Our Nerine bowdenii has flowered for the very first time in five years, and has cheered the garden up just as everything else is starting to look a bit tired [click any pic to embiggen]

It's another snippets post, dear reader:

• Behind closed doors no more news: A gallery at the Natural History Museum has reopened to the public today after 83 years [having been used since WWII as the storeroom for an archival collection of dried plants]! The new exhibition Nature and Us is the first of many new galleries planned to open in the run-up to the venerable institution's 150th birthday in 2031.
• Will they ever be "Putting It Together"? news: After all the hype that Wicked co-stars Ariana Grande and the gorgeous Jonathan Bailey were to star in the latest attempt to revive Sondheim's Sunday in the Park with George at The Barbican Centre next year [for which I had earmarked our Theatre Tokens - a Xmas gift from Mother - to buy tickets as soon as they were released], plans have gone tits-up! First Milady Ariana decided to "take a step back from visibility" after a barrage of social media scrutiny about her appearance and health. Now Mr Bailey has withdrawn from the project, and it has been cancelled! After the ill-fated plan for the previous Broadway production starring Jake Gyllenhall was thwarted by the COVID pandemic, we're beginning to wonder if we'll ever get to see a big production of the show in this country at all...

• Farewell to "London's seaside village" news: Gabriel's Wharf [pictured above], one of the quirkiest, most artisianal and unexpected places along the South Bank of the Thames - a collection of jolly hand-painted "shed-like" shops, bars and restaurants, huddled in a sort-of-village-square, complete with bandstand - is to be demolished at the end of this month, to make way for redevelopment (with proposals to build a nursing home on the site) after 40 years of operation. What a shame. Gentrification gone mad!
• Frankenstein or Danger Mouse? news: Eek! Neuroscientists in the US have successfully adapted mice to have part-human part-mouse brains. "These are not mice that think like humans", according to the scientists. Gosh, that's reassuring. The mouse we currently have under our bookcase [thanks, most likely, to having the back door open to cool down during all the heatwaves this summer] isn't actually reading our books and planning a world takeover! Like A.I. Only smaller.
• And finally: RIP, Mademoiselle Catherine Ringer. Who? I hear you ask. She was an avant-garde artist, performer and jazz singer, and one of the musical geniuses behind this beloved house fave here at Dolores Delargo Towers! [In fact, she wrote the song.]

Les Rita Mitsouko - Marcia Baila

Now I have that as an earworm for the rest of the week.

And the weather? Not bad at all - some good bursts of sunshine today. Make the most of it while we can - it's the Autumn Equinox next week!