Pond life

Is it me, or does green tea smell like a fish tank that needs cleaning?

(I mean, I drink the stuff, if it's hot, but every time I bring the mug close to my nose - hrrrmph.)

Otherworldly

A few weeks ago, an incredibly calm day with a slight haze ...

Clifton Suspension Bridge - Solargraph

A local (and international) landmark, the Clifton Suspension Bridge, designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel and completed almost 150 years ago. Here is a solargraph of the bridge and surrounds, from the NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day (which I highly recommend checking out on a daily basis, or whenever you can).

Cornish pastimes

We went to Cornwall at the end of August. For those of you who don't know, Cornwall is the most southwesterly region of Great Britain. It is a popular tourist destination for the British, and surprisingly, for other Europeans as well - more to come on that. I can't say that I had heard of Cornwall before meeting my husband. About the closest I came was having Rock Cornish Game Hen for the occasional meal. Turns out they're not Cornish at all. But I digress once again.

I expect that many Americans have heard of Land's End (the place, not the clothing company - in fact, the clothing company is Lands' End, with the apostrophe at the end due to an ancient typo) I have vague memories of attempting to go there back in '93, and it being a pirate's ransom just to park. That's changed a little, it's down to GBP 3.00, which, relative to the price of anything in England, is value for money. There is a sort of shopping/eating/entertainment area (take a look at the link), and then there is the actual coastline you can take a look at.

There are a couple of old ships in a play area that kids, big and small, can climb on and have a look at.
The Cornish flag is a white cross on a black background. (Incidentally, the English flag is a red cross on a white background. The red, white, and blue Union Jack is a union of the English, Scottish, and Welsh flags, a fact I'm sure does not sit well with the Cornish.)
I noticed that the Cornish language is being resurrected as well, perhaps after seeing the success of the Welsh revival. Cornish, however, has a longer way to go. The last native speaker of Cornish died in 1893 (the media has it at 1777 - suffice it to say, it died a native death). Cornwall itself does not have the level of independence that Wales has, though apparently it is a separate legal entity. And it seems that there is some conflict around the orthography - sound familiar to you English literates out there? Government support for Cornish has only recently been available. Finally, despite their mutual origins, Welsh and Cornish are not mutually intelligible (though they share many words - and incidentally, Cornish and Breton apparently are very similar).

There is a distinct Cornish accent and dialect as well; Americans may know it as the pirate accent, most likely due to Robert Newton's rendition of it as Long John Silver in the movie Treasure Island. While his is not an authentic Cornish accent, he, or someone, probably chose it because of the long history of piracy and smuggling in Cornwall. We spent an afternoon in Penzance, which duly delighted the tourists with pirates everywhere. Lauren took to counting them. I no longer remember how many she got to before we left.

We rented a cottage in the small town of St Just, not far from Land's End.

The last time we came to Cornwall we had stayed in a 17th century pub called the Star Inn (the steps to nowhere in the photo in the link are a horse mounting block). This time we chose to simply have a drink there, on a Monday night. The bar area is small, and there were a few folks there, including a large table of older, slightly rumpled folk. Not long after we arrived, the tablefolk pulled out their musical instruments and began to play wonderful Celtic music. Initially we hadn't planned to stay long, but we decided to hang around to listen to the music. We managed to find a bench against the wall, and Richard left to pick up some fish and chips to take to his mum and Lauren. I was just reveling in the music, happy to have stumbled upon it. More people began to arrive, including two young, well-dressed men, who asked if it would be OK to share the bench. They sat down and we struck up a conversation. It turned out that they were from Poland, but had been living in Manchester for the past 10 months. There are a number of Polish in England, and I wanted to know more about why they would up sticks and come to a completely different country where they'd have to learn another language. They explained to me that though they were well-educated (both had university degrees) they couldn't get a decent job in Poland, and the cost of living was far higher than they could earn there. I asked why they were in St Just, and one said they had come to Cornwall for a holiday, because his mother was visiting and she had always wanted to come to Cornwall.

Let me write that again. An aging Polish woman always wanted to come to Cornwall. Yup, Paris, London, Madrid, Rome, Munich, Lisbon, Cornwall.

So I asked. He replied that there are many books about Cornwall. "In Polish?" "Yes, translated from the English." Oo'd'a thought it?

All in all, a wonderful, memorable evening.

We spent a day visiting St Michael's Mount, a tidal island similar to Mont Saint-Michel and in fact formerly belonging to it. Here is a low-tide photo:
And here is a more distant view just as the tide was coming in (and when it comes in, it comes in fast!):
We had quite a long chat with one of the caretakers while waiting for a squall to pass through. There's about a 9-hour window to repair the walk-/driveway when it gets damaged or washed away. Makes you really appreciate quick-drying cement! The grounds of the mount are run by the National Trust but the St Aubyn family still own the island. There are residents on the Mount, and there is a ferry available when the tide is in. The mainland village is Marazion, a pretty little place with claims of being Britain's oldest town (well-disputed, I'm sure).

It is true that travelogues are not my usual blog style, but I couldn't resist blogging about a place with dry stone walls like this:
And finally, I leave you with an image to ponder:

Damp Yankees

The summer of 2006 in the UK was beautiful. There were very few overcast days, let alone rainy ones. I remember telling a friend at the end of his 2 week hiking trip through Scotland that he was extremely lucky with the weather.

Little did I know how right I was to be. Last summer was dismal. We went to visit a friend in Germany (same latitude) at the end of June for a couple of weeks, and I never got to wear the shorts I brought along. Hardly any sunshine. We were looking forward to a better summer this year. Silly us.

Apparently this is the wettest August on record. At the moment there are flood warnings all over Great Britain. I feel sorry for the poor folks in the areas that are only just recovering from last year's floods. Our cats disappear when they go into the grass in our yard. My husband has been trying the entire summer to spread 2 coats of bitumen on the flat garage roof to waterproof it - he managed to get most of one coat on, and it only dried because he shielded it with a tarp. No luck on the second coat yet. Yesterday I was thinking about a short story I read in elementary school called "All Summer in a Day" by Ray Bradbury. The first line is:

No one in the class could remember a time when there wasn't rain.

I'm building an ark.

Miles away

I am not a devotee to any particular frequent flyer program. I'm a member of several, and when I fly a given airline, I register my membership number to have the miles posted to the relevant program. Very occasionally I'll rent a car, stay at a hotel, book online, or answer a survey and add some miles that way. I've also been known to purchase miles to keep existing miles from expiring.

Consequently, I don't accumulate miles very quickly. But as we were planning a trip to the US and cringing at the prices, I realized I had quite a lot of miles in a program where it would be easy to get flights. I had 78,8xx, R had 46,6xx, and L had 22,6xx miles in this same program. I found a reasonable flight which would cost 50,000 miles per ticket. All our miles totaled only fell about 2000 miles short. 'Wow, we could get to the States for the price of 2000 miles.' I foolishly thought.

Oh no.

First of all, the miles need to be in the account purchasing the ticket(s). Transferring miles costs $15 per 1000 miles. Buying them costs $32 per 1000. (It's a US program.)

I was doing this on a Saturday, but the helpful lady on the other end of the phone said I needed to talk to the customer service folks from the program, and they're only available Monday through Friday. I could reserve the flights for 24 hours, then phone and have the reservation extended for up to 5 days.

I took my chances. I went online and reserved the flights yesterday (Monday) morning, then waited till later in the day, when I thought the US frequent flyer customer service would be open. I talked to a nice woman who helped me figure out the cheapest way to transfer the miles so I could get the tickets. She kept saying it was going to cost me $400 to transfer the miles so it might not be worth my while - at which point I reminded her that the ticket we'd have to buy cost 388 pounds (just double it for the dollar figure - it's close enough).

After all the transfer transactions, she transferred my call (too) to a gentleman who helped me to buy the tickets. It ended up that I had almost enough miles in my account for 2 tickets, and R had enough for one. So he had to split up the reservation, and set up the purchase of 3000 miles for my account. Then he said to wait 3 hours and I should receive a confirmation email.

But wait, there's more. I received the confirmation email which showed an additional amount charged to my credit card. When you buy a ticket with miles, you have to pay taxes and fees (which is obvious when you think about it - the airline has no control over those and they're certainly not going to be out of pocket for them).

In the end, the "nearly free" tickets cost over $800.*



* But it's still cheaper than buying 1 ticket and using miles for the other 2. And a lot cheaper than buying all 3 tickets!

Spring has sprung,

the grass has riz,
I wonder wheah de boidies is?

Well, the short English summer has begun. 'Short?' you say, 'why it's the beginning of May, which would give it several months until summer ends in September.' Ha! But the weather, she does not necessarily agree with the schedule. Last year summer was in April. This year, it appears to be in May. One hopes it will hold out, but there are no guarantees.

And so, one of our apple trees is in full blossom, with another nearly there.


The plum tree blossoms have come and gone. The parrot tulips are nearly spent.














The bluebells are in full swing,

And all the little furry creatures have come out.

As have the slightly larger ones (with long sharp claws and nasty pointy teeth - look at the bones!), bringing presents to their masters despite the very loud bells on their collars (put on them one day when the second still-live songbird was brought into the house in an afternoon):
This is the second one of these we've gotten. (I glanced at the first one, thinking it was just one of their fluffy toys.) Lucky charms?



But I shall leave you with one of the magnificent sunsets from our window (happily keeping us from looking inside the house):

A Speci-oil O-Cassia-n

I have discovered Easter biscuits (biscuits = cookies), which remarkably many English have not discovered. Let me explain:

The other day I was in the local greengrocer/butchers, at the checkout counter. By the register was a little display with small bottles of something called Oil of Cassia. They were advertised as being "for Easter biscuits". So I asked, "what is oil of Cassia?"

"It's a spice," replied the clerk, "sort of like cinnamon."
"Here, have a sniff," said the butcher.
A wonderful, if strong, smell of cinnamon mixed with cardamom (a bit fruity) emanated from the little bottle. 'Hmm,' I thought, 'this would be nice in hot chocolate or coffee.' "Can you use it in beverages?" I asked.
"No, it must be cooked!" said the clerk, "It can burn your skin!"
"I once put a drop on my tongue, and I couldn't taste anything on it for awhile." remarked the young butcher.
"Oh, perhaps I'll stick to cinnamon, then." I said, taking my purchases and heading out to continue my shopping.

Two doors down from the greengrocer/butchers is a bakery. And what to my wondering eye should appear, but a large bin with packets of Easter biscuits. Well, I had to at least try them. So, for the Queen's ransom of GBP 2.10, I became the proud owner of 6 large Easter biscuits, about 3 1/2 inches in diameter.

Sublime.

They are shortbread with a few dried currants per large cookie, and of course, oil of Cassia. The flavor(flavour) is subtle, much like in anise cookies, except that I don't like anise and I do like oil of Cassia. It is cinnamony with a fruity perfumy edge.

After consuming my 2nd package from that bakery (over a period of a couple of weeks, OK?), I was walking by another bakery in the high street, and what do I see in their window? More Easter biscuits! Obviously, I need to compare biscuits. I am on a mission to explore the cultural nuances of the English, after all. So I bought a packet of 4, as these were even larger than the other bakery's.

These were more like sugar cookies, lighter and fluffier with sugar crystals sprinkled over the top. But still there was that oil of Cassia.

My husband had never heard of these Easter biscuits. I have since come to find out from his cousin that many English don't know about them because they are a Catholic Easter treat, and most English are from the Church of England. Looking on the Web, the oil of Cassia flavouring may be a Southwestern English tradition.

I must ask this cousin if she knows which style is more authentic. I prefer the shortbread, as they are less sweet and more dense.

Then I can start on the hot cross buns ...