A Memorial Walk

 Buffalo Naval Park - a short hop from the Marina - on a sunny Sunday. It's on days like this that you really feel the dearth of decent cafes and eateries around here. The only restaurant at the Naval Park had a hand-scrawled sign saying they were closed and didn't know why. One can only speculate....

Still, the USS Little Rock is an impressive sight, surrounded by various other naval memorabilia, including a submarine.
  But perhaps the most impressive things around here are all the memorials along the waterfront. I never realised there were so many.  This one commemorates Vietnam.

With some poignant inscriptions.

And names

 Another, earlier war

 Someone has remembered.

This one commemorates Hispanic soldiers. (It's lovely and I don't want to disparage the brave Hispanic soldiers but what about the other ethnic groups? They should get some recognition too.)

A memorial to the USS Grenadier, crippled by enemy aircraft in 1943 scuttled to avoid it falling into the hands of Japanese. The plaque tells us that all the crew were captured by the Japanese and imprisoned until the end of the war.

And on to much more recent conflicts.

 Meanwhile, at the museum, guess whose gun this was?

The Buffalonians may have won the battle but we won the war! (Of 1812)

 And finally to the Irish famine memorial. Every year they hold a Mass here, many people dressed in green. We sit in our boat in the Marina and listen to the poignant Irish music dancing across the water.

Western New York Idyll: More Lane Scenes

 The leaves are past their best now but there's something poignant about this last warmish, sunny spell before winter.

Though of course it may not be the last

Modern art in a tree trunk

And framing the lake

And in the trees. I was busy taking pictures - wishing I'd got the herd of deer that had been cantering through the rustly woods below and about to cross the road until a car came down the hill and scared them away.  Then I realised...

....I was being followed.

A small acknowledgement to a neighbour and then off into the undergrowth on more important business.

Goodbye to the Farmers' Market

  For this year, that is. The market will keep going for another couple of weeks but as I'm off on a road trip soon, I won't see it again for a while.

It was a chilly, sunny October Saturday. The Joyful Rescues puppies and kittens were't there, sadly, nor was the Picasso Pig but there was plenty to look at. Like the pumkin seller's pumpkin baby in a pumpkin hat straight out of a fairytale.

It may be heresy to say this in America but these dry, gnarled squashes are a bit pointless. People use them for decorations and they're nice to put on the table at Thanksgiving. When they've dried out they make good rattles.

On the other hand, these edible ones are far more useful. I've just learned that you can roast the seeds, if you can be bothered to wash off all the slime. The roasted seeds are delicious. Hubby insists you have to take off the outer husk, so it takes him an hour to eat one. I just munch the whole thing.and so far am none the worse.

There are other useful products too.

Along with some demure, orderly carrots

And some outrageous peppers.

But I didn't get what I was looking for, a rhubarb pie from the sublime Granny's Cookie Jar stall. Someone had come early and bought up the lot.

Jolly Boating Weather

 This was Lake Erie last weekend, shrouded in fog and rain.

And wind, raising enough whitecaps to do a spot of surfing.

The boats on the dog heaved and danced. And the seagulls sheltering in the car park had decided that discretion was the better part of valoue.

 Needless to say, we did not go out. Though it might have been exciting. Later in the week, the waves were 12 foot high.

There IS a Father Christmas (And a Santa Claus Too)

  Buffalo, our nearest metropolis is shuddering with one huge gasp of relief.  Its beloved (American) football team, the Buffalo Bills will not after all be sold to Canada. (That  sort of thing happens a lot in American professional sport, with teams moved at the drop of a hat for financial gain. ) It had been Buffalo's deepest and darkest fear since the team's elderly owner, Ralph Wilson, died earlier this year. Even I was worried. I'm not a fan of American football but I do have a soft spot for the Bills and their fans who sit shivering through game after game,  who drive loyally up route 219 on game days, Bills flags bravely fluttering from their cars. What would our local shops do without their shelves of Bills merchandise? Pickup trucks and SUVs without their leaping buffalo stickers? Losing the Bills would break western New York's heart. Buffalonians' love for their team through triumph and disaster (mostly disaster) symbolises another triumph - of hope over experience. Now they've found their Father Christmas(es), aka Santa and Mrs Claus, come a couple of months early in the shape of  Terry and Kim Pegula....

...who have fished out a handy 1.4 billion dollars and snapped up the team. Or they're about to, as they've now been given the go-ahead from American football's equivalent of the FA.  Mr Pegula, who made his fortune in natural gas and other enterprises, is something of  a local lad, born in neighbouring Pennsylvania though he now understandably lives in Florida. And he also owns Buffalo's ice hockey team, the Sabres (yes, they do spell it right).
  Now the Bills had better win something. Asked if he thought he'd got a good deal, Mr Pegula said, "I got a hell of a deal!"  I hope he's still saying that next year.

Here Comes Gracechurch...

   ...or Broadpoint? The American version of  Broadchurch is upon us. It's called Gracepoint and apparently set in some quiet seaside village in California, if there really is such a thing. It's weird seeing a village high street (sorry, MAIN street) with flat-fronted shops and a rather larger wooden house for Danny's family. And would you believe it..

Yes! It's the same bloke playing the detective!

Only this time he's traded his Scottish accent for an American one. The other actors are different - well they would have to have a blonde, slightly more glamorous female lead wouldn't they? But they've got the same names!  Of all the daft things I've seen on American television, this has got to be one of the daftest. As I've frequently said, this Americanisation of perfectly good foreign drama is nothing but an insult to the intelligence of Americans (they can't possibly cope with those funny accents, can they?) How the British have survived for decades on a diet of American films and TV series with no dubbing or subtitles, I just can't think.  Rumour has it, Gracepoint might have a different ending and some different twists. Well it better, since the British one only aired here last year and most people will remember whodunnit. But, for goodness sake, can't they make up their own stories? Or is the main reason for making it, probably at considerable expense, that nerds with nothing better to do can sit there and play "Spot the Difference"? Spoiler alert: here were my predictions for the American Broadchurch at the time.

Western New York Idyll: An Autumn Fantasy

 The Indian summer is deceptive. In just a few days, leaf-peeping time has stolen suddenly and without warning upon us.

Trees are part red-gold, part green, hedging their bets.

A crimson creeper creeps opportunistically up a telegraph pole on the Five Mile Road.

And a green-and-scarlet bush cheers up the sad, derelict old farmhouse on the corner.

Red splashes on the skyline.

And a mass of maple leaves.

A hill turning to tapestry

A forest into abstract art.

As the red-and-gold wins at last.

And in the early morning, an autumn garden swathed in mist and sweet silence, save only for the sound of dew drops dripping from the leaves.

An autumn garden should be untidy, like an eccentric old lady with hair escaping from her bun.
(And I'm not just saying that because I'm lazy.. am I?)