Christmas has come and gone, but happy memories live on.

 Christmas has come and gone, and I am tucked up in bed, with a nasty seasonal cough (unusually for me).  whilst it was nice to do the usual resevoir walk and very special to visit Mount Grace and Saltburn,  I felt disconnected at Christmas.  Perhaps that is what happens after two significant losses in the year. 

The dog loved the wild sea, there was a huge queue for fish and chips and people were surfing,  so an interesting first visit to this northern seaside town. 

 However, perhaps it is also because unintentionally I had so many treats before Christmas as I caught up with friends and family in Croatia and made new friends volunteering with Englishausen near Munich.  I have never been to so many Christmas markets before, and whilst I do not think of them as my kind of thing, and sadly I am aware that they can attract the wrong kind of attention,  they were great fun or it was great fun seeing everyone enjoying themselves so much and enjoying the differences and similarities between the markets, culminating in the one in Salzburg.  I have amassed a small collection of Gluhvein mugs which will hopefully help me remember this time when I am even more in my dotage.     I also still have not managed to see the whole of Sound of Music, but I know a lot more about where it was filmed and of course,  Mozart has been revisited.  The house where he was born said he was an internationalist because as a young man he could move around and work everywhere in Europe.    Interesting observation, in these really difficult times. 

        

Salzburg

Zagreb

Munich's main Christmas market. 

Flooding risk and how to respond, or Bert bashing at the window.

 Whilst I was in America, Hurricane Helene raged,  and someone I know was caught up with it.  She said for several days before they had to evacuate as the sound was horrendous, but they are used to living in Florida and so mostly know how to deal with these things.  However, they were a bit caught out when it came to the evacuation and the getting the wood to board up the property as they had not got any in ahead of the storm.  It was only because there were several people in the house, that it was possible to nail the property as tight as possible before leaving the home. The other thing about the evacuation was thinking about everything they needed to take with them including the hamster.  Again this is a family used to these things, and used to getting text messages telling them what to do, a family that already has a grab bag ready for such events, but even they had a few difficulties and if they had not got a car or the $1000 dollars the hotel away from home cost them, how would they have managed.  Would they have been like the people of Valencia, literally swept up in the disaster and dead, for the want of sufficient warning and useful messages of advice.  

Every since my sister's neighbourhood got cut off in the snow, I have wondered how I and others in my situation would manage.  Some of the residents of Weardale were cut off in the snow wihtout any heating, so the carers, who knew their clients, found themselves helping with solultions, rather than the Council.   Since then, the locals in Weardale have tried to build their resilience e.g. learning where power operates, where power doesn't, who has a spare generator, who is totally isolated. However, when they tried to work with the Council on this, the volunteers found them got bogged down in the Council systems, so no permanent way forward was found as far as I know.  

A wet and windswept Broxbourne. 

This weekend I was supposed to be travelling to Basildon, but I decided in view of Bert's activities to give it a miss. Bert is the second named storm is it of the season?  And at present there are about a 100 flooding warnings out and 20000 in the UK without power.    How many of us know how to prepare for such a situation?  There is this Government website Prepare for a flood,  and that on a personal level is definitely a good starting point, and I know that various organisations locally have a plan, but us individuals who they are planning for, have not been let into the plan.  Some years ago I approached the local Council asking for greater coordination between them and us, and they replied thoughtfully but said that there was no such a mechanism.   Since then the number of floodings and the seriousness of floods has only increased, so a reminder for myself, be prepared, a reminder to dear reader/s be prepared, but also I need to go back to the Council and see if more can be done.  

Also remember there are plus sides from not being able to travel three hours in the wind and rain as yesterday I managed to go to a music concert by harpist,

Harriet Adie,  which was really lovely and I also dropped in on the WTBL Christmas do, however, I feel really sorry for those like Love Hoddesdon putting events on today as the wind and the rain will put most people off, it certainly has me, which is why I am at home writing this.  I finally have a bit more work as I have done my training to update my sklls, but I am still not very adept at the new system so am taking it gently. 

Small work crisis.

 One of the thing facing many older people is how and when to give up work and how much money is needed to do so.    In my head I had thought keep going to 70.  I am only doing about 10 hours a week, so that is manageable till then,  maybe even May.... July etc. Always extending it (a third goes in taxes now) , not just because of the money but because I have always worked.   But I had a real shock today, apparently I am not going to be offered any more private work and as that is 98% of what I do that is in effect it unless I retrain.    So now I am in the midst of an internal debate as to whether to give up or try to go on.  Many friends are still working part time.  Most of them have better pensions than me but value the intellectual stimulation. Others say don't be daft stop working.   J's kindness means I am not the impoverished soul I once was or felt myself to be, but having been told how much it will cost to do up my place.... etc etc and really what I was earning was pin money.  So I do not know.    I may not have a choice in the matter.  And now it looks like my last ever student is not going to turn up!. 

And to make things work,  America voted Trump back in.  

Washington part 2 and the end of the holiday.

 I went from a huge house on the outskirts of Washington, to a little space, a pod, the bottom one of three in a 6 person room. Both were lovely.  I was in the Adams Morgan district and I don't know what it is like the rest of the year, but the two nights I stayed were like one big infectious party.  It is perhaps very annoying if you want to sleep, but I just wanted to stay out on the street as much as possible to take in the variety of people, the music blaring out from the speakers set up outside the bars, and the variety of eating places.  There were even eccentric pimped up cars, slowly parading the streets, like something out of a film. but that is America, all of it is something I have only seen before on films (or my history books) and yet it is real. 

Lincoln's View. 

Saturday,  I went back downtown to the Washington that is so familiar, yet none less moving for that - LIncoln Memorial but I approached from the reverse side, from the Potomac, with the runners, and the boats and people playing beach volley ball. And then there is was that view down The Mall, people climbing the steps and one little muddled boy saying it was the White House.  He was not the only one to get his locations confused another parents was telling their child the State Capital was the White House! So both very familiar and yet unfamiliar  Things we see but do not quite understand or absorb.  In fact, the White House was so distant when I got even remotely close to it,  it was hard to conceive that this was such a significant place.

 I hope another time, if I ever get the chance, to go more into the musuems that explain these sights, but I headed to the African American Museum. It was packed and for some reasons the busiest parts were at the bottom of a small dark space,  I wondered if they were trying to get us to understand something visceral about the experience of slavery, in addition to the information that spiralled from bottom  through the history of civil rights to the point of Obama's unprecedented and at one time inconceivable achievement.    I was there a good couple of hours and could have stayed longer but needed sunshine and food.   

Salem

Then the following day,  it really did feel like the holiday was virtually over,  the 8 hour Amtrak journey back to Boston along stunning coastline,sped past and then I was back in Boston.  The weather turned on a dime, it was soaking wet when I finally boarded the boat to Salem and I dripped around the town.  Every vital witch museum was fully booked and a few people were dressed up in something that indicated they were witches, but the numbers in town were probably much lower than normal owing to the weather.  I was happy to potter around and take it all in but I was most interested in the historic buildings.   

My last day, the sun was back out again and it was lovely to go to Harvard, it is a University that seems to wear Autumn clothes well.  There is a building there by Corbusier, but I popped next door instead to the art gallery.  

I could happily stayed living in America (if I could have afforded it) and having weekends in Washington and Harvard and so on.  Instead I walked back through the harbour area and to the hostel, and then that was that. The flight home was effortless, why has it taken me so long to do such an easy journey.  Let's hope the money and energy will last long enough to enable me to return, I am glad and blessed to know America better.   

Colonial America.

It was chucking it down when M rolled up at the hotel, but she made light work off the treacherous conditions and drove us down to Mount Vernon, Washington's place near Alexandria.   She is very organised and we sat and ate her pre packed breakfast come lunch before heading in.   The house,  with slave quarters nearby, is grand yet simple, larger than the norm, but not excessive. It overlooks the Potomac,  so a beautiful location and he lived here almost all his adult life, with his wife.  He was her second husband, and she died youngish, but he lived on in the house entertaining the many guests and family. Of course he could not have done it without the slaves who worked the land, on his death bed, his slaves were as per his will released, but not those he inherited from his wife.  Everyone acknowledges it is a complex and problematic history, yet in many ways he seems a decent chap, in fact that is part of the problem, sensible thoughful men doing the terrible and unthinkable at the same time as creating a nation.  

                                                                             

Washington's view over the Potomac

To help us understand these people, actor interpreters are employed and we enjoyed meeting Doctor Craik who had both treated Washington and become the nation's doctor.  His services were requested too late in the day to save the "great" man. However, his reimaginer entertained us with thoughtful observations of how he became a Doctor in Virginia after leaving his native Scotland.  He was so persausive that one young audience member was trying to work out how he could be speaking to someone over 200 years old.   It was a wonderful introduction to Colonial America.  We followed it with my second Mexican meal of the holiday before meeting her family and bedding down early ready for the second day of the adventure.  

There is an updated memorial on the site too. 

 Mount Vernon is relatively close to the outskirts of Washington where M lives, but Monticello, (Jefferson's place) via a brief stop at Montpelier,  Madison's place, is a longer drive away.  Our original plan had been to go on from there to Richmond and the Civil War musuem, but Monticello, first with the house visit and then finding out more about him, his relationship with Sally Hemmings and other slaves and family members, and his love of innovation in the garden, kept us busy all day.   He was in the room when it happened, but seems an even more problematic slave owner than Washington.  Like Washington, he was widowed relatively young, but that does not excuse getting off with his wife's half sister (I hope that is correct) who was both a child and a slave.   He was a philosopher and architect, an enlightened man, who seemed not remotely aware of the humanity of those who lived in his home.    

                                                                                   

Garden view of Monticello

His home at the top of a hill in Virginia (suddenly lots of Trump support flyers en route) is in a beautiful location.  The trees do not allow the view almost all the way to the sea that it must have once had but one can just about see through to the University he helped promote and up in the skies above vultures wheeled in search of prey.  It is an amazing place.  

From there we did pass through Richmond where we stopped at a huge cemetery, overlooking a restless James river, the final resting place of Jefferson Davis and thousands of young men killed in the (Un)civil war.                                                                  

Confederate graves. 

Our hotel in Williamsburg for two people for the night, including breakfast and a wonderfully relaxing swim/spa was cheaper than one night in a dormitory in Boston, so getting away from the main sights out of season is definitely worth doing.  

Our last day was dedicated to a visit to Williamsburg, a sort of American Beamish, where genuine town features and authentic properties are brought together and brought to life by the many staff in character in shops, and restaurants or through visits to elements of the town e.g. the court, the pub and Governor's Palace.   Having arrived about 10 we did not get away till about 5, so broke the journey home with a picnic of breakfast items and M picnic.  

There is no way I would have seen so much in America without M, RM and JV,  I am indebted to them, but M especially helped me really get to grips with the Colonial history.  It is of course a tragic history,  for a few miles down the coast Pocahontas met a young English man, and is now buried in Gravesend, but her people, were gradually pushed off the land or killed.   I loved interacting with the actor interpreter Washington, but felt overwhelmed in the Native American space.       I wish we had had time to go to Jamestown or Yorktown but it just was not possible in the time we had but it would be nice to go back and explore those histories more too. 

A short walk near the Potomac and one of the smallest cemeteries from the Civil War,  ended my stay with M,  and then it was back to Washington and time to myself.  

                                                                                       

Washington Part 1

 The minute you emerge from Washington Station the Capital building is ahead of one, and I was drawn towards it immediately despite the rain, forgetting that I was supposed to look for somewhere to drop my bags.  By the time I got to the Native American musuem it was coffee time so the poor security guy had to rifle through all my bags so I could grab another delicious muffin ( so much better than British ones) and then head upstairs dragging my bags behind me to engage in the detailed history of the native americans.  I could have spent a fortune in the musuem, but reminded myself to wait to I returned, but of couse I never did. However, I did treat myself ot one of the native American inspired food dishes before trailing on through The Mall and then up towards my hotel.  

The history of how the white man made all these deals with the natives, is an excrutiating one, but the musuem tries to give a balanced view of the relations which after a couple of centures had almost driven all the nations to extinction.  However, the museum is a celebration to of how the tribes and their cultures found ways to surive in some ways.    

The hotel that night was a treat,  I figured after several days with friends, where I was not sure how well I would have slept and time at the hostels I might need some time to myself. As it happened because I was so tired and everyone so kind I had actually slept well everywhere but was still shattered by the time I got to my hotel, too tired to head back into town once I had downed copious cups of tea but I was pleased to potter around the local area.  Washington is full of the most amazing houses,  and little districts. Lovely.  

Baltimore.

 I have not seen RM since we lived in Senegal, but recently she dropped in on my son in Croatia. She is a lovely person, always interested in other cultures and something of a linguist as she speaks Icelandic, some Arabic and Japanese and Bosnian!  As she works I wanted to see her at the weekend.  I arrived an hour late Friday evening and we drove straight through to the trendy Federal Hill district and the Cross Street market to try the best Tacos in town.  I have never had tacos before, they are perfectly nice, very good in fact, but I was confused by the addition of chips and cheese as I envisaged a northern delicacy alongside a southern one, but was completely wrong. We had so many chips to eat, we still had not finished them by the time I left on the Monday.  

As we drove to RM's home she explained which districts were skeetchy and which safe and how she bordered on a good one.  Her house was tall and narrow,  and packed with things, much more like my place, than the elegant flat in Philly.  That and the greeting by the dogs made it feel very welcoming. 

Next morning rain and sun was promised and we got both and a delicious pumkin muffin whilst en route to a walking tour of Anapolis.  Another State House, another room where it happened,  the realisation that the lightening rod is another of Ben Franklin's innovations, lovely to see the Maryland artic explorer Matthew Henson acknowledged, and sad to see the slave market information a bit buried, whilst Harriet and Douglass' link to the town was celebrated.   And by the then the sun was really shinning so we hoped on a boat to see the town from the water's edge, before enjoying crab soup and oysters in a really traditional local restaurant.   

I was happy with tea and jam for my evening meal by the end as I had eaten so much previously.  However, Sunday morning we had a brunch treat.  RM wanted to go to one of the trendy restaurants which would have been nice but they had a wait time of almost an hour, so we went to a really traditional place, it looked almost like a bar or snooker place, yet they had huge breakfasts for just $10 each.    After that I was planning to go to the picturesque part of town whilst RM worked but the electrics were out so she had to drop me at another museum, where I was able to see some modern indigenous art and more traditional American wares.  I was feeling very rough by the end unfortunately but a Senegalese take away helped revive me before I crashed out and then that was it,  RM was back to work, her partner,  from famed punk band, Moving Targets, kindly dropped me off at the station and I was onto Washington!  Capital city, here I come.