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Gosh, it's been a lifetime since I made this
picture.
My wife and I had been married a year and we went to England to visit the
relatives - she introduced me to Auntie Nan and Auntie Janet and Uncle
Bill and
Auntie Trudie and cousins Alan and Sheila. Before heading north to
Manchester, we had a week in London and it was an exciting time. We saw
theatre and traipsed through the parks. The city was alive with the
anticipation of the marriage of Charles and Diana. Even the lingerie
shopkeepers felt compelled to offer some homage to the royal couple. We
made a point of leaving London on the day of the wedding, because it would
be such a crush of folks. I have no regrets about that.
If I were a network news correspondent and had to offer observations about my 'feelings' and regard for Princess Di, now that she has died, I think I would want to say that I always felt a bit sorry for her - not that Charles could not have been a good match for her (though it turned out he wasn't really interested in her, but just in her bearing his kids) but because after she met up with the House of Windsor, her life was never her own. This craziness that led up to her death is really a culmination of all sorts of indignities and indulgences - caused by being tossed into the limelight. It was no way to live. |
Some people party when their Night Blooming Cereus is adorned with even a single bloom. They invite others, in their 'jammies, to witness the bizarrely beautiful flower open.
An Opening Party
...on a sweltering summer evening on a screened-in porch
photograph by David ReesYou see, the flower buds set weeks in advance of blooming. And as the buds ripen, excitement grows because the flower will bloom only for a few hours. It's hard to tell exactly what day the flower will open, but finally you know, you just know. (Once we had seven blooms - all at once.)
About 10 p.m. the bud begins to open. By 11 p.m. it's recognizably a flower. By 1 a.m. it seems fully open, but it's not. By 3 a.m. a cordon of aroma, a wondrous, sickly sweet, lovely smell, pushes the floral spectators over the edge. And, yes, somehow, the flower has gotten larger and opened even more fully. Remarkable.
By 6 a.m. the flower is spent from its eight-hour workday.
January at the Round Pond
A youthful Queen Victoria dignifies the west end of the park. Peter Pan trumpets the east.
Kensington Palace Gardens, LondonIn between are walkways and open fields. A swell place for frolicking dogs (who get along).
The cold chill of blowing wet is England on a winter's day. The sky lightens, so does the heart of my wife, who is equally English and American and who has made a pilgrimage to this spot. The Round Pond's name describes the shape. Ducks and geese abandon their queue at the approach of human strangers, wildly insistent. It does no good. But it's the swans who will receive her favor - and bread crumbs.
constructed, designed and maintained by Keith Mays and Nancy Mays with contributions from photographers and others who love good photography.
