Ruby, Milligan, Big Ben and Santa Maria

My cacti are dying.

Well, three of my cacti are dying: Ruby went pale and dry, first; then Milligan caught a bad case of vitiligo at his base; finally I noticed, Santa Maria, in all her squat, radiant glory, browning up one side. I can't say they are dying for sure--I am a new cactus mama--but there is definitely something amiss.

A friend says it is probably rot. She suggests cactus food and replanting them. I am to check the root in the replanting process, though, to ensure that it hasn't rotted. If it has, there is not much to be done, like lung cancer apparently.

I would more than happily go out and buy my cactus family whatever it needs, and indeed I have wanted to be the provider of such wonders as cactus food, but I have stopped myself from even looking. "Where in England am I going to find cactus food!?" my mind inquires while I let it get away with it.

I live in a city, a very large city, in fact, and one can get about almost anything here. Plus, I bought the cactus IN ENGLAND, after all. It was just a few days before New Years, a few days before my new life in London and I wanted a little piece of California to come home with me.

We named them in the car park: Ruby for her bulbous red head; Milligan after Spike: tall, skinny and wiry; Big Ben for being just the right height with a little extra on top; and Santa Maria, the spines are so dense on top that one sees brown instead of the body of green--basically, I always liked the name of the city as a child and somehow it just fit.

And now they are dying. Ironic somehow that the only one seemingly making it in our damp, English flat is the one named after an iconic piece of London. Maybe Big Ben liked the chilly air and the keeping moist after March. I hoped the desk lamp would warm the rest, revive them. I don't know how to have a cactus funeral.