London Fog

A real pea-souper this morning, just like the old days. At least British drivers have their lights on in the fog, unlike Western New Yorkers.

A Very Un-American Experience

   Dateline London. Non-football fans look away now.
   Having suffered through Man United's ignominious defeat to Newcastle on saturday, the less said about which the better, my friend and I rushed to Piccadilly Station to get on the first available train home to London from the Theatre of Nightmares. It had been cancelled. So had the next one. And the next. It transpired some poor soul had been run over at Watford Junction, the knock-on effects of which were gargantuan.
  After an hour of staring at a static departures board, we repaired to a nearby bar to drown our sorrows. By the time we returned, we were sure the trains would be running again.  Not so. Well, that's not quite right. One was. And everyone wanted to get on it. The train was packed, not just with Man United fans but with Liverpool fans, who'd been shunted to Manchester, as no trains were running from Liverpool either. Normally that would be a perilously toxic mix* but in this case, the Liverpool fans proved gentlemanly. Well they could afford to be, since they had won and we had lost.  We had found seats but they had to stand. "Sorry" said my friend "but at least we've got something from today".
 "No worries," crowed the Liverpool fan,   "We'd have let you have our seats in any case."
     Then, at Stoke-on-Trent, to complicate things further, some Chelsea fans got on, disgruntled and slightly inebriated, as they had lost too.  The toxic mix could have exploded, if,  in a "love your enemy" gesture of  Mandela-like proportions, the Liverpool fans hadn't argued our case against the Chelsea fans, who insisted we were sitting in their reserved seats, "Leave the ladies alone, mate. They've suffered enough."
  Upon which, the young man sitting next to my friend, offered one of the Chelsea fans his seat. He also could afford to be generous. He was probably still floating in an unexpected daze of happiness and bonhomie.
  Everyone ended up agreeing on one thing - England's dire draw for next year's World Cup ("Men's World Soccer Championships" to my American friends, who probably can't understand.what the fuss is about. Though the US had a pretty dismal draw too.)  As a certain British tabloid put it :

*Memo to American readers: there is no loathing greater than that of the Liverpool fan for the Manchester United fan (and vice versa).

A Lucky Escape

   For the next week, this blog will be based in London, where I'm on a brief family visit.  I seem to have had a lucky escape, getting here before yesterday's air traffic control shambles.  This is very unusual for me, as I normally find myself caught up in any flying trouble going.  I was here when the unpronounceable Icelandic volcano erupted and was stranded for a week. And I was here when Heathrow Airport closed for five days due to a few inches of snow and they tried to dig the planes out with garden spades, Heathrow having long forgotten that it's an airport and not a shopping centre with a few flying machines.
  Mind you, I did have a lot of trouble with trains from Manchester yesterday. More on this at a later date as I cannot, right now, bring myself to type the M word again. Football fans will understand.

The Last of our Apples

A reminder of this year's extraordinary apple harvest.

We put the last of them into a strudel.

Though there are still plenty of them lef ton the ground for the deer to guzzle.

A Western NY Tale: The Short Tract Road

There is a country lane to the east of us, called the Short Tract Road, possibly after a village called Short Tract. What many people don't know is that the Romans came here, oh, way before Christopher Columbus and built this road extraordinarily straight, though with few roller coaster dips for excitement. Here you see it, unfolding in the distance.

Short Tract Road has, to put it mildly, seen some better days.

Although it does have some of the most stunning views in Western New York.

Some places look beyond hope..

This once must have been a grand mansion

Now, like Sleeping Beauty's castle, it's alone and overgrown.

But in the past year or so, something extraordinary has happened to Short Tract Road.

Yes, these are Amish horses. The Amish, a gentle sect that live austere pioneer-type lives without mechanisation and electricity and bake the most wonderful pies, are moving in.

They have set to restoring a number of old farmhouses and building some new ones and immediately the place is looking more cheerful. Neat lines of dark blue laundry extend from the barns and all the junk - old cars and such that tend surround a lot of rural Western New York houses - has been cleared away.

  Driving along the road recently, we saw, fleetingly,  in the morning mist,  two great black horses pulling an enormous piece of farmyard equipment - one of those hay slides for a barn, perhaps. An Amish man stood, holding the reins, coaxing them into the yard. There waited three or four children, the little girls in long skirts and bonnets, the boys in brimmed hats, clutching lunchboxes. Perhaps they were on their way to the Amish school. It was a sudden, poignant vision of times past. Mindful that the Amish prefer not to be photographed, I have to leave it to your imagination.

Meanwhile, A Little Corner of a Foreign Road

That is forever England..

Taken of course before we were plunged into the white stuff. We see a lot of these trucks, with their Olde English logos and royal-looking crests. As I always say, I don't know why Americans ever severed ties with the Old Country, or, indeed, got rid of the monarchy. I'm not sure what C R England transports, save that it claims to be the world's largest refrigerated trucking company. But I can speculate. Marmite, perhaps, or Mcities Chocolate Digestives?

On Transatlantic Understanding

This was before the snow got really deep.

Every self-respecting American house has its flagpole. I always notice that the Union Jack seems to fly somewhat more, well, flowingly, even though, by American custom, it has to fly below the Stars and Stripes, a matter of some teeth-gritting in our household. Note the old revolutionary flag with just thirteen stars. Hubby thinks it's rather pretty.