D.O.P.-T. (yesterday)

The peach tree that is covered in plastic bags to try to protect its fruit from rodents (and possibly humans) is doing a good job. This peach is larger than any I've seen in a supermarket, and refuses to be constrained by the bubble wrap bag it was tied into.




Perhaps not unrelated, our opossum is now quite large.

D.O.P.-T.

To my sadness when I took out the dog for her tiny walkies, I found that first amaryllis flower stalk lying on the grass, snapped off. Others are starting to poke up, including one in the same clump, and I've stuck it in water in case it will continue to open. I hope it was some browsing critter, but there are a couple of young children running about next door today, beating things with sticks and so on, so I fear it was them.

And Banksy has been on a spree of putting up nice animal pics in London—no thrown missiles, ashes masquerading as snow, or other reflections of despair and anger—but the howling wolf on a satellite dish in Peckham appears to have been simply stolen, and the cat on an advertising hoarding in Cricklewood was rapidly taken down by the owner and apparently is to be thrown out. Humans. We can't have nice things.