Holiday snaps part 1 - Boston

Hello!  Back in the USSR home once more, in heaving rain and tempestuous winds.  Oh, and yesterday there was some End of the World stylee thunder and lightning.  So hurrah for British weather.  Bit of a culture shock, leaving the clear (mostly) blue skies and solar-flare temperatures of New England, but at least it means I can stand outside barefoot without feeling as though the soles of my feet are frying.  Well, I could if I could stand up for any length of time.  Which I can't.

I mentioned the sprained ankle, yes?  Look, here it is in swollen, revolting glory, just after we got back from Nantucket and I had peeled off the acid-covered, burning, sticky bandage from HELL.

Makes your stomach turn, doesn't it?  It does mine, but then I know what it feels like.

I just looked up "Sprained ankle recovery time" on the Internet and apparently I have another 3-5 weeks of this to go, then anything up to 3 months of "continued instability".  I assume they mean the ankle.  The swelling is going down, and the truly stomach-turning purple bruises that covered the side of my foot and lower leg are going green, so are less conspicuous.  Gah.

Other than that, though, things at the WithaY household are going well.  Mr WithaY has popped out to collect the fish to put back in the aquarium.  Hopefully they will all still be alive after a month at the Fish Hotel.  I also hope they've not been running up huge room service bills, having lavish parties and watching porn movies.  You never know with fish. 

We are dog-sitting today for some friends, our little hairy guest is asleep in the hall downstairs, having worn himself out chasing his hide chew all over the house, growling at invisible enemies in the garden and being told off for trying to get on my lap on the sofa.  We love him really.

Anyhoo.  Photos.  I took over 1000 pictures in America. Who'd have thought there was that much to look at, eh?  Some of them, I admit, were taken purely for the fun of posting them on here.  See if you can guess which ones they were, readers. 

I made my very own LOLpic, too.  I'm so hip and happening.

I expect all the American readers will be thinking "Bah, that's so old," but it made me laugh.

Holiday pics from here on in, so if that sort of thing bores the arse off you, maybe go and get a cup of tea or something and I'll see you later.

Boston was the first stop, so here are some touristy shots of the city.  I like it very much, especially now that the Big Dig is finished and that hideous flyover that cut the place in half has gone.

This is the iconic shot of the city from the harbour.  We did a boat trip.

This is the captain* of the boat we were in.  He is chilling out, eating an ice cream and steering with his feet.  We didn't crash into anything. 

Look, here we are on the boat.

This is the view from the top of the Prudential Center, the Skywalk Observatory.  It's jolly high up.  Our hotel was on the left hand side of that long straight road, easy walking distance from the Center.

We had our first proper meal in America in the food court of the mall at the Prudential Center, and very nice it was too.  I recorded it for posterity.  Lobster rolls, clam chowder and oyster crackers.  Nom nom nom.  Mr Withay managed to feature clam chowder in almost every meal he ate in Boston, apart from at breakfast. 

This is the Christian Science Plaza, which has some funky fountains and this reflecting pool.

I like how this man looks as though he is lying in the water.

 

This sign at the reflecting pool caught my eye.  It says "no swimming or wading" but it is quite hard to read unless you get into the water to see it.  I had to use my zoom lens. 

Fenway Park, home of the Red Sox. I think there is a law that every single person in Boston, man, woman and child MUST own and wear at least one item of Red Sox clothing whenever they go out in public.

 

The New England Aquarium is well worth a visit.  The outdoor seal tank is great, there was always a huge gaggle of families watching the seals swimming about.  I was very taken by the penguins, particularly this one who looks like an overweight heavy metal fan giving it some in the front row at Donington. 

There were many fish, jellyfish, seahorses and sharks.  We were in there for ages, not least because it was air-conditioned, and it was a boiling 30-odd degrees outside. 

 

I spotted this sign in their gift shop.  Sound advice for us all, I think.

 

We found a place to eat in Quincy Market, where I packed down the largest plate of fried scallops in the Western Hemisphere.  Mr WithaY had clam chowder with his.

 

We tried to book seats on the Codzilla speedboat trip, but it was fully booked, so we watched from the shore as the over-excited passengers boogied to AC/DC while the large, ultra-cool CodMeister watched them with a benevolent eye.

 

Next time, Codzilla.  Next time.

This is the front of the v big, v posh looking Colonnade Hotel, where they provide teeny eco-cars for the guests.  Our hotel had an ice machine. That was fine by us. 

Next time:  Maine - the saga continues.

*I edited his face as I don't want him to get fired or anything.  I suspect he was doing it for effect.

Finishings

I've got used to the snow now, and I rather like it.  Everything I can see from my window looks somehow exotic and mysterious, transformed by the change in light and colour.  The sky is overcast today, but yesterday it was clear blue, and made the snow glow purple as the sun was setting. 

Plus it's entertaining watching people picking the their way to the garage or the recycling bins.  Mr WithaY spent a chunk of yesterday afternoon shovelling snow from the paths around the house, and scattering rock salt (part of the mighty hoard of out-of-date foodstuffs we obtained from Father-in-Law WithaY's house) to try and make it safer.  I think it's starting to melt a bit now, but more is forecast.  Mind you, as we know, the weather forecasters make it up as they go along.

Today was a big day for the aquarium.  Mr WithaY went to the Fish Emporium and came home with two female Dwarf Gourami, which were introduced to the rest of the tank this afternoon.  The male Gourami was prodding the bag they were in with his nose while they were being brought to the correct temperature, and since they were tipped out into the tank he has been chasing one or both of them like a fish possessed.  Mr WithaY had already rejigged the contents of the tank so that there are plenty of places to hide, so I don't think anyone will get too stressed.

All the little shrimp seem to have gone into hiding.  Apparently they do this for weeks on end, reappearing unexpectedly. I look forward to it.

Other news:  Very little.  I have barely stuck my nose out of the front door for a week.  Tomorrow I need to go and pick up my note from the doctor, so I will probably pop to the shops and pick up some groceries, because I am going bonkers, frankly. 

I think I need a new keyboard for the PC as well.  The keys are sticking a bit, and given that I pound away at them, I expect they are worn out.  I get told off sometimes for typing too loudly.  One friend accused me of using a toffee hammer.  I think it's because I learned to type on a portable typewriter, not a computer, and never learned to do it properly. 

Oh, I finally finished the scarf I was knitting for Mr WithaY.   I had intended to make tassles for it as well but my attempts were woeful, and I gave up.  I will iron it and see how it looks, and if it looks too naked I will have another go.  I'm not optimistic. 

I also finished the course of antibiotics I have been on since Monday, so with any luck my lung is no longer infected and the horrible coughing will diminish.  This is week 6, and I am very, very tired of it.  As you can probably tell by the distinct lack of sparkle in recent posts. 

Normal service will be resumed soon.  I hope. 

Hoary

Managed to get an emergency appointment with the doctor this morning, which was a relief.  Apparently I have both a virus AND a bacterial infection, which is why I felt a bit better after the first load of antibiotics before Christmas, but then much worse again. 

It seems that my body is hosting a tag-team of infections, taking it in turns to overpower my feeble swooning immune system and ravage it whilst twirling their moustachios.  Listen...you can just hear them going "Mwahahahahahahahaaaaa" as they do it. 

Lovely.

Anyway, he's prescribed me some more powerful antibiotics and signed me off work for a week, and told me to come back if I am not greatly improved by the weekend.  He was very reassuring, which has made me feel much better.

Whilst walking around town* for a few minutes waiting for my prescription to be made up, I took a couple of pictures of the hoar frost on the trees.  It is still minus 4 outside, even though the sun is shining.  At least we haven't had any snow recently.

It's very pretty out there.  I'm just glad I get to enjoy it from inside my warm cosy house.

Other news:  All the fish in the aquarium are still alive, which is encouraging.The two little shoals of tetra and barbs are swimming around together, which is entertaining to watch.  The gourami seems to prefer hanging about near the surface, sometimes diving down to the gravel at the bottom, terrorising the leopard cory. 

*Ha.  But I did pop into the butcher to get some mince, and tell them how great the turkey was.

Foaming

If you were wondering why it had all gone a bit quiet over here, it's because I still have a fucking chest infection, and feel like shite.  It went away for a few days, then came back with extra phlegm and coughing just to remind me how great it was first time around.  So, back on the phone tomorrow morning to try and get an emergency appointment with the doctor, more antibiotics, and probably some steroids to help me breathe.  I am SICK of it. 

I have had it for over three weeks and it is boring, painful, alarming and disgusting in turn.  Lucky old Mr WithaY gets to hear me cough, choke, splutter, gag, retch and then swear about once every six minutes.  How nice for him.

On the plus side, my finger is healing up nicely.  I will have an Interesting Scar to add to the many others.  Don't you agree, scarred knuckles make a woman look extra-specially elegant?  I bet Audrey Hepburn had knuckles you could grate cheese on. 

Added to the docker's cough I have going on, I am quite a catch, let me tell you.

Other news:  We have more fish in the aquarium.  All the "old" fish are still alive, and the "new" fish are looking cheerful too, so we are very pleased.  Mr WithaY has been doing all the scientific stuff with pH testing, and water changes and gravel sucking* and the like, and so far, so good.  We now have:

5 x freshwater shrimp
7 x glowlight tetra
5 x leopard cory
6 x pentazona barbs
1 x dwarf Gourami

We also had some teeny snails, but Mr WithaY hoiked them out and disposed of them, bloody freeloaders.

Also, the dishwasher was blocked**.  We've had it for about  4 years, and it has always been great.  A simple arrangement, but it works.  We put dirty greasy dishes in, a little while later it beeps, we take nice hot clean dishes out.  It's like having a robot slave in the kitchen, which, frankly, is what I was hoping would happen in the Twenty-First Century. 

Anyhoo, today it beeped, I opened it and instead of hot clean dishes there were hot wet dishes and several inches of hot grey water in the bottom of the dishwasher.  Gah. 

I did what any self-respecting modern woman would do: removed the filters, then poked ineffectually in the water-filled hole with a long spoon before going to ask Mr WithaY to fix it.

We both considered the problem from all angles, poking with the spoon in between discussing probable causes of the blockage, and how much a plumber would cost if we had to call one out next week.

After an hour or so of this useless flapping about, Mr WithaY decided to pour a bottle of Mr Muscle sink unblocker into the dishwasher and leave it for 15 minutes, as per the instructions.  Once the 15 minutes were up, we ran the empty dishwasher on a Rinse Cycle, congratulating ourselves on our amazing fixing skills. 

It beeped.

We opened it.

We closed it again hastily, great clouds of toxic, corrosive Mr Muscle bubbles spilling up from the drains, in danger of seeping out of the edges of the door.

We looked at one another in horror. 

"We've fucked up the dishwasher!"

"No we haven't.  It's just a bit....frothy."

"How are we going to get rid of all that deadly poisonous foam?  We can't put our hands in it or we'll strip ourselves down to the bone!"

"Hmm.  Let's run another rinse cycle and see what happens."

Mr WithaY is a fan of the "Let's See What Happens" school of thought.

We ran another rinse cyle.  Then a third.  We poured several jugfulls of tap water into the dishwasher, hoping to wash away some of the Foam of Death.   We ran another rinse cycle.  After what seemed like many hours of this, the foam level subsided by inches. 

We were winning. 

If you've never stood in a kitchen on a Sunday afternoon listening to the noise a dishwasher makes as it drains, trying to establish what a free-running drain sounds like, you've never lived, that's all I can say. 








*I think there is a more technical term for it, but it escapes me.

**I didn't say it was interesting news. 

Compliments of the season

Hello!  Season's Greetings and all that jazz.   Hope everyone is having a pleasant time. 

We've been having a very quiet Christmas here, which has been (and continues to be) lovely.  My hideous racking cough has diminished, although every now and again it creeps up on me, leaving me wheezing, teary-eyed and panicky.  Mr WithaY has gone down with a merry festive head cold and has spent much of the Christmas period so far on the sofa with a box of tissues and the remote control to hand. 

No relenting on the Christmas tree thing, and to be honest, I've not missed having one.  When we were getting all the boxes of decorations out of the loft it felt like only a few weeks since we put the things up there, so maybe a year off will make us appreciate them more next time.

The fabulous free-range turkey was cooked to perfection, along with half a pig's worth of chipolatas, stuffing and bacon.  We managed to get through about 1/50th of it at lunch yesterday, so I can see a few curries in our future.  Fortuitously, Middle Sis and family have sent us some very interesting looking Malasian curry mixes, so we can try them out.

This is the first Christmas I think I can remember where neither of us got books as gifts.  In years gone by, I would get the new Terry Pratchett, and then spend Boxing Day reading it, but over the last couple of years I have been very impatient and bought them when they come out, rather than waiting a couple of months till Christmas. 

We did, however, get lots of DVDs, so we have spent the last few days sitting on the comfy sofas watching them.  Oh, and chocolate, which was handy whilst watching the DVDs.  The new Star Trek is still excellent, and I still want to run away and join Starfleet.  

It's thawed out now.  Tuesday and Wednesday were terrifying.  Coming back from a neighbour's house at about 11.30 at night, everything was covered in thick sheets of ice.  It looked as though a hose had been turned on over everything, and then allowed to freeze solid. 

Walking home was the most scary thing I have done for many years.  I walked along on the grass where I could, clinging to fences and gates all the way, but I had to strike out across the roads a couple of times, and it was really just luck that I didn't end up face down on the ice.  One of our friends was less fortunate and took a slip and tumble on the way to the party, giving herself some very nasty bruises in the process. 

Anyhoo, Mr WithaY was helpful, offering me his arm (which I refused on the grounds that if I was going down I would only take him with me.  Such a hero, me) and some sage advice on how to walk on ice.  You have to "straddle, and walk crabwise" apparently.  At one point I was in the middle of the road, feet slipping wildly, not making any forward progress, when a car turned the corner and headed towards me.  I stayed where I was, unable to get out  of the way, convinced I was either about to break my nose/head/arms on the ice, that or get run over.  The car slid to a stop, and the driver very kindly waited till I had got myself off the road before continuing slowly on his way. 

We went to see Father-in-law WithaY and the roads were like ice rinks, even in the Landrover we were sliding about.  But everything is thawed out now, thankfully. 

Other news:  We have fish in the aquarium!  Some little glowlight tetras, which are small and pretty, and very entertaining to watch.  We started off with eight, but one of them didn't make it, and had to be scooped.  The remaining seven are settling in, chasing each other all over the tank, sometimes swimming in a shoal, sometimes all off in different directions.  They seem to like the pipe where the water comes out of the pump/filter thingy, and queue up to take turns at being pushed away by the flow. 

I like it when they all gather in the corner of the tank and watch the TV.  You can almost hear them: "Ooh, CSI!  I haven't seen this one."

Tomorrow we are going to get some more fish, which hopefully will survive the trip home.  I think barbs are next on the list, but we will take advice from the nice young man at the aquarium supply shop.  Mr WithaY did the science stuff today, testing the pH and so on, and everything was ok for a new tank.  The plants are doing well, so we are taking that as a good sign.

It's all very pleasing, watching the fish.  And good for the blood pressure, apparently.  Just as well after three days of TV-watching and chocolate-eating, really.   Aaah Christmas.

Fish!

It's been a busy day today.  I am feeling much better, despite coughing till my eyes fall out several times an hour, and to celebrate we shifted furniture about for a while.  Well, I say "we".  In fact, Mr WithaY did it and I flapped about behind him with a duster. 

Oh, reader, the filth!  The FILTH.  We live in disgusting slatternly surroundings, despite the best efforts of the Staff. 

Why are we moving furniture? You may well ask. 

Is it because we are playing some large-scale Chinese puzzle game with the entire house?

Is it so we can get into those really tricky corners for a good hard clean?

Is it so we can finally measure the exact internal dimensions of the sitting room?

No.

We are getting an aquarium.

It is our Christmas present to ourselves, and we are very excited about it.  It will be a tropical freshwater tank; we plan to get lots of small shoaling fish, hopefully ones which will flit about appealingly and not try to kill each other.  We had a  place for it all planned out, till Mr WithaY read one of his new "How Not To Kill All Your Tropical Freshwater Fish Instantly" books, and we learned that the place we had planned to put the tank was almost exactly wrong. 

We readjusted our thinking and decided on the diametrically opposite corner of the room, hence the need to move furniture.  Oh, and now there's nowhere to put the Christmas tree*.  Bugger.

We collect the tank on Sunday, get it set up, and a week after that we can introduce the fish. 

"Fish, tank. Tank, fish." 

Other news:  We listened to the last hour or so of the last ever Terry Wogan breakfast show this morning, and I had a little tear in my eye at the end of it.  Yes, I know.  But he has been a part of my life as long as I can remember, usually in the background to the early morning getting ready for school/college/work panic, and I will miss that.   Not that I listened much of late, either being on the train and unable to, or in my office at home with Planet Rock on, but hey, it's the thought that counts. 

Oh, also:  I saw this, and I agree. It is a tricky ethical area.



*We're really late with everything this year.  If we carry on at this rate, it will be about February before we get the tree up, and August before the mulled wine and sausage rolls make an appearance.

Travellers' tales

I'm still afflicted with Lurgy.

Bloody London germs, with their sneaky infectious ways. In general, I am careful about avoiding people who are obviously sickly...you know, covered in boils and scabs and oozing pustules.  Also about washing my hands before I eat anything, and not licking the handrails on the Underground escalators, but you can't be too careful, it seems.

It seems to be passing off a bit, but I had a high temperature for a couple of days (and nights) and a headache which has only just eased off. I feel wiped out, tired, weepy, listless and grumpy. I must be a joy to be around.

As I am feeling less pathetic than I have been since the weekend, here are some pictures of London. Mostly taken from high up in the London Eye, which was most impressive. It's a fantastic bit of engineering.

There were no creepy blokes clinging to the outside asking us if we wanted to go faster, which was disappointing.  I'd have thought they'd have at least spun the car around a few times to make us scream. 

I was intrigued by this sign:

I like to wonder how many times they had visitors plummeting past the security guards before they thought "We really must put a sign on those doors."

It is especially pleasing that DO NOT is underlined for added emphasis.  Is that in case you aren't sure why they are telling you not to lean on the doors as you slowly rise hundreds of feet above the river?  And, I note,  the sign is only in English.  Is that because other nationalities are less likely to lean on the door? Or do the London Eye health and safety team simply not care about non-English speakers? 

We must know.

Anyhoo, we were bloody high up.  Look:

That's Waterloo station, from a million feet up.

Houses of Parliament.  If you look carefully you can see the police raiding MPs' offices for evidence to pass to the CPS.

We also went to the Aquarium, which I enjoyed far more than I expected to.  I even managed to do the Shark Walk.  No, not a dance where you wriggle on the floor and bite the furniture.  It was a suspended platform with a glass floor that you walk across, above this:

It's a bit blurry because NO FLASH.  But that's a shark in there.  Yep, a shark.  There were several others too.  And I walked over their heads.  Ha!

I was very taken with the Ray Pool, too.  Look:

They* were playing tranquil music, and we stood and watched the fish in there for ages. 

Some of them stuck their noses up out of the water, which was interesting to see. People leant in and petted them, despite the many signs saying "Do not pet the fish."  I didn't. 

It was a pleasant way to spend a couple of hours.

The Natural History Museum was a zoo, ironically. 

We sped through the minerals gallery and looked unsuccessfully for the giant tree thingy, but eventually the hordes of proles with squealing howler monkey offspring drove us back out into the rain.  Bastards. 

I tell you what though, I couldn't live there.  London is great to visit but the traffic!  The crowds!  The sheer balls-ache of trying to get anywhere if you aren't near a Tube station.  Gah.  Sod that. 

I'd rather be here, where even though you get stuck behind tractors and run off the road by combine harvesters and delayed by herds of cows, you can at least get from A to B without having to reverse the entire length of a street because there isn't room for two cars to pass**.

*The Aquarium people, not the fish.  I'd have paid extra to watch the fish playing ambient chillout music. 

**Although to be fair sometimes you have to reverse all the way back down a little windy lane to let a big oil tanker truck get past. 

Mrs Fixit

Oh great.

My car is in a reasonably low tax bracket, I get about 40mpg and it is a low emissions vehicle (according to the garage which MoT'd it). Yet it still gets lumped into the "evil gas guzzling Chelsea Tractor" bracket by people.

Gah.

So anyway. Teenagers. They sleep a lot, don't they? And they don't say much, do they?

When I think back (a long, long way back) to when I was 14, I remember being cheerful and outgoing, chatty and sociable, sunny in nature and willing, if not eager, to help out around the house. The rest of my family might remember me differently, but they're all wrong.

Eldest Niece and Mr WithaY went to Bournemouth yesterday to check out the Aquarium*. Apparently it was a bit disappointing, but there was plenty of wildlife on the beach, by all accounts. And they had a nice lunch in an Italian restaurant, so it wasn't a wasted trip.

Eldest Niece came home with a temporary tattoo, a present from her doting uncle.

I had to go to work, which entailed a 70 mile round trip in the car to the office for a morning meeting, driving back past the house, then an hour train ride in the opposite direction to the Bristol office for another meeting in the afternoon. I was exhausted when I got home.

Still, off work today and Monday, so a nice long weekend. If the weather picks up a bit we might have a barbecue or something.

My plans for today involve trying to replace a fuse in the plug of my clothes dryer thingy. Not a tumble dryer, one of those clothes rail things that gets warm so you can hang stuff on it when it's too wet to put outside on the line.

We've only had it 12 years. Tch. Already broken.

The mole is still there, incidentally. He keeps going quiet so we think he's gone, but then the next day we see loads of fresh tunnels all over the lawn.

Bastard.

Our next door neighbours had a mole in their back garden, so I asked them how they got rid of it.

They tried poison (no luck), smoke grenades(unsuccessful), traps (failed) and the sonic repeller (disappointing). I asked how they finally got rid of the little blighter.

Apparently, they waited very quietly by a molehill till they saw movement and then dispatched it with a garden fork.

So, maybe Mr WithaY's low-tech longbow arrow might be the best solution after all.



*Like I said, she's having the time of her life with us.