.

As if to prove to us she's fine and more veterinary attention isn't warranted, Olga took me on a walk of the high street afterwards, which is more of a walk than she's managed since our return from Pevensey. She seemed to enjoy it. Lots of sniffing.

I also did a ton of stuff around the house. I cleaned the entire kitchen counter, back in the corners and under the microwave, and now it's sparkly white. I cleaned the windowsill and the exposed shelving. And Dave and I went through the spice cabinet and threw away some old spices that we've had for ages -- like ginger and tarragon that expired in 2014. It felt good to get all that stuff out of there.

Then I went out and weeded the patio (above). I didn't really mean to do the whole thing, but I got started on one flower pot and it just snowballed from there. Now, I know you're going to say, "But I still see weeds!" Yes, I left behind the coltsfoot and the lady's mantle growing between the paving stones because I like them.

Our patio is still ridiculously crowded. I think we need to reorganize some things. I have vague plans to put a new cafe table and chairs out there but at the moment I'm not sure they'd fit!

I also weeded and swept the side return. Similar story -- I left behind the campanula and the St. John's wort, which I and the insects enjoy. But the campanula is greatly reduced in size and spread. I filled a whole yard waste bag with weeds and swept-up leaves and debris from these two areas.

There were other small things, like laundry, and I was busy for the better part of the day.

Oh! And I scheduled our citizenship ceremony. August 13 is the day we will join the ranks of His Majesty's subjects. That's the earliest option they gave us. Woo hoo!

The recent wind and rain broke a flower head off one of our hydrangeas, so Dave brought it inside. I told him, "Hey, that would be perfect for King Zack!" (Remember King Zack is a vase -- there's an opening in the top of his crown.) But Dave is not a fan of King Zack -- don't get me started -- so he insisted on putting it in a glass vase within view of King Zack, as if to taunt us both.

As for all that debris on the end table, well, this is a subject of endless debate. Dave likes to keep everything he might need within reach of his recliner, which means that tabletop is always crowded with junk. I like a clear surface and his collection of pharmaceuticals, vitamins, snacks, paperwork and loose pencils and pens makes me nuts. But hey -- marriage, right?

'The Goldbergs' and the Russians

Yesterday was calm and peaceful around here, for the most part. It rained in the morning and again, hard, in the afternoon -- which is great because the ground is as hard as baked clay. (Which is what it is, I suppose. It's raining now, too.) In between we had a burst of sunshine long enough for me to sit in the garden with a New Yorker, and for Olga to do some sunbathing. I watched this peacock butterfly (above) as it visited our buddleia and dusty miller plants.

I read an interesting article in The New Yorker about television pioneer Gertrude Berg. I don't think I'd ever heard of her, or her show "The Goldbergs," which was first on radio in 1929 and eventually moved to television in that medium's earliest days. "The Goldbergs" was a predecessor to "I Love Lucy," and its lead character, played by Berg, was immensely popular. But unlike "Lucy" it was never syndicated and many of its episodes have vanished into the ether, with some preserved only on kinescope.

I've long been interested in old TV shows so I'm surprised I didn't know of this one. But unless an old show was filmed and later syndicated for release as a repeat, I never saw it growing up. That's why shows like "I Love Lucy," "The Honeymooners," "Star Trek" and "Gilligan's Island" made a huge impression on me long after their initial runs, while I've barely ever seen other popular programs, like "Mission: Impossible" or "Honey West" or "The Man From UNCLE," that didn't become staples of syndicated TV in the '70s. (At least not where I lived.) "The Goldbergs," sadly, never had the benefit of syndication.

In other news, I found the real estate listing for the Russians' apartment. The one time I've been inside it was during the peak of their renovations, so it was interesting to flick through the photos and see how it looks now. I'm not surprised that it is pristine and pale. I am surprised at the rent they're asking -- Dave and I pay nowhere near that much, though granted, the Russians have an additional bedroom. I keep hearing about how crazy rents have become, and perhaps this is evidence. Food for thought any time we consider moving in the future.

Dave and I have scheduled a vet appointment for Olga this morning. She still seems a bit weak and off-balance after her "episode" last week and we just want to get her looked at. I think it's probably her vestibular disease flaring up again, in which case we may just have to wait for it to subside on its own. But we should have her ears and heart checked, at a bare minimum.

Here are some more blooming things in the garden -- the burdock (above with the bee) and the teasels. Some of our plants have been looking desperate, so once again, thank goodness for this rain!

Pride!

Yesterday was London's annual LGBTQ+ Pride parade, which I attended with my friend Chris from work. I haven't been to Pride in a couple of years -- not since 2022 -- so it was good to go back and get my dose of flamboyance and feathers!

Pride offers possibly the best photography opportunities of any event all year. Everyone's there to see and be seen, from the relatively understated...

...to the most elaborately costumed. This person had a whole Ukraine-themed thing going on which definitely wins points for creativity.

I took 528 pictures, of which I selected 77 for a closer look. Of those, you're getting nine (plus a video). So hopefully this is the crème de la crème.

As usual I was impressed with the diversity of the crowd and the participants. There were marchers of all ages, races, abilities and genders, marchers representing asylum seekers, gay Christian Africans, sports teams, corporations, theater productions, "dykes on bikes," you name it.

We had a bit of excitement when some pro-Palestinian protesters threw red paint on a truck and glued themselves to it, causing the parade to stop for about an hour. Chris and I didn't know what was going on -- only that there was a massive gap in parade activity. Fortunately there was plenty of fun people-watching to be done.

There were also several pro-Palestine and "two-state solution" contingents in the parade itself.

And of course the usual array of incredibly daring and clever and unusual outfits. The gays do know how to put on a show.

As I said, even the spectators were pretty entertaining.

There was also a lot of attention given to trans rights, following a controversial Supreme Court ruling in England earlier this year. (You can click the link for details of the ruling.)

We did see a few celebrities, including actress Vanessa Williams and singer/actor Olly Alexander, who stood within about a foot of me. (I didn't realize who he was until Chris pointed it out after he moved on.)

During another lengthy parade delay, we happened to be standing near the contingent from the Royal Navy, who at first were very military in their restrained presentation. An announcer nearby, desperate to create some entertainment while the parade stalled, put on the Village People's song "In the Navy," which got those sailors grooving. They followed that with a performance of "YMCA" (above).

Afterwards Chris and I made our way through Soho to a couple of the performance stages, ending our day in Trafalgar Square. The shot above shows the crowds in Old Compton Street, the center of gay life in London in years past.

Happy Pride, everyone!