Blood Sky

One of our hellebores has a rather dramatic infestation of aphids. It's OK, because the flowers are spent and the plant is dying back for summer anyway. The Royal Horticultural Society advises us to tolerate aphids: "You don’t have to kill or control them. They are part of the biodiversity of gardens and a vital food source for other wildlife." I've picked them off plants by hand in the past (that's a nice way of saying I squashed them) but the ones on the hellebore are safe to live their lives for the next month, which is the average life span of an aphid. (I had to look it up -- that's longer than I expected!)

Last night on the way home from work I bought some petunias. Remember the "Night Sky" petunias I like and have planted in previous years? Well, I didn't see those, but I did see these, which are basically the red equivalent. I told Dave we should call them "Blood Sky" and I laughed so hard that he finally said: "Why is that funny?"

Killjoy.

Here was Olga on our walk yesterday morning, posing by some campanula at the Buckingham Mansions around the corner. This reminds me of the photos I took of Olga in Hampstead over a period of a few years, outside the Malaysian high commissioner's residence. She can't walk that far anymore so I'm glad I found a closer location for a similarly-themed floral portrait!

Updates from the Garden

Here's some of what's happening in the garden at this time of year.

The pendulous little flowers of the Solomon's seal (above) are starting to open...

...as is Dave's clematis. (I don't know why I'm calling it Dave's, except that he initially bought it. It's looking a bit pale these days. I think it needs feeding and some TLC.)

The primrose in the hanging basket is still blooming away.

We have tons of bluebells, including this one in the middle of the lawn. (Fortunately it's in the area we don't mow, in honor of No-Mow May.) That's one of our big ol' teasels in the background.

The brook thistles are starting to emerge -- they'll get bigger and fluffier as they fully open.

And finally, the new fiddleheads on the tree fern are unfurling, looking, well, just like a fiddlehead.

As you can probably tell from the photos, I didn't leave the house or garden at all yesterday, except to walk the dog in the morning. I just read and relaxed. The Russians didn't do any construction (thank God) and I was able to get through another New Yorker and get more or less caught up in blogland.

We also sorted out plans for the summer. I reserved a week in Pevensey Bay at the cottage where we've stayed twice before. We didn't feel like we could take a long or international trip because that would mean leaving Olga, so for now we're staying domestic. To be honest, even getting her to Pevensey may be quite an undertaking. Thank goodness the trains go almost straight there.

Drill, Baby, Drill

That's our first rose of the season -- a miniature one that Dave planted by the birdbath. It's pretty when it first comes out but the bush tends to lose its leaves and look pretty pathetic by the time autumn rolls around. At least we can enjoy it for now.

Here's one thing we're not enjoying:

Yes, that's our neighbors, the Russians, doing something upstairs. What, I cannot imagine. How could there be a single square foot of their apartment that has not been sanded, refinished and buffed to perfection? How could there still be a single nail out of place, a single rough edge?

"It's like we live in the mouth of some guy who's always at the dentist," said Dave.

They should see our apartment. They'd be horrified. We're pretty sure they're already horrified by the garden, because as you know we do let nature take its course to a certain extent. They would turn it into a tennis court, guaranteed.

We're supposed to have a renovation of our own some time this summer, supposedly, though we've heard nothing about it for months. The landlords want to spiff up the living room, where we have a crack running across the ceiling as well as some peeling paint. This was identified as a need in our flat inspection several months ago. It's all cosmetic and not something I'm particularly concerned about, so I'm not keeping my finger on the pulse of every new development.

I did my best to rein in our household chaos yesterday, though, cleaning floors and bathrooms and taking care of all the houseplants. I watered everything, including the orchids, so we are set now for another week.

I'm also catching up on some New Yorkers, reading about topics as wide and varied as why the Democrats lost young men to Trump and Ronan Farrow's investigation into how a serial rapist and child pornographer in Tennessee managed to get away with his crimes for so long. (Hint: The police weren't trying very hard to catch him.) It's like a Harlan Coben novel come to life.

Last night we found two new shows that look promising. One is the Netflix remake of "The Four Seasons," the Alan Alda movie of 1981, now in half-hour installments and featuring Steve Carrell and Tina Fey, among others. I remember seeing the Alda movie about 40 years ago, but of course I was a teenager then, so it wouldn't resonate with me the same way it might now, when I and the characters are all middle-aged. The other is called "Black Snow," an Australian show about a true-crime investigator, now on the BBC iPlayer. We've only seen the first episode but it grabbed us!

Ladywell and Some Retro Art

After spending the morning at home, reading (and finishing) my most recent book, I did get out and walk a bit yesterday in South London. I took the train to Catford Bridge and walked north through Ladywell Fields, a park positively carpeted in cow parsley at this time of year.

This is not a part of London I know well. But I became interested in visiting after reading an article in The Guardian about an artist named William Mitchell, and some of his mid-century murals. The main subject of the article was a mural located in a building in Blackheath that was being demolished, and the artwork was saved from demolition by the Heritage of London Trust. But it incidentally mentioned two more Mitchell murals that seemed more accessible, in the front entranceways of some council housing blocks near Ladywell.

So I thought I'd go see those.

Along the way I passed the historic Ladywell Water Tower, which was originally built to pump water for a Victorian workhouse for older poor people. (What a way to spend retirement!) The workhouse included a laundry so it probably needed a lot of water. Although most of the workhouse buildings are gone now, the tower still stands and has been converted into flats. You can take a video tour of one here.

Finally I reached Foxborough Gardens, where the two Mitchell murals are located. Above is one of them. Apparently the colorful paint job wasn't part of the original installation, and was added in the ensuing decades. There's an effort underway to preserve and restore these murals, both installed in 1960.

Here's the other one, which as you can see is very different. It's made of hundreds of pieces of wood taken from old furniture, banisters and other items. Over the years it has been badly weathered and parts have been damaged. A closer look reveals birds, a fountain, a castle, flowers and other decorative elements.

It's interesting that Mitchell chose to create such dramatically different murals for two adjacent buildings. I wonder if he did the wood one first and it took a lot of time, and he decided to do the second more expeditiously? Maybe he had a deadline to meet. Or maybe he simply wanted variety. Who knows.

After checking out the murals I made my way to Ladywell train station and back home again. It was a relatively short walk -- just two miles or so. But it felt good to get out and see something new. Apparently Mitchell created about 100 public artworks during his lifetime -- he died in 2020 -- and some of them have been given protected landmark status. So I'll have to keep an eye out for more!

Random Pictures and Vague Political Thoughts

Here's our bleeding heart, or Dicentra, which managed to squeak out one solitary little heart this year. That's OK -- it's better than I thought we might get. The plant is about ten years old and I'm not sure if it doesn't like its location or what, but in recent years it has not been very enthusiastic. So I'm happy with a single heart!

As I was walking Olga two mornings ago, I found this little foam cow (with sunglasses!) where Olga was sniffing around some rubbish on the sidewalk. I did a Google image search and it turns out to be a game piece for a game called "Herd Mentality: Moosic and Moovies." I don't know where the rest of the game went, but I rescued the cow, who now sits on our windowsill next to my dog-chewed penguin. It's my own golden calf, but I'm not planning to worship it.

One of our orchids is performing at peak level at the moment -- this yellow/green one always sends up a big cluster of flowers.

I am so glad it's the weekend. Despite our day off on Wednesday, it seemed like a long week. And Monday is a bank holiday, so we get a three-day weekend. Woo hoo! We have no plans, though I may take a walk somewhere.

I've been mulling over two concepts related to our current political situation, particularly in the United States. One, that some of our current political mood is fallout from George W. Bush's misguided military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. Those wars left us with many traumatized veterans and other former military and their families, many of whom for some reason see Trump as an anti-war candidate and president. It seems safe to say that Trump has a lot of support from military and former military, and I think Bush's wars helped mobilize those voters to think and vote the way they do.

Two, in general, our global society seems to be emphasizing and enhancing divisions between people. Increased nationalism, Brexit in the UK, partisanship, economic tariffs, crackdowns on immigrants and immigration, blaming and finger-pointing in general -- all of this draws lines and barriers between human beings, which in my opinion is the exact opposite of what we need. We should be eliminating barriers, not erecting them. We need fewer walls and fences, both physically and psychologically. Many people seem very intent on saving and preserving what they believe is under threat, and walls and barriers are a fear-based reaction to that kind of thinking -- but the fact is, things change all the time, and life requires openness to change. This isn't really a practical solution or even a particularly innovative thought, but it's where my mind is in these trying times.

I realize that I think this way partly because I can afford to. I'm relatively financially comfortable, I don't have children, I and my family members are not homeless or addicted to Fentanyl, and maybe I'd feel less open if any of those things were different. Change is scary, and openness to change is scary, but I think it's the only way forward in a global society that is guaranteed to do nothing but change.

Azaleas

It's azalea time in our garden. The one above is my favorite -- I love that color. It's in a part of the flowerbed that the dog loves to bulldoze through and every year I'm afraid that she's trampled it, but somehow it always survives.

I'm not sure whether this is an azalea or a rhododendron, but it's an unusual color. The flowers always look slightly crinkly.

And then there's this one, which we keep in a pot in one of the flowerbeds. We got it at the beginning of our first pandemic lockdown, when the local garden center was closing and giving away its plants, and it always has two distinctly different flowers -- some deep pink and some with white edges. I think it may actually be two plants. Believe it or not, it's hard to tell. This may be its best blooming year so far.

I had to go to the hospital yesterday morning for a routine blood test. My phlebotomist was from South Asia somewhere and he was very talkative. He told me that although no one likes needles, "this pain is from God," whatever that means. I suppose because it serves a positive purpose? Not very comforting from my perspective, but he was skilled with the needle and didn't cause much pain, hamdu'llah.

He was also very intrigued by the spelling of my name (Stephen), and whether it was pronounced "steffen" or "steven." I told him it was steven and he asked whether my parents or my teacher gave it to me. I said my parents, obviously, and he said in his country the teachers sometimes determine the spelling of a student's name, because the students and their families are illiterate. When the kid says his name, the teacher writes it down and BOOM, that's how it's spelled.

All my life I have been faced with the steffen-vs-steven question. When I was a kid, especially, none of my classmates could fathom why my name was spelled with a PH but pronounced like a V. Even my teachers were never sure. Hence, my shortening it to Steve. My mother never warmed to the shorter version and called me Stephen all her life, as do all of my immediate family, but to everyone else I'm Steve. Apparently I should sign up for blood tests as Steve too!

Biometric

Well, Dave and I got our biometric appointment out of the way. We took the tube down to Clerkenwell late yesterday morning and got there about half an hour early -- because in addition to being fearful of forgetting some crucial document, I was also fearful of being late. We had coffee at a Costa caddy-corner to this ornate pub. Don't you love those caryatids on the top floor, and all the other sculptural elements? I think the whole place is closed and undergoing some sort of renovation. There's actually a workman standing in the middle floor's center windows, working on the window frame.

At the appointed time we went to the immigration processing center, and stood in a line, and then stood in another line, and then went to a counter where we handed our passports to a guy who scanned every page. Then we went to a machine that took our picture and our fingerprints. And then we were done. I thought I was supposed to submit all the paper documents that went with our application and I brought them with me but they didn't ask for those at all -- I guess the scans I'd sent them earlier were sufficient.

And now we wait.

After the appointment, we wanted to have some kind of special lunch, so we wandered through scenic Charterhouse Square and found a little French restaurant called Le Cafe du Marche. It was perfect. We wanted to sit outside because the weather was glorious, but alas, there was only one outside table and it was reserved. But indoors was nice too, and I had a blue-potato-and-broccoli salad and John Dory with vegetables, and a bright orange Aperol spritz. (OK, two Aperol spritzes.) Dave had a seafood soup and coquelet, or spring chicken.

Before any of that happened, I sat with the dog in the garden, reading. Above you'll see some of her antics in a condensed version of our morning.

Back to work today!