#Extra! Guest Post by Andy Hill

Hamish - A Dog with a tale......

In Cambridge Mass. this year, whilst visiting our nephew Tim, his wife Allie, and children Binnie and Bronwyn, we met for the first time their (75%) Labrador, Hamish.  He is no longer in the first flush of youth, a little grey around the muzzle, but no one can tell us how old he is as he is a rescue dog.  Not so unusual (and of course most of our UK canine friends are rescues) but this is a little more unusual in Massachusetts.  First of all Massachusetts has quarantine regulations and out of State dogs are just not welcome.  Also most Massachusettians  are kind to their dogs and very few are offered for adoption.

On the other hand, down in Louisiana, if you move home (or just move on) some people just leave their canine friends behind with their old unwanted lives.  There is an efficient dog collection service which rounds them up and accommodates them in a sort of 'Dog Death Row' where they wait for up to fourteen days, their paws already shaved for where the electrodes are to be attached.

Now fortunately there is a dedicated dog friend down there who has set up a kind of dating service to contact the lonely humans in New England …..    'Brown eyes; early stage halitosis only; already castrated; GSOH; etc; etc.'   Once photos have been exchanged, up to twenty dogs are liberated and placed in a van to be taken north.  Stopping only for regular toilet breaks they drive on until rendezvous is eventually achieved at a secret location, probably in a Supermarket car park somewhere in New Hampshire. The dogs are introduced to their delighted new owners who take them home to somewhere near the cradle of American Independence.  Our friend makes the lonely journey back stopping only for his own toilet breaks until he arrives home to hose out the back of his van.  The whole process then begins again in preparation for the next trip.

So Hamish is a very fortunate dog indeed, even though he still suffers a crisis of confidence every time he sees someone packing a suitcase.  These days he realises this is just a short family vacation to which he is always invited.

Authors note:  I have been asked to point out that in the USA dogs and other pets are euthanased by lethal injection, just as they are in the UK.

Los Gatos

Arriving in Los Gatos is, in so many ways, like getting home: an English cup of tea; yoghurt and fruit for breakfast; a comfy sofa; plenty of rooms to spread out in; books to read and, of course, family.  But - here's the thing, it's also very, very different.  Every day starts and ends with brilliant blue skies and a startlingly hot sun.  The streets are empty of people - everyone takes their car wherever they go, no matter how short the journey.  Despite the wonderful weather, washing is almost always dried in the tumbler. Water is so short that while you can build a new swimming pool or install a new hot tub, you can't fill it.   And the birds that feed on the bird feeders are not your common or garden bluetits and sparrows - they are hummingbirds.

Los Gatos is a town of just over 30,000, founded in the mid 1800's and named for the mountain lions that used to come down from the nearby Santa Cruz mountains. Near to the famous Silicone Valley, one of its largest employers is Netflix, who are currently building even more offices to accommodate their expansion.  

Caro and Mike at the Winchester Mystery House

It's a good hub from which to explore the area around: there's the Winchester Mystery House, where the heiress to the Winchester rifles fortune had workmen build continuously in order to save herself from the ghosts she believed were haunting her; there is the glorious coastline of Santa Cruz, where surfers sit around on their boards, waiting for the next wave, while seals bask nearby and pelicans fly overhead; there are so many fabulous restaurants to eat out in; there are reservoirs to walk around (if you are prepared to dodge the cyclists and joggers); there are numerous wineries where you can taste the local wines; but best of all there are friends and family to catch up with over wine, wine and more wine...

After the wine tasting...

All in all, a great trip.  Here's to next time...

Fog City

For all that San Francisco is called Fog City, I've never yet seen it shrouded in fog.  I must just have been lucky...

The view from our hotel room

The weather is kind - the sun is shining and a chill wind is blowing along the pristine streets. Arriving off the Zephyr I find that I have lost my land legs; the ground beneath my feet tilting me off balance. It's a most peculiar sensation, which keeps catching me unawares.  By the morning of our second day it's just about gone, only causing me to pause for a moment when I stand up too fast.
We've been to San Francisco before, and have done most of the tourist things - the sea lions at Pier 39, the trip across the Bay to look around Alcatraz and under the famous Golden Gate Bridge.  So, there's not a lot left that we want to do.
The one thing I want to do, of course, is to ride the trams.  You could put me on  a tram at eight in the morning, with a day pass, and I'd happily ride them all day until midnight, there is something magical about them.

The first tram we ride on, someone kindly offers me a seat... not what I'd wanted.  Thereafter I abandon all English politeness and inhibition and whiz my way round to board at the front, pole position - standing - and refuse all offers of a seat.  This is my place and I'm keeping it. Hanging on as we round corners, having a fabulous view of the famously hilly streets, hearing the banter of the driver with his passengers, all make me phenomenally happy.  Yes,  I could ride the trams all day.
Of course, we can't do that.  So, we head for the Wells Fargo Museum and spend some time there, tapping out messages in morse code, learning how to drive a team of horses, identifying bandits. Andrew is in his element with the banking ledgers and machinery.  It's a good museum.
When getting cash from the main Wells Fargo bank, the doorman tells us we can go up in the lift to the roof garden, take a seat, look at the views.  Well, who'd have thought it.

We leave Fog City on the Caltrain through the suburbs.  No city looks good from the train tracks, and this one is no different.  Litter, abandoned trucks, slum dwellings, hidden from the main part of the city, but still a part of it.  Somehow, it gives the place a bit more balance to know that it's not all bright roof gardens, slick businessmen and shiny buildings.

Train Travel

I have to tell you, for me, train travel is the way to go.  I'm not saying I'll never fly again, but if there is a train option, I will take it like a shot.

The California Zephyr goes on what is advertised as the most scenic route across America.   On its journey it goes from Denver across the Rocky Mountains, the high desert of Utah and then the Sierra Nevada, finishing at Oakland across the bay from San Francisco, and it is certainly beautiful.  The Colorado River runs alongside the track for a lot of the first day.  At first it's not much more than a small creek tumbling over stones, overhung by the high rocky mountains.

 Sometimes the terrain opens up to wide meadows, and here people have settled, building towns that survive on skiing in the winter and white water rafting and fishing in the summer.  We pass these white water rafters on our journey, bouncing along beside us or below us as the track wends its way up the side of the mountain. People bring little tents, and camp alongside the river, with just their boats to get them from place to place, when there are no roads. At one point we pass Moon Point, where anybody camping rolls down their shorts to moon their bare backsides at the passing train.  

The high desert of Utah is largely crossed during the night, but is still there in the morning, several hours later.  It amazes me just how huge this country really is.  Travelling by train highlights its enormous scale, and I keep thinking of the early pioneers and gold rush settlers who came so far with wagon trains, crossing the rivers, finding ways to get through the mountains and crossing these great dry plains.

Eventually the desert gives way to the beginnings of the Sierra Nevada.  Here we come to the Donner Pass, where a party of settlers were trapped at the beginning of the winter and cut off by the snow, eventually resorting to cannibalism to enable some to survive.

This is gold rush country, mountainous and deeply wooded. Here, even now, some communities still exist, and gold is still found.  I wouldn't live up here, so isolated, for any amount of gold.

But as well as the fantastic scenery, the train journey has something unique to offer the traveller. Every meal is taken in the dining car, and at every meal you are seated with people you have never met before.  We shared a meal with a couple of ladies, one of whom was the wife of a farmer from Nebraska and her friend, whose father had had to leave his farm because he couldn't make it pay. We learnt so much about the drought and the hardship endured by the farmers. These ladies were very much interested in Lady Di, and were quite surprised that we didn't share the interest to the same extent. We met an Australian Vietnam veteran, who still shakes because of his experiences so many years ago, and his friend, who had survived throat cancer, only to lose his wife a few years after his recovery.  With them, we talked rugby and cricket and some politics. 

We drew out a quiet couple by talking about their children, and enjoyed a lively debate with a hippy couple who had very different views from ours.  Everybody was interested in us, and everybody was interesting to us.   No conversation was small talk.  We got to know them.  Somehow, travelling by train made for a deeper connection, but no demands.  No addresses were exchanged, no facebook friendships made.  It was totally unique.

I may well not travel the same route again, and may never see such wonderful scenery again, but I would happily go by train again to experience the cameraderie we felt on this trip.

Moving On

I think its probably best if I gloss over the journey from Boston to Denver.   Suffice it to say, I am never ever catching a connecting flight again...

So, we arrived in Denver at 10.30 pm, two hours after our expected arrival time and too late to have dinner with our friends, Brenna and Carl.  We were tired, we were stressed, we were grumpy.  Thank heaven the hotel was absolutely gorgeous.  We woke next morning to a bright Denver morning and the world seemed a much better place than it had the night before. 

I knew nothing about Denver at all.  I'd looked it up on Google before we went, but there really wasn't a lot of information.  Let me tell you - I'd go back there like a shot.  It's one of the friendliest places we've ever been to.  Its a frontier town, with gold mining and farming history.  As well as being known as the Mile High City because, surprisingly, its a mile above sea level, it is also known as Cow Town, and you can see the farming history in the way the men walk, or rather strut around town. They look like they were born in the saddle. 

Having fixed to meet Brenna later in the day, we decided on a cultural morning and took ourselves off to the Colorado History Museum.  It's a well designed museum, with loads to look at and we spent a very educational few hours there.  If ever you should visit Denver (and I'd recommend you do), its a good place to learn about frontier towns and the difficulties of farming where there is little water.

Educated sufficiently we met up with Brenna in the bar at the Hotel.  The Crawford Hotel is situated sort of above and around Union Station - the main train station in Denver.  It used to be the hub of the city before plane travel took over.  Its been so well converted - there are food outlets and gift shops and an amazing bar that specialises in different beers and cocktails.  One thing Denverites are passionate about is beer - there's a Beer Triangle between Boulder, Fort Collins and Denver that includes more than 72 breweries.  Heaven!

The Terminal Bar at Union Station

Having consumed the obligatory cocktail at the Terminal Bar in Union Station with Brenna, we went to visit their home.  It's a lovely little brick built house, with a really homely feel.  Best of all was the very zen garden, criss-crossed with prayer flags.  A peaceful haven.  Carl was still working, so we had a whistle stop tour of the suburbs, finishing with a visit to a fascinating bar, with hanging fabric, and aspen trees holding up the ceiling, and where to wash your hands was an unusual exercise in intelligence, involving pulleys and chains...

We met Brenna and Carl when we were in India last year - they were on their honeymoon.  We got talking and said, as you do, that we'd look them up if we were ever in Denver.  I am so glad that we included their city in our trip and met up with them again.  Good friends.  Good times.

Boston, City of Champions

I love Boston.  I love the cleanliness, the bustle, the life of the place.  It just feels good.  If you wander around you find little side streets, with pavements out of shape because of the tree roots, and small cafes that sell the most amazing breakfasts and are so full of people you can't lift your elbows to eat.  If you've never eaten a fresh cooked English muffin with avocado and bacon from the cafe in Church Street, Boston, well - you haven't really lived.
Mind you, we had forgotten about the portion sizes in restaurants.  My first mistake on our first night (local time 8 ish, time at home 1 am ish), was to order a starter and a main.  The starter was gorgeous - deep fried courgette slices with a creamy dip.  I did think that two large courgettes cut into slices was a bit excessive, and left a fair amount.  Then the main appeared - aubergine in a tomato sauce with spaghetti.  Again gorgeous, again huge.  A family of six would have just about managed to eat it all.  I had no chance.  Ah well, lesson learnt.
The next morning was a chance to explore Boston a bit. After our wonderful breakfast we headed out to the harbour and watched the planes taking off and landing at Logan airport, and the boats pootling around.  Lovely.
  

 

Walking around a corner, we saw a whale watching boat, due to leave in ten minutes - serendipity.  I've always wanted to go whale watching, and never had the chance .  I have to tell you, it was just the best three and a half hours!  

Boston receding into the distance

 There weren't too many people on the boat, so no problem finding a place to watch from.  About an hour and a half out to sea, there was the first sighting - a young humpback whale.  It was a completely amazing experience to see him so close-to.  He hung around for about twenty minutes, rolling over and hitting his fin against the water.

Eventually he took a deeper dive and disappeared.  We hung around for a while and eventually were rewarded with a sighting of a group of three, who played around nearby for a while, before they, too, dived and left us.

Boston is known as the City of Champions.  To my mind, the true champions of Boston are the whales.

The American Adventure: To Travel Hopefully

I suppose I should have remembered that bad things, as well as good things, come in threes.  True enough, the first couple of bad things weren't really bad - a necessity to book before going to the airport lounge; a breakfast that went astray.  No big deal, really.  Not enough to ring warning bells for the flight.
Perhaps I should start at the beginning.
We decided to fly to Boston via Dublin so that we could take advantage of going through US immigration checks with lovely Irish people, rather than the US Department of Homeland Security people.  Lovely people in their own way, I'm sure, but with a reputation for being ... surly.
We had plenty of time in Dublin airport to get off the Gatwick flight, find our way to the US immigration area, do the checks and catch our onward flight.  Or, we did, until our hour long flight to Dublin was delayed by almost an hour because the baggage was stowed unevenly.  Or something. The cabin crew were reassuring.  We still had plenty of time.  It was a doddle.  Just follow the signs and we'd whizz through, no problem.
Hmmm... Call me naive, but I did believe them.  Almost.
The Department of Homeland Security was quite a long way away from our arrivals gate.  No problem.  Plenty of time.  Those lovely Irish people would check us through rapidly, knowing we had just 20 minutes before the Boston flight left.  Wouldn't they?
Well, I'm sure they would have.  But unfortunately the US immigration wasn't staffed by lovely, laid back, blue eyed, red haired Irish people.  The man who took our details was very definitely American.  He was thorough.  Pleasant enough, humourous even.  "Jennifer, what's your first name?" Um, "Jennifer?".  "There, it doesn't get harder than that".  Ho, ho, ho.
Trouble was, we'd whizzed through to him so quickly, the photographs of our baggage hadn't caught up with us.  So, in we went to a sort of holding area, with about 15 other people from our flight, all onward bound, all awaiting baggage identification, but no-one with as tight a time restraint as us.  Again, call me naive, but I'd have thought our humourist would have passed the urgency of our case on to the single person processing us all. Ho, ho, ho.
Five minutes passed.  Ten.  Other people were called up and released.  "Through the glass doors to your right and turn left".  Five minutes left till our flight was due to leave. Two more people appeared to deal with the now growing number of increasingly agitated passengers. Two minutes.  I saw a tough looking woman pick up our passports and stood up.  "Mr Hill?"  Yes!  "Is this your bag?" To be honest we'd have said yes to a battered rucksack at that point just to get out of the room and on the flight.
Fortunately, we were able to correctly identify both our bags.   "Our flight leaves in two minutes, will we make it?"  I  should have known better than to try to reason with the full force of US officialdom.  She shifted the gum to the other side of her mouth.  "Out of the glass doors to your right and turn left."
As we duly exited through the glass doors and turned left the tannoy announced our flight was closed.  I began to run towards the distant departure gate, waving hard at the tiny figure of the lovely Irish man who was taking our boarding passes.  
As I sat, out of breath, in my seat, I saw my bag being loaded into the plane.  Well, I thought, at least my bag, being last in, will be first out.  Will I never learn?  Guess who's bag was last onto the carousel at Logan airport...
You got it.  Mine.
Ho. Ho. Ho.

Last Day in France

So, our visit is almost over and we are going into Paris again, this time with Nicko.  Today I am again a sheep.  I need make no decisions, I can just follow along, drinking in the sights and letting Paris wash over me.  
We make our way through the most prestigious parts of the City, past the Elysee Palace, past Embassies and Police Academies, some so well guarded that there isn't even pedestrian access to them.  Everything is scrubbed clean, the stone is soft and warm coloured.  I find myself reminded what a lovely city this is.
We mingle with the great and good along the Rue St Honore, where the large fashion houses display impossible to wear and priceless items in their vast windows.  Wafts of perfume come from the shops and the passers-by.  A little girl of about four clad in a smart gold dress is grizzling as she is dragged along, poor mite.  It's too hot for me, and I like window shopping.
Unexpectedly, we come across a Church - the Eglise Notre Dame de l'Assomption.  All the information about it, and the notices outside, are in Polish, as is everything inside.  It's a little oasis of calm and cool - with a wonderful painted dome.  A real gem.

We make our way to the river, past the Bouquinistes, where Andy buys an elderly copy of La Maladie Imaginaire by Moliere - how strange to find it here, as we had just been talking about the play.
And so down to the Seine itself.  There's a wide pedestrian walkway alongside the river - I say pedestrianised, but actually pedestrians share the route with cyclists, roller-bladers and skateboarders, all whizzing along at breakneck speed.  It pays to keep your wits about you.  But its lovely - there are areas marked out for children to play, cafes with board games, floating restaurants - its full of life.  Here we are joined by Nini, and we stroll along together until its time for a beer and some food.
And so to the Tour Eiffel, which I've not been to for several years.  It looks cleaner than I remember it, but it is as popular as ever.  None of us having much of a head for heights, we wander under it, and eventually make our way back to the metro and home.

And that's it for now - but America beckons in late August - so watch this space...

Friday in Paris

Coming into Paris on the A6 from the south, feels in a way like coming home.  We’ve been visiting every year for so many years now – over twenty – that I feel I know Paris better than I know London.

First sight to hove into view is the church at Montmartre, floating above the Parisian apartments, such an evocative, beautiful place which holds a special place in my heart.  It graces the skyline for just a moment before hiding as we round a corner.  The tower of Montparnasse follows it, all glass and reflection, and finally the Eiffel Tower is there, the symbol of Paris, and I know we have arrived.

Our first day in Paris we walked.  And walked.  And walked.  All day.  Flip flops probably weren’t the best footwear, but it was phenomenally hot, and they were comfortable.  For the first couple of miles. 

It’s amazing that no matter how well you think you know a city, there is always something to surprise you.  Walking to the Marais we found an arch we’d never seen before.  A bit further on, a covered walkway housed a plethora of Indian restaurants with smells that made me hungry even after my enormous lunch.  Around a corner and through a little park we found ourselves next to the Canal du St Martin and rested under a tree while smartly dressed men walked their tiny dogs and a small boat negotiated a lock.  It felt like we had discovered an almost secret part of Paris, so different from the overcrowded and touristy shops along the Rue de Rivoli.  Quiet and peaceful with deep green water, it was a revelation.

We followed the Canal down towards the Seine.  After a lock it disappears underground, so we followed what we thought would be its route.  Above it, children shrieked in playgrounds, fountains threw up cold water, cars parked and men played boules.  Finally it appears again at the Place de la Bastille, in a large basin full of houseboats and yachts.  We sat beside it and drank a cold beer before taking the Metro back to Nicko and Nini's flat. 

A pretty much perfect day – if only I’d worn walking shoes.

Wednesday in Tarare

Tarare is like a forgotten, hidden world.  Look it up on the internet.  There’s next to nothing about it – even the Wikipedia article is only a few lines.  There used to be factories there to do with the fabric industry, that much I do know, but exactly what each factory was for, I have no idea. 

When we first came here, about ten years ago, it was a dismal February morning.  We parked outside an abandoned factory whose broken windows and grey walls echoed the grey day.  The rain was coming down like a waterfall from a mud coloured sky.  The whole town felt sad and unloved. 

We went with Ricky and Regine to see the house they had just bought – an empty house, which needed a considerable amount of work to make it habitable, but the walls, floors and roof were sound, and the potential immense.  Nonetheless, I wondered if they were doing the right thing.

Ricky and Regine's House Now

Well, they were indeed doing the right thing!  Not only is their house transformed, but the whole town is, these days, vibrant and full of life. 

This year our visit has coincided with the end of the five yearly Fete des Mousselines.  Brightly coloured fabric hangs from balconies in swathes.  Bunches of fabric flowers adorn doorways and walls.  To walk through the centre of the town is to walk under a multicoloured fabric sky.  In the main square the fabric spins out from a central column like a giant maypole.  It’s fabulous.

Its not just a party to celebrate the fabric either, it’s a real community building exercise.  Each quarter of the town gets together and builds a float, which then parades through the town.  In doing so people meet others from their area and spend time together.  Old ladies who used to work with the cloth feel the texture of it between their fingers again, and share their memories.  

It seems to me that in being a bit overlooked, Tarare comes out as a winner.  People know each other and are safe.  Last night, walking back to our hotel, we passed down the main street.  A woman in her first floor window was having a conversation with another woman on her balcony, the other side of the road.  It feels like a good place to be.