Wry in air

The Man writes just got back this evening from another trip to Washington. Luckily I had a window seat for a night flight over Manhattan. Fascinating.

Internal flights are fairly relaxed here. On my last flight out the Captain's greeting was as follows:

"Good afternoon, this is the Captain speaking, and I want you to know that I love you all and that this is my first flight...

...of the day"

and:

"I was fired by my last airline 24 years ago for having a personality.

Tell the person next to you how much you love them, even if you've never met them before. The world is so much better that way."

He received a fairly muted round of applause, but gets full marks for effort. (In case you're wondering - No, I didn't, but I was in a row of 3 on my own.)

Casting my mind back, I can't think of any other times when humour has been used during plane announcements, although I did witness a proposal of marriage once. A colleague swears he was on a flight when during the Captain's pre-landing announcement someone in the background was heard to say that they were out of fuel! The Captain came on again later to explain that it wasn't critical.

I expect some of our readers have some interesting airplane stories...

Sweets from strangers

There have been local elections today. Several candidates called at the house in recent days and started engaging in friendly chat, until they realised we weren't eligible to vote and then they couldn't be seen for dust. Someone came by yesterday and left a plastic bag hanging on the front doorknob - a bag full of campaign literature, Tootsie Rolls (toffees) and a single lollipop. That lollipop caused such controversy in our household that frankly I wouldn't have voted for the candidate responsible even if I could have.

According to a book I've been reading with the Girl, lollipops are also known here as 'suckers'...

Roundabout route

Dropped the Man off at the airport again (another trip to Washington) and after a bit of shopping took a roundabout route home - in more ways than one.

For some time workmen have been adding extra road and roundabouts, or 'circles' as they call them here, on a route I often find myself on when I want to call in at my preferred supermarket. The circles have only just become fully roundable (you know what I mean) with all the new bits of road finally open to traffic, so I was quite excited to bypass part of my usual route and approach the supermarket from another direction. The only problem was there were cones everywhere preventing me from turning left, so in order actually to get into the supermarket carpark I had to go (in the wrong direction) along the stretch of road I'd bypassed, back onto one of the roundabouts, make a complete circle and return to the supermarket totally avoiding the nice new bypass.

Ah well. I daresay they'll sort it out eventually so that it is more convenient. It's also worth noting that roundabouts are unusual in America and regarded as quite daunting, so with a bit of luck all the locals will take any other route to avoid them and I'll get the road to myself in future. That really would be convenient.

By the way, I should have said 'construction workers' not 'workmen'. Quite a few of them are women. They seem to come from a female construction worker ready-mix packet though - they all have a no-nonsense look about them, wear their overalls with a certain flair, and have identical long blonde tresses flowing out from under their hard hats.

Loadsamoney

We revisited the Indian Ladder Trail this morning - almost our last chance as it will soon be closed until May. It is not the American way to allow people to make up their own minds about how safe a path is to walk. Despite the usual howls of protest from the children at the very idea of outdoor activity, they had a lovely time.

The rest of the afternoon was spent with various combinations of Exiles, and intermittently engaged in a drawn-out game of Monopoly. For historical reasons which I won't bother to explain here we have a Swiss version in French and German. I don't really like to play the game in any language - I enjoy it far too much and it forces me to face up to a greed-is-good side of my personality which I'd rather suppress. So I sat knitting and listened in on the others.


Despite the Girl's best efforts to fleece her brother by taking advantage of his less than advanced grasp of numbers, and even though all he was really interested in was running the transport systems, in fact it was the Boy (with a little financial advice from his dad) who soon raced ahead and amassed a huge property empire. Alas the Man was not so lucky himself and had to declare himself bankrupt - which doesn't bode well for our current real life property speculation, but never mind.

Diner - is there anything finer?

Back to Saratoga Springs again, this time all of us, and we checked out the Saratoga Children's Museum. It was great fun, more of a play-and-activity centre than a museum. The kids loved riding the model trolley bus, serving up plastic food in a mini diner and generally let's-pretending. My favourite exhibit was this 'kinetic sculpture' which involved repositioning flat perspex rectangles in slots to make slopes for a ball to roll down - very satisfying.

All's wool that ends well

Today I made a trip to Saratoga Springs to visit a WAG who is based up there. It's about forty minutes' drive from Albany. As its name suggests it is a spa town and it's also famous for horse racing, and for being the original home of the potato chip, or crisp. The main street with its broad pavements (sidewalks) reminded me a bit of Bath, and it has that Bath-like alternative knit-your-own-yoghurt vibe going on too. It wouldn't have surprised me if we'd run into the barefoot hiker (well, it would have surprised me a bit, it was jolly cold this morning).

We were able to walk into town from L's house, which was a treat in itself, and after cappuccino and bagels in a great cafe we then enjoyed the delights of Saratoga Needle Arts, an amazing woolshop with a sale on. L, being of a crafty disposition herself, didn't seem to mind as I dithered forever before making a modest purchase. Heaven help me when it comes to choosing furniture for the new house - we'll probably just spend the next three years sitting on the floor.

A Bonfire Night reminder to Linton readers: we will not be hosting our annual pre-fireworks party this year, so please don't go descending in hoardes on our tenants expecting beer and Saratoga-style potato snacks.

Spirit of Tom Bowler

I more-or-less tailed the school bus this morning as I headed in for an early hours Parent Council meeting.

Readers of this blog who are veterans of playgroup committees, PSAs etc would have felt right at home, as I did. The focus was on fund-raising and featured the familiar complaint that it’s always the same people who end up doing all the work. Same the world over, then.

During a discussion of the recent Fall Fair I noted the absence of a tombola. Blank looks. Could it be, had I ventured onto virgin territory for that British fund-raising staple? I had!

Well, fear not, they’ll know all about it by this time next year - I've been co-opted as tombola coordinator! Even if the recent panto experience didn’t quite do the trick, surely the thrill of winning a tin of slightly out-of-date baked beans or a hideous pot-pourri dish will persuade our American hosts of what a joyous thing it is to be British. I'm so proud to be an ambassador for my country...

Hang on a minute. What have I done? If I'd just kept quiet I could have looked forward to three blissfully tombola-free years...

Darn it.