Summer comes to London

I generally have compassion for other members of God's creation, but when they outnumber me hundreds to one in my own kitchen, they have to die.

I arrived back in my house yesterday to swarms of flies. "Oh, well," one housemate said. "Summer." Which seemed an, oh I don't know, inadequate response to me. Now that the weather is dry and fairly warm, we tend to keep the back door open. And some of the windows. None of which have screens here. And when nature-boy housemate installed a compost bin last fall, he put it right outside the kitchen window, which was fine and even handy in the winter months. But with the coming of spring--or maybe this is summer for London--it just made for a breeding place in very close proximity to a key part of the house. I just wasn't in the mood to deal with this in my jet-lagged state, so I left the house for a much more pleasant experience (see below), and in search of flystrips. Luckily what they sell in Tesco is a less ghoulish version, cute little window stickers that look like flowers. And that kill bugs dead. I've already replaced one that was covered with the little buggers this morning. And my ecologically minded housemate has moved the compost bin toward the back of our little garden, so things are more under control today. But I'm going back to Tesco to resupply my personal arsenal of mass destruction for my six-legged brothers and sisters in the family of God. Kyrie eleison. Christe eleison. Kyrie eleison.

And so it was that I set out on my bike, pedaling along the Greenway (a bike/pedestrian route that looks like it may have been an old railbed), only to find a section I usually ride on closed until sometime in 2011 because it passes by the Olympic stadium construction site. Finding my way onto the network of towpaths by the canals, I passed through parts of London I'd never seen before. You'd never have known it was London, actually, as much for the leisurely pace of life there as anything else. Not a lot of people, even though it was a gorgeous day. A few here and there fishing, some reclining on the bank as if they'd been transported from a Seurat painting. A few canal boats puttering along, working their way through the manually operated locks. Ducks, swans, and other waterbirds I didn't know the names of. Lily pads and flowers. A man throwing sticks for his dogs to retrieve from the water. Woods and fields alternating with low-rise industrial-looking apartment buildings.

Later I made my way back to London Fields, where I thought everyone was waiting for some kind of concert to begin. Hundreds of people sitting on blankets, several with their portable grills. Some sections of the park were just packed with people, while just across the walks that cut through the lawns there was nobody, as if some kind of zoning were in effect. I asked a guy in a fluorescent vest who was cleaning up around the overflowing garbage cans what was going on. "Maybe Jesus is coming," he said with a smile. (Earlier I'd passed by a teenage pentecostal street preacher. He was working the crowd on a street called the Narrow Way. But of course.) The guy at the trash cans later said something about, "When you only get three months of sun..." so I guess this is what the parks are like in London on weekends for a while now, everybody sitting in the sun just waiting for the party to begin.

And last night I went to a "scratch night," in which people presented 15-minute theatre pieces that are still works-in-progress, with audience feedback afterward. Some Lispians presented. A housemate and I biked over to see it at an arts space on the Isle of Dogs--a short but harrowing ride on six-lane roads, especially as my handlebars kept loosening up from all the road vibration and some screws that just won't stay tightened. (Gotta get that fixed one of these days.) Blessedly there was little traffic late last night when I biked back home by a more circuitous route.

Another lovely day today. And then classes start again tomorrow. Stay tuned.