Make a wish...

We had to cross the Hudson River Way pedestrian bridge in order to get to the Half Moon yesterday. Unlike the Walkway Over the Hudson with its attractive views up and down the river, this is a walkway over the I-787, a less than lovely interstate highway.

But it's still a magical bridge.  Among hundreds of brick inlays engraved with the names of donors - look! - we found this:

Half Moon mission

The Half Moon is in town!

It's the ship (strictly speaking, a faithful replica of the ship) that British explorer Henry Hudson sailed up the Hudson River in 1609 (though it wasn't called the Hudson River then, obviously), which led the Dutch (for whom he was working) to claim and settle New York (or as they called it, New Netherland).

The Half Moon is a beautiful vessel.  It's visiting Albany and is open for public tours for just a few weekends (it's here until mid-October), and the rest of the time it's a travelling museum and a teaching ship, taking groups of students and volunteers on board, literally to learn the ropes.

A team of docents explained the different areas of the ship to us, from the galley to the crew's below-deck sleeping quarters, to the officer's more comfortable accommodation and the open-to-the-elements "weather deck".  In a short time it was easy to get a feel for the rather cramped and demanding conditions of life aboard a small 17th century ship.

There were historical diversions along the Hudson riverfront where the ship is docked, too.  Displays of tools and equipment of the time, demonstrations of ironmongery and barrel-making, and period toys and games to play with.  We were rather intrigued by an old-English pub game which we'd never come across before - bat and trap.  We were informed by our docent (who had never been to England) that it's big in Sevenoaks.

Another week, another Fall Festival

More than a week had gone by since the Man ran a 5K, so he put that right with another race this morning.  This time it was the Capital Care Race for Hope in Slingerlands, running in aid of head and neck cancer research, and I went by to watch and enjoy the event.

It was a bright and lovely morning for it as he set off on what turned out to be a fairly demanding up and down course.  He returned just outside the top ten, which wasn't bad going out of 599 starters.  Admittedly, a fair number of those others were walking it - pushing babies in strollers and what have you - but even so, a good effort.

In the afternoon we (Man, Girl and I) checked out another Fall Festival, this time at Thacher Park.  They couldn't have had better weather for it - sunny, warm and still.  It didn't seem quite as jam-packed with activities as the Five Rivers event, relying more on craft and produce vendors for colour, but there was a pleasant atmosphere.  We had some fun playing old-fashioned games...

met some owls and gentle alpacas...

and enjoyed the glorious surroundings.

Trail mix

On Tuesday I had an unexpected day out with a couple of my Karen friends.  They called me to say they had some spare time.  So did I, and the weather was lovely, so I picked them up in Albany and took them out to hike the Indian Ladder Trail.

They were very thrilled to get out into the countryside, which they said looked just like Thailand (where they'd lived for years as refugees).  They were excited to be able to see the Corning Tower from the escarpment - they live just a short walk from the tower, so it was almost like being able to see their own house from a completely new vantage point.

We also stopped at Thompson's Lake and took a walk by the water.  In spite of my dedication to the cause of environmental education I have to admit that, for me, a walk in Nature is still a bit like a trip to a museum - lots of interesting things to see, but I don't necessarily know much about what I'm looking at.  For my friends it was...well, apparently more like wandering through an endless buffet. During their years in the refugee camp they had to forage for food in the jungle, so they know their plants and what's good to eat.  They were eyeing up the water snails, too.  Now that they live in a city I think they really miss having access to a range of free dinner ingredients, there for the picking.

We had a very happy few hours together, enjoying the scenery and the sunshine on a perfect autumn day. I'm already wondering where we should go on our next trip...

Open House, and thoughts of home

Tonight the Man and I attended Open House for both the Girl and Boy - we had to split up in order to do the crazy condensed-timetable dash around the school.  The Man met the 8th Grade teachers, while I did the rounds of the 6th Grade classes.  With a lot of information to absorb in each ten minute classroom chunk, it's quite an exhausting evening.  But as usual we came away impressed by the dedication of the staff, and optimistic about a good year of learning ahead for both our kids.

My thoughts for the rest of the day were often with my parents; Mum in particular, as the funeral of her younger sister was held today.  Sheila had severe Downs Syndrome and spent her adult life in care, where she was looked after by kind people.  Her mark upon the world was light, but she was loved - which is a contribution in itself.  I was sorry that I couldn't be with family saying goodbye today.

Photo fit

The kids have "picture day" this week - school photos.  I've just finished filling out the order forms. 

Blimey!  Talk about a homework challenge.  Sifting through the myriad "package" options is like solving complex equations (for example:  PkgD1: same as D12 remove 2 - 5x7s & 8 2x3s) - and then you have to choose the pose, and the background (blowing autumn leaves; aurora borealis;  the sky from the Sistine Chapel ceiling; weird cascade of white chocolate buttons...etc etc.  We opted for "Gray").  And that's before the optional extras, such as the Multi-Image Collage, or "Premium Retouching", which promises to "whiten teeth, even skin tone, remove blemishes, scars & fly-away hair" (thus providing you with the air-brushed fantasy child of your dreams?  "Basic Retouching" just deals with acne, apparently).

I'm sure it didn't use to be as confusing (or expensive) as this - even last year, let alone in my young day.  Too much choice.  People (this person, for example) don't necessarily like it.  Someone should tell the photography company...

Fall Festival fun

Here's a little video to give you a glimpse of the fun had at this year's Five Rivers Fall Festival.  With thanks to film-maker Paul Miller, a great friend to the Friends of Five Rivers!

Relishing the end of summer

A week or so ago we were still looking forward to lots more fresh tomatoes from our plants in the garden, laden with unripe fruit.  But the nights got cold, and the green tomatoes suddenly started to spoil. 

What to do?  Grab a recipe book and make green tomato chutney!  I haven't made chutney before, but I had fun boiling and simmering chopped tomatoes in vinegar, honey and spices this afternoon.  I've filled four jars, so now we can enjoy the whole winter with relish - especially if I make apple chutney too, which I plan to do tomorrow.

Very striking

We gave ourselves a quieter day today, to balance the extreme busyness of yesterday, though we did venture out to a mini-golf and go-kart place near Albany Airport. 

The Boy and his Buddy buzzed around on the go-kart course, then played a round of miniature golf, while the Girl and I checked out the menu in the Control Tower cafe.  The Man meanwhile gave himself a sort of a taste of one of America's best-loved sports - by standing in a batting cage, having baseballs pelted at him from a machine, some of which he hit back.

You otter've been there

Whew - end of another Five Rivers Fall Festival day.  Our concerns about the weather turned out to be unfounded, and we had sunshine all afternoon.  It was a little blustery, but isn't it always?

We were busy in the crafts area, as usual, and our mostly small visitors seemed happy with their handiwork.  The only time our two tables emptied en masse was when a certain giant otter wandered by... (Although for much of the time the otter - especially in its smaller incarnation - was busy enjoying the live music: dancing gangnam style and playing along on air guitar.)

Meanwhile, down at the other end of the event, the raffle table did pretty well.  The Girl and I had hiked the Farmers' Market several times collecting donations of fresh produce, crafts, bread and cakes, honey, granola, soap etc etc... ending up with so many goodies that we had to raffle them off in three fully-packed baskets, rather than (as originally planned) just one.  Incredible generosity by many of the market stallholders, for which we were very grateful.

Attendance was a little down on last year, but there were still enough people to create a cheerful buzz. It's always a happy thing to see children busily engaged with interesting activities and just generally having lots of fun - and there was plenty of that happening today. 

In the running

The Man ran a race today, the Arsenal City Run 5k in Watervliet. Here are the Exile and another marathoner-friend, goofing around at the Start before disappearing into the distance. It was apparently very hot work.

As soon as he was "dun runnin'" he had to race back home to collect me for an evening with a whole other bunch of runners - people running for office, that is.  We're heading into local election season.  I know and like a couple of the Democrat candidates for the Town Board, so although we don't have a vote here we went along to a fundraising party for one of them, to show our support. 

I knew most of the crowd, gathered at a friend's house for a potluck supper and auction of random items - flowerpots, spice-racks, massage vouchers and so on.  Someone bid successfully on a Local, Organic, Fair Trade apple-cinnamon tart baked by...me.  I really hope it tasted ok, as he paid quite handsomely for it.  Slightly to our surprise we have come home the proud owners of an electric chopper and a small piece of artwork (by yet another friend). 

We stayed on a bit after the auction to chat, and rounded up the evening standing in the street outside our host's house discussing the healthcare system - with our own next door neighbour. 

Morning mist

I met a friend at Five Rivers early this morning and we walked some of the trails.  Mist hung over the meadows, geese flew overhead and deer leapt across the path ahead of us.  It was all rather magical and lovely, and an excellent way to start the day.

And otherwise: I've made final craft preparations for Saturday, had the car serviced, taxied children to skating and drumming lessons respectively.  The Man has been away (Ithaca) since yesterday, but should roll in at some late hour.

There was some more sad, though not unexpected, news from home today - so once again, we send love over the Atlantic, wishing we lived closer.  I'm remembering my Auntie Sheila, and how she used to love jelly babies.

Cutting edge crafts

I seemed to spend half the day giving myself callouses cutting out shapes from cardboard egg-boxes - for yes indeedy, I'm once again in charge of the eco-craft table at Five Rivers Fall Festival this weekend. Soon I should have everything prepared so that hundreds of kids can make animal mini-masks, pipe-cleaner spiders and bird-food sticks.

The forecast for Saturday is a bit iffy, so when I'm not cutting out I've got my fingers crossed for fine weather and a good turnout on the day.

Layabouts

Temperatures dipped into the 30s (Fahrenheit) this morning. Seems like the long vacation was years ago, those lazy days of summer...

Although there wasn't too much opportunity to lie around in the sun during our stay in Maine, that didn't stop people from lying around as much as possible anyway - especially our own La-Z-Boy:

Back by popular demand!

Or maybe my name just came around again on a list of previous speakers?  Whatever the reason, I was invited back today with my gramophone to spin some more 78s at the Seniors' Luncheon.

I had a fun time, cranking through a few jolly foxtrots and show tunes of the '20s and '30s.  I hope the Seniors also enjoyed themselves, though given that none of them was over 100, the music was at best of their parents' generation not their own.  The nearest I got to "contemporary" was a piano medley from Salad Days - and even that was 1920s-style pastiche.

Most of the audience seemed happy enough (and some of them even sang along through Bye, Bye Blackbird).  However, you can't please everyone: I did hear one gentleman muttering darkly that he'd thought the presentation was going to be on telephones.

Noodling around

The Boy had a load of friends over this afternoon, all members of a crew that regularly gets together to shoot silly videos of each other.  It was hard keeping up with how many and who exactly was there, as they arrived and left at different times, but I think we got up to seven at one point.  I don't know yet whether we had the makings of the Next Big Thing in Comedy in the basement, or just a bunch of 11 year-olds, but whatever, they seem to have a great time down there messing about.

I also took them all down to the tennis courts in the Town Park. Since this was the Boy's fourth visit in the last seven days, it has to qualify as one of his favourite places at the moment.

 

In addition the Girl and I baked a vanilla sponge cake, and I followed that up with an impressive-looking Wagamama noodles dish for dinner.  There are only four Wagamama restaurants in the USA, all in the Boston area, so there is lots of incentive to try to recreate the recipes at home.

My family and other animals

Team Albaniana was rockin' the Farmers' Market today...

The whole family turned out to help promote next week's Five Rivers Fall Festival.  I set up the poster boards I'd worked on yesterday, and laid out a crowd-pleasing table-top display of turtle shell, weasel-pelt and the like.  The Girl handed out flyers, and helped collect up contributions from market stallholders who are generously putting together a basket of goodies to raffle off in support of Friends of Five Rivers.

And as for the Man and Boy...well, who knows what they were getting up to?  Whatever it was, they never seemed to be in the same place at the same time.

A good sort of day

It was a good sort of morning for a walk at Five Rivers, especially in the company of Exile #2.  We exchanged notes on our how are 6th Graders have been settling in this week at their new school - pretty well, it turns out, in both cases.

Not such a good afternoon for putting up Five Rivers Fall Festival posters around town, as by then it was tipping with rain.  Ah well.  Instead I got crafty at home with paper and scissors, making a sign for a publicity effort tomorrow (all will be revealed).  Since that's what (genuinely) passes for fun in my world, I'd have to call it a good day all round.

Night at the Opera House

 I can't believe we got back from the UK less than three weeks ago, and from Maine only last week.  With back to school, back to work, back to various volunteering activities...seems like there never was a summer vacation.

Anyway.  One good memory of Maine was a trip to the cinema on the Sunday night.  Stonington, the fishing village where we were staying, is a tiny place miles from anywhere at the foot of Deer Island, and we were surprised to find it had its own movie-house.  More specifically, an Opera House, which is used for live performances as well as screening movies.  It's very much a community resource that seemed to be well used and much loved.

It had something of a village hall atmosphere, with its rows of unbanked seats.  There was a kiosk at the back of the hall selling snacks (including Fair Trade chocolate - yay), and tables where you could sit and drink a glass of wine.  A member of the Opera House crew (who'd been serving popcorn moments before) stood up ahead of the start of the movie to give a little welcoming speech.

We all enjoyed the night's presentation - The Way, Way Back - which had jokes to tickle everyone.  And we liked the feeling that we were joining in a community experience - much more special than going to see a film at a multiplex. 

Slip not

As predicted, the temperature soared up to 93F over the course of the day, and the air was so thick with humidity you could cut it with a knife.  Ironic that this was the day I'd chosen to walk (slog) a mile and a half into town to meet a friend (I appreciated my iced coffee in an air-conditioned cafe, I can tell you).

In the afternoon I received an email from the (not air-conditioned) school to advise me that all after-school activities had been cancelled due to the heat index.  And the kids reported that they'd been warned to take care on the stairs which were "slippery because of the heat" - have you ever heard of such a phenomenon?  It's true, apparently - the Girl tells me she nearly slipped herself.

At least the heat prompted the Boy and one of his neighbourhood friends to make use of the pool, which is usually sadly neglected (because much too cold) by this time in September.

Fortunately this evening we've had a rainy storm pass through, and we're back to cool-and-comfortable again.

Early warning system

It wasn't too bad getting up for the first day of school, but it's always a bit more challenging getting out of bed for the second... Especially so today, because it was the Girl's first before-school skating session of the new season which made for an extra early start.  And even more especially because, for no good reason, the smoke-detector on the landing had set itself off at 4am (though I'm bound to say, better no good reason than the house on fire).

I've really been enjoying the seasonably mild temperatures recently, but today the temperature and humidity went bouncing back up again (and my hair is once more in frizzy disarray).  Tomorrow we'll be sweltering in the 90sF again - ugh.

First Day

 

Five minutes ago, the Boy had his first day at school, at Linton Infants.  Today was his first day at Middle (i.e. Secondary) school.

It seems to have gone well - he's taking the change in his stride.  We hope his friends in England who have also just started at "big school" are feeling equally chipper.

The Girl also had a good start to what will be her last year at Middle school.  Time just rolls on relentlessly.

Signs of the season

Today it feels like Fall...

The weather is comfortably cooler.  "Mums" are on sale again at the garden centres.  There's apple-picking, and a grand display of gourds, at Indian Ladder Farms.

And the kids have been packing their schoolbags, ready for (gulp) the new school year starting tomorrow. 

One fine day in Acadia...

Out of our four whole days in Maine, only one - Wednesday - was completely fine and bright (though to be fair, Sunday afternoon wasn't bad either).  We spent our one sunny day on the spectacular Mount Desert Island in Acadia National Park, revisiting some of our favourite spots from last year's holiday:

Lunch on the cliffs:

The Beehive trail, a steep climb to more than 500 feet:

Sand Beach - the sea was freezing, but Man and kids managed to stay in wave-hopping for 45 minutes:

Jordan Pond, looking across at the Bubbles:

Cadillac Mountain, watching a huge cruise ship leaving Bar Harbor as sunset approached:

In a cabin in a wood

After our spectacular vacation there last year, the Man in particular was eager to re-visit the Acadia region of Maine.  The Girl was enthusiastic when we found out that a rental property we'd researched previously - in a wood and near a goat farm - was available for the dates we wanted.  So it was that we set out to Deer Island, close to Acadia National Park.

Our holiday house, a former forge, was in Stonington.  This is a community that grew out of granite-quarrying and lobster fishing, and is now also popular with artists.  Although not far at all from the centre of town, we felt secluded in our little wooden cabin, surrounded by trees.  The kids could walk straight out of their bedroom into three acres of woods, to explore and pick wild blueberries.  We took short (and sometimes long) cuts between the trees to the shops and cafes.  The main bedroom, once a silversmith's studio, had huge windows from which I could watch the birds - including hummingbirds - feeding from the bushes below.

So, it was a rather magical place to stay, and a cosy place to be even when the rain poured down - and it certainly did (especially on Monday, which was Labor Day).   And when the weather allowed we found some beautiful beaches and trails close by - such as Sand Beach, and Barred Island...

...and we enjoyed walking round the very attractive harbour town, too.

Down East

We're back - again.

Though I haven't even finished blogging about our trip Up North in England, now I have photos and stories to share of our latest trip, "Down East" to Maine...  But I'll get started on all that tomorrow.  After an eight-hour car journey today, I'm ready for bed right now.