OK, so when's the heatwave?

It felt like early Spring today - sunny and fresh, the snow melting in the yard.  But hang on, the leaves on the trees are all the wrong colour...  Oh, it's all very confusing.

I waited in for the computer guy to come and fix the internet.  Stuck at home, and no computer to play with....hm, what to do?  Well, who'd ever have thought the house could look so tidy?

Halloween tonight, of course - that ghastly, ghoulish festival of candy.  A few trick-or-treaters called by.  My favourites were two kids from up the road, dressed as Lego blocks.  Our own Boy and Girl went separate ways tonight, each with their own bunch of friends.  But they'd chosen a similar costume theme:  the Boy was Poseidon, God of the Sea, and the Girl was Persephone, Goddess of Spring - perhaps inspired by today's out-of-season "season".

Branching out

Yesterday's snow wasn't particularly spectacular in quantity, though it has caused some effects.  All round the neighbourhood today people have had to lug big branches out to the side of the road for collection - that's the problem when you get a lot of wet, heavy snow on trees still covered with leaves.  We've lost several branches from our own backyard trees.

Five Rivers looked spectacular in this morning's brilliant sunshine.

There was also a power outage for about five hours in the middle of the night.  Not a problem at the time as we slept through it, but it must have caused a surge, which has knocked out our internet.  We'll get it fixed tomorrow, but for now I'm blogging (early) at an internet cafe.  There's dedication for you.

'Tis the season to be chilly

There were only a few stalwart customers down at the Farmers' Market this morning, braving the bitter cold.  Quite a few of the stallholders had opted to stay at home, too.  But people were making the best of it, huddling cheerfully round hot drinks and musing on the odd turn the weather has taken.  Next week the market moves indoors - not a moment too soon.

On our way home we saw a sign outside the Methodist church advertising a toy and book sale, so we dropped in for a look.  Wow - like Linton Mothers' Union Sale, but supersized!  And we were there on the second day, so they'd already sold half their stuff.  Apparently there's a team that collects and sorts toys for this sale all year round.  We each found something to tempt us, and came away with a sack of games and various other goodies.

This afternoon we ummed and ahhed about setting out to our friends' annual Halloween party, several miles away.  Snow was definitely forecast - but how bad could it be, really?  Well, it started while we were still on the road, and just went on and on falling.  No matter how often I said to myself, "It's October - this shouldn't be happening, therefore it isn't," whenever I glanced out of the window it was indeed happening.  We enjoyed the party but left sensibly early, by which time there was already a good inch or two of snow on the ground.  Tomorrow we'll find out just how much accumulated over there (there's talk of 10") as the Girl is staying the night and we'll have to collect her.  We have snow at our own home, too, of course, though not as much. 

What larks.

Hallowinter

One way and another I've spent quite a bit of time at the Boy's school today.  His class had a Halloween party in the afternoon, so I took along my contribution of cheese and crackers and stayed for the fun.  It was a low-key affair - his teacher is a very calm person and that seems to be the prevailing atmosphere in the classroom - but I enjoyed being a fly-on-the-wall and seeing my son interacting cheerfully with his classmates.  He doesn't tend to give much away about what goes on at school, but he looked happy enough to be there.

And we were back again in the evening, for the annual Harvest Dance.  I had volunteered to sell the fair trade friendship bracelets - in fact this was their launch event - to raise funds for the school and for the makers in Guatemala.  I did a brisk trade for more than two hours and sold over 130 bracelets (at $5 each).  My most eager customers were the children who'd heard the FT presentations last week, but I also got a positive reaction from lots of kids who knew nothing about fair trade and just thought the bracelets were "cool!" 

The Boy raced around with his friends and had a great time at the dance.  Meanwhile the Girl was attending an event at her own school - a costume ball.  She went as a figure skater (minus the skates).  By the sounds of it she had a very good time, too.

Waking up to snow on the ground this morning, and with more forecast for the weekend, it's hard to believe we're still not even done with Halloween.  Our next door neighbour got creative last night, making this unique tribute to the newly arrived winter and the up-coming celebration:  yes, it's a snow pumpkin.

Heat and dust

I may have been gloomily anticipating winter the other day, but I didn't expect it to arrive quite this soon.  Finger-nipping temperatures today and, yes, SNOW.

But not the "Yay! Snow!" type, all soft and pretty and lovely.  This is wet, nasty stuff - a "wintry mix".  It's settling, for the moment, and I daresay it'll still be around in the morning since the temperature is set to drop well below freezing tonight.  But it won't be here to stay.  All in all everyone is rather grumpy about it and trying to pretend it's not really happening.

I was emailing a local friend today and let on that I still couldn't persuade myself to put the heating on (it is only October, after all).  But I said I might think again if frostbite set in.  She wrote back in loud capitals PUT THE HEATING ON!  So, in the end, I did.  Or at least I tried.  Frustratingly the furnace [boiler]wouldn't start up.  Oh, no.  I followed all the instructions for getting it going - twice.  No luck.  Oh, no no no.

But - top tip!  If you have a gas-fired furnace, turns out it really helps if you...switch the gas on!  Someone had accidentally flipped the emergency off switch.  Sigh.  Anyway, we're all toasty warm now, and the air of the house is filled with that burning radiator-dust smell that makes the change of season so special.

Exceptional language challenges

I had another visit with my refugee friends today.  I'd managed to get hold of a picture dictionary for the mother of the family, and we had fun going over lots of words and trying to pronounce them correctly.  That was a challenge for me too, of course, because I have to try and say things with an American accent.  It's no use me teaching her to say teuwna with a lovely British accent.  If she ever wants to order a fish sandwich here, toona is the word she needs.

Anyway, we spent a long time studying vocabulary, and she also read to me from a children's book about baby animals.  I felt, as I always do, full of admiration for an adult trying to get to grips with the English language.  It's so complicated!   This a fact I came to appreciate most fully during my six-month stint in Burma, when I tried, and totally failed, to learn Burmese. 

I found it fiendishly difficult to learn, because in many ways - even though it looks and sounds quite different - it resembles English.  

It has it's own script which to the outsiders' eye is all squiggles and circles.  Well, it's not impossible to learn a new alphabet, but the problem comes when you realise that the "letters" have different sounds depending on how they combine with other letters - just like in English (think letter "c" in choose ice-cream).  And then - again, like in English - when you reckon you've sussed all the rules, you find out about the exceptions to the rules.  Think of the poor learner of English trying to read although the bough was tough I managed to saw through it.  Burmese, judging by the small amount I studied, is equally full of such pitfalls - and I fell into every one I came across. 

So, my sympathy for learners of English is boundless.  My sincere good wishes to all who attempt it, and respect to all who master it.

Not for the faint-hearted

The Girl and I were having a medical-related conversation on our way home from a session at the ice-rink this afternoon.   As I got out of the car and was walking up the garden path I was conscious that I was starting to feel a little woozy.  Next thing, I was conscious again, but wondering how I came to be lying on my back in the hall looking at the ceiling.

The Girl tells me my faint was quite dramatic - I just dropped backwards.  Touch-wood, I'm quite lucky when I faint and don't tend to hurt myself, be it slumping in school corridors, blacking out in cinemas, sliding to the ground between cafe tables or - as today - collapsing backwards onto a tiled floor.  No bumps or bruises to show for it.

I've been a fainter for as long as I can remember.  Not because of a medical condition, but because of the thought of medical conditions.  Or blood.  Or injections - especially injections.  It's unpredictable.  When I had a routine blood test in the summer I didn't need even so much as a little lie-down.  When I took the Boy for a blood test one time, that was another story.  No amount of experience - having babies, endless dental treatments, hypnosis (yes, I've even tried that) - seems to completely shake it.

I freaked the Girl out good and proper today, though I was able to assure her afterwards that fainting doesn't really bother me, it's just a bit of a nuisance.  But for the record, although I'm genuinely sympathetic, please spare me the details of your medical complications, and be aware that I'm the last person you need in a crisis.

Trail trial

Sad to say, back in August hurricane Irene wreaked destruction along one of our favourite walks at Five Rivers, the Vlomankill Trail.  The trail was closed for a long time while fallen trunks and branches were removed and repairs made to the banks of the creek.  The Man and I visited yesterday, and it was almost like walking a completely new route. 
For one thing, the bridge we usually cross near the start has completely gone, so the hike has to be undertaken in reverse.  Where once there was close forest, now there are surprising patches of light and open space.  Although extensive work has gone on, there are still many fallen trees.  The banks of the Vlomankill itself have had to be shored up with stones.

It will all repair itself over time - Nature has a way of reclaiming the land here given the slightest chance.  But for now it feels like visiting an old friend who has suffered a bad accident and who, despite being on the mend, is still looking a bit the worse for wear.

Absurd person singular

We have a friend who performs under the moniker Dirck Toll.  Today he was premiering a new one-man show in Saratoga, so we went along to see.

The venue was Caffe Lena, since the '60s a Saratoga legend in its own right - part cafe, part arts/music/poetry theatre.  We squeezed into the tightly-packed seats, cheerily acknowledging many other friends in the audience.  It was all rather reminiscent of theatre-going in our student days.  Then "Toll" came on stage and entertained us for an hour with his own absurdist brand of humour.

In four separate pieces he introduced us to a talking reception desk, and the crucial importance of  decorative plates;  the truth about upholsterers (they are all disillusioned taxidermists) and the dubious attractions of clam-snorting; a judge with a creeping moustache who bases his judgements on the law of averages, and a diminutive golf caddy - from a miniature golf course, naturally; and finally he explained how to outsmart - by in-dumbing - the denizens of Expert Town and Idiotville.

The jokes and puns and wordplays fell thick and fast, and the audience was happily carried along by Toll's flights of fancy.  The Girl, along for the ride, sniggered mightily - especially appreciating throwaway quips like: Violence is never the answer.  Except when the question is "What is never the answer?"

Eats, books and leaves

There can be a melancholy edge to this time of year.  The cold air hints at the long winter awaiting us. Of course, it'll be a couple of months before the arrival of snow and real cold - but two months is gone in no time.  Clearing the leaves from the backyard makes for...well...just an empty backyard (though there's some satisfaction in the whopping pile of leaves dragged round to the front on a tarp, and now sitting at the roadside waiting to be collected).  Overall there's a sense of an impending ending, like being close to finishing a good novel.  You don't want it to be over, yet you can't put the book down...  There's no stopping the inexorable momentum. 

Maybe that's really what's contributing to a certain gloom for me today.  I've been enjoying Lionel Shriver's The Post-Birthday World, but I'm near the end now.  I'm on a bit of a Shriver-drive, actually, having also recently read So Much for That - a depressing and yet funny book, worth reading right through just for the kicker of a last line.  Both books I much prefer to We Need to Talk About Kevin, though that was also an un-put-downable read at the time.

Ah, then again, perhaps what ails me is a post-chocolate downer.  There is (it may shock you to know) such a thing as too much chocolate.  I was at a Fair Trade conference this morning in Ballston Spa (still New York's one and only Fair Trade Town), and one session featured chocolate tasting.  We each had nine squares to sample, from mild milk chocolates to high-octane 85% cocoa-content.  Also a cocoa bean.  It's hard to say no when the chocolate is right there in front of you, but I probably should have by about piece number five.  The initial coffee-grade buzz was followed by a slump which I haven't quite shaken off all day.  But top tip, Equal Exchange organic chocolate caramel crunch with sea salt is something pretty special.

Meeeehhhhhhh...

The Young Female of the House writes...

Is it so wrong to change my title?
My parents begged and pleaded with me to write tonight, because I am extremely talented and a lot funnier than them. : D (Well, actually, they just don't have a topic, but I like my version better). So... is a list of things that bug me cool?

Things That Have Bugged Me

• Tripping at skating practice and falling straight backwards
• Followed by standing up straight for 40 minutes the next day for choir >:(
• Not being allowed to write anything made-up in our notebooks at school (I'm dead serious)
• How my little brother plays CD's in my favorite room in the house, which means I can't read
• My dad's anti-holes-in-socks obsession. NOBODY LOOKS AT MY SOCKS BUT HIM!

I am done now.  What is your favorite colour?

Suit pursuit

Ever tried buying a child's swimsuit at this time of year?  I can't remember if that's something you can do easily in the UK, but here it's just about impossible.  In Target there are no swimsuits at all.  I asked the woman at the till if she knew where I should look, and she suggested Dick's Sporting Goods, so I drove all the way over there, but even though it's a store the size of a warehouse it wasn't much better.  There were some serious-looking (and seriously pricey) women's costumes - the sort for swimming races in, not for being decorative - and, er, that was it.  Nothing for kids.

It can't be that children don't swim at all (nor grow out of their swimwear) during the cooler months.  Isn't this when all those indoor pools at leisure centres come into their own?  And doesn't everyone start flying down to Florida soon?  Though I suppose you can buy swimsuits there all year round.  But anyway, I'm not planning on schlepping round the whole of Albany.  I guess I'll just have to look online.

Whatever did we use to do before there was an online?

Humbled

I wrote a while back about USCRI.  Well, I signed up as a volunteer, and recently have been meeting with the family I am to "mentor" - help out a little, befriend, or however it turns out to be.

I'm not going to write a whole lot about this family, except to say that they have been refugees from their own country for very much longer than the less-than-a-year they've been in the States.  There are kids in school, and one little one still at home.  Due to their circumstances, at the moment they survive on benefits. I was overwhelmed today when I took the mother to the supermarket and she tried to give me a bag of groceries - paid for with her food-stamps - as a thank you.  I hope we can quickly build a relationship in which she no longer feels she needs to make such gestures, much as I appreciate her desire to do so. 

Meanwhile, back at home, I'm trying to get my head round the Boy's Math[s] homework - getting to grips with "commutative and associative properties" for example.  Definitions aside, the poor lad can barely pronounce the words; and as for spelling them...  I'm sure I wasn't studying stuff like that when I was nine.

Fair Trade first-hand

Three more fair trade presentations at the Boy's school today, but this time I was co-presenting with my friend Brenda Rosenbaum, founder of Mayan Hands.  It was great to stand back for part of each session and listen to her describe life in the Mayan villages of Guatemala.  She knows them well after years of studying their culture as an anthropologist, then another twenty years working with weavers through fair trade.

I think the kids were interested, too.  I hope we've got lots of them well-informed and psyched up now to buy the Mayan Hands "school spirit" bracelets that we'll be launching as a school fundraiser in just over a week.

This evening, another FT event.  A coffee farmer and cooperative leader from the Dominican Republic was in town, and drew in a small crowd at a local cafe for a talk on the benefits fair trade brings to her community.  It's always great to hear first-hand what a difference fair trade is making for producers.  I think everyone present felt spurred on to continue their efforts to support the movement.

Making connections

I gave Fair Trade presentations to three different classes at the Boy's elementary school this morning. 

I tried to make the lessons as interactive and fun as possible - by having the kids do activities like checking their labels to find out where their clothes were made.  I wanted them to realise how much we're all connected to other people around the world, every day, through the things we buy and use.  I hope I got at least some of them thinking about the fact that "things" are not just things, but come from somewhere, and are made by someone, and have a story.  Then, using a wizzy slide show (thank you Man and Girl, my technical support in preparing that) and by passing round textiles, we took a look at the lives and work of the weavers of Mayan Hands in Guatemala, and found out how Fair Trade is helping there.

I'd forgotten how tiring it is, performing in front of a class.  It's a while since I've done it.  Hats off to teachers, getting up there day in and day out. 

Photo courtesy of Mayan Hands.

"Strive for point precision"

About eighteen months ago I made a quilt that was raffled for the kids' old school.  The winner decided to donate it to the school, and it's been hanging up there ever since.  Until last week when, for fun, I borrowed it back to submit to a quilt show.

Today the Man and I visited the Empire Quilt Festival in Clifton Park.  Around 300 quilts were on display in the gym of Shenendahowa High School.  There were nice examples of many different patchwork and quilting techniques, mostly tending towards the traditional.  Though it wasn't the best executed or most dramatic, and though it didn't win any ribbons, I was quite pleased with how a certain little Schoolhouses quilt looked in the show.

The judge's comments on it were fair, I thought:  praise for the "successful interpretation of a tradtional pattern" and "effectively placed" quilting; but a hint that my quilting stitch sizes need to show more consistency, and encouragement (as per tonight's title) to improve my sometimes dodgy triangle corners.  But hey, at least she thought I'd done a nice job of the binding.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Homebrew

It was chilly at the Farmers' Market this morning, a little bit gusty too, but at least it wasn't chucking it down with rain (yesterday was dreadful).  Not too bad a day, then, to set out a Fair Trade info stall.  Two FT craft vendors also had stalls, and a couple from a local church were selling FT tea and chocolate at a table next to mine.  Middle School volunteers (including the Girl) were out in force, some in costume, to help distribute "Reverse trick-or-treat" leaflets to passers-by.  We were there for four fun hours, and it felt like time well spent.

After an afternoon of various other activities, the Man and I pushed the boat out this evening and opened a bottle of our friend's homebrew.  Hmm - turns out itsh shtronger than our usual (non-alcoholic) tipple.  Half a bottle between us soon had us feeling woozy... 

I'm still not over the effects.  So, time to curl up with the rest of the family watching a Harry Potter DVD, and maybe sneak a little pre-bedtime snooze.

Pride comes before Glens Falls

Another Quiz Night - so of course, another romp to victory by the Amnesiacs... 

Or that was the assumption. 

But.  A less than aerodynamic paper plane, and the misguided confidence of a team-mate that Glens Falls had been voted one of the best places in America to live in 2005 rather than (duh) the town where we were sitting...and we were foiled.  Because of course, it was a bonus question.  We'd actually done staggeringly well on the other rounds, mainly by exercising some nifty guesswork (there's quite a lot of skill in guesswork, you know), and if we'd only bagged those additional five points we could have swaggered home with our heads held high. 

Instead, we came second.

Ah well.  There'll be more quizzes, more chances to shine.  Though there's a sinking feeling in the team that we may have already peaked, that our glory days are behind us, and now we face nothing but a slow slide into ignominy.

Snail mail

Another day spent buzzing about on various fair tradey errands - collecting show-and-tell items for a presentation next week, putting up posters advertising a speaker meeting, finalising details with FT vendors for a special event at the Farmers' Market this Saturday...  I didn't actually set out to have so much going on for Fair Trade Month, it has just panned out this way.  All good.  Whether political vagaries mean we ever get the official Fair Trade Town designation or not, it certainly feels as if (in all but name) we're a FT Town already.

The Boy reports that the eco-columns are in use - they've been planted with vegetation, and fish and snails moved in yesterday.  The latter arrived by post, giving today's title a satisfyingly literal twist.

What's the buzz?

In the UK there's a Fairtrade Fortnight in the spring, but over here there's a whole Fair Trade Month and it's celebrated in October.  I've got various projects lined up, so I spent the morning working towards those, and part of the afternoon executing the first of them - a presentation to a group at the local Middle School. 

Chocolate was involved, so needless to say it went down well.  But I think the kids were pretty engaged with the topic anyway - how to make life fairer for cocoa farmers, and how to get child slaves out of the chocolate equation altogether.

This afternoon my son, fast-tracking in his ambition to become an inventor, created a unique gadget.  He wears it on a string around his neck.  It's a small homemade box, fitted with a battery-powered buzzer made from odds and ends from Radio Shack and a switch made out of aluminium foil.  He put it together all by himself, having remembered all his electricity facts - his 3rd Grade teacher would be so proud of him!

Well, sort of... It's his own personal expletive deleter. It comes in very handy when he wants to complain, for example, that the chapters in his reading book are beeeep long.

Easy chair?

I've spent most of the day, since far too early this morning, cab-driving.  At any rate, I seem to have spent a great deal of time ferrying kid(s) to skating, dentist, school, library, swimming...  But I did enjoy stopping for a cup of tea with Exile #2 this afternoon - thank you!

Here are some more pictures from our visit to the Adirondack Museum. Does anyone remember the Generation Game?

Adirondack Museum

After a morning swimming, boating, shopping and generally hanging around Mirror Lake and the town of Lake Placid, we took another scenic drive (turns out there's quite a bit of scenery to look at in a six million acre park) down to Blue Mountain Lake.

There we found the Adirondack Museum, in a very pretty setting beside the lake.  The museum is a mixture of galleries displaying items associated with the Adirondacks (boats, for example) and transplanted buildings - a one-roomed schoolhouse, a hunting lodge, an artist's cottage and so on - to look inside.  There were plenty of examples of rustic furniture made from branches and bark, typical of the area - there was even a chair you could build yourself.  There were lots of hands-on activities generally, from traditional children's games to kayaks and bobsleds you could sit in and a fire tower to climb. 

The exhibits were interesting, the weather was unseasonably warm and lovely, and we all had fun...it just would have been that bit more perfect if someone had only warned us that the cafe closed at 4 o'clock.

Placid pursuits

We're in the middle of a long weekend here (Columbus Day tomorrow) so we've come up to Lake Placid.  We especially enjoyed the scenic drive through Keene Valley, with the sun shining on all the fall colours.  This road was closed for quite a while after taking a battering from Tropical Storm Irene in August.  We saw lots of fallen trees in the forest on either side of the road.

Lake Placid is busy - mostly with Canadians, here for their Thanksgiving holiday tomorrow.  Half the guests in our hotel are speaking French, lending our little vacation a cosmopolitan air. 

We have been doing the things we like to do here at this time of year.  It may be a long way to come for Ben & Jerry's ice-cream, swimming & boating and fries from a particular pizzeria, but you might as well do what makes you happy.  Tomorrow perhaps we'll try something new.

A note to anyone reading who ever gets emails from me and may have received an odd-looking one in the last day or two.  Don't open any attachments!  My Hotmail account has been invaded by a spammer - I'll be trying to fix the problem when we get home.

Fall clear-up

That time of year is here again - raking season.  We have a huge tree that is always last to get leaves in the spring and first to shed them again in the fall, and all by itself it had already covered the back lawn.  We've cleared it - for the moment.  But it's going to be rake-and-repeat for the next few weeks now.

It has been a beautiful day here, and we managed to get quite a few jobs done outside - clearing the deck etc.  The Man mowed, possibly for the last time this year (he hopes so, anyway).

Tonight after dinner we surprised ourselves by having a good old fashioned family sing-song.  Not exactly an old-fashioned number though:  we rocked the dining room with the song from Harry Potter Puppet Pals: The Mysterious Ticking Noise.

Plants

As a (possibly ill-advised) blogging experiment, the Boy is going to talk randomly about a randomly chosen topic.

Plants.  Wow. Plants are really strange things.  I mean, there are sunflowers, there's lettuce, there are carrots, there are potatoes.  But why is there no dinosaur plant?  If I found a rare plant, aka the snapdragon, I would probably call it the dinosaur plant.  I'm not entirely sure who actually discovered the snapdragon - you may want to consult wikipedia for more information.

But I must point out that a lot of trees get cut down these days.  We're not going to be able to breathe!  Consult the Girl for more information.

I'd like to say one thing:  why is a tree called a tree?  (Why is a mouse called a mouse?  And why is a computer mouse called a mouse?)  And these are my final questions to you:  what is your favourite month?  And why do we consult screens for all information?

On reflection

Spent the morning furiously hammering out emails, to what end who knows? 

Then I looked up and realised what a beautiful day it was outdoors - sunny, slight breeze, comfortably warm.  I peeled myself off the computer and headed down to Five Rivers for a break.  A few other people were out on the trails enjoying the perfect fall weather, but it was quiet enough that I disturbed a deer on one of the paths.  I generally take similar walks when I go there, but none is ever quite the same as the last and I never tire of going back.  On a lovely day like today, it couldn't fail to raise my spirits.

A killing frost

The weather forecast is promising a "killing frost" tonight - first of the season.

But frost has struck already today - at any rate it has hit our local Fair Trade Town campaign.  Too soon to say if it will prove a killer, but it's certainly a disappointing setback.  Just when I believed we were on the point of getting a resolution passed by the Town Board - the last criterion in the process - someone whom I'd always considered an ally on that Board has, at the eleventh hour, got cold feet (his own case of frostbite?).

Right now I am feeling immensely frustrated.  However in the morning I will get up, get focused and get on with the campaign.  I've been working on this for two and half years.  Why stop now?

Reading list

High excitement at the library this afternoon when the kids realised they could borrow a copy of Rick Riordan's latest book, The Son of Neptune.  Hot off the press - it only came out today!  The Girl is curled up on the couch right now reading it.

I recently finished another book I think she'll enjoy: The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman.  It's a darkly funny reworking of Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book, with astute insights into death, life and coming of age.  Thank you Maths Expert for the tip-off on that one. 

The Boy's reading has been picking up of late, though he'd still rather listen.  When the Man offers to read to him he demands either awful Enid Blyton (that woman had some issues, didn't she? "[George] liked Julian to say she was like a boy.  She didn't want to be petty and catty and bear malice as so many girls did.") or smartypants Bill Bryson.  The Bryson book of choice in this house is I'm a Stranger Here Myself (published in the UK as Notes from a Big Country).  There's a lot of humour of recognition in it for us, with our British perspective on American life.  At any rate, it frequently reduces the kids to fits of giggles, and the mere mention of cupholders - in any context - now always leaves them helpless with laughter.

Fair Trade findings

It has become almost a reflex to take a quick inventory of fair trade products when I'm visiting a store.  Yesterday I spotted some FT jewellery in the shop at the Clark, for example.

I haven't been to Target for a while, and hardly ever buy groceries there anyway, but from a cursory look at their shelves today I learnt that they are currently stocking fair trade sugar (not widely available here, in contrast to the UK since Tate & Lyle went totally FT).  Target also sells various FT teas and coffees, including those one-cup type coffees that go in a special machine.  I couldn't find any FT chocolate though, so points off for that.

I usually do my grocery shopping in either Price Chopper or Hannaford.  My local Price Chopper does quite well with standard FT products (coffee, tea, chocolate) and even stocks FT chocolate chips which I've never seen anywhere else.  The local Hannaford offers a broadly similar range of products, plus some FT soaps, too.

In the above-mentioned supermarkets, the vast majority of available FT products are found in the "organic and natural" section.  This is handy, in a way, for people like me who are looking to buy fair trade and can easily find what they want in one place.  But I wonder if FT would become more mainstream more quickly if it appeared dotted about all over the store, as I'm pretty sure is now the case in the UK (where we don't do that "organic and natural" corral thing anyway, do we?).  Certainly that's how it is in the Linton Co-op.  I don't know if there are any considered theories about this.  What do you think?

Anarchy in the Berkshires

The kids were at friends' houses for the afternoon, so the Man and I slipped away to Massachusetts to visit the Clark again.  It was the last day of a Pissaro exhibition.  Pissaro was an anarchist, in the older sense of the word - he didn't rampage through the streets or assassinate people, but he did favour sustainable communal rural living without government, private property or inequality.  Many of his paintings were of domestic servants and agricutural workers, whom he held in high regard.  But the most intimate and moving work on show at the Clark depicted members of his family, especially his children.  In particular there was a heartbreaking drawing of his beloved young daughter Minette as she lay dying.

We looked around the rest of the Clark.  There was a small exhibition of British and French landscapes, featuring several Constables.  I'm generally not a huge fan of Constable (never really cared for The Hay Wain) but I was taken aback by how at home I felt looking at his landscapes - I do love the English countryside.

Then at the Stone Hill Center, up the hill from the main building, we were impressed by the extraordinary works of Ghanaian artist El Anatsui - huge fabric-like constructions made from discarded bottlecaps (Exile #3, take note).  Stunning.

Kendal in the wind

A breezy day here - we're hoping all the leaves don't blow down before the Fall colours have had a chance to come through.

The Man and I went apple picking this afternoon at Indian Ladder Farms. Whoo, it was cold. For while Britain is basking in weirdly warm (86F?!) weather, here the temperature has suddenly dropped into the finger-nipping 40s.

So, there wasn't too much of the festival atmosphere we usually expect this time of year at the apple farm - just a few well-wrapped customers briskly taking their pick and moving on. We filled up our bag with Empires and dark red Kendals, then turned up the heating in the car for the ride home.

Ah, but - inhale - now the house feels so cosy, filled with the smell of freshly baked apple-cinnamon muffins.