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Tuesdays at St. Pauls

St Paul’s Church holds a lunchtime concert on Tuesdays. I started going to these sometime in November. The church is a sturdy grey brick building, with a huge steeple, good stained glass windows, and is surrounded by a cemetery. Now, this is in the center of downtown Bedford, traffic is whipping around the surrounding streets, and each Wednesday and Saturday there’s a big Farmers’ Market in St Paul’s Square; it’s very much an urban church.

So on Tuesdays, I walk down by the Embankment, around the corner, cross High Street and go through the big doors of St Paul’s Church. I join about 30 other old people (I’m usually one of the youngest there) in the sanctuary under the vaulted ceiling, sunlight streaming through colorful stained glass, slate floors, and surrounded with lots of dark oak paneling and brass plaques dedicated to dead people. Altogether, quite nice – oh, there are also lots of religious statues and crosses in this Anglican Church, and each chair has a kneeling pad, which of course, we don’t use.

For just a couple of quid, you can also partake of the lunch provided by the ladies auxiliary. I’ve never been tempted, as the sandwiches look rather pale and utilitarian, and the cakes and biscuits rather bland. Some things just aren’t worth it, even at bargain prices!

A Lovely Woman, Heather, assembles the program by arranging for the musicians, and writing up an intriguing introduction to the music. Mostly, we’ve heard pianists from Cambridge, all serious music students and graduates who have won awards and performed all over the world. The choir and orchestra from the local Dame Alice Harpur middle and high school have performed, as well as a violinist. I missed the trumpet player.
It’s a wonderful interlude, in the midst of the hustle of a city, to enter a quiet place, sit with others, and hear music. I wonder if the musicians care (or notice) that half the folks have nodded off to sleep?

February 10: Moggerhanger Snow Drops

Spring is sprouting around here – and, I got a phone call (we get so few that it’s truly amazing when the phone rings!) from a friend to tell us about the snowdrops at Moggerhanger Park. Evidently this weekend is the height of the season. It was another sunny Saturday, so we decided to drive out and take the woodland walk around the grounds of this old country house.
Between Bedford and Sandy (we had seen this park when we went out to the RSPC bird walk), is the small Moggerhanger Park with a Grade One Georgian Country House. Evidently, the house is the most complete surviving example of architect Sir John Sloane. Of course we haven’t a clue why that’s significant, but it is quite a lovely setting, the woodlands were carpeted in blooms of white snowdrops, and we had a lovely walk on a sunny morning. Of course, the hot tea and biscuits the tearoom wasn’t bad, either!

It looks like this would be a great spot for special dinner. The menu selections include Pheasant breast filled with chestnuts and orange, as well as aubergine and courgette gateaux (that’s eggplant and zucchini in American).

Learning to Drive All Over Again

Since I’ve been rather reticent about driving here, I decided it would be a good thing to hire someone to help me transition to driving on the “wrong” side and feeling good about it. So, Den got the name of a fellow who came highly recommended. I made the call, found out that it would be 22/hour or the bargain price of 32/1.5 hours (that’s like, over 60 USD!). But, I figured it would be worth it to, you know, build up my confidence.

First off, Colin is a nice enough man; I actually like him. And, I think he likes me, although I don’t think I’d go so far as saying he enjoys my company, at least when I’m behind the wheel of his car.

Second, I now understand why there are always cars with these “learning to drive school” signs atop them – you cannot go outside without seeing one every 5 minutes, and I do not exaggerate.

Third, and probably the most important, the Brits are very proper. There’s always the right way to do something, and that includes how to drive a car. And, just as British high school students quake at the fear of not passing their A-levels, that seems nothing compared to passing the English driving test. If you get a license to drive an automatic car, it does not qualify you to drive a stick shift; why so picky?

Here are a few things I’ve learned, besides the fact that after 40-odd years of driving in the US, I know nothing. There’s a proper way to hold your hand on the gearshift knob, your thumb should point down if going into first and second, and point forward for third and fourth. The proper way to stop at a light is to shift down, put the car into first gear, leave your left foot on the fully engaged clutch, the right foot on the gas, and use the parking brake! Who woulda thought? (I swear this is what my father called “riding the clutch.”)

The average first-time learner needs about 45 hours of individual instruction (you figure out how much that costs!) There’s a theory test and a driving test. Less than half pass the test the first time, which costs around 50 each time you take it. Now I’m wondering whether it’s worth the embarrassment (let alone the pounds sterling), as I may never pass the test before we leave!

About Those Roundabouts

In all of Bedford there is only one stop sign, and very few street lights, which turn yellow-red-yellow-green, so you always can anticipate the green light (and take off the hand break in time!). Of course, there are hundreds of roundabouts.

Roundabouts come in all sizes and shapes. You thought they were all round, didn’t you? There are mini roundabouts (just about the worst, I think, for running into someone), double and triple roundabouts. It’s truly amazing to see an HGV (Heavy Goods Vehicle, an 18-wheeler in American) come barreling around a roundabout – these trucks literally lean over like a motorcycle!

The good thing about a roundabout is that you only have to stop if there’s traffic coming, and usually that means you just slow down a bit to wedge yourself into the traffic. If you get confused, just go around again. And, traffic is only coming from one direction, which is a good thing.

Den & I finally came up with a way to talk about how to exit the roundabout; we use the clock method. When giving direction, you say “Take a 9:00,” meaning exit on the left. If it’s high noon, go straight through. Sometimes a roundabout has 7:00, 9:00, noon, 2:00, and 4:00 o’clock exits. Cars are ripping through those things like salmon swimming upstream.

Of course, if you’re walking, it’s a bit difficult to maneuver through a roundabout, as no one stops. Cars really can’t stop for you, or they’d get rear-ended. I’ve figured out how to walk most places to avoid roundabouts all together. When walking I instinctively look for cars in the American way, then quickly look the English way. Stepping off the kerb is a bit daunting, I feel like Linda Blair in the Exorcist because my head is spinning in so many directions! Fortunately, I must not be the only one, because there are signs painted on the pavement at many intersections: LOOK LEFT or LOOK RIGHT. I’m sure it saves lives, probably mine on more than one occasion.

February 24: A Day at the Tower of London

After a brisk walk to the train station, we got onto the train and found seats just we pulled out of the Bedford Station. Good timing.

We’ve wanted to go to the Tower of London ever since we got here – there’s something mysterious and appalling about this historical place. After getting our tickets, we went immediately to see the Crown Jewels. Sunday is supposed to be a busy day, but we almost had the jewels to ourselves. We took our time ogling at the gloriously ornate crowns, scepters, and other royal paraphernalia. The Cullinan I (the First Star of Africa) is a diamond weighing just over 530 carats (about the size of my fist!) and sits atop the Sovereign’s Sceptre with Cross. Queen Elizabeth wears the Imperial State Crown every year at the State Opening of Parliament.

Yes, these are the real thing – the Crown Jewels have been at the Tower of London since at least the 17^th century, and in 1761 there was an attempt to steal them. It is amazing that you can stand a couple of feet away (granted, there’s several inches of glass) from these outrageous pieces. There were gold platters the size of dining tables, gold goblets, salt cellars, punch bowls – truly mindboggling.

After a cup of coffee and scone, we were ready to go on a guided tour by a Yeoman Warder, all dressed up in a red and black uniform. The Warders are not only tour guides (given with quite a performance), but also watch guards and managers of the Tower. There’s an official “locking up” of the Tower each night that has been carried out for over 700 years. The warders and their families live inside the Tower complex. Cool place, for sure!

After our tour, which just consists of showing you where the buildings are and talking about what’s inside, we got the audio tour and took off on our own. These audio tours are the best, often giving great insights and historical anecdotes.

The Tower began as home for William the Conqueror in 1066. But, the Romans had some type of building there at least 1000 years earlier. Over the years, the Tower was expanded and modified, and it’s uses varied from a home to a prison to storage for supplies and warriors.

Of course, the most infamous is the Tower as royal prison, where Henry VIII beheaded his wives Anne Boleyn (his second wife), Catherine Howard (his 5^th), and Lady Jane Grey, who was queen for all of nine days. Although most executions were done out for public viewing, those of queens were deemed too sensitive and were done on the grounds of the Tower. A new memorial of glass and steel commemorate the site of these executions.

There’s Traitor’s Gate, where prisoners could be brought into the Tower out of sight via a boat off the Thames. Wakefield Tower where instruments of torture can be found, Bloody Tower for the imprisonment of many. The Chapel Royal, with its whitewashed walls, was the burial site for some of the most famous executed.

Inside the White Tower, there are displays of all sorts of military guns, shields, armor, as well as portraits. Seeing the armor worn by Henry VIII, including that of his horse was pretty cool. And, of course, there’s the chopping block and axe for beheadings.

We walked, and looked, and read, and listened until we could take no more. We had spent the entire day – from 10:00am to closing at 4:30, and still didn’t see everything we’d like to see. And, since we regretfully left the camera at home, I know we’ll need to go there again some day. We walked to the Tower Hill Underground station in a light rain to catch the Tube to St Pancras, then the First Capital Connect train to Bedford. It was raining when we got home, so got a taxi – and had to tell the driver how to get to our flat. I guess we really are residents now!

January 12-13: Anniversary Weekend in London

It was a brisk walk to the train station, but a bright morning. It’s just about an hour train ride to London. At the new St Pancras station, we took the Tube to South Kensington, where we had made reservations at a small hotel near the Victoria and Albert Museum. We got to the The Claverly Hotel, dropped our luggage, and headed to the museum.

One of the first things you see coming into the V&A is a huge Dale Chihuly glass sculpture hanging over the information desk, right in the center of the main hall – he’s everywhere, albeit this one is a bit dusty!!

We had a great guide that took us through the English Galleries – with many anecdotes and stories about the items on display. I was amazed that we could take photographs of the permanent collection; the museum owns everything so there are no copyright issues. Flash is even permitted – a guard explained that the curators decided that the collection belongs to the British people, the most delicate things are behind special glass, and they would just risk any possible damage to anything else. It was really wonderful to be able to photos.

We spent the entire day walking through several galleries, but certainly only saw a small portion of the building and the collections, but it was great. We headed back to our hotel to rest our feet, scoping out a place to eat within walking distance, taking a short detour through Harrods, which was having a sale and it was a zoo – once we got in there, it took us half an our to find an exit. What with all that shopping frenzy, we needed to relax, so we bought a bottle of wine (we’ll need to add a corkscrew to our permanent packing list), headed back to the hotel and put our feet up, surrounded by rose chintz and lace.

We ate at the Racine, a delightful French restaurant with a great menu, lovely wine. We were seated in a back room (what? No reservations?), and we quickly started up a conversation with the only other person dining with us who probably didn’t have a reservation either. So, we had a delightful evening sharing information and stories with Iain, an architect/designer of ships. He’s one of a long line of ship builders; his grandfather (or maybe great grandfather) worked on the Cutty Sark. What an interesting evening!

On Sunday morning we had a great breakfast at the hotel, then caught the train out to Harrow-on-Hill to pick up our new-to-us Rover sedan. We bought it from Emily and Jereme, a PA who is leaving the UK to work for the US State Department. After careful instructions on how to get to M1, and after consulting the several maps we have, we took off for Bedford. Ah, how good it is to have a car, and to have made it home with nary a scratch, and only a few scary moments!

January 20:  Bird Walking

Now that we have wheels, we can venture farther afield. We decided to drive out to the RSPB (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds) preserve – it’s just about 15 minutes from Bedford in the village of Sandy. In the center of the preserve sits The Lodge, which is the headquarters for the RSPB. It’s a beautiful old building surrounded with gardens, ponds, tall trees, and meadowlands.

We timed our arrival for the bird walk given by a knowledgeable volunteer. The morning, cold and brisk, with clouds scudding across the sky, made for a vigorous walk through the woods and pastures, listening and looking for birds. I soon realized I was more interested in the vegetation: Den, what’s this? Look at this huge, gorgeous tree. Oh, sure there’s a bird, but what kind of tree is it perched in? And, then, I couldn’t keep track of which bird was the Great Tit and which was the one that made the “teacher, teacher, teacher” sound. I think I prefer the stability and nobility of trees and plants.

We stopped at a great coffee shop in Sandy that we had found in the Biking Around Bedford book. What a lovely day, despite the birds!

January 26-28: Birthday Weekend in York

I selected York for my birthday weekend – so, we pulled out several of the travel books that we had gotten before we left (thanks to several thoughtful friends), and planned where to stay and what to see. It’s so great being able to spend an entire weekend, rather than an afternoon or a day, to experience these places.

We started out rather early, hoping to make it to York before lunchtime, which we just managed to do. We hadn’t driven very far north, so most of this was new territory – and were surprised to see several nuclear power plants; England isn’t all country villages and rolling green hills.
York was wonderful – we stayed in a great B&B, walked all over. After lunch on our first day, we spent the rest of the afternoon at The Minster and stayed for Evensong. That night we had our best meal we’ve had in England at Cafe Concerto, an Italian restaurant just outside the city walls. On Sunday we took the walking tour given by volunteers from York; we have had such good luck with guides and tours, everyone loves to talk about their city or museum, and it really adds to our understanding and enjoyment. Of course, it was windy and cold, but we managed several hours of walking through Old York.

Den doesn’t start work until 3:00pm on Mondays, so we stayed Sunday night, had breakfast on Monday morning and headed Rover home, which took about three hours. Check out our pictures on kerlee.com | pictures | Den and Anne | England Adventures | Visits and Trips, there is commentary on most of the photos, so I won’t repeat things here.

Life in Bedford, so far

We’re settling in, sorting things out, as it’s said here. Our flat is pretty well furnished, it’s small, so it didn’t take much! We have our routines. Den gets up and fixes himself breakfast and if I’m awake, I get coffee and toast in bed – how’s that for nice? Then, Den is off to work, usually riding his bike, although he can walk, or take the bus with his “senior” card, it’s free.

I usually spend some time reading in bed. I open the curtains to our back garden, so that I can see the huge tree that is home to squirrels and all sorts of birds. I love this view. The tree is magnificent, and I’m anxious to see what it looks like when it leafs out. When we arrived in October, it was standing, naked, majestically against the blue sky. Squirrels really do live in the hollowed trunk – it’s all very Beatrix Potter!

After a proper lounge-about, I manage to roll out of bed, check email, and finish up the coffee. If there’s contract writing work to do, I’ll do a couple of hours of that, or straighten things up a bit. (I can clean the whole flat from top to bottom in an hour; there are good things about living a compact life.)
I usually plan an outing everyday. On Tuesdays it’s music at St Pauls, on Wednesdays it’s the Farmers Market, and now that we belong to a gym, I go there a couple of times each week.

I’ve realized I’m not as outgoing as I had thought – I certainly miss the boys and our friends, but I’m not really lonely. I know email and SKYPE have really helped us stay in contact with people, and I look forward to hearing news from home, no matter how mundane it may seem. (Thanks to everyone who keeps me up-to-date.) I keep busy enough, I love having time to myself and doing what I want to do, when I want. As yet, I haven’t felt the need to get out and meet a lot of people, perhaps that time will come, but for now, I’m enjoying the solitude and the excitement and satisfaction that comes of discovering a new place.

so yeah, india is cool. we started in calcutta/kolkata and that was nice. there are tons of people and lots of chai stands around and restaurants. the way people drive is quite erradic but it works for them. lots of honking is the only bad part. I’m told that to see the real india one needs to travel outside of the cities so maybe we’ll do that.  however we took the night train from kolkata to varanasi where I am right now. varanasi is unlike any city i’ve been to, its proximity to the holy river ganges pronounced ganga by the locals, gives a unique character to this place. the whole riverfront is stone stairs and walkways and kind of like a huge long stone park. only instead of being all clean and steril like the places like this in the us there are tons of peopel and animals and the signs of living. guys pee into open gutters, people are dressed in religious robes or washing or just going to work in collared shirts and slacks. there’s everyone here. got into a talk about whether or not the homeless people here give it a better feeling by making it seem like home and lived in and whether india’s relationship with the homeless is more healthy than in the us or perhaps the homeless people have something different here than the do in the states…something more or just different is part of the interestingness of the topic. This place feels ancient…like it’s not much different than it was 2000 years ago. Sure you can buy dvds of the most recent ganga worship ceremony and there are some tourists and motorized things and electricity, but the people seem to be living more like people did thousands of years ago than they do in seattle. cell phones etc are here but seems different anyway. i really like this place. oh! and one big difference is a large part of the city is composed of buildings lined with pedestrian only streets because they are too narrow for vehicles. mostly…some motorcycles/scooters go around. but mostly you’re dodging cows instead of motorized honking things. very nice and one of the biggest reasons why varanasi is different than other places I’ve been. I heard europe or some places are like this too. very cool, looking forward to checking this out. makes me think about urban planning… we should design cities for pedestrians and not so much cars.

The End of an Era

This month marked a milestone in the Miller family – my mother, Eunice Christine Jensen Miller died on December 7^th at the age of 93, just six weeks before her 94^th birthday. Mom had 93 really good years, and a few difficult months here at the end. She was ready to “go home,” as she put it, and although all of us knew this, it was still hard to see her slip away. Mom and I said our good-byes in September when I was last in Nebraska; we knew it would be the last time we would see each other.

I flew back to Nebraska on the 9^th; Doug came shortly after. He and Lily were traveling in Spain, so he took the fast train to Paris and caught a flight to Omaha. I’m sure Mom was amazed (and pleased) that two of her children flew from Europe to be with our family. It was good to see aunts, uncles, cousins, and neighbors that I hadn’t seen in years, all gathering to pay homage to a wonderful woman.

The day of her funeral was cold and blustery, but sunny. My older sister Kay came by the house to pick Dad and me up for the service. As I took Dad’s arm to walk down the drive, he said: “Where’s Mom?…Oh, yes.” And, I think that’s how we all feel now – how could she be gone? We four Miller kids have been so lucky to have two healthy parents that lived into their 90s, it’s hard to imagine life without them both.

I call Dad frequently, but neither of us does so well on the phone; we talk of the weather. I know he’s lonely – one thing about being a 91-year-old man of his generation is that all his friends died years ago. But, he’s active, drives around doing the “farm tour,” has coffee at the Highway Cafe, and falls asleep in front of the television most every night. Here’s to you, Dad.

Mallorca

I left Omaha on the 16^th, arriving in Gatwick the next day, took the train to Bedford, and got back to the flat around 2:00pm, unpacked and re-packed for a planned trip to meet Doug and Lily in Mallorca. Den & I had a quiet dinner, catching up on the last week. Then, the next morning, I took a taxi to the train station in time to catch the 6:00am flight from Luton, arriving a couple of hours before Doug and Lily. We met at the car rental, stowed our stuff, and headed off to the Northwest side of the island, stopping for our first (and one of many) delicious lunches.

The house we stayed in was on a bluff overlooking the Mediterranean – absolutely a beautiful spot, we could see both the sunrise and the sunset, could it be much better? Lily’s sister, Nancy, arrived the next day, and Den arrived on Saturday. It was a wonderful two weeks of eating, drinking lots of local wine, and touring around the island.

I’m not sure what I thought, but I had anticipated being warm (well, hot actually – I even brought a swimsuit!), but the Mediterranean isn’t always hot and sunny. I knew this, we had gotten weather updates off the Internet, and even with messing-up the conversion to Celsius, I knew it wasn’t going to be HOT, but hope springs eternal. We had enough days of stormy rain to know it was Christmas, and although mostly the days were sunny, it was coat and scarf weather. We managed to spend a few lunches basking on the sunny side of a patio.

There are some good things about going off-season, and certainly that is having the island to yourself. It must be a zoo in the summer – there were rows of Miami-Beach hotels lining the beaches (evidently half of the hotels in Spain are on Mallorca), all standing empty – closed up completely! It was surreal to drive through these tourist areas. But, then we’d find a village with some fabulous little restaurant, with wonderful wine. As Lily says, if you’re in the middle of a vineyard, you drink the house wine! We got really good at the 2-hour lunch!

Some remembrances: sheep grazing in a field with bells around their necks that made a wonderful song, a few early buds on the almond trees – the fragrance was incredible, the lovely seaside town of Portocolom, Roman ruins in Alcudia, a family church just off the road near Son Servera, challenging jigsaw puzzles, the caves at Arta, Rodin statues in Palma, shopping for pearls in Manacor, boarded-up empty hotels almost everywhere, a Christmas goose dinner, bottles of red wine for lunch and dinner and whenever, delightful 2-hour lunches. (See kerlee.com | pictures for details!)

It was good to be with family. It was good to be together. Thanks to Doug and Lily for arranging it to be so.

Man should you guys see my beard, it’s about an inch long all around, shaved my neck though a while back and mustache but it’s since grown back. It’s awesome and going to be more so. Tina doesn’t like it but tough for her. I think I’ll get her to braid it when it gets a bit longer perhaps.

While in malaysian borneo we went to Uncle Tan’s wildlife refuge and stayed two nights. Played guitar with the guides, learned and have since forgot the beautiful girl song that perhaps everyone’s heard. Saw animals like, bearded pig, monitor lizard, orangutan, nose monkeys (proboscis), king fishers, the eyes of crocodiles, long and short tail macaques that would sneak and steal breakfast biscuits until they were shooed off by the guides, the tourists just stood around and watched them haha. One of them stole a can of sweetened condensed milk. It’s fun to have monkeys steal stuff, where most places they’d be watched and loved, here they were pests to be scolded and throw stuff at hahahaha. Boat trips on the Kinabalu river, jungle treks through mosquito swarms to see tarantulas as big around as my head, frogs, crazy looking bugs, scorpions (had one on my hand for fun but it wasn’t), millipedes that smelled like marzipan if you rubbed their backs, more frogs, vines and plants and stuff that were cool and tropical, ants big around as my pinky finger, horn bill birds, eagles of some kind and some owls. Probably more too but that’s most of them. Naps in hammocks, butterflies swarming where some german guy peed the night before (I think they like salt?) and a pick up soccer game. The water level while we were there was static but they told us that it rises and sinks like 15 feet over the year, good stuff.

So we’re in Chian Mai now, northern thailand. From KK we went over to kuala lumpur, the penninsular side of malaysia. They had great indian food and there was a protest for fair elections going on when we were there. Lots of police and their trucks and even a helicopter, but no action the crowd was just taking pictures in front of the mass of po pos, so that was good if not as exciting as it could have been. We stayed a couple of days, oh and the indian food makes me hungry for india, gonna be so awesome!!!! Then we were up to the cameron highlands about halfway between KL and thailand, to check out the tea fields and strawberry farms, the tea fields were very picturesque and we got some accordingly and drank some tea and ate some crumpets. Walked around the jungle a bit and saw a waterfall, lots of garbage in it though, and not one to jump off of…more like cascading. Hawaii’s got everyone beat so far for falling water to jump off.

There are some travellers that we’ve run into in various countries just by accident, small world, probably because the tourist/backpacker areas are the places where everyone goes. We’ve been lucky with weather so far…Hmm…Oh then after KL we went north to george town on the island of penang? and stayed one night before heading off on the sleeper train to hat yai where we stayed a night and booked a taxi, bus, boat trip to koh pangnan for relaxing on the beach again.

Koh pagnan six am we arrived on the sleeper boat, great this, matresses laid out on the deck to sleep on while the boat took ten hours or so to get to koh pagnan. We skipped the taxis at first to walk a bit and caught a great double, almost triple rainbow on the beach. Funny that the ferry took us to thongsala, the south western tip of the island when everyone was going to hat rin on the south eastern tip, probably get kick backs from the taxi guys. That’s really the way it works everywhere, everyone all set up to take advantage of the unconnected and unknowing backpackers, c’est la vie 🙂 One joy of travelling comes from all the different names of hostels and shops and restaurants and places, so much fun. Right now we’re across the street from the crusty loaf bakery in a coffee internet shop that would fit in seattle wonderfully with its wood and om buddhist art and progressive what have yous.

So we spent a week and a half or two on haad yuan per Josh Brewster’s recommendation and it was great. Stayed in haad yuan bungalow with gunther and his wife sarah p as innkeepers in a great bungalow overlooking the beach and ocean. As picturesque as you could make it. Oh and I had TONS of fun climbing over the huge granite boulders on the beach jumping around on them. They were washed clean and very grippy…perfect for scrambling exercise. I think this is my favorite form of exercise, climbing around on huge boulders, up them between them under and around. Like a giant adult jungle gym, I think if a person could hook up some kind of gym in the city like this, giant adult jungle gym, it would be a big hit with at least one seattle resident. It includes all kinds of movements and works the whole body. I could set this up if anyone wants to invest in something that’ll be bigger than tae bo!

And we went to the haad rin full moon party which was like a huge frat party on the beach minus the machismo. Not as organized as a seattle festival, could have had more cohesion, each bar had their own thing going on, all of them played electronic music. One had a guy kind of rapping along with the music which would make beat poetry in that style, with the beat behind the poet, very powerful, maybe write something and try it out when I get back perhaps…now have to think of something to say….

After relaxing on the beach we booked passage to bangkok where we stayed, not on koh san road, but close to it on a better street I think that wasn’t as washed out touristy but still catering to backpackers. Bought a bunch of stuff like hammocks and teeshirts and little sculptures and some paintings and stuff then shipped back a ten kilo box to seattle with the goodies. Oh, bought some thai pants too which are great and I’ve been going commando for days now. We took the sleeper train to bangkok and it was nice. Watched some movies, stayed at the gecko guesthouse and had our laundry done for 25 baht/kilo.

The dollar is doing so poorly worldwide, if anyone knows why or how this works then please explain it to me. Also, please explain how a depression happens. There’s all these people out of work, wanting to work, why don’t they just work for each other? I don’t get depressions in the economy either.

After bangkok we took the sleeper train to chiang mai where we arrived today and will go on a jungle trek tour for three days starting tomorrow, where we’ll do some elephant riding and bamboo raft floating and wat looking, that sort of thing. Okay okay, more later, I hope I didn’t forget anything. Wish you were here 🙂

 

 

 

 

 

 

November 11, 2007

Den and I headed out to take a bike ride on our new bikes,
and we ran upon the Remembrance Day Ceremony at the Embankment. So, we hung
around to see how “Veteran’s Day” is observed. Imagine what it was like here in
Britain, after six years of war, to finally know that it was over! There was a
“salvation army’ kind of band, bag pipers, speakers, hymns, and prayers. But,
the most compelling was the laying of the poppy wreaths at the base of a
monument. The ceremony ended with a lackluster singing of the national anthem.
Perhaps it was the cold, windy, overcast day or the sober event, but I had
hopes for a rousing God Save the Queen.

November 9-11, 2007

How wonderful to see Kirsten Soderlind and her husband Stephen del Prete! They were in London on business and extended their time to include a weekend here in Bedford. We mostly walked the sites of Bedford and talked, stopping at local pubs.

Interestingly we found out that most of the pubs in the Castle Road neighborhood are Green King pubs, which means they all sell the same standard beers – Stella and Guinness, and others as well, of course. But the “free pubs” can select whatever beers they like, so have a much wider range, and choose from a variety of brewers, many local. These have great names like: Smiles Cheeky Pint, Titanic Iceberg, Spinning Dog, Rich Old Slug Porter, Arundel Lazy Willie, Phoenix Wobbly Bob. Alas, we couldn’t try them all – you’ll have to come back, Kirsten and Stephen!

November 8, 2007

It was a typical day, out shopping off my list of things needed for the flat. I try to be careful with the weight and amount of purchases, as I have to carry everything home. But, like many days, my shopping cart was bigger than my tote bags. So, there I am trudging home, shoulders sagging, wrestling with over-stuffed bags.

I crossed Castle Mount, following an elderly woman, also loaded down with shopping bags. She had a dignified walk and appeared to be in no hurry. As I passed her, I said something about feeling like a pack horse, then realizing that unless she was familiar with the American West, she may not understand that phrase. Never breaking her stately stride, she replied, “Oh, I take it as an opportunity to work on my deportment.”

It was
like a mad-hatters ride, driving to Woburn in the dark! Geez, cars and trucks
coming straight at us — the 2-lane road is winding, we’re hugging the left
side of the narrow pavement, it’s dark, and it appears that we’re going to be
smashed in a head-on collision at any moment! And, the rental car is a bit
dicey, the low beams illuminate 10 feet ahead of us, if that. Den’s gripping the wheel,
I’m trying to find where we are on the map, round-about confusion — it’s at 3
o’clock, no make that 9 o’clock (our trusty clock system of exiting roundabouts
fails us!).

Much to our surprise, we made it to Woburn to visit Neal
Erickson and meet Shannon (a PA from Kansas, no less) and her English fiance,
Adam. We saw a few of the fireworks, but alas, by the time we made it to the
village green, there was little of Guy Fawkes left in the bon fire, but we got
the picture. (And, to us, it was of a car bursting into flames, hit head-on by
one of the many semi-trucks that barrel at alarming speeds down these narrow
English roads!) We did have a lovely evening, despite the heart palpitations.

OK, this day-to-day stuff is ridiculous! I can barely write it, how can anyone stand to read it? So, from now on, I’ll be writing some stuff, but certainly not a day-by-day account. Living in England is different, and I’d love to share those things — and, to look back on how things felt, what struck our fancy, and how we’re coping. Being here is great — certainly things I miss, but it’s brilliant!