Good things coming to an end

[Written Aug 17th at the airport in Boston, where the WiFi was a little dodgy and wouldn't let me publish the post]

It was ten years yesterday, August 16th, that we moved to the Albany area, and ten years today, local time (we're still - just - in the US) that I first started writing this blog. Of course since then we have moved back to Britain, and the Albaniana blog has become an intermittent enterprise. But here's what we looked like a decade (and also seven years) ago.

Unfortunately our anniversary day began with upsetting news from home. Our cat, out on the prowl overnight, ventured as far as the main road and was hit by a car. RIP Bobo. His life was short but I hope it was happy. We served on his staff for just two years and he seemed to tolerate us pretty well.

The loss cast quite a pall over the rest of the day, but we did our best. The kids as ever had made their own arrangements, so I had the chance to attend Saratoga Race Course with my host, A, in the afternoon, as part of an outing organised by her employer. Racing is certainly a very popular pursuit and the place was packed. But we quickly learnt that there's not a whole lot to the sport if you are not into betting, so we had our share of the included-in-the-ticket-price buffet and watched a race, but did not stay overly long.

Instead we drove all the way back down to Henry Hudson Park and admired the pair of bald eagles that nest there. They put on a fine display of soaring, and it was tranquil sitting by the river. We decided this was much more our sort of thing.

I ended the evening with friend J, a final chance to see her and chew over the latest hair-raising helping of crazy from the White House. We concluded, as A and I had earlier, that these are looking like the end times for Western civilization.

And on that cheery note...

Today (Thursday) has mostly been about packing, saying last farewells, and heading back to Boston. We're waiting to board as I write.