Amazing Voyages of the Turtle

2012-02-02T11:17:00.001-08:00

The Groundhog and the Turtle

I have it on good authority that the groundhog has seen his shadow and returned to his burrow. The tree outside my niece's bedroom window didn't get the news. It's begun to bloom, as if Spring were just around the corner. I can understand its confusion. The daytime temperature here has been in the seventies (F) most days -- today being the exception. Today, I'm warming my toes under a patchwork quilt.

It's a universal phenomenon, I gather, that time flies when you're having fun. I did say that I would blog faithfully on this trip, but then I wasn't counting on spending a month in the same place, or on getting so relaxed that I'm quite capable of sitting in the same deck chair all day, just watching the birds at the feeder, waiting for one of these beautiful Texas sunsets. The photo on the right was taken by my lovely niece Mindy, whose love of sunsets borders on obsessive. I am grateful for that obsession. I've taken quite a few sunset photos since I got here, but of course they're in my camera, and my camera isn't with me right now, so I prevailed upon Mindy to let me post one of her photos.

Mindy had surgery a few days ago, and she needed someone to be with her today, so instead of lazing the day away at my sister's house, I'm lazing it away at Mindy's. The two of us are listening to Pandora while I play here and she explores Pinterest. At some point, I'll bestir myself to make some lunch, and that's about as ambitious as I'll get.

There have been some outings, really there have. We've been to see "The Iron Lady" (Is there an emoticon for that 'waggling fingers in the air' gesture?) and "Hugo" (big Thumbs Up!). My sister and I have visited Mecca (aka the original Whole Foods Market), where I did a little shopping and we had a delicious vegan lunch.

I've had my nails done. Mostly, though, there have been days like today -- when the music has given way to "Big Bang Theory" on Netflix. Something tells me we won't get back to Pandora. That's a shame, because the piece I've linked below (Liszt's Arabesque) is the sort of thing we were listening to. Oh, well. Sheldon, too, hath charms. We'll stop watching when our bellies get too sore from laughing.Maybe.

*Sunset photo copyright Mindy Brooks 2011

2012-01-19T13:11:00.000-08:00

I am Turtle. Hear me sigh.

We drove to Buda today. Again. To pick up the Turtle. $578 later, we pulled away, sending my brother-in-law off on his own. "No need for us to follow you," I said, "because I've set Maggie for your house, and she will find it -- no problem." Right. Except she didn't. Somewhere on Highway 35, she got horribly confused and wanted us to turn left, but there was no place to turn left. About the third time she went squirrely on me, I asked R to turn her off, because she was making me crazy. Among the choices of road available to me, I saw Highway 183 North, and I knew that 183 would eventually take me to the 1431, which would take me where I wanted to go -- so I followed my nose and sure enough, after some tense moments (maybe ninety of them), we got to the 1431, and from there I knew my way home. We had turned Maggie back on just before that. She had finally figured out where she was, so she just nodded her little electronic head and sighed a sigh of relief.

There was just one problem -- no. Make that two problems.

#1 - When I still wasn't sure what to do, way back on 35, I pulled over to the shoulder, intending to call my sister and get her to tell us which way to go. I looked in my purse, looked some more, and then remembered that my phone was plugged into the wall at home -- no use at all. So we looked at the maps. I found the 183 and confirmed that it would take us where we wanted to go.

#2 - I turned the key, and instead of the sprightly sound of an engine just rarin' to go, we heard the exhausted grinding sound of a starter motor struggling to start the truck and encountering an unfortunate lack of communication with the engine. After a moment or two, the truck did start, and from then on the trip home was uneventful, but when we got here, we had to call Truck Ford and set up an appointment to take the Turtle back. Again. On Monday.

I am thoroughly sick of driving to Buda and back.

At least we will have the weekend to play. My sister won't have to work, so we'll be able to hang out, and we'll get to visit the rest of the family, who have apparently gotten over the flu that hit them just before we arrived. And we're going to go see The Iron Lady tomorrow.

Oh, and I forgot to put sunscreen on, this morning, so I got a bit of a burn on my left arm during the drive. That alone is enough to cheer me up. I hear we've chosen a good time not to be in the Pacific Northwest.

2012-01-18T08:22:00.000-08:00

The Turtle is sick.

Poor Turtle. We suspect it's the starter motor that's causing the problem, since replacing the battery didn't help. At any rate, Gray, the service manager at the Truck Ford dealership in Buda, Texas, has The Turtle and promises to find out what's wrong and let us know. We drove down there yesterday, because that was the closest Ford service centre that had a bay big enough for a 24-foot motor home. I drove, because R was still pretty wiped out after his marathon drive to get here the night before. I had an address somewhere near the dealership programmed into Maggie, because she doesn't understand addresses that have the word Highway in them -- and I had notes that I had scribbled on scrap paper, some with instructions from Gray the Service Manager, some with instructions from my brother-in-law. And I had R in the seat beside me, but I had the impression that he was in a state of shock. On the other hand, I may have been projecting.

(I should explain that as we approached Austin, we didn't dare turn the engine off, lest it not start again, so although we usually switch drivers once an hour, R drove the last four (twisty-turny, dark) hours of the trip himself, while I sat in the passenger seat and felt guilty. It's our deal, you know. R drives at night. I don't. So, by the time we arrived at my sister Pam's place, R was pretty well toast.)

So anyway, I drove to Buda yesterday morning. It's only just the other side of Austin, but in terms of time, it was like driving from Nanaimo to Victoria. In terms of stress, it had the Nanaimo-Victoria trip beaten, hands down. I almost kissed the pavement when we finally got to Buda and parked at the dealership.

As for weather, it's cold at night here, but during the day it is warm and sunny and altogether delightful, so we've pretty well decided not to go any farther east on this trip. We plan to stay here for a week or so, then wander lazily back up the west coast. On the other hand, we heard something on the news this morning about two feet of snow in Washington and Oregon, so our trip north may be a lazy one indeed.

p.s. I was going to add a clever picture at the top, but when I went hunting, I found that searching the web is a bit more of an adventure than usual. A great blackness has descended over the interwebs. I really must check the news to find out what's going on.

2012-01-15T18:16:00.000-08:00

Texas is really, really big, you know.

We slept in Arizona last night, didn't we? Well, we crossed New Mexico in short order (just a little corner of it, really). We came into Texas at around two o'clock this afternoon, I think. I have to rely on R for that information, as he was driving and I was having a nap. He drove through El Paso, then woke me up for my shift. We looked at the map, thought maybe we could get as far as Fort Stockton, then thought better of it as the day wore on. We've stopped at the Eagle's Nest RV Park in Van Horn, Texas. I haven't seen any eagles, but then again, I've been busy making dinner, eating, and getting set up for the night.

According to Maggie the GPS, we are about 462 miles from our destination. I say "about" because Maggie was made before my sister's neighbourhood was, so I've had to approximate. One of these days, I really must get around to buying the latest software! I don't know where we got the idea that we could make this trip in a week to ten days -- wishful thinking, I guess. Today is day 10, and we still have a full day ahead of us. If we leave early tomorrow morning, we should be pulling up at my sister's place by about five o'clock in the evening.

We sincerely hope that, somewhere between here and Austin, we will get down below four thousand feet elevation and STAY THERE. We got all excited, earlier today, when we found ourselves at 3,800 feet, but the next thing we knew, we were climbing again, and here in Van Horn we are at 4,112 feet. It's just not fair. But it will pass, right? Meanwhile, I can console myself with a little Texas music.

2012-01-14T18:31:00.000-08:00

And then came Saturday the Fourteenth!

Actually, it was a good day. Nothing went horribly wrong, and some things went amazingly right.

We made our escape from Horspitality Ranch without being attacked by wild pigs. That was a great start. R was worried about my driving without my glasses, so he took the first shift, even though it was my turn. I did appreciate that, because I discovered that driving with the emergency glasses on made me sick to my stomach, and driving without them made it difficult to read the road signs before they had gone by. (By the way, I am not legally required to wear glasses to drive. I think my eyes have just gotten spoiled.)

We drove the thirty miles or so to Wal-Mart in Surprise, Arizona, which someone had suggested would be the place to get my glasses replaced. I had my doubts, but I went in there anyway, taking along my broken glasses, just in case they turned out to be repairable (fat chance -- they've been on borrowed time since England). I walked into the Vision Care area and approached a friendly lady whose name I never got -- and that's too bad. I would like to send a letter to her boss. I explained my dilemma. She took my broken glasses from me, declared them beyond repair, and then said "I could probably find a set of frames to fit your lenses." She walked over to one of the three walls full of frames, took a set off the wall, and popped a lens out. Then she popped one of my lenses out and transferred it to the new frame. It fit perfectly. We wasted a few minutes looking at other, lighter-coloured frames, but none of them fit. She had managed to find the one and only perfect fit, on the first try. So she put my other lens in the new frame, I paid for it, and we were done. I donated my old frames to her garbage can.

I can see again, and I'm not sick to my stomach. In the immortal words of Martha Stewart, "That's a Good Thing."

We stopped in at Starbucks, then headed on down the road. Traffic around Phoenix was horrible. Arizona highways are a free-for-all. People pass on the left and on the right, according to their whims, then pull in front of you as soon as they've gone by, so that you have to brake to keep from rear-ending them, and generally behave like fourteen-year-olds stealing daddy's car. Even the truck drivers, who have been very pleasant to drive with on the rest of the trip, have been infected with this bad driving bug. That was really the only unpleasant part of today's trip. Tucson's traffic wasn't as bad as Phoenix's, and after Tucson the traffic thinned out a lot and driving became downright easy.

We've stopped for the night at Fort Willcox RV Park near Willcox, Arizona. We're a couple of hours from Deming, New Mexico, and about four hours from El Paso, Texas, so by tomorrow night we should be in the state we're aiming for, though still a long way from Austin.

We're told that the temperature will go down to 28F tonight, so we've decided not to try using our water hose. We have plenty of water on board. My only concern with this park is that after we had booked in, I saw a sign describing the park as "Ft. Lewis Seniors' Community." Nobody even questioned my right to be here, and that's just insulting.

2012-01-13T19:33:00.002-08:00

Wickenburg, Arizona

Of all places. We weren't planning to stop quite this soon (we've been here for three or four hours now), but my glasses disintegrated this afternoon, so we decided to look for a One Hour Two For One Optician -- no luck there. Meanwhile, R spotted a Ford dealer, and he's been wanting to get an oil change, so we stopped in there, but they don't have an appointment available until next Wednesday, and we have no intention of staying that long. And -- we noticed earlier today that when we ran the water pump, it kept pumping after we had turned the water off. Were we out of water? Surely not. R figured out that the little valve at the point where we connect the water hose to the RV to fill up the tank had broken, so every time we turned on the water pump, we were spurting water out the side of the RV. We stopped at an RV parts/repair place somewhere along the line, but they didn't have a part for us. Oh, and we stopped at a place that sold propane, to fill up that tank, but they didn't have any propane.

However, ACE Hardware in Wickenburg had a cunning little device that R has attached to the input/output thingy, so now we don't spurt water anymore. Cool.

We have had our dinner, and the dishes are cleaned up, and I've spent the last eight hours --- okay, it just seems like eight hours --- fighting with R's computer, which has picked up a virus so bad that he can't do anything at all. Windows said the virus was in his Avast anti-virus programme, so I uninstalled and reinstalled Avast, but now Vista won't let me do anything at all (including run Avast) except buy the damned programme that Vista wants to sell me (him). I've told R to take the computer to a geek in Austin and have Windows uninstalled and reinstalled. Maybe they can sell him something besides Vista, which I swear is the spawn of Satan.

And that is how we came to be sitting in an overflow spot at the Horspitality RV Resort and Boarding Stable in Wickenburg, Arizona. (And yes, that's how it's spelled. Horspitality.) The lady at the desk warned us that we should be careful if we went for a walk after dark down in the dog walking area. "Dog poop?" I asked. She was a little offended. No, there shouldn't be any of that. People are supposed to clean up after their dogs. "Pigs," she said. "There are some pigs that wander through here." Okay. Fine. No walk tonight.

p.s. I forgot to mention the highlight of today's trip (Yes, there was a highlight!). I was sleepy, so I lay down for a nap while R drove. The landscape was pretty naked, not particularly photogenic. But when I woke up, we were in the middle of a Joshua forest. I felt like Dorothy!

2012-01-12T23:42:00.000-08:00

What happens in Vegas...

...turns up at the Turtle that very night. I had a great day. My friend Peggy Richardson dropped by for a chat with R about his WIP, then took me out for what I thought was going to be a quick sandwich. It turned into a delightful, full afternoon. First, we went grocery shopping. Then we went to New York, New York for lunch.

Then we went to Shark Reef Aquarium at Mandalay Bay, where we spent the afternoon communing with all manner of predatory sea life. (My apologies for the blurry photo -- These fellows are faster than they look!) Around five o'clock, I realized suddenly that I had promised R that I would go to the movies with him, so we made our way back to the Turtle -- with a quick stop to take a photo at the iconic "Welcome to Las Vegas" sign -- and said our good-byes. I grabbed a quick dinner, and then R and I walked over to Sam's Town, where we watched "War Horse" in a large theatre. There were only four other people in the audience. Nonetheless, when it came time to leave, we managed to create a traffic jam in the aisle. That took some doing.

It made all the difference in the world to see Las Vegas with a friend who knew where she was going and what was worth seeing. Thank you, Peggy!

Tomorrow, we'll head for Arizona -- We'd like to get to Tucson, but that's quite a bit of driving - 500 miles -- so I'm afraid we'll have to settle for something a bit closer.

2012-01-11T23:03:00.001-08:00

Turtle All the Way Down...

I'm glad we spent the night in Death Valley, even though we didn't get to do any stargazing. Even the RV park was quiet, and in the morning, instead of going out the way we came in, we drove all the way to the south end of the valley. Neither of us had ever been down there before, and we were both awestruck by the beauty we found. We passed the entrance to something called Artist Way, but decided not to try driving it, because a sign warned us that vehicles more than 25 feet long were prohibited, and we would just barely have made the cut -- too much stress for a holiday. Even without taking the side road, we could see some of the multi-coloured cliffs. I tried to take pictures, but my little camera wasn't up to the job. I guess you had to be there.

Yesterday, and again today, I had the feeling that because I was seeing the earth without its trappings, without buildings or people or other animals, for the most part without even the vegetation that carpets so much of it -- that I was seeing the bottom of it all, the essence of the planet. And I know that sounds overly dramatic, but that's how I felt -- as if the curtain had been pulled back and I had been granted a glimpse of something truly wonderful.

Then we got to Badwater Basin, 282 feet below sea level, the lowest point in the United States, and my feeling of awe grew even stronger. We stopped for lunch. First, though, we decided to take a walk. We parked the Turtle in the lot and set off along a path that led across what looked like an ice-covered lake. It was actually a crust of salt covering a sea of mud. (As we approached on the road, I could see people out there, walking, and they reminded me of skaters on the Rideau Canal.) On the wide path on which we walked, the surface salt was soft and crumbly. It looked to me like snow -- but warm. Both of us noticed how incredibly easy it was to walk there -- and to breathe there. I don't think I've breathed that well in years.

On the cliff across the road from the basin, there was a sign -- high above our heads -- that read "Sea Level". You might just make it out on the photo at the right.

Fortunately, we were hungry, or we might just have walked right across the basin. As it was, we returned to the Turtle, and I made lunch while R washed the salt off our shoes. After lunch we continued down the road. Our next stop -- actually, our last stop in the valley -- was at the Ashford Mill Ruins -- which date back to 1914. This was apparently where gold was processed before it was shipped to the smelter. A sign mentioned the "legend" that has grown up around the fate of the mill. Wow. I thought it took longer than 98 years to grow a legend! I think I'd have used the word "rumour" instead. Nonetheless, I had fun peeking out the windows and shooting a few pictures before we finally, and reluctantly, made our way up to the rim of the valley and on to Las Vegas, where we are now. We will be here for two nights.

Death Valley seems a million miles away.

2012-01-10T19:03:00.001-08:00

Listen to the silence.

We spent last night at the Mineral Hot Springs RV Park in Beatty, Nevada at about 3,300 feet elevation. Silly me, I just went looking for a website, but it isn't the sort of place that has a website. The park office is a run-down RV, and the sites are pretty basic -- electricity and water. The mineral baths themselves are enclosed in three buildings that are barely more than sheds. Residents are free to use the baths. You just go up to the office, pick up a key for the bath you want to use (#2 is the hottest, then #1, then #3) and go on up. Once you have the key, nobody else can get in, so you have your own private mineral bath. There isn't really room to swim around (each pool is about the size of a comfortable living room, floored with gravel), but you can paddle a bit, then just sit or float in peace until you're warm right through.

It turned out that there was wi-fi after all. I discovered that on the way to the bath house, so on the way back I stood and memorized (I thought) the 14-digit WEP key, then tried to get online when I got back to the RV. I found out this morning that I had reversed two of the digits, and that was why I couldn't get on. Note to self: Always carry a pen and notebook, even when you're going to take a bath, because you never know.

We amused ourselves by playing cards last night, then went for another bath this morning before we left. We decided that we really needed a break from all the driving, so instead of moving on, we just drove down into Death Valley, and we're spending the night here, at the Furnace Creek Ranch's RV park. At the rim of the valley, we were up over 4,300 feet. Then we drove downhill for thirteen miles. I think we're just about 190 feet below sea level right here at the campground.

As soon as we got into the valley, we drove to the Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes, where we ate lunch and then went for a walk (trudge, climb, clamber) for half an hour out, fifteen minutes back. That was because we did it the hard way on the outward hike.

Climbing the dune pictured above at the right was a matter of taking a stride forward (up), then sliding about 2/3 of a stride backward (down) -- over and over and over again. We did make it to the top, though, and there we rested. There were a lot more people around today than on our last visit, so we watched other people running up the dunes (they were much younger) and taking each other's pictures. For the most part, though, people were quiet. The dunes do that. They have their own song, and when you're among them, you want to listen.

Once we settled in at the RV park, R went for a bike ride and I went for a walk. Now, at 7 p.m., the two of us are struggling to stay awake. Two mineral baths and some unaccustomed exercise have taken their toll! We both want to do some stargazing tonight, but that may not be possible. There's a bit of (high cirrus) cloud cover that is getting in the way. We will keep checking, every few minutes, until either the clouds wander off or we fall asleep.

Tomorrow we'll be driving again, on our way to Las Vegas.

2012-01-08T19:49:00.001-08:00

Sandra Proposes...

This is what I saw when I went for my little walk last night -- a beautiful California sunset.

When I woke up this morning, I thought I had slept in, because the sun was up already -- but no, it was 7:30. It's just that we had come far enough south to make at least a half hour's difference in the sun's rising time.

The plan was to go to Corning, visit the Olive Pit (one of my favourite places), then proceed to Bakersfield, where we would make up our minds what route to take from there.

So much for plans. We spent five minutes in the Olive Pit at Corning -- long enough for me to snap a couple of photos and buy pepperoncini, olives stuffed with garlic, almonds, and pistachios.

(Oh, and by the way, I had been reading about pepperoncini on Facebook, but I had never tasted them until today.)

Oh, pepperoncini, where have you been all my life?

Then we went to the next rest stop, where we ate brunch and changed plans completely. We didn't go to Bakersfield. We took the next exit from the I-5 and drove along Hwy 20 and Hwy 63, which took us to I-80, over the Donner Pass (7.200 feet +) and on to Reno, where we are currently sitting, not hooking our water hose up -- because the warm weather we enjoyed last night is but a distant memory.

On the other hand, the wi-fi connection is infinitely better -- hence the photos, which I'm able to upload in seconds instead of hours.

We're at something called Sparks Marina RV Park, which we found after driving right across Reno on the highway. We were beginning to think we were going to spend the night out in the desert. Fortunately, Sparks Marina turned out to be neat and clean, if not particularly interesting -- and quite affordable.

R assures me that it is all downhill from here, and that we will soon have our warm weather back. Tomorrow, we will head to Beatty, Nevada, where there is a very unassuming RV park with a hot spring on the property. We do enjoy staying there, swimming in the hot water. The following day, we plan to take a side trip into Death Valley, which we both love. Then we will go out the south end of the valley and proceed toward Texas. At least, that's the plan right now.

And the reason I'm telling you about the next couple of days is that I don't remember having wi-fi in Beatty, so there probably won't be a post tomorrow night -- which is a shame, because I'm kinda gettin' into this! Or -- maybe Beatty has grown since we were there last, and they'll have wi-fi. You never know.

Now, I've sat here for a while, wondering what music I could add that would fit today's post, and I can't come up with a thing -- so I'll just post something I like. No. Something I love.

2012-01-07T22:42:00.001-08:00

California Dreamin'

We are safely over the passes, which were clear and dry. The worst we encountered was a patch of dense fog. Then it was over, and we were in California. It took a few minutes for me to realize that I was grinning, and a moment more to realize why I was grinning -- the sun was shining! R opened his window and declared the weather mild. A moment later, we pulled off the road at a viewpoint, so that I could snap photos of the landscape, which I will post if the connection here ever improves.

When I'm at home in Canada, or somewhere else in the world, I tend to forget the hold that California has on me. As we drove along, I looked at the hillsides and I knew how the soil and the vegetation would smell if I were out walking there, knew how the sun would feel on my head, knew enough to watch out for snakes. I do love this place.

Shortly after we crossed the border, we came to the dreaded Agricultural Inspection Station. Oh, no. I had gotten rid of our vegetables before we crossed the U.S. border (except for the tomatoes), then gone hog wild in a supermarket in Washington. We pulled up to a booth, where we were greeted by a young woman in uniform. I rolled down the window. "Are you carrying any fruits or vegetables?"

I decided that there was no sense in beating around the bush. I was about to lose my vegetables again. "You know," I said, "I think you might as well come in and look around. I forgot all about this inspection, and I've got a fridge full of vegetables." I started to get out of the driver's seat.

"Okay," said the officer. "Do you have any corn that's still in the husk?"

"No."

"Any citrus fruit?"

"Oranges."

"Any papayas or mangoes?"

"No."

"Okay, that's fine. You can go."

That was when my jaw hit the floor. I closed my mouth and drove away. I felt like that woman in the Ikea ad -- the one that keeps yelling "START THE CAR! START THE CAR!"

We intended to get to Corning today, but we stopped at a supermarket in Redding. (I bought only one vegetable!) When we came out, we decided that there was no reason why we had to keep driving, so we got back on the I-5, drove just until we saw a sign advertising an RV park, and stopped. This place is called JGW RV Park. It's right on the Sacramento River, and it's quieter than it ought to be, given its proximity to the I-5. We did ask for a site near the back of the park. Before dinner, R went for a little bike ride, and I took a walk around the park, both of us without coats -- the first exercise either of us has had on the trip.

Tomorrow, we will stop at Corning, but just to buy olives. (Corning is the Olive Capital of the World!)

2012-01-06T18:42:00.000-08:00

Serendipity, or (and?): John Hayes has found his musical home in Portland

There we were, rolling down the I-5 toward Portland just before noon today, listening to a radio station -- 90.7 FM, I believe, or something close to that. I was looking for NPR, and I never did decide whether I had found it. At any rate, they were interviewing a musician and playing a whole lot of bluegrass. I didn't hear the name of the musician or the interviewer, but I did manage to catch the relevant website. Its name, I'm afraid, is www.bubbaguitar.com, and as I listened to the music and the interview, I thought "I must tell John Hayes about this!"

It seems there's going to be a music festival in Portland next week -- no, not a festival. A Gathering.

We were supposed to be stopping to have coffee with John in Portland, but our timing was off. Friday is a bad day to try to see him -- so I just called him, caught him on the way into some sort of appointment, and gabbled furiously at him for a couple of minutes, trying to tell him about the Gathering. Finally, I just said "I'll tell you later." and let the poor man go. So here, John, is what I was trying to tell you. The Gathering will be held January 14-15 at the Scottish Rite Center on SW Morrison. It sounds like a lot of fun. And -- There Will Be Banjos.

I waved in John's general direction as we drove through the city. We'll be sure to arrive on a Not Friday on the way back!

On our journey today, there were also: a cold and nasty wind; flocks of geese and ducks flying overhead; and a tow truck carrying a burned out tractor whose wheels had essentially melted. Unfortunately, I was driving when the tow truck passed us, so I couldn't take a picture. The tractor looked like something Dali might have imagined.

We arrived at our Destination du Jour -- Sutherlin, Oregon -- at about 4:15 this afternoon, and checked into Hi-Way Haven, where we have stayed several times before. We love this place. The RV park is built on the site of an old drive-in, and Saturday night is movie night -- starting NEXT week, of course. You sit in your RV, tune your radio to a certain station, and watch a big screen film in complete comfort. (Next week's film is The Bourne Identity, so I don't really feel bad about missing it. Not my kind of film, that.) At any rate, film or no film, the park is attractive, clean, and well organized -- and about $10 less expensive than the big gravel parking lot where we slept last night!

When we had settled in, I came online and clicked on Robert Frost's Banjo, John's blog. I was delighted to see that his latest entry was all about the banjo -- Serendipity! So, John -- I hope you can make it to the Gathering and tell me all about it. I'll be in Texas by then, with any luck.

Tomorrow is The Day of the Passes. We'll check the Oregon State Webcams soon, to see whether the roads are bare, in which case we can actually go over the passes, or whether we'll have to brave Highway 1 (the coast road) again.

2012-01-05T23:06:00.000-08:00

Cities are too big.

That's all there is to it. Vancouver -- Greater Vancouver -- is w-a-y too big, and so is Seattle. We were talking tonight about how the first day of driving is always the hardest, and we weren't sure whether it was just that on the first day, we are adjusting to our change in lifestyle, or the fact that the first part of our journey is always a matter of fighting our way through the madding crowd. I think it's the crowds, the traffic - oh my god the traffic - and the fact that no matter how tired or stressed out you are, you just have to keep going, because if you stop, someone will surely run over you.

We got a late start today. I think it was about noon when we left Burnaby. We followed my daughter-in-law's excellent directions and had no trouble finding our way to the Peace Arch. I took a photo while we were there -- but not of the Peace Arch. It was the oddest thing -- a gigantic -- but somehow ethereal -- leafless vine surrounding a large, empty rectangle high in the air. We think that there used to be some sort of sign (billboard?) there that has now been removed, leaving the perfectly formed rectangle. Unfortunately, I took the photo with my phone, not my camera, and remembered only later that I don't have a data roaming package -- I bought some extra North American minutes, but not data, so I don't dare post the photo until I get to my sister's place, or someplace else where I can use the wi-fi. I'll try to remember to do that.

The border guard got our tomatoes, as usual. We managed to eat all the fruit we had on board and call it lunch, but we missed the tomatoes, so we lost them. We figure that at the end of the day, all the border guards get together for a big potluck supper and compete to see who brings the best goodies. Once across the border, we headed straight down the I-5 in search of a Safeway. I was secretly hoping for a Whole Foods, but we didn't find either one until it was nearly dark and we were in Tacoma. We stocked up on fruit and vegetables and drove on into the darkness, looking for a place to sleep. I was beginning to feel a little panicky by the time I spotted a sign reading "Majestic RV Park -- next exit." Off we went, and we managed to find the park in spite of the gloom and the fact that once we were off the freeway, the signs evaporated. We are hooked up now, we've had dinner and cleaned up, and I have beaten R at rummy, so all is well. We still have no idea what the place looks like. We may wake up in the morning and find ourselves in the middle of a toxic waste dump, but we're really too tired to care. Several trains have gone by since we got here, and I've enjoyed that. I love the sound of a train in the distance -- but doesn't everybody?

2012-01-04T22:53:00.000-08:00

Start as you mean to go on.

That's the rule, isn't it? I've promised myself that I won't let the fiasco that was my non-communication from England be repeated on this southward voyage of the Turtle. I shall record the journey, first of all to let friends and family know that we are okay, but also, importantly, to help me (and R, who complains bitterly when I fail to blog, because I am the official rememberer) keep track of who and where we are and what we've been up to. Already, I've forgotten to do the one thing I resolved to do -- really notice one thing every day this month and write about it -- Okay. I will be starting that tomorrow. I even have a lovely little notebook for the purpose. Meanwhile, this is our adventure so far.

We left home at about 2:15 this afternoon and made our way to the Departure Bay ferry terminal for the 3:00 p.m. sailing. We were directed to lane 31, where we found ourselves waiting in the line-up right beside a full cattle car. The cattle were lowing, the stench was stinky, and I was full of foreboding. When we boarded the ferry, the cattle ended up a little bit ahead of us, but I could still hear them. R went up onto the passenger deck, but I stayed in the Turtle to read and scrounge for something to eat. I ended up talking to my daughter on the phone for a while, until I felt too ill to do so. It was not a pleasant crossing. There was rain and there was wind, and there were waves. The cattle were frightened (and maybe seasick, too. Who knows?); they kept losing their balance and bellowing. I sympathized. Every few seconds there would be a great THUMP! as the ferry fell off a wave and landed in a trough. At least I hope that's what was happening. It was awfully loud.

Finally, we arrived at Horseshoe Bay and made our way to Burnaby via Highway 1. There was rain and there was wind, and apparently there had been an accident on the highway beyond our exit. We traveled the last two kilometres or so before the exit at narrowboat speed (3-4 miles an hour). We felt nostalgic for the narrowboat. Also hungry.

When we arrived in Burnaby, the grandchildren greeted us at the door and their parents presented us with pizza for dinner, after which we all watched a movie about sentient cars with agendas and love lives. It was all very strange -- the movie, I mean. Not the pizza. That was good.

So here I am, bleary-eyed but determined. If there is wi-fi, I will write every night. Really I will. Tomorrow, I hope to be writing from somewhere in southern Washington. Have I mentioned that we are on our way to Texas? That's the plan. First Texas, then -- I don't know. Wherever we like, for the next two months.

Goodnight, and sweet dreams.

2011-12-22T23:11:00.002-08:00

This is getting to be a habit with me. I think that's a good thing. Here is this week's entry (a few minutes late, I'm afraid) for Rebecca Harris's Flash Fiction challenge at Bony Fingered Limbs.

The Homecoming

Matilda Matthews was born in a cabin in the woods. Her parents, Mike and Mary Matthews, were teachers. It was just before Christmas, 1975. Mary had taken maternity leave, because their first baby was due in a few weeks, and Mike was on Christmas break. When Mike had finished grading final exams, they decided to take a ride in the country, just for the beauty of it. Alongside the road, snow clung to drooping branches, and a hush lay over the countryside. It was like driving through a calendar. That is why they drove so far, watching the suburbs change to farm land, the farm land to forest, the daylight to dark.

They were very much in love, and they made a lot of plans for their life together. It never occurred to either of them that the universe might not co-operate with their schemes. Not, that is, until that night in the deep woods, when their old Ford's engine sputtered, the snow fell, Mary started to groan, and Matilda made it abundantly clear that she was about to be born, hospital or no hospital.

As Mary's groans increased in volume and intensity, Mike jumped out of the car and took off at a run. He insisted, later, that he had never intended to run away. He merely got out to have a look around, he said, to find a place for their baby to be born. Mary had her doubts. However, whatever his original motive for leaping out of the car, Mike did find a suitable shelter for his wife, a log cabin just a few yards from the road. There were no lights on in the cabin, so he didn't see it at first, but he shone his flashlight all around, and there it was, its windows reflecting the wavering light. Shouting “Wait right there!” Mike stumbled across the snow to the cabin's door. He knocked, but there was no answer, so he tried the door – it was unlocked. He left the door ajar while he went back to the car and helped Mary clamber out. Together, they made their way to the cabin.

A big, overstuffed sofa sat in the middle of the front room, facing a fireplace. Mary lay down on the sofa. Mike found a lantern and lit it with a wooden kitchen match from a box on the mantel. He used some of the wood stacked by the fireplace to start a cozy fire. Then he turned his attention to Mary, whose cries were becoming quite alarming.

Mike ran into the bedroom and opened the old wooden wardrobe. He found a stack of clean towels and took them out to the living room. The bed would have been a more comfortable place to give birth, he supposed, but the bedroom was still so cold that he could see his breath. He closed the bedroom door behind him, holding what precious heat there was inside the room where their baby would be born. After that, he had no idea what to do except hold Mary's hand and try not to panic. Between contractions, Mary tried to tell Mike what to expect, but this was her first baby, too, and the Lamaze classes hadn't prepared either of them for deep woods childbirth without doctor or midwife – “Mike, boil some water and let it cool down. You'll need to wash your hands really well before you deliver the baby.”

“Before I what?”

“Before you deliver the baby. Who else do you think is going to do it?”

“Oh, God.” Mike sat down suddenly and put his head in his hands.

“Don't fall apart on me, Mike. I'm warning you.” Mary was talking through clenched teeth.

Mike looked over at his wife. Her face was turning red, and she was clutching at her belly. As he watched, she curled up and started to groan again. He took her hand. “Don't worry. I won't fall apart. I'll be here for you. I love you. We'll get through this together.”

And they did. Calling on their Lamaze classes and what they had seen in countless Hollywood movies, they managed to bring Matilda, red-faced and screaming, into the world. They wrapped her in a towel and laid her on Mary's belly, and then they waited for daylight.

When the sun came up, Mike set off down the road in search of help. The nearest neighbours were half a mile away. They were surprised to see a weary, disheveled man at their kitchen door first thing in the morning, but they opened it – country people are like that. They gave him a cup of coffee, and while he drank it, Irma – the lady of the house – packed a thermos of coffee for Mary, along with muffins and orange juice for the two of them. She drove back to the cabin with Mike while her husband, Tom, went to milk the cows. She told Mike that the cabin belonged to her and Tom, that it had been their first home. They had built the larger house when their children came along. “We keep the cabin as a guest house now. We are expecting my sister and her husband to arrive tomorrow for Christmas. That's why you found it open.”

“Hello,” she said to Mary. “I'm Irma Baldwin. I live next door.” She unpacked breakfast and took the baby so that Mary could eat. After breakfast, Mike wrapped a blanket around Mary's shoulders and walked her out to Irma's car. Irma followed and handed the baby to Mike, who could hardly wait to hold her. She climbed into the driver's seat, and the four of them drove thirty miles to St. Patrick's hospital, where Matilda and Mary were both checked over and pronounced healthy. The doctor on call raised an eyebrow. Did Mary want to be admitted to hospital?

Tired as she was, Mary had to laugh. “What on earth for?”

Mike had arranged to have their Ford towed into town, and he had rented a Chevy so that they could get home. Mike and Mary both thanked Irma for all her help. As she was turning to go, Mike said suddenly, “Irma, would you mind very much if we named the baby after you?”

“But I thought you already had a name for her! Matilda, wasn't it?”

“Well, we did – but you have been so helpful – so wonderful – I – we – would like to do something to honour you.”

“I don't know what to say,” began Irma. “But wait! Why not use my name as her middle name?” So there it was. Matilda Irma Matthews.

Matilda grew up in Toronto, sixty miles and a world away from where she was born. She was only three when the old Ford sputtered to a halt again, this time on a Christmas shopping trip. It died on an off ramp from Highway 401, and all its lights failed. Within seconds, a tractor-trailer came off the highway and crushed the Ford. Both Mike and Mary died that night. Matilda was at her maternal grandmother's house when it happened, and that is where she stayed.

Her grandmother loved her very much, and Matilda had a happy childhood. In the fullness of time, she left childhood behind and became a lovely young woman, then, in the Spring of 2001, a bride.

She and Joe, her new husband, were very much in love, just as Mike and Mary had been. They lived in a tiny condo – hardly big enough for two – but within a few months of their wedding, Amanda was heavy with her first child, so they set about looking for another place to live. By Christmas Eve, their search area had extended right out into cottage country. “Are you sure you want to live this far out of town?” asked Joe.

“That's why we have the internet, Sweetheart. We can work anywhere we want – and it's beautiful out here. Just listen to the silence.” As she spoke, she saw what she was looking for – a charming log cabin, a few yards from the road, and in front of it, a For Sale sign. “Let's stop here,” she said. And they did.

It turned out that the house belonged to the lady next door, who had decided to sell the cabin after her husband died. “It's just too much for me to look after,” she said when Matilda called on her mobile. “I'll come right over and show you around.” She arrived within minutes, sturdy and cheerful in blue jeans and a tee shirt that had probably belonged to her husband. “How do you do?” she asked. “I'm Irma Baldwin.”

Matilda smiled and took Irma's hand. “I'm delighted to meet you. My middle name is Irma, you know.”

2011-12-15T20:17:00.000-08:00

This is another story I've written in response to Becca Harris's challenge at Bony Fingered Limbs. I hope you enjoy it.

The Copper Beech

by Sandra Leigh

When the birds woke her in the morning with their song, she went to the window to look out at them. They reminded her that there was still beauty in the world, and she loved them for that. She peeked around the edge of the curtains, and for a moment she was blinded by the morning sun. Then she saw the shoes. They were made of brown leather, scuffed and worn, old-fashioned. What were they called? Wing tips. She remembered them. And there they were, hanging by their laces outside her bedroom window. She snatched her hand back from the curtain, shutting out the light, shutting out the shoes. If you happened to be looking up toward her window, you might not even notice the slight movement of the curtains.

He had hung his shoes in the copper beech tree. She knew they were his, even though he had hung them there during the night, while she was sleeping, and she hadn't seen him. Not this time.

For a long time, that was all she ever saw of him, just those shoes. She would hear him pacing back and forth in the next room, muttering something she couldn't understand, although she knew somehow that he was speaking English. She would get down on her belly on the bare, cold, floor and peer under the locked door of the room where he had hidden her, and she would see the shoes. She would watch them go back and forth in front of the door. She would dread their stopping, because that would mean he was going to come in, and she didn't want that to happen, so she stayed very quiet and watched. But of course, it did happen. It happened over and over again, once it started, once he stopped muttering, stopped pacing, and made up his mind. "You are mine now," he said, that first time. "You will always be mine. Forever." She didn't think she would survive, but she did, somehow.

Eventually, the police came, like the cavalry of old, and rescued her. She had lost seven pounds, and she had no idea how long she had been in captivity. It was fifteen days, they told her. And fifteen nights. They noted that although she was hungry and weak, and although her clothes were stained -- they took those away for testing when they got her to the police station -- her long, red hair was clean and glossy, as if she had spent that fifteen days and fifteen nights washing and brushing it. They assigned a female officer to stand with her and help her keep a scratchy woolen blanket wrapped around her shoulders while they conducted their initial investigation. The officer watched her, studied her bruised face. She turned away and pulled the blanket across her face, hiding the bruises and her green eyes.

They found a hairbrush. It wasn't in the room where she was kept for fifteen days and fifteen nights. It was in the main room, on the coffee table. It was an antique brush – boar bristle, someone guessed – part of a set. There was no mirror, no comb. Just the brush, inlaid with mother of pearl, edged with gold. They dusted it for fingerprints, but the prints were not in their database. He had always been a careful man.

When the police broke in, he was not there. He had gone out to the store for cigarettes for himself and sandwiches for the two of them, because she had been compliant that day. Returning from the store, he saw the police cars surrounding the derelict property, and he simply didn't come back. It was that easy.

The police took her description – white man, forty or maybe forty-five -- thinning blond hair, blue eyes, five feet nine, a hundred and fifty pounds. They used her description to produce a composite drawing. When she saw it, she wept, and then she was sick. They put out an all-points bulletin, but it didn't help. He looked like everybody and nobody. He got away. It was easy.

There were a front-page story in the newspaper, a manhunt that came to nothing, a flurry of public sympathy, and later, a falling away on the part of her friends, who sensed that she was different now. She didn't really mind. She needed to concentrate, to keep her wits about her. She would always know that he was out there, watching her, waiting for his chance to take her again. She knew that if she were going to survive, if she were ever to have her life back, she would have to overcome her fear. It didn't happen. She never overcame her fear, and she never stood in front of the window and brushed her hair again. Not ever.

That is what she was doing, the first time he saw her – standing in front of the window. It was evening, and she was brushing her hair. It was her hair that fascinated him. It reached halfway down her back, and it was the colour of flame. He could almost feel it, watching her. (He told her that, later.) He knew what it would be like to wind his fingers in her hair, to pull her toward him with a sharp jerk, to use her beautiful hair as a weapon against her, and that excited him. He knew, from the colour of her hair, that her eyes would be green. He liked green eyes. He pictured them filled with fear, and he liked that even more. That very evening, he started making his plans.

When the time came, he had planned so well, spent so much time tracking her movements, that he knew everything about her. He knew where she worked. He knew how she took her coffee at Starbucks -- and what route she walked every morning to get to the bus stop where she would stand and drink her tall dark roast while she waited for the bus. He knew that she favoured pink brassieres and matching panties, that she slept in a silky green nightgown, that when she went out, she paid little attention to her surroundings. She was deep in thought while she walked. She had no idea that he was watching her. That was what made it so easy.

Afterward, after those fifteen days and nights, she learned to keep her eyes and ears open and alert when she was out, to watch and listen as she passed by darkened doorways, the entrances to alleyways and abandoned buildings. Not that she went out anymore, at least no more often than necessary. Whenever she had to leave the house, she listened so carefully while she walked, that she heard the whisper of the wind in the leaves, the muffled sound of voices in conversation behind closed doors and windows, the skittering sounds of small animals in the shrubbery. She saw shadows everywhere; she watched them for any sign of movement – and she saw him. She saw him everywhere, in every hooded figure, every face half seen through a steamy cafe window. She knew that he was there somewhere, that he was watching her and waiting for his chance. She grew thinner and more pale, but although her hair might have lost some of its lustre, it was still beautiful. Strangers would look at her and think What a lovely girl. She looks so sad, though.

This is what she thought: He is here. He has been here all along. He has seen me. I will never be safe from him, no matter what they say. She was right. You know that too, don't you? It was only a matter of time.

On the morning when she found his shoes hanging from the branches of the copper beech tree, she knew that the time had come. She knew what she had to do. She hanged herself from the copper beech tree. The last things she saw were his brown leather shoes, scuffed and worn, hanging by their laces, spinning in the breeze.

The last thing he saw, before he put the gun to his head, was her body, hanging there in the sunshine, spinning, her long red hair gleaming among the copper beech leaves, beside his brown leather shoes.

2011-12-08T22:58:00.003-08:00

The Old Typewriter

It's like this. I accepted a challenge over at Facebook, from Becca Harris of Bony Fingered Limbs --- to write a 1,500 word story about an old typewriter. It's due in five minutes, so I guess I'd better do some quick copying!

Good Luck
by Sandra Leigh

Nancy found the old typewriter at an estate sale about two hours outside of town. In front of a Victorian farmhouse, there were tables covered with clean, pressed linens, mismatched china, and -- sitting on an old spool-back wooden chair -- the typewriter. When Nancy gave the space bar a tentative push, it worked. Tap-click. On a whim, she bought the typewriter, the spool-back chair, and one of the nicer tablecloths, one that must have been an heirloom. Something told her that the typewriter – that everything she had bought, for that matter – was filled with good luck, and she needed some.

Now, the old typewriter sat on her dining room table, surrounded by piles of paper, coffee cups whose contents had congealed into something like gum, and crumpled, unsavoury Kleenex. Beside the typewriter was the Dell laptop that Nancy actually used for writing. The old typewriter was there for inspiration – and for luck, of course. Nancy herself sat slumped on the old spool-back chair. Neither the old typewriter nor the chair appeared to be bringing her luck – at least, not the good kind. "Bugger!" said Nancy. She could swear at will. There was nobody to hear her. Nancy lived alone, by choice. She didn't want a husband, didn't like kids, and she had seen too many literary careers derailed by the demands of family to take the risk herself. She would succeed or fail according to her own lights, and by her wits.

Nancy had a deadline. She also had a cold, and it was a bad one. Her current book, a Gothic romance complete with flickering candles and a hero on horseback, was just beginning to take shape, but now she was under attack by a rhinovirus, and her wits were failing her. She soldiered on, blowing her nose after every sentence, then re-reading the sentence, because blowing her nose made her forget what she had just written. Once in a while, she would allow herself to wallow for a moment in her misery, her head resting on her bent right arm, her left arm draped over the old typewriter, tears streaming down her face. Of course that only made her runny nose worse than ever, so she was trying hard not to do it anymore. "Come on, girl," she said aloud. "Just write, dammit!"

She took a deep breath, coughed, and read her last sentence again: "Rebecca heard a sound – nothing more than a whisper, really – coming from behind the velvet draperies." Nancy paused, her hands poised over the laptop's keys, while she considered what to say next. What was the sound, she wondered? Was Rebecca imagining it? Was it real? Was there someone else in the room? She waited for the story to unfold, enjoying the wait, as always. This was her favourite part of writing. She blew her nose again, then closed her eyes, shutting out the world, moving into her imagination, searching for answers. When that didn't help, she moved over to the old typewriter and hovered there, thinking.

A sound intruded on Nancy's thoughts. It was no more than a rustling– and it came from behind the draperies. A shudder passed over her. She took her hands off the keys and backed her chair away from the old typewriter, shutting the laptop as she went. She stood and ran for the doorway, flipped the light switch, flooded the dim room with yellow light from the electric chandelier that hung over the dining table. Then she stood, her back against the wall, her story forgotten, trying to slow her breathing and steady her heartbeat. Count to ten, she thought. She got as far as six. Then the curtains moved, and she heard another sound – a kind of whimper. A whimpering ghost? A whimpering burglar? She sidled along the wall, moving as quietly as her laboured breathing would allow, keeping her eyes on the curtains. As she passed the fireplace, she took a brass candlestick down from the mantel. Thus armed, she approached the window. The draperies were still, now, as if holding their breath. She reached out with her left hand and swept them aside while she raised her right hand, which held the candlestick.

"Don't hit me. Please don't hit me." The child cowered, raising his arms to shield his face. He wasn't more than seven years old. Stringy blond hair hung over his eyes. He shivered in torn jeans and a dirty tee shirt.

Nancy lowered the candlestick. "Who are you?" she said. "What are you doing in my house?"

"I didn't take anything!"

"That's good, but why are you here? And how did you get in? And who are you?"

"Jimmy. Through the living room window."

"Jimmy who?"

"Jimmy Baldwin. I – I just needed a place to get warm, honest. It's cold. I didn't know anybody was home."

"But why were you out in the cold dressed like that? Where is your coat? Where are your parents?"

Nancy set the candlestick back on the mantel and motioned for Jimmy to come away from the window. It was warmer in the centre of the room. She pointed to a chair. "Sit." He sat. She went to the living room and pulled an afghan off the back of the sofa, brought it into the dining room, and wrapped it around Jimmy. "Wait here," she said. "I'll get you something warm to drink." She had made ginger tea to sip while she worked. That would warm him up. She poured some into a mug, added a dollop of honey, brought it back, handed it to him.

"Thank you."

"You're welcome. Now tell me what you were doing outside in the cold with no coat."

Jimmy looked down at the floor. Nancy could see his lower lip quivering as he fought back tears.

"I won't hurt you. I promise. Just tell me, okay?"

Jimmy's right foot traced a pattern on the floor, but he didn't speak. After a minute, Nancy turned and reached for her phone, which she had left on the table. "Okay, I'll call the police. They can make sure you get home safely."

"No! Please don't!" He grabbed Nancy's hand and held on.

"If you won't tell me what's going on, Jimmy, I don't really have any choice."

"If I tell you, will you let me stay here?"

"Uh, no. I'm sorry. First of all, I like living alone, thank you, and second, I could get into a lot of trouble if I kept you here."

"I wouldn't tell anybody."

"No, I don't imagine you would. But the answer is still no." Nancy pulled two warm jackets from the closet, handed one to Jimmy, and put the other one on. She grabbed a Kleenex from the box on the table, then changed her mind and grabbed a whole handful. She opened the front door and pointed outside. Jimmy obeyed, but his feet were dragging. She took his hand and walked with him to the end of her walkway. "Now let's get you home. Where do you live?"

"Never mind," he said. "I can get home on my own."

"Nope. You can't. You're – what? Six? Seven?"

"I'm going on eight!"

Nancy looked down at the boy and sighed. She put her hand on his shoulder, turned him around, and led him back into her house. She went to the kitchen and pulled a can of tomato soup out of the cupboard. While it heated, she made two peanut butter and jam sandwiches. She poured the soup into mugs, set the sandwiches on plates, and carried the makeshift supper into the dining room, where Jimmy still stood. He still wore her jacket, and it hung down past his knees.

"Dinner's served," said Nancy.

"Thank you," said Jimmy.

When Nancy lifted the jacket from Jimmy's shoulders, he flinched. "Before you eat, put on a clean shirt," she said. She found a tee shirt in her dresser. It was too big, but it would serve. Back in the dining room, she took hold of Jimmy's shirt and pulled it over his head. As she suspected, there were bruises on his chest and back. He folded his arms over his chest, hiding. "Here. Put this on," said Nancy.

They ate in silence. After dinner, Nancy put a sheet of paper in the old typewriter. She brought a high stool and helped Jimmy climb up. "Can you read?" He nodded.

"Good. You write your story – take your time – and I'll write mine. Deal?"

"Deal. But won't you get into trouble?"

"Nah. I'm a very lucky lady. Don't worry. Everything will be fine."

Jimmy looked down at the keys, then back at Nancy. Smiling, he started to hunt and peck. Nancy looked over at him, shrugged her shoulders and blew her nose. "What the hell," she said, "Maybe my luck is changing," and she went back to work.

2011-09-23T10:45:00.000-07:00

A Canadian Turtle on the Oxford Canal
(a Meandering, Catching Up sort of post)

That's not exactly The Turtle in the photograph. It's the Prince of Caversham, the narrowboat we rented from Caversham Boat Rentals near Reading. We have been on board for two weeks, and we haven't had access to wi-fi since the first day. Not only that, but the trip has been fraught with Perils and Frustrations and Adventures -- also Joy and Happiness and the Pain of Parting.

I had neither time nor energy to write until the night before last, when I decided I had better start writing things down before they all got jumbled in my head (too late! too late!) Never mind. I'll copy down what I've written over the last couple of days, and later on, I'll fill in the huge gap in my narrative that is the last two weeks.

Thursday, September 22, 2011

We spent last night at Braunston (on the Grand Union Canal), having been delayed there by a lock malfunction. There were two boats (ahead of us) stuck in one of Braunston's seven locks. A paddle had come loose from its track, so it was impossible to empty the lock.

By the time British Waterways arrived and repaired the lock, it was really too late to go anywhere. Meanwhile, Erin and I walked into town - - straight uphill, as I recall -- bought about forty pounds of groceries, and lugged them home to the boat in our backpacks. We arrived at the canal just in time to see Robin (and our boat!) leaving in search of a mooring place. We flagged Robin down, climbed aboard, and collapsed. It was all we could do, any of us, to stay up until bedtime, and bedtime is remarkably early on this trip. Nine o'clock seems to be the witching hour, and nobody gets up until just before seven in the morning, when I roll out of bed and make the first pot of coffee.

First thing this morning, we left Braunston and headed for the Oxford Canal. We had been warned to stock up on supplies and make sure we had plenty of water, diesel, and calor gas (propane), because such niceties would be hard to come by on the Oxford -- so shortly after turning onto the Oxford, we stopped for diesel, water, and calor gas at Napton Marina in Stockton.

We drove into a berth at the marina. Nobody appeared to help us. I walked up to the office and interrupted the lady who was sitting at a desk, chatting on the phone. I asked about buying diesel, and she said "The men are on tea break, but they'll be back in about ten minutes." I thanked her. She went back to her conversation. We waited. By the time we left the marina, we had bought four tea towels (Canal shops sell the best tea towels in the world!), diesel, and calor gas. We had filled the water tank and pumped out the unmentionable. A friendly but unsmiling gentleman did that last job for us, and in the process he noticed that the clip holding our centre line onto the roof was ready to snap, so he replaced it. Already, we have had reason to be grateful for his powers of observation.

On the way out, we picked up a couple of leaflets advertising the narrowboats that we could rent from Napton Marina -- elegant vessels, all. As far as I know, the lady in the office was still chatting on the telephone.

We got as far as Napton, where we discovered that we wouldn't be able to go past Lock 15 that night because its hours of operation were restricted to four hours a day -- 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. -- and by the time we got there it would be too late. The restrictions were due to water shortages in this part of the country. We were at Lock 8. Our informant told us that we could moor in the pound just before Lock 15, but we would be in the middle of nowhere -- so we moored just after Lock 8 and walked into the village for provisions and just to have a look around.

We went to the local grocery store, bought a few things, and then went in search of the windmill that overlooks the town. We took the long way. I discovered a place to buy free range eggs. Erin found a sheep to pet, which made her day. Robin got to stretch his legs. The windmill is privately owned, but we were able to get pretty close -- close enough for photos. On the way back, we saw a small herd of Highland cattle. I noticed a sign on the fence that listed each cow's identification nuber and name, so I stopped to look at it. There was a smaller sign beside it that gave the name of the farm in English and Gaelic, but it was partially obscured by foliage. Erin pulled the plants aside to show me the sign. I asked whether she was aware that the plant she held was stinging nettle. No, she didn't -- not yet. So we had a lesson in the medicinal qualities of dock (plantain), which fortunately tends to grow near stinging nettles. In the excitement, I forgot to take a picture of the cattle.

By the time the three of us got back to the canal, two hours had passed. We popped into the pub (The Folly). Erin had discovered the shandy, so I ordered one for her, made with bitter. She loved it. We came home, prepared and ate dinner, then went out again. Erin had been reading a brochure about Warwickshire, and it made mention of a 13th Century Norman church in Napton -- one that comes with a legend. The legend is that the church was originally built down on the village green, but one night the devil himself disassembled the church and carried it, stone by stone, to the top of the hill, where he reassembled it. We could see the church from our boat, but somehow we had missed it on our two-hour walk. So Erin and I set out again, leaving Robin at the boat. This time, we din't do a circuit of the village. We kept the church in sight and just took the shortest route we could find. We were halfway up the hill when we lost sight of the church. We went into The Crown (Napton's other pub) and asked directions. "Go out the pub, turn left, and go straight up. You can't miss it." Straight up, indeed. We deciced that the legend had been made up by some disgruntled parishioner who resented his Sunday climb. The church -- St. Lawrence's -- was quite near the windmill, but to reach it you have to climb a narrow path that really should come equipped with rungs. We were winded, but we persevered, and we were glad of it. The churchyard was fascinating, as churchyards generally are. We found a small marble angel and a wooden cross that had been knocked over, so we righted them. We took pictures of the church. We were about to leave when I decided to try the door -- not that there was a chance it would be open. It was. So we went inside. Dusk was approaching, and there wasn't much light in the church, but we explored it as well as we could manage. Erin found (a piece of) a German land mine that was serving as a memorial. I found a sign near the door that read "If you feel so desperately in need that you have to steal from this church, please ask for help and we will try to give it." We had a couple of coins in our pockets, so we left those in the poor box in gratitude for the trust. I can't remember the last time I found a church open and unattended at dusk on a Thursday. We got back to the boat with the last of the light. This second excursion had lasted just over an hour.

Oh, but wait! I nearly forgot to tell about our third adventure -- the one that came between the two walks. Erin and I were making soup. Robin had gone back to the pub. We were working, chatting, having a cup of tea -- and something didn't feel right. Then I heard a strange noise. I went to the stern and opened the door. A man who was walking along the towpath said "I believe you are adrift." I turned and saw that our bow line had come loose. The bow was over on the other side of the canal. I called to Erin, who came out the bow door to find herself in a tree. The gentleman on the path took the centre line that I threw him (the one that had been ready to snap) and pulled us back to shore. The bow pin had come out of the soggy ground. Fortunately, we had tied up by threading the line through the pin's eye and bringing the line back to the boat, so the pin was still attached to the line. I got out the hammer, disengaged the pin, hammered it back into the ground, and tied it again. Meanwhile, Erin had come out and taken over the centre line so that our rescuer could go in his way. As I finished, reattaching the bown line, Erin told me I had better go deal with the stern line, because it was about to come out of the ground -- so I performed the same operation at the stern. All of this was made difficult by the fact that the head flew off the hammer every four or five strokes.

Never mind. By the time Robin got home, all was in order, and I was thinking very kind thoughts about that unsmiling man back at Napton Marine. If not for him, our adventure might not have had a happy ending.

2011-07-10T17:37:00.000-07:00

On the road and loving it...

We are in Port Townsend, Washington, sitting at Point Hudson RV Park, which is right on the water and within five minutes' walk of my favourite bookstore, William James, Bookseller. I went in there this afternoon and picked up a copy of Barbara Kingsolver's Homeland and Other Stories. I thought that was very controlled of me. I generally have trouble getting out of there with fewer than five books. I've found the secret. I didn't look beyond the sale shelf near the front door -- but I'm regretting that now. We've had a lovely time here, catching up on news with Angel May and Angel Spouse, enjoying Port Townsend as always, but we will be leaving tomorrow morning, headed for the other side of Port Angeles -- to visit Roger and Chantal, old friends that we met in Mexico.

Yesterday I went into a bookstore called Imprints. I bought a birthday card for my sister and a copy of Anne of Green Gables for my great-niece. I asked directions to the post office. The proprietor pointed me to a shop called the Purple Heron, down at the other end of the main street, where there is a little postal outlet. I walked down there, confirmed that they could mail my packages, and asked for the padded envelopes I would need. Unfortunately, the young lady at the counter told me, they had run out of the envelopes. I should keep on walking to Don's Pharmacy, where I could buy them. So off I went -- but I stopped, halfway out the door. I think I said that I would find a place to sit and inscribe the book with my fountain pen, and then I would buy the envelopes and come back. Before I could get the door closed, the young lady said,

"Excuse me, but what's a fountain pen?"

Oh, dear. I felt immensely old.

I went back to the counter, pulled the pen out of my purse, and showed it to her. I gave her a brief history of the fountain pen, beginning with the quill. I told her that a fountain pen's nib forms itself to the handwriting style of its user. I showed her how to fill the pen. She was enthralled. "I have to have one of those," she said. So I wrote down the URL for xFountain Pens. I made to leave again, but again I hesitated at the door. "Oh," I said, "I should tell you that it can be difficult to fill the pen directly from the ink bottle. You might want to use something like an egg cup as an inkwell. That makes it much easier." I looked at her, and even before she spoke, I knew just what she was going to say.

"What's an egg cup?"

2011-02-01T16:05:00.000-08:00

"I have been intimate with fish."

No. Not I. Joe Rosenblatt. At least, that's what he said last night at WordStorm in Nanaimo -- and who am I to argue? He certainly got my attention.

Yesterday was to have been a day off -- my Saturday, as it were -- but I ended up working for four hours anyway, then zipping straight down to Acme Foods for WordStorm. I had been looking forward to it for weeks, and nothing was going to keep me away. I ordered and ate dinner, then went downstairs to take one of maybe three chairs that remained empty -- and those were extra straight-backed chairs that someone had brought down from the restaurant to contain the overflow audience. In the end, some people listened to the evening's performances from the stairway. That was a treat in itself, to see a "standing room only" crowd for a poetry reading.

Joe wasn't the first reader of the evening. First there came eight poets/writers who read short samples of their work (as I did a few months ago) -- then the Lightning Readers came forward, more experienced, published folk all -- to entertain us. Kamal Parmar read from her new book of poetry, Fleeting Shadows. Kevin Roberts read from his novel, She'll Be Right.

The surprise treat of the night was a performance by Kendall Patrick, a singer-songwriter from Ladysmith, B.C. (just down the road a piece), and her friend Alex, who sang one of her own compositions as well. Alex never told us her last name, so I'm afraid I have no way of linking to her work. I understand that Kendall and Alex have a new CD coming out, entitled "See It Coming."

But I digress. Joe Rosenblatt. Delightful man that he is, he offered me his French fries at dinner. I declined, but it made me fond of him even before he started his performance. As I said, he started by saying "I have been intimate with fish," and proceeded to float from poem to poem, story to story, explaining along the way that you touch a fish when you take him out of the net, then you club him to death, then -- intimacy of all intimacies -- you eat him. He had his audience in the palm of his hand. From time to time I jotted down a line that struck me -- "My soul and I are now obese...I keep my feelings inside a sea urchin."

From fish, Joe moved on to cats: "I worship cats..." and off we went on another tangent -- I remember something about -- hollyhocks, was it? and a reference to "leafy lechery" -- "pellucid squid" and a cat speaking in fluent "Felinese, but in a dialect that was untranslatable..." Then we ran out of time. "Can't I read some doggerel?" Joe asked. Our applause convinced the powers that were that yes, he could, so he began, but changed his mind and left the stage, and I was bereft.

I don't always understand what I'm hearing at these events, and sometimes I downright dislike it -- but there are moments when I feel as if I'm dancing in someone else's mind -- or someone else is dancing in mine. It's hard to tell.

2011-01-24T16:25:00.001-08:00

A Little Whimsy on a Monday Afternoon

Today's Monday. Today's Monday. Monday is washing day -- and vacuuming day, and finding the long-lost surfaces in my home day. In the course of my housecleaning, I came across these silly socks.

They were a Christmas present. When I first saw them, I thought they were funny. Today, in need of a bit of amusement and a little warmth for my feet, I tried them on. Now, I must admit that the actual donning of these socks is no easy matter. Each toe must be squeezed into its own little glovey bit, and if you have curly little toes like mine (Only the little toes are curly, by the way. Most of my toes are perfectly normal. Really.) -- if you have curly little toes like mine, the job is pretty labour-intensive. However, once they're on, these silly socks are amazingly comfortable. I've been wearing them for several hours now while I performed my Monday drudgery -- and I'm seriously considering making them my Official Writing Socks. I suppose I should consider getting a few more pairs, too -- or I'll only be able to write once a week.

Back when I was studying at university, I had a pair of pants (I think they were cargo pants) in olive drab. I called them my Latin American Revolutionary Pants or, when when that was too much to say, my Che Guevara Pants. I wore them whenever I had an essay to write. I don't know what happened to those pants. I miss them, and I need them -- or at any rate, I need something in the way of vestments to help me settle into Writing Mode.

Do you wear something special when you write? Pajamas, maybe? Sweatpants and t-shirt? I'll bet there isn't a writer in the world who dresses up to write -- I mean, dresses in business clothes. Dressing up as such, well, that's another matter. Somewhere, I have a gold ribbon Hallowe'en wig that I used for a while to inspire me.

Wow. I went looking for a picture to illustrate my Latin American Revolutionary Pants, and there they were. Hmmm.

2011-01-22T21:05:00.000-08:00

About Texas...

I received a wonderful Christmas present from my husband -- a trip to Texas to visit my younger sister. You should have heard the phone conversations that went on for weeks before my January 7 departure (or maybe not. They consisted mostly of stuff like"Eight more sleeps! Woo-hoo!") . I flew on (with? by?) American Airlines. Before I packed, I warned my sister that she would be providing my Texas wardrobe, because I had no intention of checking any luggage. My carry-on would carry all I really needed. I didn't even take a purse, because one of our plans was to go purse shopping. I didn't want to waste time waiting for my luggage when I could be spending the time with her, and she thought that was just fine.

So. Off I went, visions of Texas sunshine and warm weather floating in my head. I flew first by float plane to Vancouver's airport, then (four hours later) by AA to Dallas, then by AA again to Austin, where I sauntered out, ignoring the baggage line-up, to where Sis waited for me. We drove home, stopping only for my first Mexican food fix.

(I have a love/love relationship with Mexican food, and R doesn't like it, so when I'm off on my own, I take advantage. While I was in Texas, my food choices consisted of Mexican, Mexican, Mexican, Mexican, Thai, Mexican, and Mexican, with maybe a little more Mexican for good measure.)

The Thai interlude came when Sis and I went to San Antonio to have lunch with two of my online/real life friends. We had lunch at a Thai restaurant in a mall called The Forum that turned out to be a great place to shop. After lunch, we said good-bye to our friends, and Sis and I did some serious -- and successful -- purse hunting.

That was fun, but the most exciting shopping I did while I was in Texas was on eBay. I found an eReader that interested me, and I bid on it. Much to my surprise, I won the auction. Well. Then I had to pay for the thing. That turned out to be more difficult than I thought. PayPal didn't like the fact that I was trying to use a Canadian credit card from a U.S. IP address, and it kept rejecting my payment. Finally, I found a way to pay. By then, it was Sunday night. The vendor was in Florida. I wrote her a note, asking whether she could possibly get the eReader to me in Texas by Friday. If not, I said, please ship it to me in Canada instead.

This was Sunday night. She mailed my eReader out on Monday by Priority Post. I had it in my hands on Wednesday.

**********************************************************************

I hereby declare my undying love for the U.S. postal service.

**********************************************************************

That was freaking amazing. Florida to Texas in two days. I'd be lucky to get a letter across town in two days, using Canada Post. Seriously.

Oh, by the way. It wasn't all sunshine and lollipops. Remember how I was looking forward to enjoying warm weather in Texas? I nearly froze. I had to come home to get warm. It froze every night and rained almost every day, and the wind blew. And blew. Fortunately, I had my winter coat, and my sister had lots of warm clothes to lend me. She also has a fireplace. Bonus.

So here I was with a new-to-me e-Reader, which I promptly began to fill up with juicy stuff like Kat Magendie's "Sweetie". Oh, I'm gonna love this thing.

The rest of the visit was mostly talking, hugging, laughing, all that stuff that makes family reunions wonderful. On my last night, the family threw me an unbirthday party complete with tortilla soup and tres leches cake. It was splendid. It was joyful. I laughed a lot, and I only cried a little.

This brings me to the end of my holiday, when I had to pack to come home. Remember the "no luggage" part? Right. I came home with two new purses -- one of them a gift, the other a bargain from our shopping day at The Forum; a small crock pot; a set of indoor gardening tools; numerous kinds of tea; and some Adams Southwest Seasoning (which is the stuff I've been saying is good on EVERYTHING); my eReader, of course; the "Shhh - Writer at Work" mug that I had bought from Rebecca Woodhead (inspirational shopping) and had shipped to Texas. My just-small-enough-to carry-on suitcase was stuffed full. My backpack was stuffed full. One of the purses was stuffed full. I had to check the suitcase. I tried to organize that online, but it couldn't be done. When I got to the airport, I told AA that I wanted to check one piece of luggage. Sure. No problem. That will be $25, please.

Excuse me? One piece of luggage? Under thirty pounds? I snarled. I paid. I came home. I got over it. But I'll find another carrier, the next time I decide to fly.

Oh, I don't want to leave this on a negative note. It was a wonderful trip. I'd do it again tomorrow, if I could. When I got home, I went grocery shopping. For tortillas.

2011-01-21T12:29:00.000-08:00

I sent a Facebook message to my daughter-in-law – "Will your mom be able to come out for your delivery?" I knew that her mom was busy looking after her dad, who had just undergone a rigorous series of cancer treatments back in Regina. "If not, would you like me to come over and be with you when the baby is born?"

Three days went by without a reply. I worried. Had I overstepped? After all, I am the stepmother to my husband's two sons, a late arrival to this family. I am always torn between my desire to show my daughters-in-law how fond I am of them and my unwillingness to push my way into the circle, to come across as an interloper. Maybe I had gone too far.

But, no. Finally, the reply came. My daughter-in-law had thought long and hard. She hoped I wouldn't be offended, but she really didn't want me in the delivery room. "My bits and all, you know!" she wrote. But if I would be willing to come right after the delivery, she would be delighted to have me there.

(Have you ever sat at your computer, applauding something you read? That's what I did.)

I called her mother in Saskatchewan and told her what I was going to do. I promised updates and photos – lots of photos.

The day came. I took a float plane to Vancouver, stood in the pouring rain until a taxi finally stopped for me. I rode to the hospital, found my way through the maze to where the new family awaited me. My stepson looked as tired as his wife. The brightest eyes in the room were the baby's.

I immediately dubbed him Pickle. He was so tiny. My eyes filled with tears as I lifted him from his clear plastic cradle, hospital-issue. He wore a white toque, a tiny disposable diaper, a plastic wristband, a plastic anklet. He was swaddled in a coarse green towel – again, hospital-issue. Someone who saw the photo I snapped just then said that he looked like a pea pod baby. He was three hours old, delivered by emergency C-section.

This was a new experience for me, this brand-new-grandmothering. Neither of my own children has had children, and I was out of the country when my other step-grandchildren were born. I was excited. I knew I would love this moment, but I didn't know just how much.

Over the next three days, I took as many turns as I could get at holding My Grandson, walking him up and down the hall while his mother rested, reading to him, giving him my little finger to suck when he was fussy. I used my Smartphone to snap photo after photo, which I dutifully forwarded to the Saskatchewan grandma's phone – until I found out that she doesn't actually own a cell phone. Somewhere in cyberspace, there are lots of cute new baby photos whizzing around, looking for a home.

I spent the night at the new family's apartment, the night before they all came home. I took more pictures – this time, of the view from the nursery. This is to be a city kid, this grandson. The nursery is high up in a beautiful condo. I pictured him growing up here, seldom having to go anywhere by car, at least for the first few years -- because his neighbourhood has everything he needs – grocery stores, restaurants, parks, a library, no doubt a nursery school.

Finally, in mid-afternoon, there was a knock at the door. I opened it to welcome mom and dad and their brand-new son. Much as I wanted to hang around, to keep holding the baby, nuzzling his neck, savouring this time, I knew that the family should have their first night at home all on their own, so as soon as they were settled in, I headed back to the Island.

A couple of days ago, I stopped in Vancouver on my way home from a trip to Texas (more later) and I got to hold the baby again. He has grown, but not too much yet. He's still my little Pickle. His hair is a bit thicker. He smells just as yummy. His mom told me again how grateful she was for all my help, and she gave me a very generous thank-you gift. It made me cry, partly out of gratitude and partly out of guilt. If they only knew, these new parents, what a gift it was, letting me be there to welcome their child into the world. They didn't need to thank me at all.

2010-11-19T11:22:00.000-08:00

Browsing through the Past

Just a few days ago, a friend on Facebook asked me to submit a recipe to an exchange that she has started. I set the idea aside, then almost forgot about it until this morning, when I got some family news, the kind that sets you to sighing and remembering and maybe crying a little. The news sent me to my recipe box.

The Home

This recipe comes from my ex-mother-in-law, who is still Mom to me, although I haven't even seen her in twenty years. In a few days, Mom will be moving from the house where she spent most of her married life, to a senior's residence . Just now, I was reading the website for The Home (as Mom calls it) and noticed "restaurant-style meals". That reminded me that Mom won't be doing much cooking anymore, which in turn reminded me of the Facebook challenge.

I grabbed my recipe box, which contains recipes I've gathered over the last forty years or so. Some of the recipes are neatly typed or written on cards, but my favourites are stuffed into the box in their original form -- ripped from newspapers, or better still, written as part of a letter. This one is in Mom's handwriting, so it will never be transferred to a card.

Adeline's Coffee Cake

350F oven, 40-45 minutes

1/2 lb. butter or margarine - Cream well.

2 cups sugar - Beat in.

4 eggs - one at a time.

Add:

1 tsp. vanilla
1 tsp. almond
3 cups flour
1tsp. baking powder

Pour 3/4 of batter in greased cookie sheet (one with sides). Spread one jar of cherry pie filling on top. Spread remaining batter on top in blobs. Bake. Sprinkle with 10X sugar when cool.

There. A recipe with lots of sugar, fat, and nostalgia for the seventies, when we didn't worry quite so much about sugar and fat.

Here's the kicker. It was only when I had printed the recipe into an e-mail and sent it off to the one person on the list that I was supposed to send it to, that I noticed the rest of the instruction: After you've sent the recipe to the person in position 1 below and only to that person, copy this letter into a new email, move my name to position 1 and put your name in position 2. Only mine and your name should show when you send your email. Send to 20 friends BCC (blind copy).

Oh, crap. This is like a chain letter. I don't do chain letters. Now I feel like a spoil-sport.

Never mind, I said to myself. If you post the recipe to the Turtle, that will be kind of sort of like sending it to 20 people, right? But without the pressure?

So if you're planning a 70s themed party for the holiday season, do consider including Mom's recipe -- and let me know how it goes.

2010-11-13T19:48:00.000-08:00

Out of the Mouths of Babes

...come words of wisdom. Or so it seems. Maybe. I just came back from a Meetup (That's an official thing, a Meetup. (www.meetup.com) I only found out about Meetup a couple of weeks ago, when Peggy Richardson (that's Peggy on the right) popped into the NaNoWriMo discussion board and proposed a meetup for people doing NaNoWriMo. It sounded good to me, so I joined the group, met some fascinating people -- and since then, have attended two more Meetups. Tonight I met C.J. Gosling, (left) yet
another lovely young thing, whose YA novel, The Guardian, will be coming out in February. I got to see the book itself, which is a work of art in more ways than one. The story is beautifully written and also beautifully illustrated.

So we talked about Charity's book (that's CJ's proper name) and we talked about NaNoWriMo and we swapped stories, and I talked about what a hard time I'm having this year, writing my NaNovel. I am trying to explore a mother's nightmare scenario - (one of many possible nightmare scenarios -- Parenthood is such a risky endeavour!) and I keep screeching to a halt. Perhaps I just don't want to go there.

And as we were getting ready to leave, Peggy asked me why I was trying to write from such a dark place when I just don't seem to be that kind of person. Charity said I told great stories, and wondered why I didn't go with those, instead of plumbing the depths of my angst, or my characters' angst...

Well, damn. Food for thought. I'm facing my NaNovel again, wondering whether I should turn around and head in a completely different direction with the story. You know, it's a sad thing to get to be an old lady and still come across as Little Mary Sunshine.

Speaking of (Not)writing, I've also discovered Blip.fm, which has given me endless hours of distraction. I've revisited music I had forgotten all about, like Cream, and music that has stayed with me all through the years, like this:

2010-10-26T15:47:00.002-07:00

The Countdown Is On

NaNoWriMo starts on Sunday. I am suitably excited and nervous and full of dread, especially since I have to be at work at 6 a.m. that day -- no midnight NaNo running starts this year. To make the project seem even remotely feasible, I've been reading all sorts of self-help books and blogs. I have been trying to follow Alexandra Sokoloff's suggestions on plotting, characterization, and setting. Ms. Sokoloff suggests that we start by making a master list of our favourite books and movies -- and/or the books and movies we wish we had written. When I did that, I realized that my favourites are all about character. It doesn't matter what happens to the characters (and in some of my favourite books, Terrible Things Happen.) or where these things happen, as long as I get the chance to know the characters and love them. Wait. That's not altogether true. I much prefer happy endings. I adore chick flicks. Nonetheless, I don't care how happy the ending is if I haven't fallen in love with the characters.

So I had a revelation. I write that way. I am much less concerned with plot than with character, and setting is almost an afterthought. My favourite movie really should be My Dinner with Andre.

This brings me to today. Today, I came across a post at Write Anything that dealt with the topic of Setting and set out several exercises to hone one's skills at description. I played with the last one, and this is what I wrote:

There are three iron tables outside The Vault to which smokers retreat from time to time. There, they can watch the cars go by, make faces at the dogs that always seem to be tied to the lamp post, and shiver in the Vancouver Island damp. Meanwhile, the rest of us have the benefit of huge windows

that let in what sunlight penetrates the clouds. We can sit on the main floor, where the bar is,at high bar stools arranged around little -- that is, small in circumference -- tables. There aren't many of them, because part of the room is taken up by the stage, which is used a couple of nights a week for professional shows or Open Mike.

Or we can sit in considerably more comfortable, shorter chairs at shorter tables on the mezzanine, which is a mere five steps up. The kitchen is located right behind the bar, and from a perch on the mezzanine we can see everything that goes on in the kitchen. Better yet, we can watch the proprietor or his staff prepare perfect cappuccinos, lattes, etc. at those intimidating Italian machines. Of course, we can also hear all this happening -- particularly the coffee making, which is a very noisy operation --louder by far than the music that's piped in. To distract us from the noisefest, there are paintings on the very high walls --works by local artists of an avant-garde bent. The walls themselves are painted an unfortunate yellow, sort of goldenrod, but muddier.

Speaking of the walls, and the art, there is a certain amount of art involved in choosing a place to sit. If you wish to write at your computer, you probably want to sit at one of the tables near the electrical outlets. After a while, you learn where those outlets are. They are generally hidden behind the furniture, but with a bit of acrobatic effort, you can get plugged in, and then you're set for hours. The wi-fi is great, and nobody appears to care how long you stay. Occasionally someone will wander over and offer to sell you a carving of an eagle or a whale, but otherwise you are comfortably incognito.

At the back of the main floor, as you head toward the washrooms, there is an antique (read "battered") buffet on which are stacked fliers, business cards, and several huge plants that bring to mind the Little Shop of Horrors. Adjacent to the buffet is a bulletin board on which are tacked yet more cards, fliers, warnings of impending doom, calls to action...and across the way, behind the pastry case, is the vault door. It's a real vault door, harking back to this venue's origins as a bank. When its banking days were over, the building had several more lives - as an insurance agency and a clothing store and I don't know what else -- before it found its true calling as Demeter's Vault.

Somehow, it all works. I plan to spend much of November at The Vault, as I did last year -- but this time I've managed to convince a few more NaNovelists to meet me there, so my dream of completely taking the place over may yet come true.

2010-10-12T17:54:00.001-07:00

In Praise of Elbow Grease

My mother always extolled the virtues of elbow grease for cleaning (her daughters' elbow grease, that is, not hers!), but it seems to me that all I hear on the television are ads for products that will clean and polish the world and everything in it without the use of any elbow grease at all, so that we can all spend our lives lying around, eating bon bons. Unfortunately, a lot of those products are pretty toxic. And expensive.

Just the other day, as I was bemoaning the fact that my weight has been creeping (galloping?) up again, I thought, Hey! Could there be a connection? Could the fact that I don't have to put much of an effort into housework be contributing to my weight problem? I sit all day at work, my favourite leisure activities (writing, reading, knitting) are all sedentary in nature, and when I clean house, I expect my cleaning products to work like magic. Maybe if I worked a little harder, I'd burn a few calories.

This line of thought coincided with my discovery (on Facebook, if I remember correctly) of a recipe for an all-purpose cleaner that I could make at home for pennies. The ingredients were non-toxic.

Deep inside my I Hate to Housekeep personality, there's a Suzie Homemaker crying to get out. Or so it seems. I rushed out and bought whatever ingredients I didn't have, and I made some Green Cleaner. That was just the beginning. My daughter jumped on the bandwagon and demanded the recipe. The next thing I knew, she was calling to say "Did you know you can make homemade Febreze?" The two of us spent hours googling and YouTubing, finding ways to Do It Ourselves (whatever IT might be).

So now I've got spray bottles full of homemade cleaner which, in fact, I prefer to the commercial preparations. I can't find the All Purpose Cleaner video that I saw originally, but the interwebs are full of recipes. The one I've embedded here is similar to mine, except mine has more borax and vinegar, but no washing soda. I'm going to try them all. I haven't even bothered with the essential oil, because I love the clean fragrance of the solution. My mission now? to use up the commercial cleaners I have lying around, and from this day forward, to roll my own - and use a little more elbow grease.

I'll let you know how it goes.

2010-10-10T19:02:00.001-07:00

I am Very, very full...

and grateful to my next-door neighbour, who invited R and me (and several other people) over for Thanksgiving dinner. She served -- and we ate -- turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, ham, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, cheese sauce, carrots,sweet potatoes, squash, fresh pineapple, apple pie, pumpkin pie, ice cream, whipped cream, and wine.

Oy.

It was delicious, every bit of it, and we even got to bring home some leftovers, which we might just be hungry enough to eat some time this week, though at the moment it feels as if I'll never be hungry again.

While we were there, I found out that this same neighbour hosts a Stitch & Bitch in her living room every Wednesday night. I think I'll check it out. There will be people doing crafts that are not knitting, which might be interesting, if weird.

It's funny. We've been neighbours for years, but it's only just recently that we've gone beyond the "Good morning, lovely day" stage and started to get properly acquainted. I like this.

Speaking of gratitude, I saw Mamma Mia again the other day, and I can't stop singing this song:

2010-10-08T16:47:00.000-07:00

Friday Photo Shootout - Reflections

It's been a long, long time -- but I wandered onto the Friday Photo Shootout site this morning, just in time to take part in today's shootout -- and as it happens, it's raining here today, so my world is full of reflections.

I decided to head out in search of unusual reflections -- and promptly changed my mind because, well, it was (and is) raining.

So I lay down on the carpet and took this photo of me and my camera reflected in my faux fireplace. Shades of Dante.Hmmm. Back to the drawing board.

Later in the day, I really did have to go out, rain or no rain, to pick up the ingredients for dinner. On the way, I stopped to photograph these -- grapevines and assorted other greenery reflected in the Turtle's window --

and this, the last rose of summer nodding good-bye to a reflected tree. At that point I decided that the warmth of home sounded really good, so I abandoned all attempts at photography and scuttled back to my den.

And speaking of reflections, I've recently given some thought to the fact that my faithful little netbook might not last forever, and all those pieces of fiction and poetry hiding in its files could end up at the recycling depot, lost to me forever. The sensible thing would be to dig them out, one by one, finish them, and send them somewhere --

But for me, writing is like knitting. I have knitting projects stashed all over the house in various stages of completion. The sensible thing to do would be to finish all those projects before I start a new one, but every time I see a particularly lovely skein of wool, my mind leaps to a new pair of socks, a new sweater, a shawl -- and off I go.

It seems I am addicted to yarn. And words. I am addicted to words. I love to watch them form on the page. Finishing a project isn't as important to me (barring a deadline) as the process itself. I could make all sorts of resolutions about finishing one thing before I start another, but I'm a pretty old dog now, and stuck in my ways, so maybe I'd better invest in (1) more plastic tubs to hold knitting projects and (2) a whole handful of memory sticks.

2010-10-07T12:13:00.000-07:00

I did it again.

I held off, this year, worried about overbooking myself and bringing on another bout of exhaustion/depression, but yesterday, finally, I couldn't resist. I closed my eyes and clicked, and just like that, I'm signed up for NaNoWriMo again. And just like last year, I find myself ever so slightly obsessed already. I was glancing through the forum list last night, and I found a group of knitting NaNovelists. I took it as a sign. I don't need to do less; I just need to concentrate on doing the things I love, and let everything else slide. Or so I hope.

While I'm hanging around with the NaNovelists, I think I'll show them how to knit a sock that doesn't look as if somebody's been nibbling at it. (I'm sure there's a story behind that image, but I haven't found it yet.)

Last year, I started with a title (Fly Away Home) and some characters. This year, I'm taking a different approach. Among the features I've discovered is an adoption agency. People drop off their surplus ideas (for plots, characters, etc.) and leave them in the hope that they will find good homes. I found a plot that looked interesting, and I made a note of it at My Writing Nook. That's my starting point. Now I'll set about thinking up some characters. I think I'd prefer to create my own characters, rather than adopting them, but plotting is my weakest point, so I'm grateful for the help with that.

Off to work I go.

2010-10-05T21:43:00.000-07:00

Before I was so rudely interrupted,

I was telling you about the Manor Ball. I know it's been over for days, now, but I'm still glowing a bit -- I mean, who wouldn't be?

As I was saying, we arrived at the door, where Willow greeted us warmly. A quick look around revealed a party in full swing. I saw George Sanders twirling Zsa Zsa Gabor around the floor, dancing dangerously close to the bar - oh, maybe that's where that stain on Zsa Zsa's dress came from. I must say, she didn't seem fazed by the stain. She was dancing and laughing, then leaning in close to George's ear. George, meanwhile, was looking across the dance floor, seemingly entranced by the lush figure of Marilyn Monroe. My, my.

Denzel, on the other hand, had eyes only for me. We danced and danced, until I simply had to take a break. I had long since lost my near-naked shoes (under a potted plant somewhere, if I remember correctly) and was dancing barefoot. We went out to the terrace. I collapsed into the nearest chair. Denzel gallantly took my left ankle in his hands and massaged my aching foot while I did my best not to moan.

Oh, dear. This is bordering on TMI, isn't it?

Fast forward, then, to the end of the party, the delicious brunch, the much-needed coffee, the startling sight of Marilyn holding court in the altogether -- this was indeed a night to remember.

Willow, you are indeed the hostess with the mostest. Thank you again for your gracious hospitality.

2010-10-04T13:24:00.000-07:00

I should have stayed at the Manor.

My last post ended "to be continued..." I wrote that in good faith, thinking I would be able to continue my story at my next port of call. Unfortunately, the wi-fi there turned out to be less than --let's see -- less than extant? The rv park manager said there was wi-fi, and I did manage to connect to it, but that was as far as I could go. There I was, connected to the network, but since the network had no connectivity, my being connected to it wasn't very useful to me. I decided that the "wi" in wi-fi stood for "wishful". Other than that, it was a great place to stay, and I'm sure we'll stay there again, but next time, we'll be sure to get a site closer to the hot spot.

Now I'm back at home, and the Turtle has gone to its winter home to hibernate. When I woke up this morning, it was still dark. I looked over the edge of my bed, expecting to see a five-foot or so drop to the floor, but something was wrong. I could tell that, even in the gloom. So I turned on a light and saw that my bed was really, really close to the floor. It's odd. I seem to adjust immediately to being in my over-cab Turtle bed, scrambling up and down via the "dining room" bench. But when I get back home, I don't adjust nearly as quickly. Maybe I should build myself a lofty bed. I had one of those once, a bed that was six feet off the floor. I had to get in and out of bed via a ladder. I liked that.

Anyway, our journey of 9,980 kilometres is over. We had a lovely time. For the last two days, we were in Port Townsend.

On the first day in PT, Angel May and I made our traditional raid on the William James bookstore. I found three wonderful books. Her husband waited patiently while we sorted through dozens of books to find the ones we wanted -- AM's on quilting, mine on knitting. Then the three of us went to the Thai restaurant for lunch -- also a tradition on my visits. Robin opted out of this trip. He was busy cycling all over Port Townsend, trying to make up for several weeks of insufficient exercise.

As it happened, we were in Port Townsend for the last festival weekend of the season -- the Kinetic Sculpture Weekend -- so we went to the parade. I heard that I was expected to dress as oddly as I could manage, so I wore pajama bottoms, a muu-muu, a bright pink and turquoise rain jacket, hot pink Crocs, and my bicycle helmet, which I fitted out with some silk roses and ferns. Basically, I went as a potted plant. I fit right in. Unfortunately (or not), I have no photos of me, because I was carrying the camera. There were Kinetic Kops all over the place. I heard that they might throw me into jail if I failed to dress oddly, and I was taking no chances.
For those of you who have never visited Port Townsend, I should explain that it is a special sort of place. The architecture is Victorian, the populace is generally somewhat left-of-centre, politically, and I suspect that even if there hadn't been a parade, I could have walked down the street in my potted plant outfit without raising very many eyebrows.

Oh, yes. Have I mentioned the official Port Townsend bumper sticker? It reads "We're all here because we're not all there."

2010-09-29T20:46:00.000-07:00

At last! At last!

I just glanced outside, and there it was -- my chariot, as Denzel called it -- the gleaming black Lear jet that will whisk us off to Willow's Manor for the Annual Ball. I'm still basking in the glow of last Autumn's party! I can hardly believe that a whole year has passed.

Just a moment. I am dressed, but I need to fasten the clasp of my diamond necklace...such a nuisance. It must be my excitement that makes it so difficult. I know. I'll just ask my handsome escort to fasten it for me.

What do you think of my shoes? I decided this year to be completely impractical. These shoes had a lot to do with that decision -- I simply couldn't resist them. They will show off my delicate ankles when I lift the hem of my gown in one of the livelier dances.

Oh, and speaking of gowns, this is the one that stole my heart. I know it's daring, but I'm feeling strangely free tonight, as if my time has come to shine.

It was the back of the gown that I found irresistible. I hope it has the same effect on my date.

Oh, yes. Judging from the expression on his face, I'd say the dress is a success, wouldn't you?

"Denzel, would you mind?"

"Not at all, my dear. It's my pleasure." And he fastens the diamond necklace around my neck, then twirls me to get a proper look at me in my dress.

"You look fabulous," he says, and we're away. Our pilot helps us both into the plane and, at a nod from Denzel, goes to the flight deck, leaving behind a chilled bottle of Bollinger and two glasses. Denzel pours. Oh, my. Champagne. My head was already spinning with excitement, and now this!

It seems as if we have just left the ground, and already I see the lights of the runway below us. We land perfectly, and when I look outside I see a friendly face. It is our chauffeur, who will drive us the last part of our journey. He waves and smiles.

In moments, we pull up outside the Manor. Oh, just look at it -- the fairy lights are enchanting, and I can hear the music. Is that Leonard Cohen I hear? Yes! He's singing "Dance Me to the End of Love." Oh, what could be more perfect?

"Shall we?" says Denzel. He gives me his arm. I feel like a princess. As we reach the door, our lovely hostess appears, beaming, and hugs us both. "Come in, come in," she says. Then she whispers "A few people arrived rather early, so don't be surprised if the party is a little lively already!"

To be continued......

2010-09-29T19:35:00.001-07:00

Preparing for the Ball

I have had the most wonderful time getting ready for the ball, probably setting a world record for speed shopping. I would show you my dress, but I don't want Denzel to see it until he arrives at my door.

Speaking of my door, we might have had a little problem in that I'm not exactly sure where I'll be when it's time to leave for the manor. I confess that I was a little worried, so I called Denzel. "No problem, my dear," he said. "I'll find you wherever you are." The next thing I knew, this photo arrived on my phone -- with a note reading "Your chariot, madame." Isn't Denzel a darling? I needn't have worried. No matter where I am, we'll be able to get to the ball on time.

*****************************************************************

Update: We drove to Butte this morning and took The Turtle to Brooks-Hanna Ford. To our delight, they were able to put poor Turtle together again in just over two hours, at 1/10 the amount it cost us the last time we had an exhaust problem. During our layover, we walked over to something called Montana Club and ate lunch. Our sandwiches came with a choice of salad, soup, or fries. We asked what the soup was, and the waitress answered "Spinach - cream of spinach." Predictably, Robin made a face and I said "Yumm." When my soup arrived, I gave Robin a taste; he changed his mind, and soon he had his own bowl of soup. My impression was that the kitchen had skipped the cream and gone straight to butter, the soup was so rich. I think it was a 4,000 calorie lunch, but oh, my. (Who was it that said there's no such thing as "too rich"? Wait. I think that was me.)

In the course of the day, we left behind all traces of the Great Plains and moved into the North Woods. We've stopped for the night at Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, not far from the Washington border and only 399 miles from Angel May's house, where we hope to spend the next couple of nights before we take the ferry to Vancouver Island and head home.

That means that I really should be resting for tomorrow's drive -- but what are the chances? Oh, look at the time! Denzel will be picking me up in the Lear jet any minute now, so I'm off to make myself gorgeous.

2010-09-28T18:06:00.003-07:00

This is what happened: My sad tale of woe

Yesterday, we drove from Jamestown, North Dakota to Miles City, Montana. I had begun to get into the rhythm of the trip, and I rode contentedly along, noting changes in the topography, thinking about what I would wear to Willow's Manor Ball and who my escort would be, planning to write about it when we settled in for the night.

At Miles City, the very kind lady who ran the RV park assured us that yes, there was wi-fi. She was right. There was indeed a wi-fi network, and we did manage to log on to it for a minute, but then we were thrown off, and we never did manage to get back on -- so there went my plans. On the bright side, we had stopped at about 1:30 in the afternoon to check out Theodore Roosevelt National Park -- specifically Painted Canyon -- and I had taken a lot of photos there. In lieu of trying to remember what happened yesterday, a lot of water having gone under the bridge since then, I'll show you those. Then I'll tell you about today.

So that was yesterday. Today, we left Miles City at 8:30 in the morning. Everything went well until mid-afternoon. Highway 94 had given over to Highway 90 at Billings, Montana, and we had got as far as Livingston, just a few miles east of Bozeman. Suddenly, the engine quit. Deja vu. The last time we drove through this part of the world, the same thing happened. And happened. And happened. We knew what to do. "We should loosen the gas cap," I said.

"I did that this morning," said Robin.

Hmmm. After a dozen or so false starts, we managed to limp off the highway and into the lot of an RV dealer/repair shop. They had a look, said it was probably vapour lock, but advised us to take the machine to Silent Knight Muffler Shop (I love that name) in Bozeman and have our exhaust leak fixed. Sure enough, we had noticed a noise -- but we just had the exhaust fixed. Oh, well. Never mind. Off we went to Silent Knight. The fellow there sent us to the Ford dealer in Bozeman, who in turn set up an appointment for tomorrow morning at the Ford dealer in Butte, about an hour and a half from here. Tomorrow morning, then, we will find out whether this is a quick fix or whether we have to cut our trip short and head into Canada.

So here we are, at a very pleasant place called Sunrise Campground, baking in 30C heat but otherwise comfortably settled for the night. The wi-fi actually works (a big plus) and the office offers a no-charge loan of dvds for the night. I chose "Crazy Heart" on the manager's recommendation -- (When he came back to the office after showing Robin to our site, he said "Your husband said you would be bringing back a chick flick." so I asked him to pick one we might both like.) And --- I got "Letters to Juliet", which was recommended to us just the other day.

Meanwhile, there still remains the problem of getting ready for a ball -- and by the way, my apologies for not linking to Willow's blog when I first brought the matter up. So far, this is what I've decided:

My date. As soon as I let it be known that I would attend, the invitations came flooding in. (So little time...) Colin Firth was on the phone within minutes, wanting to repeat last year's frolic, but that would be so -- last year, no? I considered going with Robert Downey Jr., but he's been doing all that Iron Man stuff lately, and I wasn't sure that was the kind of image I wanted to present -- then I came across Denzel's note, scribbled on the back of his calling card (Isn't that delightfully Old World? I'd never have expected it!). "Let's dance the night away," he wrote.

Oh, yeah. Denzel it is. Here he is with that other redhead at the Academy Awards, looking as if he'd much rather that I were there.

Speaking of redheads, I should confess that I've let my redness slip of late, opting for a more Distinguished (old) look -- but for the Ball, I can reverse that process. Also, it should be said, I tend to wear my hair quite short (like this)

but again, the Willow Manor Ball is a magical event, and for the occasion, I intend to look more like Rita Hayworth in Gilda.

There. I have a date, and I know how I'll be wearing my hair. Now I really must start shopping.

2010-09-26T20:02:00.003-07:00

I'm Late! I'm Late!

Well, I'm not really late yet, but I haven't much time. I just found out that I've nearly missed Willow's Manor Ball. It's four days from now. Oh, my goodness. Such a lot of shopping to be done, and I'm way out here in the Old West. I wonder how Robin would feel about staying here for a couple of days longer, tucked into the Frontier Fort RV park near the Buffalo Museum in Jamestown, North Dakota. I know it's not a shopping mecca (or I assume it isn't. We had trouble just finding a supermarket!), but we do have wi-fi, so I could just sit here and let my fingers do the shopping.

Somehow, though, I think we'll be leaving in the morning, as scheduled, heading west on I-94. I'll use my driving time to figure out who my date will be. Tonight , I'll start assembling my glorious evening apparel...and I'll remember to RSVP. You know, I really enjoyed the ball last year, and right now, an evening at the Manor sounds like just what the doctor ordered.

Before I go shopping, though, I should tell you about today. We started out in Minnesota, and I discovered that I quite like the place -- apart from the highway we drove, which was put together in blocks, like dominoes, so that as we drove, we heard and felt the seams. It was like this:

BANG!

BANG!

BANG!

BANG!

for hours on end. It drowned out my radio shows, and it made me grumpy.

The towns, however, were charming. I told Robin that I half expected a red-headed kid to come running out, singing "Gary, Indiana" with a lisp -- except, of course, that he would have had to sing "Aitken, Minnesota" or something similar. The towns were neat and tidy and the streets were wide. The trees were turning colour...

...and then we were in North Dakota, watching as the trees got shorter and shorter, then pretty well disappeared. The roads got better, though.

p.s. I almost forgot -- here's the song for you.

2010-09-25T19:55:00.000-07:00

One Day, Three States

And two posts in one day! Feast or famine.

We woke up in Michigan, drove into Wisconsin rather sooner than I expected, then found ourselves in Michigan again. Sigh. The roads were better in Wisconsin. Never mind. After a while, we were in Wisconsin again, and finally -- about supper time -- we fetched up in Minnesota. We drove through Duluth as quickly as the city's massive roadwork project would allow, headed down Hwy 35, and made our way to the KOA campground (excuse me. Kampground.) near Cloquet.

All day, I berated myself for being so wrapped up in my homecoming that I forgot to take photos of the autumn colours in Ontario. At one point I pulled over at a rest stop so I could take at least a few pictures. I'm afraid my photography doesn't do justice to this season. The colours are virtually edible. I know I was looking at birch, maple, oak, sumac, and all the other lovely deciduous trees set against a background of evergreens, but as I drove along, I thought lemon-lime, peach, mango, papaya, pomegranate, cherry -- Have I mentioned that I'm always hungry?

Meanwhile, I enjoyed my usual love affair with NPR. Today's treat was a long bluegrass show out of -- Ashland, Wisconsin, I think. And by the way, when I went to program Ashland into Maggie (our GPS), I discovered that there are Ashlands in Alabama, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Mississippi (I think. Is that MS?), Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Virginia and, yes, Wisconsin. Heh. I knew about the one in Oregon. There are also listings under "Ashland Town of" in Massachusetts and New York. The world is so full of a number of things, you would think we could show a little more originality in our place names. Or maybe we want to take a little of home with us when we move to a new place.

Anyway -- NPR. Bluegrass. The show started with bluegrass, but it wandered some. I enjoyed this song -- but now I can't find the version I heard.

We moved out of that station's range right in the middle of this next song. I was most annoyed. Thank goodness for YouTube.

Funny. As we make our way home, I'm finally getting into the spirit of this, enjoying the travel for its own sake, not too worried about how quickly we're moving, how soon we'll be at the next landmark. There are just so many things to see. Today's drive (and to some extent, yesterday's) took us through town after town that was settled by Scandinavians of one sort or another. I remember a shop called "Swedish Passport" in Norway, Michigan. However, every town seemed to have at least one shop specializing in pasties. Pasties? They're Cornish. That calls for some research. Holidays are too short.

Also, the town of Crystal Falls, Michigan caught my eye. It has the most gorgeous courthouse. Photo from Wiki

Tomorrow, we make our way to I-94 for a less scenic, but quicker, trip across the middle of the country, hoping to visit more friends on the way home.

2010-09-25T05:57:00.000-07:00

This is what I have learned:

Actually, you can go home again, but it hurts. It's also confusing and funny and chock-full of conflicting emotions. I'm glad I went. The thing is...

But wait. I'm getting ahead of myself. There's something else I learned. That is, if you drive from Manitoba into Ontario near the town of Kenora and make your way around Lake Superior, it takes three full days to get from there to Peterborough. I'm sure Ontario is bigger than Texas, and until Day 3, it's pretty much of a muchness. We weren't impressed. When we got to the Kawartha Lakes district, though, and the place names were familiar to me, my heart started beating faster, and then the 80 km speed limit got really annoying. Coming out, we drove the 401 through Toronto, Kitchener, London, etc. instead. It was much quicker, and it got us to Saginaw, Michigan on the first day, even though we stopped in Toronto for coffee with an old (British Columbia) acquaintance. Yesterday we drove from Saginaw to Escanaba, which is in a very scenic area on the northwestern corner of Lake Michigan. We should be having lunch in Wisconsin and maybe, just maybe, supper in Minnesota.

Now. Back to going home again. I became a (reluctant) vagabond when I was eight years old. I've lived in many places, enough that I think of myself as not really having a home. When I talk to other people who have a strong sense of home, I'm at once envious and baffled. However, I lived in Peterborough for over twenty years, my children grew up there, and it's about as close as anything gets to being home to me. Imagine my shock when, after being away for nearly twenty years, I got to Peterborough and discovered that (1) it had grown and (2) I couldn't remember my way around, even in the part of town where I used to live.

Never mind. My daughter was there. She moved home a couple of years ago, and I hadn't seen her since. The great knitting marathon I engaged in last month was to produce "Rosary", her birthday sweater, and I got to give it to her. She loved it. She wore it everywhere, including our side trip to Ottawa. I took this photo outside the Aviation Museum, where she and I had a picnic and talked (and talked and talked) while the menfolk were inside, looking at airplanes.

Then we went to the Parliament Buildings and climbed up to the top of the Peace Tower. From there you can see forever, or so it seems. I think this photo shows the bridge to Hull, Quebec.

The following day, an old and dear friend picked up my daughter and me and took us on a tour of the town -- and a couple of nearby villages -- to show me what had changed, what hadn't. We visited a wool shop in Lakefield, enjoyed an end-of-season coffee at a charming lakeside cafe, and did a lot of remembering.

While we were out gallivanting, Robin took a cruise through the famous Lift Locks. I think that was the highlight of the visit for him.

Altogether, the visit was too short, and my eyes have been leaking since we left. I saw people I had known and loved, found that I still knew and loved them. Even though things like being able to find my way home from the grocery store had slipped my mind, the important memories were still there. I had been away so long, I was nervous -- fearful -- about going back, but I'm very glad that I did.

2010-09-13T15:10:00.000-07:00

Swan River, Manitoba

I think Swan River is about the halfway point, geographically speaking, of our eastward journey. It's taken us over a week to get here, though, what with staying two nights in Burnaby, three at Fairmont Hot Springs, plus losing time over the brakes and tire. We are now moving freely and, best of all, stopping whenever we want to, just by pressing on the brake pedal.

We spent last night in Ituna, Saskatchewan. It turned out that we had missed Mike's eightieth birthday party. It was on Saturday. Even if we had got the date right, the delay for repairs would have made it impossible to get there on time. The bright side was that we got to eat the leftovers -- dolmades, borscht, plum cake, poppy seed cake, perogies, sour cream, mushroom gravy made with morels. Also, I'm much more comfortable in a small group of people than at big parties, so I was happy. Our hostess (Beatrice) and I exchanged knitting stories and played at show-and-tell with our various projects. When we left this morning, I was carrying a big bag of frozen perogies and containers of borscht and gravy. I just managed to fit everything into the Turtle's freezer compartment. I fully expect to arrive in Ontario having gained another five pounds.

Now we're in Swan River, visiting more friends. This is our last scheduled stop before we get to my daughter's house. The next two or three nights, we'll be winging it -- which is more like our usual style.

2010-09-11T19:46:00.000-07:00

Thunder and lightning...

I finally have wi-fi, and now there's a thunderstorm threatening/happening/threatening again, so I may have to be more succinct than I had planned.

The trip is going much better now that the brakes have been fixed and the left rear outside tire has been fixed for the third time on this trip. Traveling through the Rockies is so much more exciting when the brakes are failing than when everything is working correctly.

We left Burnaby (Vancouver) on Monday morning, the last day of Labour Day weekend. Traffic was no problem, probably because while everybody else was going home to the city, we were leaving. Nonetheless, there were logistical problems. One of our party had to stay behind for a business meeting, so it was after suppertime when we finally all got together at Nk'mip RV Park in Osoyoos. We had dinner together before children and grandchildren headed up to their suite at Spirit Ridge Resort, just up the hill. When we started out again in the morning, it felt as if we had barely stopped at all.

The grandchildren took to Turtle travel with great enthusiasm. I was delighted. They seldom fussed at all. Instead, I got to drive happily along, listening to their chattering and giggling. At one point I heard their mom singing "99 bottles of milk on the wall", which set me to giggling.

The grandchildren's favourite spot was my over-the-cab boudoir. As long as they managed not to hit their heads on the ceiling, they had themselves a perfect hiding place, complete with a curtain they could pull across the front. Whenever I wanted to sleep, I had to make a space for myself among the toy cars and colouring books. It was great.

When we finally arrived at Fairmont Hot Springs (I'll skip over the drama -- suffice it to say that we arrived safely) the kids released some of their energy on the jungle gym while the rest of us admired the wildlife that had come to join the party. It wasn't until the following morning that we hit the pools. In the course of our visit, Jujube (that's our four-year-old granddaughter) became the star of Fairmont Hot Springs. Jujube seems to be part seal, and everyone who saw her swim (she swims underwater for long distances, coming up for air and then ducking right down again -- and she is completely fearless) -- everyone who saw her was amazed.

Then there was Jumping Jack, who is two and a half years old. He can't swim, you see -- but he greatly admires his sister, and anything she does, he wants to do, too. The upshot of that is that when Jujube goes swimming, J-J gets excited, leaps off the side of the pool or out of the arms of whoever is holding him, goes head-first into the water, and sinks like a stone. Whoever is trying to care for him then has to reach into the water and haul him out. He emerges grinning, wiping the water from his eyes, and squirming for a chance to do it all over again. He simply will not believe that he can't swim. It's a joy to behold, really it is, all that fearlessness and joie de vivre, but it's also terrifying. I'll be glad when he does learn to swim. He will be a force to be reckoned with.

It was all over too soon, the mini-holiday with the grandbabies. Yesterday, we headed off in our opposite directions. I got a text this evening saying that they had arrived safely at home. Meanwhile, Robin and I spent a night in Sparwood, B.C. at Mountain Shadows, a very simple and quiet campground -- they did provide firewood, in case we wanted to make a campfire and toast marshmallows or something, but what with the pouring rain, we opted for rummy at our kitchen table. Afterward, I listened to a Norah Jones cd (with earphones, not to break the silence) and knitted. I was thinking about my children's grandmother, who knitted and knitted when she was younger, but now can no longer do it, because her eyes are failing her. I'm teaching myself to knit with my eyes closed, to put off the day when I'm deprived of that simple pleasure, the click of needles and the feeling of wool moving across my fingers. I closed my eyes, knitted, listened to the music, thought about Mom, and squeezed back tears.

Today, we drove right across Alberta (eight hours) to Swift Current, Saskatchewan, and we've settled for the night at Trail Campground. Tomorrow, we have a four-hour drive to a birthday party in deepest Saskatchewan.

Meanwhile, I'll go back to my knitting.

2010-09-05T10:10:00.002-07:00

It's a bit chilly in here, and there's an air of neglect -- but now that I'm on the road again, snugly tucked into the Turtle, it's high time I wrote something. During my exile, I have made a good deal of progress on a blanket I'm knitting for a grandbaby that's on the way. I have also designed and knitted a sweater for my daughter, a four-week project that reduced me to tears only once. I'm proud of the result, and when I get to Ontario and present my gift, I'll post a photo of the sweater -- and the daughter, too!

Meanwhile, we are in Burnaby, spending last night and tonight here. I had breakfast with my son, took new measurements for his sweater-to-be, and bade him farewell again. We always seem to be saying good-bye. Tonight Robin and I are to have dinner with the grandbabies, their parents, and their maternal grandparents. It will be a Chinese feast, so my mouth is watering in anticipation.

The grandbabies just came out and explored the Turtle. They most enjoyed climbing up to my bunk, the big bed over the cab. Jujube took to it just as I do -- as a wonderful cave, a refuge. Jumping Jack took a look around and promptly came back down to examine the cab itself.

The plan is to leave first thing tomorrow morning, a two-vehicle convoy, and head for Osoyoos, where we will spend one high desert night. The youngsters have booked a hotel room, and we'll take a site at a nearby RV park. Then we're all off to Fairmont Hot Springs for a two (three?) day stay before Robin and I head east and everyone else heads back home. The Turtle is packed with crayons, colouring books and stickers, apple juice and Goldfish crackers, to make it a welcoming place for the grandchildren. This is a very different adventure for us, and I think it's going to be great fun.

p.s. I discovered this video this morning, and it just fits.

2010-07-15T21:05:00.002-07:00

Lions and Tigers and Bears,

Oh, my. I finally had a day off, and so did Robin, so we decided to have one of our walk/cycle outings. Robin dropped me off at the Harewood Mines Road entrance to the Parkway Walkway, and I walked from there to the bottom of the trail - about fifty minutes away. As I got out of the car, Robin warned me that if I saw a cougar or a bear, I should run out onto the highway. (I'm still wondering which would be the most dangerous -- a bear, a cougar, or an 18-wheeler.) At any rate, I set off on my walk, smiling to myself and chanting "Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My!" That lasted about two minutes, until I heard a noise behind me. It was sort of a "Thwump" sound -- a growl? Something landing hard on the ground? I wasn't sure. Whatever it was, it caused my blood pressure to soar. I whirled around to face my attacker, who turned out to be a pleasant young man walking his German shepherd.

"Oh, my god -- you scared me out of my skin!" I said, smiling to take the sting out of the complaint. I couldn't stop my voice from shaking, so the poor fellow started apologizing. "I'm so sorry -- I was talking to my dog," he said.

I guess he had said something to the dog to keep him from running up to me, which was just as well, as I'd probably have dropped dead from fright if I'd seen a large furry thing appear beside me just then.

We walked along together for a few minutes, chatting about how having a dog by your side is great for keeping bears and cougars at bay. "However," said my companion, "if you want to see any wildlife at all, you're out of luck if you have a dog with you." He and the dog turned off the path soon after that, but I still didn't see any wildlife on my walk except for one poor slug that was making its way across the path. I am pleased to report that it didn't attack me, either. Oh, and there were a few dragonflies, but they wouldn't stay still long enough for me to photograph them.

There were wildflowers everywhere -- this is summertime in paradise, after all. The pea plants dominated, but there were also various yellow flowers -- buttercups, dandelions, and so forth -- and these lovely blue cornflowers.

Best of all, there were the blackberries - greenberries, I mean, but soon-to-be-black berries -- all along the path.

Soon it will be time to walk and glean, walk and glean, turning the 50-minute walk into a one-hour-plus adventure.

About halfway down the walkway, I saw Robin approaching on his bicycle. He had left the car at the bottom for me and cycled up. We chatted for a moment, and then he rode on home while I finished my walk.

I was nearly at the bottom of the walkway when I saw something that is new this year. Someone has posted a sign to guide the weary (hungry, thirsty) hiker to the great Canadian watering hole, Tim Horton's. (Oops, sorry. Tim Hortons. The doughnut shop chain has lost its apostrophe somewhere along the way.) In case we can't make it all the way to the bottom of the trail and back along the highway to Timmy's, somebody has helpfully cleared a trail through the forest, complete with a sign.

I am finally getting serious about taking off the weight that has been creeping back (Nasty, sneaky stuff, that weight. It's so hard to get rid of it, and so easy to get it back.) so I ignored the sign and the seductive trail, and finished my walk. When I got home, I finally had my wildlife sighting for the day -- there were a couple of young deer wandering up the alley behind our house.

They didn't attack me, either, and one of them even allowed me to take her picture. Actually, I think she was too busy munching to pay any attention to me.

*************************************

In preparation for this post, I went hunting for a photo of Dorothy and her pals, or maybe a You Tube video of the "Lions and Tigers and Bears" song from The Wizard of Oz (the movie) -- but I didn't find those. What I did find were videos of several stage presentations. I thought you might enjoy this one. I do love the Cowardly Lion.

2010-07-11T16:46:00.000-07:00

Jet-lag Sunday

Jet lag is becoming a weekend tradition for me. I change shifts between Friday evening and Saturday morning, and it isn't until Monday that I really start to wake up. Thus, I still haven't got back to see all the Theme Thursday blogs yet -- but I trust that I will do so tomorrow.

Meanwhile, I've had a lovely, dreamy sort of weekend. The grandbabies came for a visit yesterday afternoon. We went out to a nearby water park, where Robin discovered that one of the benches along the edge of the spray area had a kick to it. He nearly discovered it the hard way, when he went to sit on it. Fortunately (or unfortunately, because it would have been very funny to watch) the bench started spraying as he approached it, and he managed to avoid a drenching.

Jujube, the taller-and-willowier-every-time-we-see-her granddaughter, didn't mind getting wet, though. She ran around and around the park, engaged in a (water cannon) shooting war with a couple of boys, checked out the shower bench, and finally had to don her father's dry t-shirt in order to get warmed up. After that, she looked like a large bat. Meanwhile, her brother (Jumping Jack) had to be torn away from the playground equipment, but once he discovered how cool the water was, he had a wonderful time.

After the park, there was dinner at the Fox & Hounds, and then there was me falling into a deep slumber that lasted until the alarm rang at 4:45 this morning. Have I ever told you how rude I think alarm clocks are?

2010-07-09T10:26:00.000-07:00

Okay! Okay! I get it!

Sometimes it feels as though the world is trying to tell me something. I shot the photo above while I sat at a red light yesterday. Well, I had errands to run, so I kept going anyway, finished my errands, then went home to cook a bit of salmon on the barbecue and serve it with new potatoes and peas. After supper, Robin wanted to go out for a ride, just to feel a breeze on his face -- so off we went, through Cedar, into Yellowpoint, and around a circle that brought us back to the Crow & Gate

for a quick pint before heading home. There was one point at which I had to brake because I couldn't see anything except the sun. I half expected to hear a voice saying "Sandra, go into the light." If there had been anything on the road right there, I would surely have hit it. I was glad to pull into the parking lot at the Crow & Gate.

Even in the pub, the sun was right there at eye level, reflecting on this painting beside the bar.

We bought our beer and took it out into the garden. Do you remember how I talked about English country pubs and how lovely it was to be able to sit in a beautiful garden and enjoy a quiet beer? The Crow & Gate has brought that tradition to Cedar, just south of Nanaimo. Since the last time I was there, they have expanded their garden They've even added a palm tree and a banana tree - with a label in front of it for the benefit of those customers who've never seen a banana tree before. I ended up abandoning my beer (and Robin) in order to wander around the garden, camera in hand. Robin didn't mind. He had his pint and a beautiful view.

I saw three women taking photos at one part of the garden, so I wandered over to see what all the fuss was about. It turned out that there were two hummingbirds engaged in a bit of a fracas in the middle of a flower bed.

I did manage to photograph one of the birds. I hope you can find him (just to the left of the main group of flowers).

After that I just walked around, admiring the display, thankful that somebody takes the time to build such a beautiful garden for me to enjoy.

When I got back to our table, Robin nodded toward the edge of the garden, where we saw Trevor and Jane, the proprietors of our local, the Fox & Hounds. It turned out that they live in Cedar, and the Crow & Gate is their local!

I suggested to Robin that we just camp out in Cedar for the night, but since we didn't have The Turtle (which is in the shop, by the way, having some work done in preparation for our trip to Ontario) we decided to head for home. I'm glad we took our drive, though. The farmland was lovely in this sudden, exuberant summer we're having, and the fragrance of fresh-mown hay was everywhere.

2010-07-08T00:01:00.001-07:00

Theme Thursday Post - "Ball"

How interesting. Even though I've spent the last week (two weeks?) engrossed in football (soccer) and tennis, my first thought on reading this week's theme had nothing to do with sports. The first thing that came to mind was The Secret Policeman's Ball. In case you aren't familiar with this gem (actually a series of gems, shows produced to benefit Amnesty International), I've embedded a sample skit below...

....and the second thing that came to mind, predictably enough, was The Secret Policeman's Other Ball.

Disclaimer: I recommend that you watch this second video either alone or in the company of a tolerant friend/mate. It made me howl. Really. Consider yourself warned.

Maybe I had simply had enough of sports for the time being, and I needed a little comic relief. In any event, I ended up spending quite some time working my way through YouTube's Secret Policeman collection, and I'm glad I did. Dare I say it? I had a ball.

2010-07-06T20:27:00.000-07:00

I've Been Running for the Bus --

-- the Poetry Bus, of course. Unfortunately, I've missed it. I had to abandon the laptop for a couple of days while I subjected my neck and right shoulder to chiropractic treatments and a whole bunch of acetaminophen. I thought I was pretty well back to normal after my accident, but now I suspect that was because I hadn't really tried to do much of anything. A week or two ago, I tried to do a little gardening, and that set my back off. Now, this week, I tried to water my hanging baskets, and that was a really, really bad idea. So I spent a couple of days whining and moaning, and meanwhile the bus went tootling off across the countryside, probably driving on the wrong -- I mean the left -- side of the road, because The Weaver of Grass was the driver this week. I hope she brought her Border Terrier along. I love Border Terriers. They're such rugged little fellows.And I do hope everyone had a great time. I'll try to get to the bus stop on time next week.

Meanwhile, I'll have a look to see what everybody else did with Weaver's challenge, which did look awfully interesting.

2010-07-04T17:15:00.001-07:00

On a Lighter Note: Sunday Dinner

We seem to have developed a family tradition. It started in England, where we got into the habit of going to the pub for dinner on Sunday. Now that we're back at home, it seems only natural to keep doing that -- so off we go this evening to the Fox & Hounds. I've talked about this pub before. It's what keeps Robin's homesickness for England at a bearable level for most of the year. Jane and Trevor have brought the British pub ambiance along with them to Nanaimo. Even listening to the accents of many of our fellow patrons brings back memories of our English Sunday evenings.

Because the Fox & Hounds has a restaurant licence, families -- children and all -- can come in for dinner if they like. Of course, the children are expected to be well-behaved.

Now, if only folks could bring their dogs along, the illusion of being in an English country pub would be perfect --

but our local regulations don't allow for that.

On Sunday, Trevor prepares roast beef, roast chicken, and roast lamb, each served with Yorkshire pudding, potatoes, and veg - and all quite reasonably priced. Those of us who prefer not to eat meat can still find plenty to please our palates -- and if we're very, very good, we will manage to resist the sticky toffee pudding. I am making no promises.

Update:

I did resist! I did resist! Dinner was delicious, but even better was the eavesdropping in which I shamelessly indulged. The people at the next table were chatting about a sing-along Messiah scheduled for Victoria at the Christmas season. That caught my musicotropic ear -- but then one of them mentioned a sing-along Grease and The Sound of Music (not my cup of tea, either of them) and --oh, my -- South Pacific -- and suddenly I had visions of a theatre full of joyful noise -- "Honey Bun" for 500 voices, rows and rows of bodies swaying to "Some Enchanted Evening". Doesn't that sound wonderful? Wouldn't you just love to be in that audience?

2010-07-03T18:24:00.001-07:00

Engage heart before putting pen in gear --

Some time ago, I reconnected briefly with a friend I hadn't seen or spoken to in about fifteen years. We had one long phone conversation; that was all. There was too much time between us. There were too many changes, and too many miles, for the reconnection to hold, but we did both enjoy our talk.

I told Libby that I had just been thinking about her, remembering an evening -- it must have been in the late seventies -- when we were at her house, cleaning up after a dinner with our young families. Libby was washing dishes, and I was drying -- but before Libby washed a single dish, she carefully cleaned out the sink. She smiled and said to me, "My mother taught me always to clean out the sink before I do the dishes, and now whenever I do dishes I think about Mom."

Now, on the phone, she said "Funny -- I always do that, but I don't remember telling you." That's okay. She didn't have to remember, because I did. When Libby washed dishes, she thought about her mom, and now when I wash dishes, I often think about Libby, even though it has been more than twenty years since I last saw her.

A woman in her fifties told me something her own mother had said to her when she was a little girl: "It's all right, dear. We love you even though you aren't pretty." Of course, what made the biggest impression on the little girl, and what brought tears to her eyes more than forty years later, was "...even though you aren't pretty." I'm sure this lady's mother meant to reassure her, but by her choice of words she did just the opposite.

I wonder how many things I've said in the course of my life, small, offhand remarks, have taken root in someone else's memory. There are people I've known whose names I can't even remember -- and yet, I recall something they said; I hear their voices, see the look on their faces. I remember kindnesses -- and hurtful remarks, too -- some of them my own -- and it makes me realize the importance of thinking before we speak. I would amend the dictum "Engage mind before putting mouth in gear" to read "Engage mind and heart..."

And here I sit, writing a blog entry, stopping to remove a word here, add one there, ponder the best choice of word to get my meaning across. Writing of whatever sort requires a multitude of such choices. Perhaps that is why we need to write -- not just as an exercise in imagination, but because it is our chance to slow down and say what we really mean, not just what fills the silence or keeps the conversation flowing. I know that, even though I enjoy books that simply entertain me, I truly love to read books whose authors open themselves to me through their characters, give me a glimpse of what they really think, what they really feel. At its best, the experience of reading feels like a heartfelt, honest conversation with the writer, and it is a privilege.

2010-07-02T20:33:00.000-07:00

Breaking News --

The second edition of Kim Richardson's The Unbreakable Child

is coming out on Amazon October 1. The Unbreakable Child has a new publisher -- Behler Publications -- and a gorgeous new cover. You can even pre-order it from Amazon. Just click here.

I think I've said before that Kim is one of my heroines. I don't use that term lightly, being of the "We all put our pants on one leg at a time" persuasion, but Kim has earned the title. What makes Kim my heroine is not just the courage with which she survived a childhood that would certainly have broken me, or even that she stood up to her abusers in court, revisiting memories that she surely wanted to put behind her. What I find most admirable is that she never stops caring, never stops putting herself on the line. Just this April, Kim sent an open letter to Pope Benedict XVI in which she called him to task for the ongoing cover-ups of clerical abuse. She wrote:

Along with tens of thousands of victims globally, I am still waiting. We are waiting for an apology and an admission of accountability from you and the Church’s hierarchy.

I have an idea. How about if we all buy copies of The Unbreakable Child and send them to the Vatican -- or donate them to our local libraries -- or just share them with our friends and family? Kim's is a story that needs to be told, a story that needs to be heard. Just in case you don't know Kim already, you can find her at her blog, Writer in Waiting, and you can find her book at Amazon. I hope you will do both.

2010-07-01T18:06:00.000-07:00

Where there's a will, there's a way!

So here I was, determined to write a blog entry today, trying to write a blog entry -- and Blogger wouldn't let me. I could read my blog, respond to comments, read other people's blogs, put a maple leaf on the sidebar -- but when I went to write a new post, I got a little icon going around and around and around in the centre of the page. I had no cursor. Hmmm. I called for help over at Facebook and Twitter. Poetikat sent me to a site called Blogdoctor, which looked interesting. I couldn't find help for my current predicament, but I saved the link for future reference.

Then it occurred to me to resort to the K.I.S.S. principle. I turned the computer off and restarted it, then went smugly to Blogger and hit "New Post", fully expecting that all would be well. No. Still the bloody icon swirled and swirled in front of my eyes.

In the end, obviously, I found a solution, and I shall reveal it here in case any of you have a similar experience (and in case it happens to me again and I can't remember what I did). While the icon swirled, I hit "Save Now" and saved the page. Then I went to "Edit Posts", chose the new, blank post, and hit "Edit". Presto. I had a new page and, joy of joys, a cursor.

Now all I have to do is remember what I wanted to say, way back when I started this marathon.

Oh, yes. First of all, Happy Canada Day! I have had the day off, and I have spent it in glorious laziness. I did take a cue from one of the many writers I follow at Twitter. (I wish I could remember whose idea it was, but I can't.) The idea was to copy - by hand - a passage from the writing of someone whose work you admire, in order to get a feel for the writing. (Later, there's the suggestion to write something in the style of a writer you admire -- but first things first.) My first plan was to copy something of Barbara Kingsolver's, but it seems that all my Kingsolver is out in the motor home. I grabbed my copy of Ann Patchett's bel canto instead, and I copied the first paragraph. The experiment was more interesting than I expected it to be.

When I pulled out my notebook, a photo fell out. I bought this photo in England - from a little shop on the quay at Exeter. The shop had hundreds, if not thousands, of old photographs, and I would happily have brought home at least a hundred of them, funds and space permitting, but this one spoke to me. It is a postcard, unfortunately without a date, from a woman named Annie to her cousins. Annie must either have delivered the card by hand or enclosed it in a letter, as there is no address on it. Her inscription reads "Love & Best wishes to all. Yrs affec Cousin Annie." It seems that Twitterspeak predates Twitter by quite a few years. I think Annie may join my family of characters, though I'm not sure yet where she'll fit on the family tree.

I set the photograph on the table beside me while I copied the first paragraph of bel canto. It seemed as if Annie were there beside me, reading the words, visualizing the scene. As I wrote, I realized that Patchett had used a technique that I would never have used -- at least not intentionally. She had written

"Maybe he had been turning toward her just before it was completely dark, maybe he was lifting his hands."

and then

"They did not see a kiss, that would have been impossible."

My pedantic little head nearly exploded when I saw that. I stopped the exercise and rolled my eyes at Annie, who just stared back at me. Even now, hours later, I had to go back to make sure I hadn't seen commas when in fact there were periods or semicolons there -- but no. There are no periods. There are no semicolons. There are just commas. Tsk, tsk. And yet -- what I find irresistible about this novel is its musical quality, its lyrical flow. I do remember now that when I first read that paragraph, I was taken aback by the sentence structure, but I decided to persevere, and I was glad that I had. Could it be that the very technique that shocked (and shocks) me is what makes bel canto flow? Well, yes, of course it could. So now, I will do some more copying, and then I will write a piece in the style of Ann Patchett, and I bet that if I try to write it with more conventional punctuation, it won't flow. So I'll loosen up.

I really, really wish I could remember whose idea this exercise was. Whoever you are -- thank you. It is most enlightening.

Canadian Flag image courtesy of Webweaver.

2010-06-30T13:07:00.000-07:00

I would like to express my thanks.

Unfortunately, I'm going to be mixing metaphors in the process, but please bear with me. I think it will all come together in the end.

I knit. I am not a great knitter, as I find out every time I venture into one of the knit-and-bitch sessions at my favourite yarn shop -- but I love the feel of wool in my hands, the way simple movements of my needles create patterns that make sense. When I make a mistake, I know how to work my way back to my mistake, correct it, and go on with the project. I don't despair. I don't just rip the wool off the needles and throw it away. Now, if only I could carry that attitude on to the rest of my life.

Reya Mellicker (The Gold Puppy) truly spoke to my heart today, and I am grateful to her. She talked about starting and re-starting, about transitions. I have always thought of my life as a shelf full of books, opened and closed one after the other, rather than as chapters of one long story, related by the story's theme and by the characters who inhabit it.

When a part of my life is over, I say, it is over, and I move on. I cut my losses, and I start anew. At least, that's what I try to do. It must be obvious to even a casual observer that this doesn't work. An old friend told me long ago (Why didn't I listen?), No matter where I go, there I am. I find myself in awe of the people around me who live where they grew up, who have friends from their childhood, whose lives are, for lack of a better word, a gestalt. Mine isn't. Even my bookshelf metaphor is far too neat -- much neater than my life.

This September, Robin and I will board The Turtle and head back to Ontario. I am excited about seeing my daughter and son-in-law, who moved back east two years ago, and I'm already counting the days -- but there will be more to the visit than that. I will be going back to a place where I spent more than twenty years, where I loved and was loved, where my children were born, where I lost my marriage, lost the continuity of my own story, and went into a predictable tailspin. I'll be going back to a place that I left abruptly, heartlessly, and tried to forget. I'm full of conflicting emotions, bouncing between elation and trepidation. Maybe I will find that everything has changed, that I have succeeded in becoming a stranger. But is that really what I want? Maybe I'll encounter old friends. I don't know quite how I feel about that. A way-too-big part of me wants to buy a wig and some oversized sunglasses. When I'm tempted to do that, I will try to remember Reya's example. I will try to hang onto the thread of my life, to remember that the earlier chapters of my life still have valuable lessons to teach me, if I only have the courage to work my way back, to correct my mistakes -- or to accept that I can not correct them, and that they simply make up the unique pattern of my life.

Brave words, eh? Wish me luck -- and thanks again to Reya.

2010-06-29T20:40:00.001-07:00

Am I Blue?

Well, yes, apparently. My mind is following my body, and my body is following my mind down, down, down into the centre of my own personal, possibly viral tornado. Someday this will pass. Meanwhile, I've been told by family and friends that they miss my blogging. I responded that I really had nothing to say, but they didn't care. My husband claimed he had no idea what he had been doing for the past few weeks, because I hadn't documented it.

"But, but, all I'm doing is working and sleeping."

"So?"

I sighed.

Yesterday, though Jane and I went out during the afternoon and did some shopping, which livened me up, as our expeditions always do. Then we came home, and Jane went to fetch Franco. Robin had made prawn curry. Jane and Franco brought over some crab that a mutual friend had caught on the weekend and delivered to their house. It had been cooked and flash-frozen. All I had to do with the crabs was put them into a pot of cold, salted water and bring it to a boil. Presto! Fresh crab! So that's what we did -- we all feasted on crab followed by prawn curry. Oh, my. It's a good thing I had recently re-labeled myself a "flexetarian" instead of a vegetarian, because I dug in with abandon (and a fork). Soon I was up to my wrists in crab meat and feeling pretty good -- not blue at all.

Tonight, it occurred to me that staying away from Blogland isn't just annoying my family and friends and making me feel worthless. It's also cutting me off from resources that could actually help me get my bearings by providing ready-made topics -- like Theme Thursday, Friday Photo Shootout, the Poetry Bus, etc. -- so here I am, hopping on the Theme Thursday wagon early, because this week's theme (Blue) just seems so apt.

So. Am I Blue? Yes. Will I always be blue? God, I hope not. I'm hoping to emulate my son's ex-girlfriend, who told me that she gets depressed, but it never lasts very long because she has a short attention span. "I go 'Oh, my, Boo-hoo,'" she said, "and a minute later I go 'Oh, look! A shiny thing!' and it's all over. I can't stay depressed because I'm too easily distracted."

On that note, as it were, here is my musical contribution to the theme:

Happy Theme Thursday, everybody.Better early than never. ;>)

2010-06-10T19:55:00.001-07:00

The Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew --

That's what the road signs call them: 327 acres of plants from every part of the world where a plant will grow, I suspect, and a safe haven for plant species that might otherwise disappear altogether.

We walked over to the gate at around eleven in the morning and got in without any fuss, because our friend Pat is a member. We had brought a picnic lunch, and our plan was to start by riding the land train right around the gardens, then decide where to go eat our lunch. What actually happened was that we got onto the train and started around the park, then discovered that our £4 tickets were good all day, as often as we wanted to ride -- so we hopped off near the lake and went in search of a shady bench. There were lots of benches, both sunny and shady, and lots of people opening their own picnic baskets, but we finally settled on a place with a serene view of the lake. We munched on Scotch eggs and cheese sandwiches with Branston pickle while the local goose gang circled us, waiting for somebody to drop something. Now, you may wonder why I've bothered to post a picture of a jar of relish in the middle of this story, but I have a good reason. If England has produced anything that can be termed a delight to the taste buds, Branston pickle is it -- or rather, the cheese is it, but the cheese is even better when it's accompanied by Branston pickle. There. If you can find it, do try it.

But I digress. We managed to eat our lunch without actually being attacked by the geese, and then we walked on to the palm house, which was beautiful and hot. We climbed all the way to the top of the wrought-iron spiral staircase and walked along the balcony, from which we had a bird's-eye view of the many palm varieties. When breathing became an issue because of the heat and humidity, we descended the stairs, only to find that the stairs went down beyond the ground floor to an aquarium -- a room full of aquariums, actually.

There were fish, of course, but my attention was drawn to a couple of strange denizens. This one sent Pat scurrying, but I stared deep into his eyes and discovered that he was actually kinda cute.

Robin had fled the building in search of oxygen, so before long, Pat and I followed. All over the gardens, there were babies -- ducks and coots and geese and swans all had their various young in tow.

We watched this little coot for quite a while. He seemed to be in distress, and we suspected that he had fallen out of the nest. His parent was having trouble getting him to eat. Finally, though, we saw the little fellow eat something, and we decided he would be okay. At least, we hoped he would.

We wandered until our feet and backs gave out. Pat had heard that one of the hot houses was featuring a butterfly display, so we headed there. For a while we thought the exhibit was over, but then I happened to wander through the correct door, and there they were, flying everywhere around me, being nearly as beautiful as their surroundings.

When we had walked as far as we could, we flagged the train down and rode around the gardens again, enjoying the view, sending pedestrians scurrying. We didn't get to see everything, but we saw enough to make it a day we won't soon forget.

I'll tell you what just happened. First, I had to go make a cheese and Branston pickle sandwich, because it was past suppertime and my mouth was watering. Then I went back to my Kew photos, trying to decide which ones to show you -- and I was reminded how beautiful the place was, how many times (108) I had stopped to photograph something -- and in the end I decided to embed a slideshow again. I've omitted a few shots because there were children in them, and I didn't want to publish their photos without parental permission, but other than that, you're getting my whole manic clicking experience. I do hope you enjoy it.

2010-06-09T17:22:00.002-07:00

So. About our Last Two Days in England --

Our final billet in England was right beside Kew Gardens, so of course we spent a day there. That was the second day, though. On the first day, we had lots of other things to do.

First, we wandered through the Walled Garden at Sunbury and went into the Embroidery Gallery to admire the beautiful Sunbury-on-Thames Millennium Tapestry. The Walled Garden apparently started life as the vegetable garden for a house that no longer exists. Now it is a charming place to wander or to sit on a marble bench

and admire the plantings. One of our guides (a friend of our friend) was a long-time resident of the area. She was able to point out familiar figures in the tapestry and reminisce about when Queen Elizabeth came to visit, which brought the whole thing to life for me.
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Then it was time for the garden party. (Raise your pinkies, everybody!) Actually, it was a public garden party, so even the likes of us were allowed to attend. The party is an annual event to raise funds for the Princess Alice Hospice. It was held on the grounds of Monksbridge, an eighteenth century house on Thames Street. (The link I've provided takes you to the representation of Monksbridge on the Millennium Tapestry).

There were craft booths and champagne stands and balloon races -- though nobody seemed to know where the balloons were racing to, or how anyone would know who had won!

I sat beside the Thames and communed with the local wildlife. I had forgotten about wagtails. They are charming little birds, and aptly named.

After the garden party, I figured we would be heading home, but our new friend called her husband, who motored up in their boat, picked us all up, and took us for a little cruise up the Thames. We sailed happily along, drinking tea, eating chocolate cake. While the gentlemen manned the tiller and discussed manly subjects, the ladies sat at the stern and talked about the long-time affair that Edward VIII allegedly carried on with Freda Dudley-Ward, the (then) lady of the house at Monksbridge, before he met Wallis Simpson. We also competed for the attentions of the Affenpinscher who belonged to our friends-of-a-friend. He moved from one lady to the next, sharing his affections with all of us, equally. Smart little dog, that one.

After our Thames adventures,

we walked back to the car and drove home. That's when I spotted this road sign. Robin saw it and said "It's not really a zebra. It's just a camel with stripes." I tell you, those English.

Anyway, that's enough for one day. Tomorrow, I'll tell you about Kew.

2010-06-08T20:43:00.000-07:00

Phew!

Well, that was quite a trip. We did fly home on Friday. We left Richmond at 7 a.m. (11 p.m. the night before, here in B.C.) British Airways had paid for our flight on Air Canada. I managed to get the two seats that Robin and I like (way at the back of the plane, in one of the two-seat rows). The plane turned out to be a Boeing 777, and we actually had leg room. It was wonderful. We both enjoyed the flight. One of the movies on my menu was "Alice in Wonderland", so I tried to watch it - did manage to see Antony House - but then fell asleep about ten times in the course of the movie. I'll have to watch it again some time, when I'm not on a plane.

I did watch two other movies, both chick flicks, but I can't remember what either of them was. That may be because after the very pleasant flight, things got complicated. We landed at Vancouver around noon, got our luggage, took the Sky Train to Burnaby, picked up our car, and drove to Horseshoe Bay. We were trying to catch the 5 p.m. ferry back to Nanaimo. We got there at 3:30 p.m.

SIX AND ONE HALF HOURS LATER, we sailed for Nanaimo. I'm still not sure what the problem was, but I know how it affected us. We drove into our carport at midnight, 25 hours after we left for the airport in London.

I had to be at work at 6:00 a.m., so I basically walked through the house, dragging my suitcase behind me, and collapsed into bed.

One advantage to jet lag, at least coming this way, is that when I had to get up at 4:45 in the morning, it was after lunchtime in my head, so I bounced out of bed and headed to work. I got through the day without falling asleep. On Sunday, I went to work again, but I started feeling ill in the course of the day, and after I got home I got sicker and sicker. There went the next two days. Tonight, I'm coming back to life, it seems.

You know, I should never fly. I get sick every damned time. If I could drive The Turtle to England, I would.

Anyway, this is the first time I've even plugged the computer in. I hadn't even unpacked it. Now I'm back to catching up. It seems that I'm always trying to catch up. Oh, and I suppose I should finish unpacking, eh?

2010-06-01T07:49:00.000-07:00

On the Road Again

Just a quick note: We are in Dorset now, spending the night in the home of Robin's brother and his wife, who kindly postponed their own plans to spend a few days in Devon, in order to accommodate our unplanned delay. Tomorrow, they will drive down to Devon, and we will head to Richmond to spend two days with our Luddite* friend Pat before we catch our plane home. Meanwhile, I've taken this opportunity to print out our new e-tickets. Don't you just love computers?

*I can't think of anyone else I know who doesn't own a computer -- not a single computer. Pat doesn't even have an e-mail address.I found out the other night that she has finally got herself a mobile phone, so perhaps an i-Pad will be next, though I can imagine her rolling her eyes at the very idea.

We did go to Avon Dam again yesterday. The weather was beautiful, and the rhododendrons had come into bloom since we were last there. (Oh, dear. I just went to put a photo in here, and I got my brother-in-law's photo albums instead of my own. It took me a moment to realize what was wrong. Oh, yeah. This is not your computer, Sandra.) Never mind. I'll show you the photos another time. On our walk to the dam, we stopped a couple of times to rest, and then we sat down by the dam itself, and each time we stopped, I worked on the poem I was going to take along on the Poetry Bus -- but then I had no internet and I missed the bus. I guess that's another thing I'll put off for a few days. Maybe I can make my poem fit the next assignment.

2010-05-30T12:54:00.000-07:00

A Very Satisfactory Day

Please pardon my absence. Something is eating my wireless connection, chomping savagely at it while I try to work. From time to time, I am able to stay online long enough to send a tweet, and/or maybe I can read a couple of tweets or Facebook entries, but then there's the ghostly, ghastly sound of bytes being chewed and swallowed, and then I get the message that (and here the diffidence of my computer amazes me) I appear to be offline.

I've given up and borrowed Robin's laptop, because he has finished with it for the day. I suppose I could have borrowed it before, but it's on Vista. Need I say more?

So, here's what has been going on. For the last two days, we've driven to Exeter. Yesterday we took a riverside walk and went for coffee. Today we took a longer walk, then split up to do our singular things.

First, the walk: We walked from the car park to the quay, downriver to the first bridge, across the bridge, and along the canal. One of the first things we saw were seagulls playing "chicken" on Trews Weir while their audience of ducks looked on from the comfort of a perch near the shore.

There weren't just gulls and ducks out there today. There were people -- lots of them -- on foot, on bikes, walking alone and in couples, walking dogs -- Labs and border collies, border terriers, Westies, Jack Russells, dogs of indeterminate parentage, and even a Bassett Hound -- the first of those that I've seen in England.

Oh, and there were swans. I've taken about a dozen swan photos in the last couple of days, because the swans are nesting. They don't have the time to worry about whether somebody is standing there, taking their picture, so for once they stay still. These two were across the canal from us, but yesterday I photographed a couple setting up a nest across the footpath from the river, up against a brick wall. They ignored me, too. I'd show you their picture, but it's in my computer.

We had it in mind today to walk to the Double Locks, about half an hour's easy walk. We did want to have coffee on the way out, but the place we meant to go turned out to be closed, and we didn't feel like walking all the way back to the top of the quay to get to the cafe we knew was open -- so we just kept walking. As it turned out, there was a pub at the Double Locks (of course there was-- there's always a pub at a lock!) so instead of coffee, we had lunch. I had a goat cheese & Mediterranean vegetable wrap, which more than made up for the caffeine deprivation.

This photo shows the back garden of the Double Locks Hotel. This is a proper English pub, where you can stop for a pint or for a meal, and bring your kids along -- as well as the dog. While you drink your beer and catch up on the local gossip, the children can play on the swings or the slide -- or even, in this case, have a game of volleyball. There is also seating inside, of course, where you can watch some football or play a game of darts while the dog dozes under your table. Even as a non-drinker, I do like English pubs. They're very friendly.

I left my straw sun hat in the car, because I figured there was a much better chance of our being rained on than of my getting a sunburn, but I was wrong. The weather got better and better as we walked, and even my short-sleeved cardigan was feeling a bit too warm.

By the time we got back to the quay, it was time for me to head for the cathedral. I still hadn't had my English liturgical music fix (Buckfast Abbey didn't count!) so I wanted to attend Evensong at Exeter Cathedral. Robin had intended to wait for me down on the quay, but he noticed that there was a river excursion boat leaving in few minutes, so he decided to do that, instead.

Having seen Robin off, I climbed the hill to the cathedral and settled in for an hour of pomp and ceremony (of a muted, Sunday Evensong sort) and beauty. The choir that sang the service was the Voluntary Choir (the B-team, I think), but they did a creditable job, and I was happy.

Robin and I had agreed to meet at the car at 4 p.m., and we managed to do that. I did not get lost in Exeter, and I did not get run over while crossing the street -- to my amazement. You should see me getting ready to cross a street here. I look like Noddy. My head swings back and forth, back and forth, and even when I do finally step out, I'm never quite sure I've looked in the right direction at the right time. I did nearly step out in front of a car yesterday. Robin stopped me. Thus, my making my way all the way from the cathedral to the car park today left me feeling quite smug.

We came home, watched the beginning of today's French Open tennis, then left to have dinner at the Avon Inn, Robin's local. He goes down there for a pint of an evening, but generally I stay at home and write my blog or read a book and make dinner. This time, we both went, and I got to meet Gary, Karen, and Brad, who took over the pub just a couple of months ago. Delightful people, delicious food. Then we came home to watch the rest of the tennis match, only to find out that Paris isn't getting our weather. The people in the stands were frantically opening umbrellas, and just as I turned on the television, the match was called on account of rain.

Tomorrow we'll probably head out to the Avon Dam for one last walk there, because we leave here on Tuesday morning.

Sighing a little.

2010-05-27T13:19:00.003-07:00

Down the Rabbit Hole

When life gets a bit too complicated, there's nothing for it but to dive down the nearest rabbit hole, so that's what we did today. We drove to Plymouth again, across the river by chain ferry (again), but this time we only drove two miles farther, to Antony House, an 18th century mansion that (and this was a surprise to us) is where the latest "Alice in Wonderland" movie was filmed. The house and grounds are beautiful, and we spent a delightful day there. Children from a local primary school were running all over the grounds, being children, and that just added to the fun.

Once we'd had our cuppa in the tea room, we wandered out into the formal gardens, where we met Alice right away. I must say, she had rather a stern look about her. She was also alarmingly large. Larger still was this fellow who guarded the entrance.

We weren't allowed to take photographs inside the house. Suffice it to say that it was very grand and full of dark paneling, except in some of the bedrooms. The room where Prince Charles used to sleep when he visited is still dark-paneled, but a lot of the other rooms have been painted in brighter colours, apparently by Wrens who were billeted there during World War II.

The present lady of the house is a lady-in-waiting to Princess Anne, who still stays at Antony House on occasion. I gather she sleeps in one of the brighter rooms.

We saw Alice's room, too. It's one of the small bedrooms at the end of the hallway -- quite a pretty little room.

My favourite place was the saloon. There was a contemporary painting on the east wall. It was inspired by a Rupert Brooke poem entitled Oh: Death Will Find Me. I've been unable to find the painting online. The artist's name is Christopher Le Brun. I sat in a window seat and painstakingly copied the poem out, only to find it at Poemhunter.com. Here it is, in the body of the post -- because I have other plans for the sidebar poem.

Oh! Death Will Find Me

by Rupert Brooke

Oh! Death will find me, long before I tire
Of watching you; and swing me suddenly
Into the shade and loneliness and mire
Of the last land! There, waiting patiently,

One day, I think, I'll feel a cool wind blowing,
See a slow light across the Stygian tide,
And hear the Dead about me stir, unknowing,
And tremble. And I shall know that you have died,

And watch you, a broad-browed and smiling dream,
Pass, light as ever, through the lightless host,
Quietly ponder, start, and sway, and gleam --
Most individual and bewildering ghost! --

And turn, and toss your brown delightful head
Amusedly, among the ancient Dead.

I found the poem moving - and startling in places. The final stanza is wonderful, don't you think?

Most of the time, though, we were out in the garden. My "Flower of the Moment" spot on the sidebar will be filled for some time to come. Besides the flowers, though, there were the most magnificent trees - like this 200-year-old black walnut and a magical avenue of trees, down which I could imagine a white rabbit running, checking his pocket watch.

Oh, and speaking of white rabbits, there's a grandfather clock on the back lawn, out of which a clockwork rabbit pops once an hour. He scurries around the clock, fretting about how late he is -- to the delight of the crowd that gathers to await his appearance.

It was a great day -- and a much-needed distraction from our travel worries -- which have now been at least somewhat resolved. Our wonderful travel agent managed to contact British Airways, who have put us on an Air Canada flight leaving London on June 4 - only five days late. It's an inconvenience, but it's not a disaster.

2010-05-27T01:08:00.001-07:00

On Holiday in Limbo

Fortunately, I do enjoy being in England. Unfortunately, I have no income while I'm here - so I really do need to go home. Again unfortunately, it seems I'm not to be allowed to do that. When I made my daily check of the British Airways flight schedule this morning, I saw that our flight had been cancelled. The website advised that I might be able to change my flight by using the "Manage My Booking" page, so I went there, entered my secret password, and got an Error message. Sorry. All the flights have flown. What? So I called BA, got a recorded message advising that they were terribly sorry, but there was nothing they could do for me, no more information they could give me, and if I had booked my flight through a travel agent, I should call the agent. That's fine, except that it's now just before 1:00 a.m. in British Columbia, and my travel agent, I must assume, is asleep. I did call to leave a message on her answering machine, but it seems she doesn't have one. So now we wait until suppertime to call B.C. to try to get on one of the 50% of next week's planes that still appear to be flying to Vancouver. Or. Maybe we can get a refund on our tickets and fly with Air Canada instead.

Ah, well. If we're stuck here, we might as well have some mood music.

2010-05-25T10:21:00.001-07:00

Got Towel?

If not, DON'T PANIC! Just find one, or borrow one from an obliging friend, and head out to enjoy Towel Day. That's what I've done. At the end of our day's outing to Cornwall, I carried my towel into The Pantry in South Brent to do a bit of shopping (Shropshire Brie, Yeo Valley Organic Butter, organic salad greens, etc. I love this shop!)and was delighted to discover that the shopkeeper understood why I had a towel draped over my shoulder. He said he had a Tom & Jerry towel that he was planning on carrying when he left the shop.

I didn't write yesterday because yesterday was rather same old same old. We went to Kingsbridge for coffee, then to Bigbury-on-Sea for a sunburn -- I mean, we went there to enjoy the beach, but we got a bit of a sunburn.

Not too much, but enough that we left rather sooner than we had intended. Robin actually wanted to walk over to the other side of Burgh Island, but we had misjudged the tide and knew that we would get stranded over there for longer than we wanted (or pay the cost of a tractor ride back) -- so we contented ourselves with sitting on the rocks and watching the tide come in. That meant also watching the beach get smaller and smaller and smaller, so that it became more and more and more crowded as the people on the beach retreated from the oncoming tide.

From our rocky vantage point, we were able to watch the tractor lumber over from the island, bearing its complement of passengers who didn't want to brave the cold sea and wade back (I couldn't blame them. I stuck my foot in the water at one point, and it was COLD.) Hmmm. I just realized there's a UFO in this photograph. It appears to be a flying hat.

In any event, that was yesterday. I did a bit of writing while we had our coffee in Kingsbridge -- I'm finding that I'm much more of a people watcher here than I am at home, and my writing exercises tend to be attempts to describe the people I see. Maybe England has more memorable people than Canada does - or maybe it's just that it's here I've developed the habit of sitting at a little outdoor table, writing, drinking cappuccinos, enjoying the sunshine, and watching the people go by.

So today we went to Cornwall -- to a part of the county that neither of us had visited before. We crossed over from Devon to Cornwall via the chain ferry (we have done that before, but it's been a long time) and headed for Whitsand Bay. At first we turned left up the coast road, but the operative word there was definitely "up". Higher and higher we went, while the gorgeous, seemingly endless beach receded below us. The view was spectacular. Most notably, there was no horizon. The mist over the water obscured it so that water simply gave way seamlessly to sky.

It was enchanting, but we really wanted to get to the beach, so we turned around and headed back the other way, past Portwhistle and Downderry, all the way to Seaton, where we found the beach. We ended up taking a walk along the sea wall, where I saw this heartening sight -- a young woman perched (rather precariously, I thought) on a rock, nearly surrounded by the sea, reading a book. I tried to enlarge the photo enough to see what she was reading, but to no avail. I've decided she must be reading Kathryn's Secret Graces and that's why she hasn't noticed the encroaching tide.

Happy Towel Day, everybody, and remember: DON'T PANIC!

2010-05-23T15:11:00.003-07:00

Veni Creator Spiritus

I suspect that I had something like this in mind:

You know what I mean -- candles flickering, a community of monks singing in unison, their voices bell-like in the cool, frankincensed air. Unfortunately, that wasn't to be. Tonight I walked into Buckfast Abbey church, which was empty except for one monk who sat up in the chancel, reading. I took one each of the service books that were stacked on a table near the entrance -- Vespers, Ferial Vespers for Sundays and Weekdays, and something else that escapes my memory. I walked to the front of the church and sat down. Shortly thereafter, the organist arrived. Eventually, a priest came in a side door, followed by his acolyte, another seven monks, and one nun. They all filed into the chancel and the service began.

It really had been a long time, and I wasn't sure what the order of service was, but after a few minutes, I heard "Veni Creator Spiritus" start, and I thought Okay now. I know that. I can find my place. No. Not really. I scrambled through the books, hunting for that hymn, but didn't find it until it was history. I did finally find my place, at about the third psalm along, and from then on I sang quietly along with the monks, but the service was not a highlight of my visit, musically speaking. It was an interesting experience, without a doubt, but I felt superfluous to whatever was happening on the other side of the velvet ropes, and I wanted to tell the monks to put a little life into their chanting, please. Instead I reminded myself that this wasn't a performance, that these men sang vespers every day, it was their job, and most of them were even older than I. (I never heard the nun's voice even once). But did they have to sound so bored?

When Vespers was over, I turned to leave the church. It was then that I found out I had not been the only member of the congregation. There were three other people there -- two men, one woman. I hadn't heard a peep out of them during the service, so apparently I was the only lay person actually singing. Heh. Maybe I wasn't supposed to sing. ;>)

I think I'll stick to the C of E services, preferably at the cathedrals, where they take their music very seriously indeed.

In all, my morning walk

and the walk Robin and I took this afternoon around Blackdown Rings were rather more uplifting. I put slide shows on YouTube because I couldn't decide which photos to use - except this one, which I simply love.

When we first got to the Rings (which, by the way, are the remains of a hill fort dating to about 400 BCE) it was around one o'clock in the afternoon, and the sun had warmed the hillside. It smelled wonderful up there, and I sat down in the grass to try to figure out just what was producing that exhilarating fragrance. I don't think it was the bluebells -- all I can assume is that one of the grasses was very sweet -- but it didn't really matter. Once I was down there, inhaling the sun-warmed perfume, I didn't want to stand up again. I took several pictures from a sitting position, then lay down and pointed the camera up into the meadow. It was only when I realized I was getting a bit sunburned, sprawled there on the south slope, that I tore myself away. (I was also beginning to remember that scene in The Wizard of Oz when Dorothy falls asleep in the field of poppies...)

2010-05-23T04:07:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, there were Things to Be Done.

First of all, we found ourselves driving around in a car with a permanently open sun roof -- or so we feared. Also, Robin needed a new pair of trousers. So we drove to Exeter. All along the way, we made elaborate plans for dealing with the sun roof problem (We had put a piece of carpeting over the roof for the night, to keep the dew out). We were already on the outskirts of Exeter, going through an area full of car dealers -- all sorts of car dealers, including Mercedes-Benz -- when the penny dropped. A five-minute stop at the Mercedes-Benz dealer, and we were on our way with a new fuse and a solid roof. Unfortunately, going there left us entering Exeter by a very congested route, and we arrived in town feeling worn out and ready to leave. Never mind. There were Things to Be Done. We went to Marks & Spencer first, but didn't find anything suitable. There ensued another of those peculiar Marks & Spencer conversations. Robin said to a saleslady "I'm looking for a pair of pants, but you don't seem to have anything that suits me. Can you recommend a shop?"

"Underpants?" said the saleslady, looking puzzled and slightly uncomfortable. After all, Marks & Spencer carries every conceivable kind of underwear.

"No -- trousers," I said, translating on behalf of my English husband. Sheesh. Yes, there was a shop just down the High Street. The saleslady told us how to find it, though she got the name of the shop wrong.

So we found the shop after a good deal of wandering up and down the High Street. I had decided to dress for town -- a skirt and girly shoes -- so it may well have seemed like a longer hike than it really was. Robin bought his trousers and we hightailed it out of Exeter.

We stopped at the supermarket on our way home, because by now it was late enough that we were afraid the village shops would be closed -- as turned out to be the case. Once home, we settled in for the evening. After supper, I watched QI (Quite Interesting), Stephen Fry's panel show, which left me laughing so hard, I was in tears. On the whole, I don't like English television, but there are a few shows that I truly wish we could get in Canada. QI is one of those. There are a few more -- and come to think of it, nearly all the shows I like feature Stephen Fry!

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Today is something entirely different. I decided last night that I would walk to the village this morning. It had occurred to me that in spite of having stayed in this park three times now, for weeks at a stretch , I still had very little sense of where I was. I had the awful feeling that if I were left out on the road somewhere near South Brent, I wouldn't have any idea how to get home. (This is in part because of my refusal to drive here. As a passenger, I tend to drift along and have little sense of my route.) So after a quick breakfast, I headed to the village. Robin agreed to drive down and pick me up in just over an hour. It is only two miles from the caravan park to the roundabout at the entrance to South Brent, so I had lots of time. I stopped often to take photos, and I still made it in just over forty minutes. Along the way, I discovered just how much I miss when I'm hurtling down the road in a car.

Even the long hill I had been secretly dreading turned out to be easier than I feared -- it was only the last third of it that was steep, so although I arrived puffing at the top, I didn't regret having made the climb. As I approached the village, I paused to photograph a laburnum tree. Just then, an elderly lady came along. She waited while I finished taking the photo, and then she walked on into the village with me. It turned out that she volunteers at the library (which I saw for the first time this morning, by the way). We had a lovely Sunday morning chat, and then we parted ways.

Now, Robin and I are headed out for a proper walk. Later (at 6:30 this evening) I'm going to go to Vespers at Buckfast Abbey. That promises to be a trip down memory lane. According to the website, it will be in Latin!

2010-05-21T13:44:00.001-07:00

...and speaking of Benedictines,

This is Buckfast Abbey, which we visited on our way home from Sharp Tor today. Robin sat in the car and took a nap (he's still waiting for the antibiotics to kick in) while I strolled through the grounds and the abbey church. The original abbey was built in 1018, (ten years before the pub at Rattery!) and destroyed in 1539 during the Dissolution of the Monasteries. For over three hundred years, there were no monks at Buckfast, until a group of six French Benedictines rented the property in 1882.

The present abbey church was built between 1907 and 1937 by a small group of monks (usually four, but sometimes as many as six working together). Only one of the monks was a trained stonemason. The others learned as they went along.

I quite enjoyed my tour and the quiet beauty of the abbey. I was tempted to suggest we stay for Vespers, but that was still two hours away when I wandered back to the car. Robin was up and about, so we headed home for supper.

But...even before we went to the abbey, we went back to Sharp Tor. Do you remember Sharp Tor? I do. That's where I nearly froze solid in my winter coat two weeks ago. Today, I considered wearing capri pants, but Robin repeated his warning that I might encounter vipers on our walk, so I changed my mind and wore lightweight slacks and a cotton blouse. No coat. No sweater. We stopped in at a charity shop in South Brent, where I bought a (very fetching) straw hat to keep the sunburn to a minimum. Then we stopped at The Pantry, where we bought Cheddar and Stilton, baguettes, apples, and tomatoes for a picnic lunch.

Thus provisioned, we proceeded to Sharp Tor, which was looking a whole lot better today than it did a couple of weeks ago. There was still a haze, but there was no rain, the sun was shining, there were brand-new babies all over the place -- oh, it was splendid. I couldn't stop taking photographs. I had a strange moment of deja vu until I realized that the day I was here, freezing, was the day that my memory card broke -- so I had taken a lot of these photos before!

The babies were, of course, completely irresistible.
This little fellow (the parti-coloured foal) got himself into trouble later on. Stay tuned.

We climbed to the top of the tor, which is a mile from the car park, and there we got our breath back, ate our lunch, and soaked up the glorious day.

When we came down from the tor, we saw the little foal that I had photographed earlier. He had followed his mother onto the moor, where he fell afoul of a stick that stuck out of the ground. It was a forked stick (picture a dowsing rod, or maybe a barbecue fork) fork-side up. The poor baby had walked right into the fork, and he couldn't figure out how to get loose. There was another stick involved somehow, complicating the problem, and as I got closer I realized that the foal was panicking -- so I walked over to give him a hand. Fortunately, the thought of being approached by a human who actually intended to touch him was enough to throw him into reverse, and he managed to get out of his trap before I quite got to him. Happy ending.

Oh, but wait. There was one more thing. We drove home via the A38. When we got to Dean Prior, the last landmark before our exit, we saw a parade going across the bridge, apparently coming from the church.

2010-05-21T02:08:00.000-07:00

Running to Catch Up, and a Benedictine moment

Before we head out to take advantage of this glorious, sunny day, I should say that yesterday was a very good day - much less stressful than the one before. We went to Exeter, where I went shopping, as I always seem to do when I find myself in Exeter. Not that I made any serious purchases -- they were pretty mundane, apart from the lovely but inexpensive earrings that I bought down on the Quay.

We started out with coffee and a sandwich at Nero on the High Street. From my seat, I could drink my coffee and watch bubbles billowing out of the Early Learning Centre across the street.

After lunch, we wandered the High Street, leaking money at various shops. I did have a funny conversation with a saleslady at Marks & Spencer. When I finally found the lingerie department and set about looking for a few extra pairs of undies, I found myself faced with a bewildering variety of types and sizes. I wandered the aisles for a few minutes, then accosted said saleslady. "Excuse me," I said, "but I'm not altogether familiar with your sizing system. Would this be my size?"

"Yes, that looks just right. Now what style would you like?"

"Um, I'm not quite sure."

"Well, all these have a thong at the back. I don't suppose you want that."

"Duh." (Not really. I was more polite, if just as firm.)

"Well, then, there are the full length panties -- and these are the high leg. Do you like a high leg?"

"Um."

"Or there are bikinis."

I interrupted at this point to say "You take your underwear very seriously here, don't you?" which caused the saleslady to giggle just a bit. "Yes, we do."

We settled on something called a midi. Via Media. Very Benedictine.

After that, it was an afternoon of rediscovering the things we love about Exeter - like the Quay, with its funny little ferry. Robin enjoyed a shandy at one of the Quay's pubs while I wandered from shop to shop. I'm not a city person, but there are a few cities that I find very compelling, and Exeter is one of them.

Later in the afternoon, we drove to a village called Bickleigh, where we had tea on the terrace of a roadhouse called The Fisherman's Cot.

In all, it was a lovely day. Today, we're going to go back to Sharp Tor -- you know, the place where I nearly froze to death a couple of weeks ago. Today, I'm wearing capri pants and no coat at all. Things change so quickly around here!

2010-05-20T11:16:00.004-07:00

Making Lemonade in Devonshire

This is what happened yesterday: We drove to North Devon -- a completely interminable trip, as far as I was concerned. Robin still wasn't feeling well, so I was worried about him, and the roads were narrow, badly signed in some cases, and full of people bent on killing us. I spent most of the day clinging, white-knuckled, to the seat and the armrest, producing stifled screams from time to time.

The day didn't start out badly, though, and it did have its high points:(all while we were stopped, now that I think about it) . Early on, we stopped in a cafe called Cornucopia, in a village named Hatherleigh. I just went looking for a link, and found that the cafe is for sale. I borrowed this photo from the ad, which you can find here. I don't suppose the vendors will mind my using the photo, since I've expanded the reach of their ad, even if only a little. If you're in the market for a charming, well-appointed little cafe in a beautiful part of England, this is the place for you!

We had our cappuccinos and shared a bun (I thought it was a scone, or perhaps a tea biscuit, but the proprietor kindly corrected me. It was a nubby - basically a tea biscuit studded with currants and flavoured with saffron. It came with a tasty Devon butter. I am becoming quite the connoisseur of butters here. I bought half a pound of the Devon butter to bring home. While we ate, we eavesdropped on a conversation among the proprietor, another bewhiskered gentleman, and a lady who called herself the Town Crier. The Town Crier had a little dog with her. It may have been a long-haired Jack Russell, but it's hard to say. The Town Crier is a woman of substance, and her dog is a very small dog. They were a pleasure to watch, and very friendly. I would have taken their picture, but as we were walking down the street to the cafe, I tried to photograph a building, and my camera refused to co-operate. It turned out that I had left the memory card plugged into the side of my laptop, so poor camera had nowhere to put a picture.

Thus I also have no photographs of the beautiful, seemingly endless beach at Saunton Sands near Croyde. We went for a stroll there, and I used Robin's walking stick to carve Amazing Voyages of the Turtle in the sand.

We were able to walk southeast along the beach pretty well forever, or until we had had enough. To the north we could just barely see the Isle of Lundy. We walked for twenty minutes or so, then stopped to sit on a log and contemplate the view. There were surfers back near where we parked (in a lot that charged a flat, all-day rate of £4 -- eek!) There was a surf shop right there, as well as a cafe. The surfers were all wearing full wetsuits, and I had no interest in checking out the temperature of the water, but the sea breeze was very pleasant. The tide was low. Judging by the colour of the sand -- mocha, I'd say -- it appears that at high tide the water would come right up to the base of the dunes, traversing about 400 yards of beach. The dunes are part of the South West Coast Path, a hiking trail that runs about 1,000 kilometres along the coast -- a little more ambitious a hike than we were ready to tackle.

It was while we were on the beach, and I was bemoaning my lack of camera (I did a lot of bemoaning yesterday) that I figured out a way to make lemonade out of this lemon of a day. Since I had no camera, this would be the day to introduce the newest member of my team of furry companions -- so here he is. I would like to introduce Paignton. In this photograph, Paignton is the fellow waving at you -- the one wearing the Steam Railway sweater.

l to r: Fred (aka Sleepy); Lil, Paignton, Howard.

As you can see, Paignton isn't pining. My sister-in-law, it transpires, has a fondess for small stuffed animals that rivals my own, so I'm relying on her buddies to keep Paignton occupied and happy while he waits to go home to Canada and meet his new family - Duffy, Steinbeck, and Wilson. (My SIL will be lucky if I don't kidnap Howard while I'm about it. He's quite a charmer, and he and Paignton have become very close.)

So if I hadn't been too tired to post last night, what with all the screaming and screwing my eyes shut, my plan would have worked out perfectly. As it is, I'm now a day behind. Preview: Today was much better.

2010-05-18T14:06:00.004-07:00

A Trip Through Time

Not far from here, in the village of Rattery, stands the Church of St. Mary the Virgin. We strolled around the churchyard tonight, looking at the gravestones. That was after we had a beer at the Church House Inn, which is adjacent to St. Mary's - ("within the traditional forty paces of the church gate", says the website). We were drawn to the place by modest road signs pointing the way. "Church House Inn- 11C", they read. Surely not. Well, actually, yes. The inn was founded in 1028 -- not as a village pub, but as a lodging house for priests. Apparently there are still remnants of the original building in existence, but the one in which we sat tonight is virtually new - having been built between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries.

I'm not sure I'll ever cease to marvel at the antiquity of the buildings, gardens -- so many of the things I see here. One has to wonder why we build such flimsy dwellings -- and even flimsy public buildings -- now, when we could be building homes to last for centuries. Oh, I know. It's too expensive to build in the old way -- but I think we do ourselves and our descendants a disservice.

Off the soapbox now - our visit to the Church House Inn was the last of our adventures today -- but I couldn't wait to talk about it. So now I'll go back to the beginning. That was when we drove to Totnes this morning and caught the 8:46 to Penzance. The trip took about two and a half hours -- through Plymouth, across the Tamar River -- this time via the Royal Albert Bridge, which was designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel and opened in 1859.

After a stop for coffee near the Penzance station, we set out on a walk. Robin used to work out of Newlyn (once a separate village, I gather, but now a suburb of Penzance), so we walked along the waterfront to the end of the fishing pier in Newlyn and back to the railway station -- four miles altogether, plus whatever I put on when I detoured up the high street to find the Oxfam bookstore. Most of the walk was on pavement -- except for the part where I walked down to the beach to pick up a pebble. Accordingly, my legs have turned to stone. Just so you know.

I had forgotten how close we would be to St. Michael's Mount. Robin and I were there a few years ago, but somehow we didn't get over to Penzance on that trip. As we walked along the seashore today, I could see St. Michael's Mount in the distance

-- not well, mind you, because there was a haze. The sky stayed grey most of the day, and it even sprinkled on us once, but not for long -- and we were delighted to find Cornwall considerably warmer than Devon. We kept shedding coats and sweaters as we walked. It was wonderful.

The pier at Newlyn is active -- we had to dodge cars and trucks, even chains being dragged and pounded to remove rust. We made it all the way to the end, though, and sat to have a rest and enjoy the view.

Part of our plan was to take a bus from Penzance to Land's End (the railway doesn't go that far) but if we were to get home at a reasonable hour, we simply didn't have time to do that -- so Land's End stays on my bucket list for now. Meanwhile, I've had a wonderful day in Penzance, with that surprising bit of time travel at the end, so I have no complaint.

2010-05-17T14:14:00.000-07:00

The Floor

(This started out as a contribution to this week's Poetry Bus, but something happened along the way. It just didn't want to be a poem. It wanted to be the beginning of a story, so I let it have its head. I hope Barbara will forgive me for playing fast and loose with her prompt.)

I got down on my knees and smelled the new linoleum, not sure why I had insisted, against all sense, on using this flooring. There are newer, fancier, shinier floors to be had - plastics that don't require waxing, that shine like mirrors for years, asking nothing but a quick sponge mopping now and then -- but here I was, smelling the motor oil smell, feeling the porous surface, staring at a background the colour of Jersey cream --

(Why start with white, when after a few waxings, you'll have yellow anyway?)

I found this roll of flooring. It was here when I moved in. I suppose economy had something to do with my decision, but there was more to it than that.

Gazing at lines of intertwined deep green stems and leaves, floral medallions set at intervals, roses the colour of candy floss, I realize why I have done this foolish thing, moved back into this old house, chosen to use this floor, summoned ghosts long quiet.

The man who installed the floor wanted to take up the old linoleum, but I wouldn't let him. "Just lay the new stuff on top," I said.

It comforts me somehow to know that under my "new" floor is the one that my mother scrubbed, the one with garish golden stars on a marbled background -- no doubt a stylish pattern when it was installed, but ugly to my modern eyes. When I move across the floor, scrub brush in hand, I see my mother's hand moving there, burnishing the stars. I hear her humming along with the radio while she works -- Edith Piaf is singing "Milord". From time to time my mother raises her scrub brush to shoo one of us out of the room, lest we undo all her work. What, I wonder, did she see when she stared at the floor? Her own mother's floor, perhaps, the bare wood floor that my grandmother scrubbed, hidden beneath her own floor and underneath a torn layer of tar paper?

I can see my grandmother's hand even now -- careworn, red-knuckled, tired. I hear her muttering under her breath that she'll never see the end of this work, not with seven kids tracking mud through the kitchen, not with a husband who won't learn to take his boots off at the door -- a husband who comes home from work whistling, for God's sake. If he had to clean up after this brood, he'd soon stop whistling.

No wonder she always looked so sour in those old photographs.

I leave my grandmother to her grumbling and go back to following the line of green leaves across my own new floor. I look with tenderness at the rose medallions that speak of a gentler time, a time before vacuum cleaners and suffrage, before the Pill and careers for women. They lie, those medallions, but I think they mean well. Perhaps that is why my mother bought this pattern. Perhaps she bought into the notion of an idyllic past just out of reach.

I get down on my knees again and smell the new linoleum. I inhale the acrid smell of dreams deferred. I draw my hand along the nearest line of leaves, and I wish my grandmother, even my mother, had had a life not quite so circumscribed -- a life like mine. I've wanted for years to find a way back, to learn what life was really like for them, but I needed a key, a way to open the door into the past. And all the time it waited for me, rolled up tight, leaning against the far kitchen wall, tied with a piece of hemp.

2010-05-17T12:10:00.001-07:00

And the voice of the cuckoo was heard across the land *--

or at least here, in Devon.

Robin rousted me out of the house at about eleven o'clock this morning so that he and I could take a walk to Avon Dam. Neither of us felt like walking, but by the time we got back to the car park after our walk, we were both feeling much livelier. While we were strolling beside the stream, a cuckoo cried from a nearby grove of trees. I tried to record the sound with my camera, but as soon as I took the camera out and set it to "video", the cuckoo closed his mouth and only opened it again long enough to stick his tongue out at me. Never mind. I found a site where you can hear the sound. (Click here) I feel much better now. I was afraid I had missed the cuckoo altogether, but this area has had quite a long winter, so perhaps the cuckoo waited until the weather took a turn for the better before he flew in.**

Okay, I confess that I didn't actually see the cuckoo stick his tongue out -- in fact, I didn't see the cuckoo at all. I only heard him. I did see other moorland inhabitants, though -- sheep, mostly, still wearing their winter woolies. And hikers -- a great gaggle of them, all wearing huge backpacks.

My first comment on seeing the entrance to the Avon Dam walk today was that it looked very scruffy. I'm used to seeing it in the full flush of Spring. This time, the rhododendrons weren't in bloom yet -- although I've seen plenty of them in bloom in other places -- and everything seemed to be covered with moss.

Once we were out on the moor, though, things dried out nicely. We took our time, stopping every fifteen minutes for a five-minute break, and at the end of the fourth walk, we arrived at the dam. Some of us (ahem) were feeling a little tired out by then, so we sat for a few minutes, absorbing sunlight, feeling proud of our achievement, getting our breath back.

The walk back, being mostly downhill, was easier. We felt quite cheerful when we got back to the car, and Robin suggested that we go home for lunch, then head to Plymouth, where we would sit on a bench by the harbour to watch ships come and go. That was fine by me, because I knew there would be a cappuccino in it for me. So that is what we did -- except that there wasn't much in the way of ship movement to see. Fortunately, I had my knitting along, so I was entertained, and Robin just loves to be beside the seaside, so he was happy.

Tomorrow, we plan to take the train from Totnes to Penzance and back -- an all-day excursion. If you don't hear from me again, it means I've been taken by pirates.

* Can anybody tell me the origin of this quotation (or misquotation, as the case may be)? I'm at a loss. Google has failed me, or I have failed to google correctly.

**And speaking of flying, the government has declared the BA cabin crew's strike plans to be illegal, so we just might be able to fly home on time after all, volcanoes permitting. Stay tuned.

2010-05-16T12:00:00.000-07:00

Everybody loves the sound

of a train in the distance - especially the chug-chug-chug-chug of an old- fashioned steam train. We weren't up to much today, both still feeling under the weather, so we took a short drive to Paignton and rode the steam train from there to Kingswear and back, just for fun. I spent the trip bouncing back and forth from one side of our carriage to the other, snapping pictures of the sights along the way, waving back at the people who were smiling and waving at us as they watched the train go by.

We did a lot of driving yesterday, though, to get to our family reunion. It was well worth the drive -- there were four generations of Leighs represented, and Robin's younger brother, the patriarch, was positively glowing with pride.

Before the reunion got underway, the three of us took a little ride around the countryside. We stopped at this charming pub at Rockmoor, where I spotted a rookery in the trees.

I didn't see any rooks, mind you, just the rookery. The best thing about the pub was that the sun came out just as we got there, so we were able to sit outside in the sunshine to drink our ale/lemonade. The weather continued to improve, and when everyone arrived for the reunion, all nineteen of us had our dinner out on the patio.

We arrived home with the setting sun last night, sorry that our reunion was so short, but determined to keep the lines of communication open. I found myself a little envious of this group who -- apart from the Canadian contingent -- live so near to one another, can see each other weekly, if they like. My own family is so far-flung -- from one side of Canada to the other, and from Canada to the United States -- that this kind of closeness just isn't possible. We do try -- Skype is our best friend, followed closely by Facebook -- but it's not the same as being able to hug the people you love, whenever you like.

So that was yesterday, and today was a day of rest and recovery and nostalgia. Oh - and I found a new friend for Duffy, Steinbeck and Wilson. He was at the gift shop at the Paignton Rwy Station. I've named him Paignton, after his home town, because it's important to remember where we came from.

2010-05-15T14:39:00.000-07:00

A Short and Winding Road

It's been a long, fun day, and I'm not feeling very wordy -- so I thought I would post the videos I made the other day -- the ones that I shot on the road between Webland and the A38. I have a question, though. Wasn't there a time when I could edit my videos, splice them together, etc. on YouTube? Now I can't figure out how to do that, so I'm going to have to post the four videos, one after the other, and hope you'll have the patience to get all the way through the series. Of course, I could post them as a series -- no. Forget that. Here they are. They will go some way to explaining why I refuse to drive in England.

2010-05-14T08:04:00.000-07:00

Better Late Than Never?

First thing yesterday morning, we decided to go to Falmouth in Cornwall. It was an ambitious drive-- about 85 miles (170 return), which seems like a long way in England. Robin wanted to visit the Maritime Museum. So off we went. On the way out, I made a little movie to show you the road we use to get in and out of Weblands. (I must keep in mind that making little movies positively devours batteries!)If YouTube finishes its magic before I finish this post, I'll embed my movie. Otherwise, I'll wait until Sunday. I doubt there will be much posting tomorrow. We're off for a family get-together in Dorset early in the day, then rushing back to Buckfastleigh in the evening to hear the Mozart Requiem.

Anyway, back to yesterday: When we crossed the Taymar Bridge,

we were in Cornwall. We remembered that you don't have to pay a toll to cross the bridge into Cornwall – but you do have to pay to get out again. That is just strange. Cornwall is a lovely place, and I always regret leaving it.

When we reached Falmouth, we parked the car and headed straight to the Oggy Oggy Pasty Company. I know we had other reasons to go to Cornwall, but I suspect I would go all the way there just for the pasties.

Once we had had our lunch, we visited the museum. There was a very interesting exhibit that dealt with the history of lighthouses in Britain, and there were boats everywhere – old ones and new ones and some under construction. A lot of the boats hung from the ceiling, and ramps around the perimeter of the room allowed us to climb higher and higher, seeing the boats from different angles.

It was about 2:30 p.m. when we came out of the museum, so we got back on the road. We wanted to visit the Lost Gardens of Heligan. The first time we tried to go there was years ago, on our trip to Newquay. Somehow, on that trip, we ended up visiting Trelissick Gardens instead. This time, I was determined to find Heligan. Just getting there was a pleasure, because I could not only enjoy the beauty of the landscape, but also read the road signs. Cornish place names are delicious. They are like honey on the tongue: For example, there are Pendennis, Penjerrick, Trenarren, Trewithen, Trelissick, Polperro – and my favourite, Mevagissey.

Mevagissey also happens to be where the Lost Gardens of Heligan are. We got to the gardens at 3:30, and we emerged two hours later, tired but very happy with our find. In retrospect, I'm glad we didn't find the gardens the first time we tried. It looks as if there's been an awful lot of work done in the last nine years, and I think it was about that long ago that we made our unsuccessful attempt. I took about 70 photos while we were there - and then I discovered the above link, where you will find much better photos than mine. Hmmph.

After a very full day, we got home at about 7:30 last night. I set about preparing dinner while Robin went down to the pub for an aperitif (pint). We ate our dinner and at about 9:00 p.m. I turned on my computer. I couldn't get onto the internet. I thought perhaps the fact that I had installed Avast! Antivirus and not bothered to uninstall AVG was causing problems, so I uninstalled AVG and tried again. Nope. After about eight attempts, I asked Robin to try to get online with his computer. He couldn't get there either. Despite the fact that our computers said we had a connection, we were in fact DISconnected from the world.

Ah, well. I can still type on Open Office, right? Right. So that's what I did. The web is finally working, and I am left pondering the fact that there was a time in my life when being without internet overnight would not have been a catastrophic event.

Okay. YouTube is still labouring away at my feature film, so I think I'll leave it alone, like Little Bo-Peep.

Speaking of sheep, though, there was a part of the lighthouse exhibit at the museum that I found particularly interesting. It seems that, in order to keep themselves occupied, the men who cared for the lights used to knit (I saw some lovely examples of the craft), write poetry and prose, sketch -- very creative stuff, all. Then TV was introduced. This was the result:

2010-05-12T13:47:00.000-07:00

Mea Culpa

I seem to have passed my cold on to Robin -- not that I've got rid of it. I'm sharing. Anyway, he woke up all sniffly and snarly this morning, and declared he didn't have the energy to go to the horse races after all. (Hmmm. I didn't mention that plan, did I?) We settled in for a day of lounging about, blowing our noses, and drinking tea. Right.

Robin doesn't do "sick" very well. He gets bored. That's what happened today - so when he couldn't stand it any longer, he suggested we just go for a little ride to the seashore. We ended up going past Exeter and through Exmouth to Budleigh-Salterton. We stopped for coffee at a little place called "A Slice of Lyme". I had yet another buttered scone. I will regret this, I know.

Suitably provisioned, we went on to the beach, which is covered with pebbles like the ones in this wall. The photo is a little blurry. That's because the car started to move just as I clicked the photo. It does demonstrate, though, how close we were to the wall. I have a new rule:

Never hang your arm out the window in England.

That rule applies not only to car windows, but even to living room windows. I've seen houses set so close to the road, leaning out to shake the dust from your cleaning cloth could lose you an arm.

*************************************************************

We drove to the beach, parked the car, and took a little walk along a path through the pebbles. I did a little Tai Chi along the path and snapped a few photos. Then we turned around and came home. It wasn't our most exciting day in England, but it was probably good for us.

I did manage to get a photo that I've really wanted. I photographed a sign along the A38. Every time I see it, I shake my head.

Maybe it's one of those cross-cultural situations -- You know -- the ones where the locals use a term, the visitors start to laugh, and the locals just look puzzled. Or -- more likely -- it's a case of a butcher with a sense of humour.

So here it is. I've edited it to enlarge the sign. I'm now typing with my fingers crossed.

Oh, good. It's legible. I named this photo "Tsk, tsk. Those English."