So long, and thanks for all the fish

Today we bade farewell to Connecticut, but not before we celebrated my birthday by visiting the Mystic Aquarium.  It's not the first aquarium we've visited in the last few years (think Boston, Burlington, Philadelphia, London) and not the biggest, but it turns out to be one of the most enjoyable.

There were sharks and crabs to touch, feisty sea-lions, enormous bullfrogs and much else besides, including some beguiling beluga whales.  We had a very good visit, but since then we've had a long journey home, so I shall save more stories for tomorrow. 

Thanks, by the way, to those who sent birthday greetings - much appreciated!

Super highly calorific chocolate pancake breakfast

We ate breakfast at the flamingo-themed Coffee Break cafe in Clinton.  The Girl without hesitation ordered a short stack (2) of dinner-plate sized chocolate-chip pancakes, with syrup and a side order of home-fries.  Blimey.  After all that it was a wonder she could still walk .

Still, it kept her going for the rest of the day, which we spent at the beach.  It was back to classic summer weather: hot and very sunny.  There was sea-swimming all round, and rock-pools to explore.  The kids found lots of hermit crabs, and the Boy found a sea-horse.  They also spent a good hour extracting an old rope which was stuck round some underwater rocks (shame we can't get some money for it). I watched a cormorant catch and swallow an eel, almost as fast as the Girl had inhaled her pancakes.

The only sour note of the day was struck by some protesters we saw outside the Clinton town hall as we drove away, inviting us to "pull over and help stop Obama".  They were displaying posters of President Obama with a Hitler moustache.  Bizarre, and offensive on so many levels I don't know where to start.  I've seen such posters on TV before (coverage of Tea Party demonstrations) but never in real life and I was truly and utterly appalled.

Life's a beach

The consensus was: time for a trip to the seaside.  It's been a while since we last visited Hammonasset Beach in Connecticut, so that is where we've taken ourselves.

We didn't pick the best weather day.  It was drizzling when we reached the beach, and the drizzle rapidly turned into a downpour, soaking us all.  We took refuge in the nature centre until the rain had passed (and a rainbow had appeared), and then returned to the almost (by then) empty sands.

I didn't brave the waves, but everyone else did.  Shivering out of the water, the kids still felt the need for ice cream, and bought some out of a vending machine.  Wretched machine, it gave the Girl the wrong choice.  Misery!  She tried again, and it made up for its mistake by giving her two new ice creams.  Yay!

What was all that about?

A few Americans we've spoken to today had things to say about last night's show.  Reactions were mainly positive, if a little baffled (but I didn't get the impression that anyone really minded being baffled).  They defined it all as "very British".  There have been mixed reviews from the US media.  Some loved it, some felt it was too self-indulgent (too many in-jokes).

I've a feeling Danny Boyle didn't much care what the rest of the world made of it - so yes, I suppose "self-indulgent" is fair comment.   I think he was just trying to tell his own country - in the loudest and most exuberant way imaginable - what he loves about it: the great, the good, the gritty and the frankly bonkers.  And as a Briton (an abroad one, to boot) I found that irresistibly appealing. 

Oh, but the Team GB uniform is awful though, isn't it?  Never mind.  On with the sport...

Olympic hosts

Thank you to the Exiles for being our Olympic hosts tonight!  We watched the opening ceremony on NBC - it all kicked off on TV just as the real thing was ending in London.  A few in our party fell sleepily by the wayside, but most of us made it through to the end at midnight.

Wow!  Cracking show!  Only spoiled here by too many ad breaks (we miss you, BBC).

The Voldemort/Poppins face-off.  The tribute to "socialized medicine".  The torch zipping up the Thames.  Of course James Bond on Her Majesty's not-so-secret service.  And I genuinely enjoyed watching all the athletes march by.  Oh, and the amazing flaming cauldron...

What were your best bits?

Storm in a teacup

Storms, they said.  All day, they said.  And while we're about it, they added, risk of tornadoes.

So we decided against a trip to a water park, and the Man went to work as usual.  It rained very heavily at around 6am, then hardly a drop worth mentioning since, and not so much as a rumble of thunder all day.  Not that I'm complaining, except about the missing-out-on-the-water-park part.  Washing the kitchen floor didn't really compare.

There's still tonight, of course, when the wind might get up (but I hope that it won't).

Goat-on-a-rope

The summer holidays are still quite a fresh and new thing for most families in Britain, I know, but over here we've already reached the stage of one day rolling rather indistinguishably into another.  Which is fine: a bit of swimming; a lot of loafing around; trips to the library and the ice rink; seeing friends.  I believe it's Wednesday, but it could equally be last Thursday or next Tuesday.

We made a brief visit to Indian Ladder Farms again yesterday, for old time's sake, as the Boy was eager to check on "his" rabbit.  Binky looks fine.

Then both children had a spot of goat time.  They were allowed to put a couple of the kids on leads and drag them around for a bit.  Much bleating, little cooperation, but that didn't seem to matter. 

Dressing for dinner?

The Boy decided to make a stink bomb tonight - or at any rate a concoction in a bottle. 

Vinegar - check. 
Thyme - check. 
Chopped onion - check... 

"Urgh!" he groaned with delight, "This smells disgusting!"

"Err, hate to break it to you - you appear to be making salad dressing..."

Umbrella fella

I gather readers in the UK may actually have enjoyed a full day of sunshine today.  Congratulations!  In case you're already forgetting what rain looks like, we've had some here, so here's a photo:

The Man adds...but maybe the weather is not as bizarre as I thought. Remember the piles of snow that I came across at Cornell?  Albaniana, who knows about these things, tells me they are probably Zamboni droppings.

Cherry picking

The Boy had made other plans, but the rest of us set off for Cherry Plain State Park today for some time on the beach.

Lake beach, that is, of course.  The park was built in the 1930s by the Civilian Conservation Corps, one of Franklin Roosevelt's most successful New Deal job creation programmes.  Jobless men eagerly signed up to work for $1 a day, plus board and lodging, building the lake and fashioning the surrounds as a game preserve - I learnt all this from an informative sign on the beach.

Today the park is a summer campsite area, with hiking and biking trails, boats to hire, a kids' playground, picnic facilities etc, and it's all very attractive.  It's on a smaller scale than Grafton Lakes, where we've often been before.  Today being Sunday it was relatively busy (but this being upstate New York, not that busy at all really).

Man and Girl swam in the lake, in the designated area (and under the gaze of several lifeguards. State budget cuts mean there's no lifeguard on Mondays and Tuesdays - which means no swimming at all those days.  It may be the land of the free, but they do things by the book in the State parks).  I enjoyed relaxing and reading on the shore.  Another fine way to spend yet another fine day.

Good Saturday

It has been a very fine day, in all sorts of ways.  Sunshine, perfect temperature, low humidity.  And lots of good time with friends.

This afternoon we joined some of the Man's colleagues and their families for a yard party.  Kids swam, adults chatted, fun and grilled food was had by all.

And this evening our kids each hung out with a friend, while the Man and I spent time with a couple of our own friends, enjoying more conversation, and an excellent dinner outside on their lawn which overlooks the grounds of a scenic country club.

And now (yawn) it's time to sleep it all off...

A Cornell Mystery

The Man writes...it was a flying visit to Ithaca. Not long enough to take in much of the beauty of the Finger Lakes region or the 150 year old campus of Cornell University. However, I enjoyed an interesting, wide ranging and well organized conference on the future of Nanoscience: from solar cells to computing to study of the development of human organs.

The surroundings were certainly handsome on a summer's day, but one graduate student I met did admit that Ithaca sometimes feels like a small town a long way away from anywhere. And she had been brought up in Clovelly, North Devon!

Also, at the top of the hill I came across five or six piles of this...

 

Yes, it is what you think it is. Snow. On July 19th in the midst of a baking hot summer. If anyone has any ideas how it came to be there, I would love to hear them.

Rabbit rabbit

When I collected the children from Bunny Camp yesterday there was some unfortunate news.  The Boy's bunny, Biscuit, was sick and needed to be sent home.  The Boy was obviously sad, but not totally downhearted as there was one spare bunny for him to look after instead.  And not just any bunny...

...a Megabunny!

Strictly speaking, she's a Flemish Giant.  No kidding - stretched out she's half as long as the Boy is tall, and too heavy for him to lift by himself.  But she's pretty goodnatured and lollopy. She lives full-time at the farm, so we'll be able to visit her even after the camp finishes.

The Boy was tasked with naming her, so we spent many hours discussing options.  She's all white, so Snowy was a possibility.  Or Vanilla?  The Boy is a mythology buff, so he wondered about Chione (Greek goddess of snow).  I suggested Albunny (modesty prevented me from pressing too hard for Albunniana).  The Boy came up with O-mega, which the rest of us liked, but in the end he has  plumped for Binky, in honour of a (very minor) rabbit character from Harry Potter.

What would you name a giant white rabbit?

Say goat's cheese

The day has been busy so far and is going to be more so - a mixture of appointments and children's activities and meetings and so on.  But I have a gap right now, so I'm posting a bit earlier than usual.

Last time I saw the kids it was...with some kids. They'd been invited early to the farm to spend a couple of hours doing goat-care ahead of rabbit camp.  When I left them the Boy was taking his turn at milking a goat. 

Always something new...  Where do you stand on goat-products?

The Man adds... tonight I am in Ithaca, three hours from Albany. I enjoyed a great dinner (goat cheese free) in this restaurant, which - for the uninitiated - is quite famous in the veggie world.

Hot to trot

Yet another hot day.

Yeah, yeah, you say.

No, but really - it was really hot!  100F!  At least that's what the car thermometer was telling me.  And that was when it (the car thermometer), a little prone to exaggeration sometimes, had calmed down:  after an hour standing in the Target parking lot it had got up to 117F.

So, rather the kids than me in a barn full of bunnies all afternoon.  Still they seem to have had a good time again.

No hint of rain around here, in contrast with Sunday when (ahead of the deluge in Bolton Landing) we called in on a drizzly Open Day event at Saratoga Racecourse, marking the start of the track season.  It's a large, handsome establishment, but I suspect weather affected attendance, as it wasn't very busy.  I felt sorry for the horses, racing in the rain; and for the stallholders with their damp bouncy castles and soggy mini-golf, and for the (creepy) clowns with their runny make-up.  But at least the reptile show was well attended, and of course the queues for burgers and hotdogs were long.  People will generally turn out for some food, it seems to me.

One happy bunny

Well, two in fact, though only one who is going around singing "I'm a bunny boy" to the tune of the Gummy Bears song.  Both children are signed up for Bunny Camp at Indian Ladder Farms.  They have each been assigned a bunny for the week and will be learning all about rabbit care. There are also rumours of a Bunny Olympics...

I met the actual bunnies at pick-up time (they don't come home with us but stay in the farm barn).  The Boy has named his Biscuit, and it's the softest thing ever.  The Girl's is called Marmite.  I think we're all in for a funny bunny few days.

By George, what a washout!

For several weekends we've been thinking of going on a family outing, but one or other of us has come up with other plans, or it has just felt too hot to do anything much...  Anyway, today we got our collective acts together and set off to Lake George.

Not having had a rainy day for what seems like months, it was a little ironic that it started to rain the moment (literally) that our car backed off the driveway.  But we pressed on - it was only drizzle.

We made a brief detour along the way, which I'll write about another day, but then it was onwards to Bolton Landing.  It had stopped raining by the time we arrived.  We checked out the (tiny) beach, but decided to drop into Ben & Jerry's for a little something before having a swim...but just as we were finishing up the last lick of ice-cream - the heavens opened.

We could have swum down the street, never mind the lake.  Instead, we took refuge in a gift/book shop, and ended up spending much longer and more money there than we might have on a finer day.

The rain cleared at last, and we had the beach to ourselves (along with some ducks) for a little picnic and a wander round the docks.  The views across Lake George were still lovely, with low clouds threading through the mountains.  We hadn't had quite the day we'd imagined, but somehow we'd still had a good time, and we finally turned for home all in good spirits.

Stormin'

So, at around 3:30am the weather finally broke.  Thunder!  Lightning!  Rain!   Especially thunder - wow, it was LOUD, it seemed to be directly overhead.

The Man, who had got up already because it was so hot, was joined downstairs by the Girl who wondered if a tree was going to fall on the house.  I lay in bed, jumping at every crash.

And the Boy, in the three-season room and therefore practically out in the backyard, slept blissfully through it all.

The rain made for a happy garden (with no fallen trees) and a cooler start to the day...but it wasn't long before we were sweltering back in the humid 90sF again.

But me, no butts

The Boy spent the morning hanging out with a friend who'd slept over last night, then went off with the friend's family to spend the afternoon by a lake.  The Girl had a last morning with her goat-and-chicken chums at Indian Ladder Farms, and in the afternoon swam in the pool with some younger Exiles.  Meanwhile I sat on the deck and enjoyed grown up company: Exile #2 and The Exile's parents who are over here on a visit (it was nice to see you! And thanks for following this blog!).

It doesn't get any cooler in the daytime - in the 90sF again today - but it was overcast so it didn't feel quite so punishing outdoors.  Although storm clouds occasionally pretend to threaten I can't remember the last time it actually rained here, which makes it all the stranger that the DIY and garden stores seem to have sold out of water butts (the assistant in one garden centre gave me a funny look when I asked about water butts, and asked if I meant "rain barrels".  I supposed that I did.  They still didn't have any in stock, though).

Spin doctor

The Girl had a good skating lesson today - her coach was helping her improve her spins, and teaching her how to do the thing when you hold onto one ankle and stick that leg out behind you and glide along (easier than it looks, says the Girl, but I'll have to take her word for it).

And now I'm not going to waste any more time on this blog.  It's hot indoors, and outside I can hear the splashing sounds of late-night swimming.  I'm heading out to join in...

Transport, translate, transform

The Albaniana cab service has had another busy day out on the roads of the Capital District, ferrying children hither and yon - to farms and friends' houses and ice-rinks and so on.

I was also called into Albany to help one of my friends from Burma with some form-filling.  DSS had for some reason (their foreign-sounding name, perhaps?) sent them the forms all in Spanish.  Sigh.  A little running around and sorting out was required.

The Boy is quite settling in to "his" newly-adopted three season bedroom. Today he started putting up framed pictures (his own art work).  The rest of us are kicking ourselves for not nabbing the room for ourselves before him - it's by far the airiest and most comfortable place in the house to spend the night at this hot-and-sticky time of year.

Butts, books and baking

I went to Lowes (DIY store) today, searching for a water butt.  I didn't find one, and instead came away with something entirely different, yet still butt-related in its way - a toilet seat (one of ours needs replacing). 

The Boy went off with a friend's family for a busy afternoon at the State Museum / Corning Tower / town park pool.  The Girl and I spent some time at the library, then found yet more books to browse at a basement sale in a local church.  She then went off to her friend's house for sausages and other delights.

Take a big sniff - can you smell the banana muffins I baked this evening?

That's the way I like it

After a day of total inactivity yesterday, the Girl has been on the go all day today.  She was back at farm camp first thing for a morning bossing goats around.  This afternoon, two hours at the library doing her desk job - signing other kids up for the summer reading programme.  From there, a hop and skip up the road to Irish dance class.  And to top it all off, she cooked soup for us for dinner (and very good it was, too). 

As we'd hoped, it has been cooler and less humid today, and that gave the Boy and me a burst of energy as well.  While the Girl was cleaning out goats, I helped the Boy tackle a much more daunting task: tidying his bedroom (we even managed to chuck some stuff out - hooray!).

At dinner the kids were teaching us how to, like, speak middle school American?  At one point the Boy was laughing so much that he fell over and knocked a book off a chair.  "Watch it," I said, "that's a library book."

Boy: "It's, like, a library book?"

Me: "No.  It's not LIKE a library book.  It IS a library book."

Boy falls over laughing again.

Roger, sleepover, and out

Well, that was some exciting tennis, wasn't it?  Nice of Wimbledon to lay it on at just the right time to watch with breakfast and through lunch.  Like everyone, I suppose, I expected Federer to win, but couldn't help hoping Murray would sneak a victory.  Ah well, perhaps there'll be a next time?

Almost as exhausted as two Wimbledon finalists, the Girl has struggled through the day today after a birthday no-sleepover at her friend's house last night.  In fact she did crash out on the couch at one point, but we woke her up and took her and her brother out for a shiny diner dinner at "Capital City".  That seems to have perked her up again - just when it'd make sense for her to go to bed.  Tcha.

Honestly I'm not trying to rub it in, but we've had yet another scorching day today, while I know Great Britain has virtually washed away this weekend.  We're expecting slightly cooler weather through the week, which we're very excited about.  If you're in the UK, I hope you get some time drying out time soon.

Going Dutch

 

The kids had managed to arrange their own entertainments for the afternoon, so the Man and I drove up to Waterford to check out a steamboat rally.

Waterford is an interesting place in itself - at the confluence of the Hudson and Mohawk Rivers, and the Eerie and Champlain Canals.  Today there was a meet-up of steam-powered vessels, for the most part dear little toot-toot boats - just ducky.










Waterford is also currently home to the Onrust, a faithful recreation of a 17th Century Dutch ship.  The public was invited on board today to look around.  We had a long chat with a volunteer down below deck, who explained the story of both the original ship and this rebuild.  The intention is for it eventually to become a "floating classroom" in which to teach the history of the Dutch in New York (they were here before the Mayflower brought the pilgrims to Plymouth Rock).

The Onrust will be moored at Waterford for many more months as work continues on it, but the next open day will probably not be until the annual Tugboat Roundup in September, so we felt lucky to get the chance to explore it today.

Not so swimmingly

Yet another blistering hot day here.  By late morning the kids were only too ready to swim, but when I rolled back the cover... Uh-oh - what was that at the bottom of the pool?

At first glance I thought it might be a kitten.  Yeek.  I shooed the children away.  But a more careful look revealed it to be a drowned opossum.  A young one, judging by the size.  Sometime in the night it must have wandered onto the solar cover (which is just glorified bubblewrap) and slipped under.

I did the necessary - scooped it out with the leaf net, disposed of it.  Vacuumed the pool.  Then threw in a boatload of chlorine and ran the filter for the rest of the day.  The pool is once again entirely fit for humans to swim in, but no-one can quite fancy it tonight.  Tomorrow, though, will be another day.

Meanwhile I shall probably have nightmares about small drowning animals.

Unreasonable seasons

Since his successful nearly-outdoor sleepover a few nights ago, the Boy has adopted the three-season room as his summer bedroom.  He has made a little bed out of floor cushions and installed some important toys and his CD player - he is lulled to sleep each night by Jim Dale reading Harry Potter.  He seems very comfortable in there.  He especially likes it because it's cooler than his upstairs bedroom (and if it does begin to feel too warm, he can switch on the ceiling fan).

Though not the hottest day of the summer, the heat has felt quite oppressive again today.  It's hotter and dryer than usual for July - we could do with a bit of heat/rain redistribution across the Pond, I think.  The earth is baked hard and dry around here, while by the sounds of it the UK is having one long rainy season.  Lucky they've got that roof at Wimbledon, isn't it?

Runners up

A British friend invited us to his "Runners Up Party" - his annual response to American Independence Day.

We thought the party would be teeming with Brits, but in fact we were the only ones, apart from our host and his dual-nationality kids.  But we enjoyed meeting the other, all-American, guests - none of whom teased us about being on the losing side (sometimes people do around this time of year) so that was nice.  We chatted and ate, and somehow several baking hot hours rolled pleasantly by.

The hosts' 1840s house is only a couple of miles from the city centre but it's in a secluded, well-wooded area. It was interesting discussing the gardening challenges that the neighbours face - deer, of course, which love to munch on lily heads; but there are also woodchucks that merrily dig everything up.  There have been sightings of fishers, a bob-cat, coyotes.. and this year five baby skunks (one of them sprayed someone's dog).  When it comes to garden guests and pests, good old British slugs can't really compete.

Higgs bozo

So, it sounds like the good folks at CERN are about to make an announcement about finding the Higgs boson.  This is something I don't understand at all, though the Man does because he helped look for it himself, many years ago.  Sometimes he explains this sort of thing to me, and for a moment I get a flash of understanding, like a shooting star against the dark expanse of my incomprehension.  But then, like a shooting star, it's gone and I'm plunged back into darkness.  I don't mind, as I have my own set of skills.  For example, I can sculpt a recognizable rabbit out of Playdoh in less than thirty seconds (I'm an ace at Cranium). 

We each bring different talents to the world.  They all serve a purpose, it just depends on the context.

The Boy has a talent for descriptive turns of phrase.  He went to the town park pool with his look-alike friend today and jumped off the high (it's very high) diving board for the first time.  He said it was scary, "like being suspended in mid-air".  He wants to do it again, though.

Read all about it

I've been reading the July online edition of Linton News.  I shall share it with you, as you are probably not from Linton (I fear my readership there has dropped off steeply - fair enough, there's only so much round-robin perkiness most people can stand, and this daily blog has been going on...and on...for [gulp] nearly five years now). 

For once there's an actual news story on the front cover (that awful fire at Chilford Hall), plus a tribute in verse.  Highlights from the rest of the paper: 

• a letter from someone who chaired the Linton Silver Jubilee celebrations in 1977, which apparently included "a daredevil stunt by the local garage owners who bravely jumped over the river Granta in a car."  Way to go - health-and-safety be damned!
• a report on the new kitchen arrangements at the Crown, with special mention of the newly-arrived French chef who "holds the world record for opening oyster and scallop shells";
• a report on recent and upcoming fundraising events for the local schools.  I can imagine the uproar if our local US elementary school offered alcoholic refreshments at its annual carnival; and the consternation if the Middle School laid on a casino night.  What a den of depravity Linton is!
• members of the WI ate a red, white and blue cake for the Diamond Jubilee; but Linton Garden Club's excellent annual show has ruled for ten years longer than the Queen - it celebrates its 70th anniversary this month;
• my favourite item - a quote from Tom Palmer, an author who participated in a recent special event in the village: "I think the [Linton Children's Book] Festival is one of the most innovative in the country."  Yay!

Domestic idle

Hot...sunshine...clear blue skies...friends...swimming.  Not much more to report (except that our camera is broken).  What an idle life.