Boston

Our room on the 33rd floor has wonderful views of the city and we are very happy to be here.  It was an easy six and a half hour flight and the British Airways crew were amongst the best ever; super friendly, efficient and good humoured.  We were spoiled for choice of films but both watched The Lego Movie which had us giggling most of the way through. Of course, the quest had to be for the “piece of resistance”, didn’t it?  As for the “wanted” poster, with the bright yellow Lego face on it – the same as every other Lego face, when you think about it!  Silly, but so very clever!

It wasn’t much after 2pm when we checked in and we weren’t so surprised to find that our room wasn’t quite ready.  Actually, we had a couple of immediate errands to run and now seemed as good a time as any, so we left our luggage behind and went straight out.  Mary wasn’t due to arrive for a couple of hours, so we went through the Copley Square Mall to the first stop.

The Post Office!  There were CDs to send to one of my Hero’s American music chums and the small prepaid US Mail box fits the bill perfectly.  Once again, we wished our Royal Mail offered a similar flat fee service – so quick and easy to do.

A new store had opened in the Mall since our last visit and the shop window drew our attention immediately.

The Microsoft store looked remarkably like another computer store just across the street with their evangelical staff wearing brightly coloured T shirts and plenty of products out there to play with.  We spoke to one of the young men, who told us it’s a new concept and that this is one of the first of such stores in the USA.  Interesting.

By this time, we were ready to return to the hotel, to unpack, shower and change before Mary's arrival.  We passed by the blue bear which commemorates the 50th anniversary of JFK’s visit to Berlin and returned to reception to pick up our keys.

But our room was still not ready.  For some reason, they’d allocated us a room where the previous occupants had been given a 4pm checkout!  What use was that?  After much muttering, a grudging apology of sorts from a staff member and finally, the offer of a drink whilst we waited, at 5.30pm we heard the good news.  Our room was ready.  I’d like to say that the fantastic views more than made up for the aggravation, but that’s not true – yet.  I might have to vent my spleen on Trip Adviser

At least Mary had arrived now, so we had plenty to chat about and of course, the story of the 2014 Road Trip begins here.  Supper at Legal Seafoods hit the spot nicely and kept us all going – Mary is working four hours ahead, we are five hours behind, so between us there’s going to be at least one who’s doing their best not to drop off!  Since it’s now 22:21 according to this laptop and we’ve been up since 6am UK time, I think that’s exactly what I’m going to do now.

Goodnight!

Off we go

We did quite well packing yesterday afternoon, though the dilemma wasn’t about how to get it all in, but whether to take two full or three medium-filled suitcases.  We opted for the latter, so there was plenty of room to put all those heavy guidebooks in as well.  We left the usual notes all over the place for the housesitter, watered the plants and drove to Heathrow last night, meeting Edward for a lovely evening at our favourite Bibendum.

This morning, we’re sitting in the lounge at Terminal 5 waiting for our flight to Boston, where we’ll meet Mary and begin our 2014 Road Trip.  We logged in to check email and my hero discovered that his ipad didn’t want to play.

At some point during our last trip, the screen of his ipad had cracked and though it’s been working perfectly fine, this morning it was looking very dodgy.  With his birthday coming up, I’d already had the idea to replace it but it looked as though a swift decision needed to be made.  I scooted back downstairs to the duty free shop once more and in less than five minutes the deed was done.

He’s made the transition to the dark side as well.  He has a few hours today to explore his new toy and I’ll have to dream up a different birthday surprise.

See you in America!

Are we there yet?

Beautiful green fields offset by a blue sky with a few fluffy clouds is exactly what we’ve been waiting for.  Is Summer here now?

Since I wrote the previous post, we’ve had more downpours and a couple of dreary days which have set the theme for almost every conversation around here.  This morning, the greeting of choice in the car park, at the dentist, in the supermarket – everywhere – was “Isn’t it a beautiful day today?" followed by “wasn’t it awful yesterday?”

We are thankful for sunny days!

For farm shop gooseberries which made a fantastic crumble, even if I do say so myself.

We’re glad that our soft fruit is adorned with Union Jacks again.

And we’re pleased to be able to take a cup of tea and sit in the garden, watching the bees go about their business.

Not to mention the other inhabitants of the neighbourhood, who consider that our garden is their garden too.

As usual, we find the pace building as the week goes on.  It’s the weekend of the Stuart Singers Summer Concerts which means the adrenaline is rising around here.  I’ve been busy at work, learning rather a lot about blacksmithing and dowsing in the process and there are all of those pre-holiday things to slot in like hairdressing appointments, dental checkups and the like. 

We’re counting down the days and looking forward to some road trip jollity next week but right now, the lists are getting longer rather than shorter and I haven’t quite got myself into the travelling frame of mind just yet.

Thankfully, I’m not in that frame of mind, either.  Christmas?  In early June?  You must be joking…

Counting

Someone else is keeping count for me.

I’ve written before about how I like to keep track of where I’ve been and what we did.  All my friends know what an obsessive record keeper I am and they provide me with plenty of material to support my habit (addiction?)  I didn’t really expect British Airways to provide a similar service, however!

This morning, whilst updating his passport information in preparation for our up and coming road trip, Mark spotted this new feature “My Flightpath” and of course, knew that I would love it. But good grief, 408 hours in the air and nearly a quarter of a million miles flown.

And that’s only on British Airways.

Ooooer.  The words “emissions” and “carbon footprint” spring to my mind, closely followed by the word “offset”.  Maybe I’d better investigate.

First of all, some sums to do.  Visiting one or two websites (like this and this) and rounding up one or two figures, it would appear that our return flights will emit around 1.5 tonnes of carbon dioxide per person, though how accurate or up to date that information is, I’m none too sure.  Taking that one step further, there seems to be a general consensus that 6 trees are needed to offset one tonne and yes, of course, there are plenty of websites for organisations who will gladly assuage our guilt and accept our money but how effective they are in making a real difference, I have no idea.  Reading articles like this one doesn’t really help.

So, what to do?  Should I send twenty pounds to some organisation and have them plant the required number of trees for me so that I can go on holiday with a clear conscience?  Or should I learn what I can about the subject and do my best to continue to offset my air travel with other, environmentally friendly actions in my everyday life?

Maybe I should drive a hybrid car? 

Signs of Summer

The sizzling heat and clear blue sky?  Sadly not.  We’ve been through a week of intense showers which have either left us dripping or peering through windows and feeling thankful not to be out there in it.  But still, it’s the end of May and there are signs of Summer around.

This philadelphus by the garden room door has been in bud for a while, but this morning, I noticed that it’s finally come into flower.  We need some still warm air to bring out the fragrance though.

No such specific conditions needed for this not-so-little beauty by the garage steps.  The heavenly scent hit me the minute I turned the corner.  It’s not exactly a tidy bunch of plants, but oh my, it makes up for that in many other respects.

The colour!  No changes made to this picture – that fluorescent pink is straight from the camera.  I love it.

A quieter but equally pretty cousin is flowering in a different border, slowly being strangled by all kinds of thugs which need to be dealt with.  I rescued a few flowers and brought them into the kitchen.

It was the sight of the blowsy white blooms in the hedge which took me outside this morning, though.  At least a week earlier than usual, the elderflower blossoms are beginning to come out in force and knowing that we have only a limited time to capture their magic, I went out to gather a few.

Each one of those little flowerlets packs a punch of summery goodness to be bottled and enjoyed right through the year.

I cut a large bowl full, enough to make a couple of litres today, but will watch those blooms over the next couple of days and make as much as I can before other preoccupations take over later in the week.

Incidentally, the usual problem of sourcing any quantity of citric acid has been resolved this year.  When my local chemist couldn’t find any stock at all from their wholesaler, I resorted to looking online and found Intralabs, where not only was it considerably cheaper (even taking P&P into account) but their excellent service won them another enthusiastic customer.