Ice-cream Friday

The other day I went in after school with another parent to help the Boy's teacher cut up plastic soda bottles and turn them into "eco-columns" (sort of combined aquarium/terrarium things for keeping both fish and crickets in). Today I received a wodge of lovely thank you letters from the class, all very colourful and - hm - idiosynchratic. I especially liked the ones that thanked me warmly for "wasting my time" to help with their project. Bless 'em.

For a while the Boy has been planning to celebrate Friday afternoons by strolling down to the local ice-cream parlour with his three best schoolfriends. Today we made the plan a reality. I was requested to walk several paces ahead so as not to cramp their style. Likewise I had to sit at a different table as they wolfed down their ice-cream and made silly remarks - really, fine by me.

The outing went well, I suspect we'll be doing it again.

In a nutshell

No school today - Jewish New Year.

It has been a very wet day.  An even wetter day for the Girl, but deliberately so as she was at an indoor water park with her Girl Scout friends.  The Boy and I stayed at home, but he had visitors - a friend from round the corner, and then his best buddy.

Here are a couple more delights from the Big E.  It was the Boy who discovered the Footsie Wootsie massage machines - a quick fix for aching feet, and only 25c a go! 



And the Girl and I were very taken by some craftily detailed Acorn People dioramas:

Both kids showed significant interest in the wares of the various spa manufacturers. The Girl also appreciated her "small" pack of cotton candy.



Schooled

On Monday night the Man and I attended an Open House at the Girl's Middle School.  It was arranged as a condensed school day, so that parents could meet all the relevant teachers in their classrooms in the order in which our kids see them each day.

Each school day is basically the same.  For the Girl it's Homeroom (video announcements and video-led pledge of allegiance), English, [Academic and Technology Management], Science, Gym, French, Social Studies, Math.  The square brackets indicate a subject taught in "quarters", and over the course of the year that period will cover Computer Studies, Music and Art. ATM started with a "packet" (handout) and a test on "flag etiquette" (i.e. you mustn't burn it etc...). In each subject the class is a completely different group of kids, so there's a constant change in company throughout the day.  And each classroom is about as far from the last one as possible, so there's a lot of opportunity for stair-walking and leg-stretching in the 3 minutes between lessons.

Somewhere in the timetable (bizarrely, around 10:30am) there's lunch and recess.  And there's also a period called Homebase when you get to do your homework or go and find a teacher for specific help with something, or practise with the choir or band.

We liked the teachers we met - they all seem genuinely enthusiastic about their subjects, about their students and about teaching in general.  There's a very strong emphasis on attaining grades and meeting prescribed NYS standards, and we weren't sure if that was something that was meant to appeal to us as parents - it doesn't particularly in our case, and we hope it doesn't get in the way of learning for learning's sake.  But overall we had a good impression of the school. We hope the Girl will get a lot out of being there.

A dude thing

It was around 80F today, but even so the pool guy came to close up our pool for the winter.  To be honest we haven't been in it since we got back here at the start of September - a few chilly nights soon made it too uninviting.  And the leaves are falling now.  It's time.

I was out on the front drive pulling weeds when the guy arrived.  After he'd finished what he'd come to do he offered me some advice. 

"What you wanna get is... Well, it's kind of a dude thing. There's this big torch you can get, for weeds..."

A moment passes before I realise he's not talking about what he would call a flashlight.  Of course, he means a blowtorch.

"It's, like, this long flame-thrower and you point it at your weeds and vroof!  Go to [such-and-such store] and when you find this just ridiculously dangerous looking thing - that's the one!"

"Thank you," I say, "I shall tell my dude."

Any other dudes out there reading this (I know there are a few of you who check in from time to time) - does the thought of a weed torch make your heart race?

Come fry with me

Hello, it is moi, the Girl (I just started taking French a few weeks ago). This is my list of things you can fry, which people will actually pay money for. The Big E turned out to be educational, because it turns out you can deep fry...

• Pickles
• Tomatoes
• Jelly beans
• Butter balls
• Dough (OK, that's an obvious one)
• Chocolate-chip cookie dough
• Candy floss
• Peanut butter & jelly sandwiches
• Peanut butter & banana sandwiches
• Twinkies
• Snickers
• Kool-Aid

That last one surprised me, too. People also sell frozen hot chocolate (this is kind of an oxymoron) and $4.00 lemonade that claims to be fresh squeezed (but I saw insta-lemonade packets in the back of the truck).


Who would have thought it :P

The Big Eat

I have long dreamt of going to the Big E - the annual New England exposition held in Springfield, MA - ever since I picked up a leaflet for it about four years ago and read about the enormous butter sculpture they display there.

Today my wish came true! 

My, though, it's an expensive day out.  You pay to park, you pay to enter, you pay even more if you want to go on any of the fairground rides, and you pay through the nose to eat.  There are lots of opportunities to eat - the 90 listed concession stands is only the start of it - and none of them serve what you or I would recognise as food.  Everything is fried.  You simply wouldn't believe what it's possible to deep fry - but more of all that tomorrow.

We did see the butter sculpture.  It was a sheep-shearing scene, executed skilfully, but a strangely unsatisfying subject in the medium of butter.  I'd have much prefered a life-size cow.

In the Farm-a-rama pavilion we watched baby chicks hatching (awww) and saw giant pumpkins (awesome).  Cows, sheep, goats - the usual agricultural suspects.  Plus llamas.

There was a pavilion devoted to scale model circus scenes - that was cool.  But the kids didn't want to see the real life circus.

We also missed out on seeing Galaxy Girl performing a trapeze act a-top a 120' swaying pole.  Instead we paid a dollar each and took a peek at Lil' Muffin, the "world's smallest horse" (who was certainly small, but not, as advertised, small enough to "stand in the palm of your hand").  To avoid disappointment we decided to pass on the "unicorn cow" and (inevitably) the "world's biggest horse".

Parades of old tractors and marching bands passed by from time to time.  There were elephant and camel rides and opportunities to buy a hot-tub or an extra-special mop, or get a tattoo or learn about your personality through your handwriting (but what really are you expecting to learn if it's your own handwriting?).  There were pavilions representing each of the New England states, which seemed to be mostly full of vendors selling things like chocolate-coated bacon and maple-bacon ice-cream. E-euw!

All in all an odd day out.  I'm not sure we quite got into the spirit of things (we definitely didn't get into the fried things), and we've no plans ever to go again, but it was an experience I'm sure we'll all remember.

This little piggy...

...went to market, with its friend, and that's where we saw it.  Very cute!

In the running

Life is full of surprises.  Today the Man upped and ran a 5K race after work.  What will he think of next?

He made it round in 26 minutes (just behind a 76 year-old), but that's a reasonable time considering he's only just started doing short runs around the neighbourhood in the last week or so, and this evening it was chucking it down with rain.  I'm full of admiration. 

I got caught in the drizzle myself this afternoon, out on my bike making a few deliveries of leaflets and the like.  My only other exercise of the day came from wielding a hoover, which is almost as surprising (some might say) as the Man running a race.  No-one could ever accuse me of being house-proud.  When we arrived back here from England I felt quite uneasy at first - the house seemed strangely unfamiliar.  Then I remembered that I'd tidied up like crazy before we went away.  Aha!  Not to worry, it hardly took any time at all for it to settle back into its usual state of chaos.

Something's odd I see

The Boy took part in an "Odyssey of the Mind" session this evening.  It's something one of his schoolfriends has invited him in on.  I haven't totally fathomed what it is yet, but I think it's a bit like a kids' version of The Great Egg Race - remember that show?  Only there's clearly more to it than that, because when I went to pick up my son at the appointed time he and eight other 4th graders were down in the basement dancing a rumba.  The Boy caught my eye, gave me a "No, I don't know either" look, and danced on.

Only time will tell...

Spice Island memories

Another day spent mostly tapping away at a keyboard and squinting at a screen.  Too bad, but I've broken the back of the particular fair trade project I've been working on and now I'm waiting to see what others will do with it. 

Before boarding the plane at Newark on our recent trip to the UK I bought a copy of Steig Larsson's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.  Not because I  specially wanted to read it but because I definitely didn't want to read any of the other fourteen titles that were the only alternative offerings in the pathetically tiny air-side bookstore.  I thought it got off to a slow start and for the first 200 pages I couldn't work out what all the bestseller fuss was about.  But once the story gets going it's pretty gripping, though some of the subject matter is quite repellent.  That's thrillers for you.  Have any of you read it?

I guess I wasn't totally put off, as today I borrowed the sequel, The Girl Who Played with Fire.  In the opening chapters the story is set in Grenada, which is intriguing to me because it's not a place you often come across in books, and I happened to live there for nine months, in another incarnation.    Funny how a handful of place names on a page - the Carenage, Grenville, Grand Anse beach - can whistle you back to long-forgotten sights and smells and sounds.  Many thanks to the relatives who let me stay there with them back then.  Grenada is an exceptionally beautiful island.  I hope it's faring well.  It mostly relies on tourism - maybe I should recommend it to my dentist for her winter hols?

Filling time

Ah, I did think fondly of my restful Sunday when the alarm went off at 6:25 this morning and I knew I had to get up and get the Girl ready for a 7am skating lesson.  She's decided to take her skating to the next level this year by doing some testing.  It requires some individual coaching, and the slot we've managed to arrange with an available coach is this rather early one.

We got ourselves to the rink, a bit bleary-eyed.  The Girl did OK in her lesson, then off she went for a day of school.

Much of the rest of my day was spent rather tediously on a project at the computer, but mid-morning I had to get myself to a dental appointment three miles away, and as the Man had taken the car I went by bike.  Cycling is really quite a nice form of transport, and I allowed myself to feel just a little bit superior to all the other road users who were of course, unhealthily and unenvironmentally, driving cars (to the gym and back, probably).  Though I admit, if I'd had the car, I would have used it.  Lack of choice can sometimes be a boon.

My lovely dentist, having just told me how much she hated the cold and wasn't looking forward to winter, announced that I need a filling and another crown.  Good, that's her Christmas in the Caribbean sorted then...

Sync or swim?

Who guessed that the useful item bought on yesterday's shopping trip was a nose clip?

The Girl leans towards slightly non-standard pursuits.  Today she took her first lesson in synchro-swimming. 

The lessons are held at the local YMCA.  Since it turns out no-one else has signed up for this session, she's getting one-to-one coaching for a whole hour.  Now, given that this is synchro-swimming, it would seem a little off the point to have nobody to practise swimming in sync with.  But for the time being she's really just being taught basic moves and how to keep to a rhythm, so she's still going to be learning plenty.

The Girl enjoyed herself, and the coach told me she did well, so who knows - this may be the start of a whole new area of interest.

Day of rest

I woke up this morning and realised that for the whole day ahead of us no-one had to get anywhere, do anything, meet anyone or shop for some must-have school item.  It's the first such day we've had since we got back from the UK two weeks ago. 

So I had a lie-in.  Lovely.

The Man and I made a brief trip up to Cohoes Falls, expecting it still to be in full spate after recent rains ("Irene" was followed by the tail end of tropical storm Lee just ten days later- devastating for those flooded out the first time who were then flooded all over again).  But the Falls were more modest than we've ever seen them.

The Boy teamed up with his buddy for an afternoon of boat-floating (and sinking).  The Girl took her dad on a couple of outings - a cycle ride to the library and a drive to the mall for something that may come in useful tomorrow.  I knocked about the house, did a few odd jobs and continued to enjoy a sunny day without demands.

Festativities

The day dawned chilly, but dry - all boded well for a fine Five Rivers Fall Festival.

And so it proved to be.  Attendance was good, and everyone looked happy.  We had a nice steady flow of kids through the craft area all afternoon, where we made milk-jug birdfeeders, cardboard tube telescopes and newspaper-and-bottle-cap flowers.  There was less work for me this year than sometimes because I had so many  helpers - including a star volunteer, nine-year-old Exile #3. I'd signed her up for an hour, but she was having so much fun that she ended up staying a total of four, patiently explaining to children younger and much older than herself how to assemble flowers and turn them into fridge magnets.  A great teacher in the making, that one.  Bet she sleeps well tonight.

The same-aged Boy didn't make himself quite so useful, but also had fun all afternoon endlessly running the length and breadth of the festival area with a couple of his friends.  He should sleep well, too.

The Man was very impressed by a "hurricane in a box": a glass cabinet with strategic vents to let in the ambient cold air and a heated tray of water at the bottom, creating a continuous whirl of vapour. A miniature version of the recent "Irene", whose damaging effects are still impacting many people in our region, and which also downed numerous trees at Five Rivers.

Mathemagic

The Girl, still snuffling and barking like an unhappy puppy, stayed off school again today.  But she has rallied a bit this evening (she mustered the energy to insult her brother roundly over dinner) so I'd say she's getting back to normal.

A little (easy) Friday quiz for you: 

The Girl watched five today, the Boy watched one, and now they're both watching two.  The Boy has been listening to five and is now making his way through seven.  And the Girl is playing one, two, three and four.

What are they up to?

Cold calling

This busy back-to-school time is, of course, also the season for colds.  The Girl has come down with a stinker, so bad that she had to stay off school.  Poor old thing, sniffing, coughing and croaking round the house all day.  No skating lesson for her this evening, either.

Season of colds, and also the cold.  It has been chilly out today - time to throw on a fleece.

There was an Open House at the Boy's school tonight, and we met his new teacher who seems very lovely.  An upcoming project for the class is a study of eco-systems that will involve fish and crickets being nurtured in converted soda bottles.  I can't quite imagine how that's all going to turn out - not too happily for the fish and crickets, maybe.

It all happens in September

Well, I don't know.  Once September gets going there's just no stopping it, is there?  I mean with the functions and meetings and such - two school things last night, and two Five Rivers meetings tonight (mostly Fall Fest business).  New skating lessons and another school event tomorrow night...and so it goes on.

Added to that, our local Fair Trade Town campaign is about to take a crucial turn, so I'm scrambling to get things in place for that - exciting, but time-consuming just at the moment.

The weather has been lovely the last couple of days - warm and sunny.  Feels like summer, except that it's getting dark earlier and the evenings are cooler and, don't look now, the leaves are turning and just beginning to fall... 

September, yes indeed.

Fact-Philly'd entry

Much of my day was devoted to cutting out newspaper flowers in preparation for Five Rivers Fall Festival on Saturday, and most of my evening was taken up with gatherings at both Middle and elementary school (didn't have to choose in the end, I just about managed to make it to both!).  I'm guessing that rather than read in depth about any of these activities, you'd prefer to see some photos of Philadelphia by night:

The Man writes...when Philadelphia City Hall was completed in 1901, the only taller structures in the world were the Eiffel Tower and the Washington Monument.

On top of the tower is a 37 foot statue of William Penn, the Quaker and champion of democracy and religious freedom who founded Pennsylvania in 1681. Strangely, he died penniless nearly forty years later in England in Ruscombe near Twyford, Berkshire, and was buried in an unmarked grave in Chalfont St Giles. 

Nearby is John F Kennedy Plaza, also known as the Love Park, in the shadow of Philadephia's tallest building today, the 974 foot Comcast Tower. The Love Sculpture by Robert Indiana is in fact one of about 30 versions in the World.

School blues

I ran into a neighbour today in the supermarket.  She has a couple of slightly older children and she asked how Middle School was going for us so far.  When I pulled a face she looked concerned, until I explained that the Girl is completely fine with school. 

It's me that can't cope - with the blizzard of letters home, filled with details of complex grading systems and threats of penalties for tardiness, that I'm required to read, "discuss with my child" and sign; with the additional school supplies which keep being added to the list, necessitating yet more trips to the shops (the Man was scavenging for graph paper last night in Walmart: "You must be the tenth person to ask me for that tonight," said the assistant, handing him their very last book); with the fundraising requests (already?!  She's only been there five minutes!  And how about asking me when I haven't just shelled out a small fortune for bloomin' school supplies?); with the fact that every after-school event at the Middle School seems to clash with an equally important event at the Boy's elementary school - how am I supposed to decide which one to attend? 

The neighbour laughed:  "But your daughter's ok?  Well, that's the main thing, isn't it?"  And she's right, of course - but have schools always made such onerous demands on parents?  Readers out there in a similar position, with kids moving up the school ladder - how's it going for you?

A powerful passion

More conferencing for me this morning.  Whereas I found yesterday's many back-to-back sessions a bit overwhelming,  today I got more out of attending just three events. 

Most inspiring to me was a short, simple presentation by Bruce Crowther, founder of the whole Fair Trade Towns movement.  His home-town of Garstang in Lancashire, UK, declared itself the world's first FT Town in 2000.  Bruce, his wife and their babysitter had formed a campaign and persuaded all the main players in their small community (retailers, cafes, schools, churches, local authority) to make a commitment to buy, sell or use fair trade products.  Bruce, formerly an OXFAM worker, explained that what inspired him was the knowledge that every three seconds in the developing world a child dies, preventably, from poverty; and that people in poor nations lose more money each year through trade than they receive in aid.  With OXFAM he had witnessed how fair trade can make a positive difference, and he felt it was something he should promote...and thus a movement was born.  To date there are more than 1,000 FT Towns around the world. 

Bruce Crowther is a gently-spoken, twinkly-eyed man with an absolute passion for his cause.  He offered us lots of encouragement, urging us not to give up our efforts even when progress seems slow, and reminding us that we are important partners in a great and growing international movement.  Hearing him speak was the highlight of the conference for me, and well worth the journey to Philly. 

The morning's proceedings had, of course, begun with a minute's silence in commemoration of 9/11. A moment to remember the victims on this day ten years ago, and all the victims of the conflicts that have followed that atrocity - and also a chance for each of us present to renew our commitment to building peace through global justice. 

Philadelphia Story

Oops - missed a day's blogging yesterday.  I needed to get to bed early after a long and tedious experience on the Garden State Parking Lot Parkway.  For, not content with our recent trans-Atlantic adventure, we're now spending the weekend out of town: in Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Love, Liberty Bell and cheesesteaks.

I'm here for a Fair Trade Towns & Universities conference - I've had a full-on day of seminars, discussions and FT chocolate sampling which has left me a bit dazed, to be honest.  As for the rest of the family...

...Hi it's me, The Girl (it's really weird writing that). I am basically writing about what the rest of us did today. First we walked a very long way to a big docking thingammy-bob and got on this ferry with an interesting yet thought-interrupting commentary on the Delaware River.

After this, we bought tickets for the aquarium, went inside, touched a bunch of sharks (surprisingly fun - for me, not the shark), and watched some penguins try to make up their mind about whether they should go into their holes or not. Penguins are weird :). From there we saw horseshoe crabs, clownfish and flying bananas (just kidding - though that would be way cool). The trip also featured a stuffy shark tunnel, sticky sea anenomes and an argument over an Icee*. And that was our trip to the Adventure Aquarium in a nutshell. Preferably a pistachio shell, because they taste nice.

*Icee [i -CEE] 1. A slushy drink that comes in various flavors 2. An argument starter

Getting straight

The kids went back to school today, the Boy into 4th grade, and the Girl into 6th - Middle School!  Whatever apprehensions they may have had setting out this morning, they were both cheerful and relaxed by home time.  The Girl is enthusiastic about many of her new teachers, the Boy is delighted to have one of his best friends in his class.  The school-year is off to a good start. 

For me (once I'd got over that momentary empty feeling of having both kids out of the house - it catches me by surprise me every year) a chance to sort myself out and get stuck into all the various jobs and projects which have been pending over the summer.

I also nipped out and got a hair cut.  The Boy thinks it makes me look scary, but I'm quite pleased with it, so I'm going to pre-empt Royal Rockfish's customary request and post a photo. Ta-dah!

Silence of the library

I've just been at the library.  It's an excellent one, very well used, especially by families.  On weekdays it's open 9:00am-9:00pm and it's always busy, with kids checking out books even at closing time.

But not tonight.  I've never known it so empty and eerily quiet.  I'm sure I glimpsed some tumbleweed blowing between the shelves.  Ah, but of course, it's the night before school starts.  Every kid in the district has been sent to bed early.

Our two, usually stayer-uppers, didn't need shooing off to bed.  They've both been getting up between 4 and 5am since we got back from England, so they're ready for sleep well before their normal bedtime.  In fact, when I returned from the library the Boy was already fast asleep on the sofa.  He won't know until he wakes up that I managed to borrow the audiobook he was after...but no doubt dawn will be breaking tomorrow to the sound of Harry blinkin' Potter again.

Lastminute.mom

Remember a few weeks ago when I was so chuffed with myself for getting on and buying school supplies well ahead of back-to-school day?  Ha!  So much for that.   While we were in the UK the Girl received her subject-teacher designations, and a whole new list of school supplies specifically required by each of them.  Oh, and there were still the Boy's supplies to buy, which I just hadn't quite got round to before.

It took me all day, dragging myself from store to store with all the other last minute moms. This store was all out of glue-sticks; the next was down to its last box of pencils (I needed two); only one store had any red binders and then only at outrageous prices (there's always one teacher who insists on red binders, when they must know red binders are like gold-dust). 

However after several frazzled hours trying to correctly follow the very specific instructions (eight dividers with pockets; six yellow folders with prongs etc etc) I had managed to complete the list.  Hooray!  Now I just have to spend another day divvying everything up and making sure the right bits of kit go to school with the right kid - it might prove a challenge too much for my poor slow-moving, jet-lagged brain.

Flamin' Liberty

We were all up bright(ish) and much, much too early this morning.  Flicking back the curtains we could see across the airport runway and, in the distance...the Empire State Building! 

New York, New York!

Labor Day of course.We didn't need to hurry back to Albany, so we decided to do some sightseeing.  Liberty State Park, the start point for the Statue Cruise ferry, was just a few minutes drive from our hotel so that's where we headed.  Before we knew what was what we had tickets and were going through airport-style security prior to boarding a boat.

The Manhattan skyline was looking fine, even against a cloudy sky.  New York is an exciting city to be in, but I like it best of all as a view.





First stop, Ellis Island, which of course was also the first stop for millions of immigrants to the US at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century.  Hard to imagine the emotions of those settlers, eager to start a new life in America, saying goodbye to their homelands forever.  Just arrived back here and still feeling the tug of home, I'm not sure I could ever take such a step.  But maybe, in a way, it's something that's easier to do when you have no option of returning.

Back on the ferry and over to Liberty Island to see the world's most famous statue.  The kids were interested that Liberty is depicted as a female.  I don't know why that is, do you?  Security checks again, then we climbed the pedestal, and enjoyed more views across the Hudson, the great green lady towering high above us.

Finally back to the car, back on the road, back to the Capital District.  And back to bed already for the kids - me too, quite soon, I think.

Burilliant

The Man writes...one final walk in Whippendell woods to complete a burilliant holiday. Grandpa sportingly provided target practice for the children's bur throwing (and the Girl provided today's blog title).

Check-in at Heathrow was immensely tedious, involving much use of touch screens which broke down, and then wouldn't give us boarding passes. We went to find a Virgin rep who gave us the option of sitting together in seats with no entertainment system or sitting separately. When we chose the latter, she revealed that the children weren't allowed to sit separately anyway! Eventually a solution was found with us in pairs on the top deck of the Jumbo - which was mildly interesting in itself.

A pleasant flight but Newark was typically horrendous - over an hour in line for immigration - so that it was nearly 3am London time as we reached our Newark hotel. The children kept going admirably, but now everyone (else) is sound asleep.

Star turn

My parents treated us today at an excellent vegetarian restaurant called Woody's at Apsley Lock Marina.  We drove part of the way, then walked the rest along the canal towpath.  It was tasty local, organic type of fare, and for those in our party who just say no to cooked food or vegetarianism (sigh) there was some yummy ice-cream in almost American-sized portions.

Mum then took the kids home by train, Dad drove home and the Man and I walked all the way back to Watford beside the canal - six miles, maybe.  Weatherwise the day couldn't quite decide what it wanted to be, but the sky was mostly blue and the sun was doing its best, and the walk was good.

The Girl, trying to slope off after dinner this evening, was instructed by her Grandpa to come back to the table and "sparkle".  She disappeared for a minute or two and returned with a big grin and a large paper star taped to her head. Though she's hardly the model child, sometimes you've got to appreciate her original sense of humour.

Who nose why?

Today has been spent at a slightly less hectic pace than the last few (not that sitting in various friends' gardens chatting all day is exactly hectic, but maybe you know what I mean).  A couple of Watford friends dropped by for a cup of tea this afternoon, but otherwise it's been a family/home day with just a couple of minor outings to the ancient Whippendell Woods and the Harlequin Centre.

It was, as usual, a treat to visit Linton this week and, as usual, I'm full of regrets at leaving.  Even though I know that, if we were there all the time, people might not be specially excited to see us or eager to offer us lunch, still it's lovely to know we have so many good friends there.  And I do think it says something about a place that whenever Linton people decide to move they only ever seem to move as far as another house in the village.  Either there's something Twilight Zone-y going on, or else it really is a nice place to live.

By the way, for everyone who  has kindly been wondering what the Band-aid sporting Girl has done to her nose, the answer turns out to be:  absolutely nothing.

Thanks and farewell

It's very late, so here is an interim blog entry just for now which I'll fill out with more details and photos tomorrow.  But for the moment, THANK YOU to all the good friends and neighbours who, as usual, made our visit to Linton so completely enjoyable.  Special thanks to the Rockfish crew for putting us up, and also to everyone who has fed us over the last few days - it's been a sort of safari restaurant experience, with every meal at a different address, and it's been great. 

For the endless coffee, tea, food, trampolining and wonderful company - we can't thank you all enough.