falling flowers

london 4.58pm 12C cloudy saturday 2019

there are a lot of small dead flowers piled up in drifts all over the place. the wind is also quite fierce and is blowing bits of these fluffy flowers all over and getting them into the eyes. they have no pollen , at least that is my guess because i dont go sneezing or having itchy throat. but i do have itchy eyes, but maybe it is due to grass pollen which the weather website tells me is high.

added 8.08am sun 28.4.19. seems that high wind yesterday is the effect of storm hannah in london. \

 i was on the bus to the paddington library this morning and i saw everywhere these piles of dead flowers. i think they are from the london plane trees, that abound everywhere in london, in the parks and along the road. you dont see these flowers on the trees, but u can see them falling , the air is full of these small bits that can get into the eye. and you can very obviously see them blown by the wind into huge linear piles that line the pavements. and in the parks, you can see them covering the grass like a blanket. they are a light saffron colour so that the grass look like it is sand. 

one lady at the bus stop without any prompting from me, or anything , suddenly commented to me they are awful. i was surprised that she should feel that way about it; because it is just nature, quite natural really, and i actually hear myself saying so to her. and i think this occur every year at around this time.

all part of spring, when flowers just go mad and bloom like crazy and then all die at once, and fall off. this year must have ideal conditions for a huge bloom of these flowers from the plane trees, because i dont recall they were so prolific in previous years (though i am rather forgetful about these things, and quite possibly i have seen worst, but forgot about it) but this year it is  so obvious like now. i was thinking it will make a lot of work for the cleaners to get rid of them and clean up the streets.

today there is a vaisakhi festival in trafalgar square and i went there to eat the free food they usually give out. this year it is a sweet dessert, with tea flavoured with spices, and biscuits. in the past we get food and tea. i love the tea, it has such a lovely flavour to it. its a indian festival, not sure which god it celebrates or what it celebrates. haha. but i guess it is a nice excuse to have some jollity. added. i saw a pool of spilt tea on the ground, near the fountain, and a whole blodge of dessert on the ground and thought why do people litter the place like that… until, my empty cup which i put on the fountain ledge was swept away by the wind and i realised that was what had happened to those tea and dessert litter. the wind was so strong it can sweep a full cup or  full container of dessert to the ground. 

i am trying to trawl my memories of this festival when growing up in malaysia. but for the life of me, i dont remember it at all. it is a sikh festival it seems, but i dont remember it when i was growing up. maybe it was called a different name in malaysia. looking at google, we celebrate wesak day in may… nothing in april. do anyone in malaysia remember this festival? maybe in malaysia it is because we dont have a big sikh following so it is not prominent enough for non followers to be aware of it. here in uk, there is a sizeable number of sikhs, in that their temples are really big . whereas i dont remember any sikh temples in malaysia… or more likely i wont know if they are sikh temples or not. to the outsider, they wont know the difference.

added 9.51pm 9C i was out earlier, went to the tesco to see if they got any bargains. (they did not, and i returned empty handed) but outside i noticed it was cold, even though it must be about 9C or higher. there was not that much wind, so i am puzzled why i felt so cold, until i saw a guy walking about with just a tshirt on and shorts, so i wonder if it is just me. i was bundled up wearing my woolly beanie, and a hoodie, and layers of fleece, and gloves. i did not have my scarf, which i regret, as the open neck really allowed the cold in. so is it just me, who feels the cold or is it really cold. and if it is just me feeling the cold, why is that. getting old? coming down with some flu… or infection??

luckily inside the flat it is warm. so must be my downstairs neighbour keeping her heat on.

i am watching tv, tonight.  they are reshowing stanley kubrick’s space odyssey 2001. as part of showing all his works; tomorrow  it is barry lyndon, another slow movie  but very beautifully shot with great costumes and scenery.

i have seen space odyssey long ago, cant remember how old i was but now i see it again, the first bit, i find it is so slow that i switch it to the new premiere showing of a sci fiction movie about a human mind in a robot body. i remember being awed by space odyssey when i first saw it. it was so majestic and the slow views of the earth and space station and the music was spellbinding, but when star wars came and we all got to like the fast paced movements and action of the flying crafts zipping about in space, it spoilt us for fast action filled cinema. added. i looked up when space odyssey was made, 1968. that long ago, but i dont know when i saw it. now it is very dated at least when i saw the early bits i was not impressed with the humans dressed as apes. very crude that . 

so now watching space odyssey, it  is too slow to watch. and then i find i just cannot watch the other sci fiction movie, called ghost in the shed. its made in 2017. too boring. they are suggesting there is a soul in that mind , and i am guessing they will reveal what happened to her before she got into the robot. scarlet johannson acted in it, and i remember seeing her in lucy, another sci fi about a woman injected with a drug that enhanced her abilities to superhuman dimensions, that was a much nicer movie to watch than this one. it was made in 2014 by luc besson. who is a good director. 

added. i went back to see the ghost in the shed movie. and caught it at just an interesting time, when the robot got her memory back. but it is not ended so it might still go boring haha. added. 10.51pm, well it ended, but a very weak ending.