Uncommon reader

It's not at all uncommon to see the Girl with her nose in a book...

But here's a rarer sight:

These pictures were taken at the library, where we spent part of a rainy afternoon.  The kids were having a half day off school so that teachers could have "conferences" with parents.  The Man and I met with the Girl's teacher, and were pleased to hear that our daughter is doing fine.  It has been a big transition for her from her old school this year, and we're proud of her for handling it so well.

TV or not TV?

Not content with my radio appearance a while back, I've just signed up tonight for a spot on TV!  Yikes!

WMHT, the public television station, is putting together a series called "Our Town", and the next programme is going to be about...our town.  When I say the TV station is putting the show together, what that actually means is that local residents will be going about with camcorders in the next couple of weeks, taking footage of subjects that interest them around town.   The production team at WMHT will then condense this all down into 1-2 minute segments, and play the video under interviews with the amateur film-makers.  The whole programme will run to about 90 minutes.

I went to the public meeting tonight just to find out more about the project, and suddenly found myself with my hand up promising to do a piece about fair trade.  Oh my - here I go, about to make another giant leap outside my comfort zone...  But then who knows - this year local-interest telly, next year The X-Factor?

I told the Boy about this latest venture and his response was "Yay! Now we'll have to get a TV!"

Stop 'n' shop

After such a busy two days (on top of a busy week running up to them) I was glad not to have too much to do today.  We got up late and generally lounged around.

There was a skating lesson at noon.  The usual teacher was away, so my group was taught by a couple of hockey dudes.  They weren't so much into the graceful, artistic side of skating (you know that old joke about ice hockey, "I went to see a fight and a hockey game broke out") but we did a lot of practice on stopping which is actually quite a useful thing to be able to do well.

We had lunch at Java Jazz, scene of our trivia-nite victory a few weeks ago.  And, ha-ha, there was a photo of our team hanging up, right where anyone serving themselves coffee couldn't fail to bump their noses.  Our fame lives on...

This evening, a family trip to the mall.  The Girl now has her own skates again, so won't miss out on any frozen lake oppportunities this winter.  She also chose a new top, and looks very lovely in it.  She's turning into quite the fashionista.  Don't know where she gets that from - certainly not her parents.

You're faired!

Part two of the Fair Trade Market also went well.  Not quite the huge crowds of yesterday, but nonetheless many visitors happy to spend.  Over the next few days we'll be hearing exactly how well all the vendors did, and then I'll let you know the grand total - I suspect it will be big.  The majority of stallholders run their fair trade enterprises as not-for-profits, so their takings will be going directly back to, for example, a Kenyan slum community, women rescued from prostitution in China and Cambodia, Afghan widows and many many other deserving but disenfranchised groups of people. 

People helping people to help themselves - that's what fair trade is all about, and it's great.

When our organising committee first sat down and started planning this event (was it only two months ago?) we told ourselves, "Let's do something amazing."  I think we succeeded.  Yay!

Yesterday, as a contrast to the day's do-goodery, the Man and I sat and watched a desperate bunch of sharp-suited wannabes stabbing each other in the back.  Of course!  The latest episode of the UK Apprentice, courtesy of You Tube.  Now here's an idea for the next Comic Relief [biennial British comedy telethon] - challenge the Apprentice contestants to set up a fair trade business in which everyone treats each other with respect, a spirit of cooperation breaks out, and much common good is achieved.  Marvellous - but would it make such good telly?

Doing a roaring (fair) trade

The day of the great Fair Trade Market dawned: damp, cold and grey - and I gave a little cheer.  This was exactly the sort of weather we were hoping for, the sort of day when what could be nicer than spending a couple of hours in the Delmar Reformed Church hall looking at lovely fair trade crafts?

And indeed we weren't disappointed with the turnout.  Customers were coming through the doors all day long in a constant steady stream.  They came on foot from the neighbourhood, and by car (and even minibus) from right across the Capital District.  I even spoke to one man who'd come all the way from Texas (though I suppose it's possible he was just there as somebody's Thanksgiving house-guest). 

The atmosphere was great - people were really happy to do their Black Friday shopping with us and know that every purchase they made would benefit artisans and communities in some of the poorest countries of the world.  We're open tomorrow morning, too, and then we can't wait to tally up the takings.  I'm pretty sure this is the biggest fair trade event ever held in our region - and I'm also pretty sure it's only going to grow from here.

I must say a word of thanks to my dear Man (to his slight chagrin one stallholder today greeted him, "Hello [Albaniana]'s husband!") who ferried me to and from the event and put up with the children all day, and was generally very supportive of my endeavours, as he always is.  Without him I couldn't do all these things I so enjoy doing.

Thanksgiving feast

Our last two Thanksgiving Days have been spent at home, just us, but this year we were invited to join friends.  We sat down late in the afternoon at a table groaning with food and enjoyed getting to know the other guests of our hostess.  There were as many kids as adults, so it was quite a raucous crowd, and all the jollier for that.  There were eighteen of us altogether.

When they'd finished eating the children disappeared down into the basement and played noisy computer games.  But later they re-emerged for an all-hands game of Apples to Apples - a great way to round off the evening before people started heading home.

Earlier in the day the Man and I had managed to sneak out for a quick, cold hike at Five Rivers.  It definitely feels like it won't be long before we have snow, and we're looking forward to it.  But no snow tomorrow, please...

(Un)packed day

It's been a packed, and an unpacking, day.

I was up early mixing shortbread dough, before delivering the Man to work.  Then I just had time to zoom some paperwork over to Five Rivers before I had to nag the kids into the car and take them out for a baking session with the 4H-ers.  Lots of floury fun, making pumpkin bread, biscuits (which here are like scones) and apple pies and, of course, rolling out shortbread.

The children settled down to afternoon activities at separate locations, and I spent the next four hours helping to set up the fair trade market.  Wow!  So many little boxes to open and little treasures to set out!  There were plenty of volunteers, but we still had to work flat out.  I have to say though, the table displays all looked great by the time we were done. 


The church hall doors are all securely locked now until Friday, when we'll be over there bright and early to open up again.  Meanwhile, tomorrow will be a day of Thanksgiving.  For readers celebrating this holiday, we wish you a wonderful day.  For those of you who won't be - well, no harm in giving a little thanks anyway:  life is full of good things.

Tops Gere

I spent the morning delving through five big boxes and inventorising (is that a word?) $4,000-worth of fair trade crafts.  Tomorrow we'll be setting everything out on display, which should be fun.

It's a week (because of Thanksgiving) when the kids only have two days of school, so they've already got that Friday feeling even though it's only Tuesday.  It's going to be a heck of a long weekend.

If they ever decide to go to bed tonight I'm looking forward to curling up and watching the rest of Shall We Dance? which the Man and I have out on DVD from the library.  A very sweet film:  happily married but bored-at-work man has mid-life crisis and takes up ballroom dancing.  If it sounds like your cup of tea (go on, surprise yourself), be sure to get hold of the Japanese original version, not the American re-make.  Though it may sound like hard work, it's worth it for the lovely Japanese cast, and anyway who really wants to watch Richard Gere waltzing?

Fair-minded

It's going to be a very fair trade-focused week for me.  I'm helping organise a big market to be held this Friday and Saturday, and we're deep in preparations. 

Between now and then there's also Thanksgiving, and in fact our date choice for the market was quite calculated in that respect.  For one thing, the popular church hall we're using is empty for the week, which gives us the chance to set everything up in advance.  And for another, Friday is Black Friday, the biggest shopping day in the USA.  We're aiming to give people the chance to "shop with a difference" this year - or at the very least come and buy some beautiful fairly traded handicrafts later in the day after they've snagged that bargain flat-screen telly at four in the morning.

So, a meeting first thing with my fellow organisers, and computer work this afternoon sending out final press releases and what-have-you.  Then when the kids got home from school I sent them back out on their scooters to leaflet the neighbourhood.  As ever they baulked at the very idea of "work", but had a grand time when they got down to it. 

You just can't use enough child labour when it comes to promoting fair trade, that's what I always say.

Sugar bowl

Skating lesson today.  My daughter and I are taught simultaneously, but at opposite ends of the rink, which makes it easier to maintain our pact (instituted by the Girl) of not acknowledging each other's presence on the ice.   While the Girl learns dazzling tricks - waltz jumps, spins, lunges etc, I'm still working away at basic turns and edges.  But when I think back to how I started out (barely upright) I'm happy with my modest progress.

Straight from the ice-rink to the bowling alley, for some ten-pin fun with 4H friends.  The boy who was competing against my two is almost a pro-bowler - he plays every week and enters competitions.  So obviously he won outright. At least the Girl and Boy managed to compete against each other amicably enough and without any embarassing loss of temper.

Yesterday at the mall we were briefly diverted by a couple of guys in fake safari suits trying to sell us a sugar bear.  These tiny pop-eyed marsupials are certainly very cute, possibly even cuter than chipmunks.  But tell me, given the lengths we've had to go to to evict rodents from the house, why would I pay good money to bring one home with me?

Keep it simple, Charlie Brown

Ages ago (and if I could remember exactly when it was I'd put in a link) the Girl and I attended something called "A Day of Simple Giving".  Organised by Grassroot Givers, it was an opportunity for people to get together and make things to be donated to various local charities such as homeless shelters.  There was another such day today, and people were putting together gift baskets of toiletries, decorating cookies for the food pantry, filling bags with bean soup ingredients and various other activities.  The kids had a go at making stress balls by filling balloons with rice, while I knitted a dishcloth (like you do).

There was a good turnout for the event - lots of families, a whole load of Girl Scouts, and quite a few people I knew from the Farmers' Market, school, 4H and other places.  A team of older teenagers led younger kids and anyone else so inclined in all the dance routines, from YMCA to the Cha-Cha Slide.  There was a cheery atmosphere, and the event succeeded in raising awareness and activitating creativity in support of some worthwhile causes.  I'm glad we went along. 

This evening, as an antidote to that dose of worthiness, the Man, Boy and I made a trip to the Mall, where it's Christmas-business-as-usual.  The Boy lingered longingly (but hopelessly) around the Holiday lawn ornaments - he was particuarly taken with this enormous inflatable snowglobe featuring a couple of his current favourite characters.  Sadly for him he doesn't have the sort of  fun parents who would ever buy anything remotely like this.

DAREdevil

Today it was the turn of the Girl's classroom to open for visitors.  I went along in the afternoon.  There were no special events, the kids were just following their regular Friday timetable.  So there was a "word of the day" test, some geography (designing their own islands), a weekly reflection sheet to fill in, and a performance of "the DARE song" (DARE stands for Drug Abuse Resistance Education), which the Girl later told me is quite fun but she can't really see the point of it.

My overall observation of the class was that it's a smooth-running set-up, where everyone seems comfortable with what they have to do.  I also noted that while ten year-old girls are quite sensible animals, ten year-old boys are mostly goofballs.

As a last task of the day our still distinctively British Girl had the all-American responsibility of furling the stars and stripes. 

Volt face

More opportunities today to visit the Boy at school.  In the morning I joined him in his music class.  He always has good things to say about the music teacher, and I could see why - she's vivacious and fun and clearly loves her subject and her job.  She had us all (visiting parents included) dancing a courtly dance to the tune of Greensleeves.  Girls were paired with boys, which caused much dismay and groaning all round.  I was paired with my son but also had to dance with another eight year-old boy, who took my hand with great disdain - fear of cooties, probably.  I felt oddly pleased to have the chance to be a "yucky girl" again after all these years.

In the afternoon I was back in school again for a lesson on electricity.  Each kid in the class has their own box of batteries and wires, switches and bulbs, and they showed us how these odds and ends can be joined up to make working electrical circuits.  One excercise involved identifying hidden circuits made from strips of alumin(i)um foil.  I won't try to explain it in detail, but it involved quite a lot of concentration and the Boy took it seriously and managed admirably. 

However, when it came time to write up his observations, he suddenly had other things on his mind (and face).

All a-Board

Wade through this long blog entry from our earliest days here and you'll find us on our first ever family visit to Five Rivers. This photo is from that day in August 2007.

Those of you who've stuck with me since then will know that, over time, Five Rivers has come to be quite an important part of my life here, what with this, that and the other (plus a few hundred other postings).

So when, a few weeks ago, I recieved a phone call inviting me to join the Board of Friends of Five Rivers  I felt extremely honoured, and accepted gladly.  Tonight at the Annual Meeting I was among three new Board members to be voted in. 

We're all very excited to join the team that does so much to keep Five Rivers going, because it really is a magical place and an exceptional environmental education centre.  The responsibility seems all the more timely and important in the light of yet more layoffs, announced yesterday, by the state's Department of Environmental Conservation.  It looks like two of New York's nature centres will be closing in the new year.

I'm hitting the ground running, having spent the last couple of weeks developing a new membership-generating tool - the Friends of Five Rivers Gift Membership card.  People will now be able to buy a nice-looking card conferring membership on friends or family.  Perfect Holiday gift for anyone living in this area!  Contact FoFR for details...

Football fantasy

I got the chance to see the Boy in action at school today - parents were invited into class as part of American Education Week -though I didn't exactly "see" him as the class was taking place in a Starlab, an inflatable planetarium set up in the gym, and it was pitch dark in there.

In any case, much as I would like to observe how my son really gets on day-to-day at school, I know that my very presence in the room means he doesn't behave as he normally would without me there.  It's a lot like quantum physics, Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle - but obviously, you knew that.

Nah, me neither.  I don't speak physics.  Or football (soccer if you'd rather).  The Man was very happy the other evening when one of the Girl's schoolfriends was dropped off at the house by her dad, who is British like us.  They were soon chatting away about the Premier League, and I could only sit there looking a bit vague, like you do when two foreign friends forget you're with them and drop into their native tongue.

I don't mind that the Man is into things, like football, that I can't even be bothered to understand.  To be honest I used to be a bit snooty about football fans, though a little research taught me that fans could also be literate (Nick Hornby, you have a lot to answer for).  I daresay I could learn to love the beautiful game if I tried - maybe I'll put my mind to it while the Man's busy stitching me a quilt.

Hmm.  Just ain't gonna happen, is it?

Zero tolerance

The Man writes...it's that time of year when CNSE (the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering) holds a month of informative events and public lectures called NANOvember. (Do you see what they did there?)

I went along tonight to a talk about nanobioscience, or more specifically neuroscience with tiny sensors or stimulators that are implanted in the brain with the aim of eventually treating a wide range of disorders including Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and epilepsy.  Experiments aimed at understanding how brain cells communicate with one another were also described.  Research is at an early stage and the challenges are large, but it's clearly an area where nanoengineering offers a wealth of new possibilities.

When I recently gave a little talk on nanotechnology, I had hardly started when I was asked the obvious question, for which inevitably I was totally unprepared: "What's a nanometre?" Rather than just saying "a billionth of a metre" I started mumbling: "It's nought point nought, nought..."

"Translating from the British, that would be zero point zero,zero..." someone immediately interrupted.

Well, who knew? Casting around frantically for a way to regain my authority I resorted with desperation to my one fascinating nano-fact: "It's the amount your fingernail grows in one second".

The beagle has landed

Sometimes blog stories fall out of the sky...

...and sometimes they just come running into the yard.

I was busy in the backyard, dealing with the last of the leaves, when I suddenly realised I had four-legged company.  A beagle!  A handsome, healthy-looking hound, but he had no collar - where had he come from?

And where was he headed?  After a good sniff around, he set off again at a pace.  I decided I'd better give chase.

Up the road he ran and through all the neighbours' yards, with me in hot pursuit.  I had him cornered once, but he gave me the slip (a collarless beagle is hard to handle).  Finally, about a quarter of a mile away and with the aid of the Girl and Boy who'd jumped on their scooters and come after us, I got the dog under control and borrowed a collar and lead from a nearby householder.  The kids let him drag them back to our yard, where they enjoyed feeling sorry for him while I tried to find his owner.

To cut a long story short, we worked out that the dog must belong to the new people who moved into the house opposite only yesterday.  Though they weren't at home, we managed (with help) to track them down.  A very nice guy came to collect the beagle, clearly relieved that his dog was ok and most apologetic for causing us trouble.  As a reward for our efforts he has granted us sledding rights in his yard, all winter long. Wahoo!

But trouble?  Not at all!  Without this adventure what else would I have found to write about?  Though I must admit after all that hounding around, on top of the yardwork and my usual skating lesson, I'm feeling dog tired tonight.

The price of freedom

This afternoon we visited Bethlehem Public Library to see an acquaintance of mine, storyteller Nancy Payne, give a presentation on the Underground Railroad.  I know Nancy as an extraordinarily talented wildlife instructor at Five Rivers, and this was an interesting opportunity to see her in the different role of historical interpreter. 

Through the true stories of escaped slaves and the concerned citizens who helped them on their journeys she brought to life a difficult chapter in this country's history.   In recounting their tales, Nancy impressed us with the bravery of those individuals who chose the path of personal sacrifice and risk for the sake of freedom and human rights.

Someone else who has chosen such a path for herself is Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, released today from house arrest in Burma.  What next for her, I wonder?  I watch with a mixture of hope and trepidation.

Today's programme

I'm in trouble with the Man tonight for not having done anything interesting enough to blog about today.  That's the sort of husband others might envy, I think - one who positively wants you to spend the day having fun.  Or failing that, doing something mildy frustrating that can be recounted later in three paragraphs for other people's entertainment.

Well, it wasn't that I wasn't having fun, exactly, because I was working at my projects and really I enjoy doing that.  One's the big fair trade market I've mentioned before - not long to go now; one involves getting a FT fundraiser started at school; and the last concerns Five Rivers...but more about that next week.

And it wasn't that the work wasn't quite frustrating, but just not in the way that makes for an amusing anecdote.  Ah well.  There's alway's tomorrow.

Armistice Day

It's Veteran's Day here, Armistice Day back in the UK.

Twenty years ago I visited a war cemetery in Thailand, near the infamous Japanese death camp by the River Kwai.  The many British graves stood in precise, measured rows.  Some were engraved with sombre Bible verses, others with heartfelt but sentimental doggerel. 

And one stone had a young soldier's name and just the words, "He always made us laugh."

The memory of it still makes me cry.

Remains of the clay

After a busy day trying to keep on top of the three separate projects I'm working on at the moment (and feeling quite close to falling off one of them), I then spent the evening with the Boy at the 4H club. 

The project there was to make a centrepiece candle out of wool-felt.  Because he's only just joined up, the Boy had missed the meeting where the kids had wet-felted the candle shapes, but at least he got to decorate one using a felting needle, and then had fun dressing up its natural wood stand with other bits of nature, including some berries which he quickly discovered made an effective pink dye for the wood.  And the carpet, as it turned out. Also his face and my cream-coloured sweater.

An interesting choice of subject for the material: wool doesn't burn.  But no odder than maybe, say, a felt ice-lolly.

Meanwhile the Girl was out with her scout friends earning her Pottery badge at one of those pottery-painting places. As well as painting something which we'll get to see next week, the girls did actually have to learn something about pottery, and craft some pots.  Our Girl seems also to have made her own replica shards. 

No snow day

Another picture of yesterday's snow.  All gone again now.  Was it just a collective daydream?  So much for the kids' wistful hope that school might declare today a Snow Day.

Still, it was pretty while it lasted

Snow joke

So, yesterday we were raking leaves and today...

...shovelling snow?!

The forecast this morning had mentioned snow, but oh, you know somewhere to the north, or at very least east of the Hudson.  I was surprised to see large flakes falling mid-morning, but even then thought "No way will it settle."

But it did.  I was due to attend a meeting round the corner at school at 2 o'clock and by then everything had a fair covering of snow, and it was still falling.  I had to dig out my snowboots.  An inch or so had accumulated before it finally stopped.

It won't stay around for long, I know.  But it's been kind of magical today - and like a little warm-up (freeze-up?) act for the winter to come.

Leaves left

The clocks changed overnight, marking the end of Daylight Savings Time.  Yippee, does that mean we can now be as profligate as we like with daylight?

The Girl and I had skating lessons at lunchtime - the ice kind.  What with legs still aching from yesterday's rollerskating I found it quite an effort today.  And there was to be a hockey match later on, so there were a lot of college ice-hockey players hanging around rinkside ogling my instructor in her tight-fitting skating pants, which was a bit off-putting.

The children disappeared off to playdates in the afternoon, leaving the Man and me to rake the backyard.  We're nearly done with that for the year - the trees are sadly bare now.  There are just a couple of piles of leaves left to be hauled round to the front, a job we've abandoned for another day: the unsaved daylight faded too soon.

Meals on wheels

Unlike the rest of the family, I'd never been to Guptill's Roller Skating Arena before.  But we'd bought tickets through school for a fundraiser so I thought it was time I went for a spin.  We all had a wheely good time - here's the Girl, going past in a blur.

It's not like ice-skating.  Much harder.  The skates are so heavy and don't always take you just where you're expecting to go.  And looked at objectively, it's quite a barking thing to do really, isn't it?  Putting wheels on your feet and rolling round and round in circles.

Mind you, not nearly as barking as keeping wheels on your feet when you take a break and go into the cafe and order (from the Capital District's most unhappy serving staff) an overflowing container of popcorn and a brimful cup of something fizzy which you then have to convey without spilling to a table, staying upright yourself and not tripping over any of the other not-very-competent roller skaters carrying similarly precarious loads.

What could possibly go wrong?

Surprisingly (and disappointingly for purposes of this blog) nothing, actually.

Trivial pursuit

The Man and I haven't done a Quiz Night in ages.  Not since the last Linton Infants School Quiz 'n' Chips before we left the village.  So when I heard that Java Jazz Cafe in Delmar was holding a "Trivia Nite" we leapt at the chance.  Friends joined us in a team of four, and the Amnesiacs were born.

The comperes were sisters, one a college student and the other still at High School.  They were brilliant - not super-slick but just really charming and entertaining.  There were numerous rounds.  Pop culture was a bit beyond us, but we did fine on Fun with Physics (though we nearly blew it by failing to make a house of cards) and we were positively stellar on Multi-Cultural Manners (maximum score, doubled because we nominated it as our speciality round).  History and Literature went well, but Music from the Movies was nearly our downfall...

Nearly...but not quite!  For yes, the Amnesiacs scooped the prize!!  Almost literally:  the prize (which we'll have to collect another day) is a monstrous desert called the Java Zombie, featuring twelve scoops of ice-cream. 

Ah, the sweet taste of victory... 

Ok, full disclosure, there were only three teams competing.  But, hey, a win's a win.   It's not as if it's just the taking part that counts.

What's the big idea?

I've mentioned TED before in this blog.  I enjoy the online talks and sometimes email links to friends.

Well, today I got to attend a TED conference myself, right here in Albany.  At least, it was a TEDx conference, which is an independently organised smaller version of the original (and unlike the "real" TED, the ticket didn't cost thousands of dollars).

It was fun.  Twelve live presentations on a variety of topics, interspersed with videos of talks from TED events elsewhere.  Each talk was no more than 18 minutes long.  It was a bit like going to the gym and trying out all the machines (I imagine), except just using your brain.  Some were more taxing than others, some more inspiring than others - but I expect everyone present responded differently to each speaker.  In the course of a day we covered such topics as The Death of Copyright, The Only Constant is Change, Mycobond (a biodegradable alternative to polystyrene) and How to Have a 32-year Honeymoon.  To name but a few. 

My personal favourite was EJ Krans of the Capital District Community Gardens project, talking with infectious enthusiasm about the Veggie Mobile, a mobile greengrocer van that brings low-priced fresh produce to underserved neighbourhoods.

My favourite video (not entirely representative of the genre) was this one. It's quite short. I hope it makes you laugh, too.

Boy in a bubble

The other weekend we attended the Fall Fair at the kids' old school.  The highlight for the Boy was this "Human Hamster Ball". 

Looks like fun, doesn't it?

Way too much fun for likes of me, of course.

Sign language

Even in the UK you've probably been hearing about the mid-term elections happening over here.  Neighbourhoods across the US are bristling with lawn signs in support of whichever candidate for whatever office.  Well, today has been the day, and tomorrow we'll know how much of a kicking the incumbent Democrats have been given.  At least there's very little chance that "maverick" Republican candidate Carl Paladino will have become New York state's new governor.  He has run on the bizarre (to British ears) campaign slogan "I'm mad too, Carl!"

The entire school district has been off for the day, even though schools are not being used as polling stations.  So kids have been able to lounge around / catch up on homework / see friends / hang out at the playpark or whatever else they've seen fit to do.  They may even have been along to the Town Hall to watch their parents exercise their democratic right to vote, assuming their parents are lucky enough to have such rights.

With Hallowe'en now behind us at least one local radio station is already devoting itself to non-stop "Holiday Favorites".  Rudolf, Frosty and co from now until December 25... please, bring back the zombies, ghouls and politicians!

One fine day in the City

Back in April I'd planned to meet up in NYC with a friend from the UK, but our plans were thwarted by the Icelandic ash cloud.

Today was our rain-date (cloud-date?).  The Man dropped me at the station in time for the 8:05 Amtrak to the city.  After a very hectic weekend it was a lovely indulgence just to sit quietly on a train for two and half hours.  And then the bonus of meeting my friend at the end of the journey and spending a happy day catching up with each other's news.  In one of the greatest cities in the world!

We visited the site of the World Trade Center.  A new building, the One World Trade Center, is under construction, and two reflecting pools are being built where the Twin Towers stood.  Right now it all seems less a place of sombre reflection and more a focus of activity and energy - which is probably how it should be.

From there we walked down to the edge of Manhattan for a view of a famous lady.  The Staten Island Ferry offers a good vantage point and we enjoyed the free ride across and back.  Despite the bright blue skies it was perishing cold on deck and I was glad of my winter coat.

We finished up in Chinatown for a snack, more chat and then a rush-hour subway ride back to Penn Station where I caught my return train.  The family was waiting to meet me in Albany, happy to have me back (I think), and perhaps even happier to receive the gift of Hula Hoops and two enormous jars of Marmite that my dear friend had brought all the way from England just for them.