This is my lovely sister, Alice, on the waterfront across the street from our B & B in St. Peter Port, Guernsey. Guernsey is one of the Channel Islands, and is unique in that it's far closer to France than to England. But there's no doubt that it is a part of the United Kingdom!

Alice and I went to Guernsey because we both had read The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, by Mary Ann Shaffer. It's a delightful book, even though it's about the Nazi occupation of the island 1940-1945; I listened to it as an audiobook and just loved it. While Alice read it, I went online to find Guernsey. At least I knew where the English Channel is, so the hunt was shorter! I highly recommend looking at the Visit Guernsey website because that's what absolutely convinced me we needed to go there.

Travel was a nightmare for me, but I think I have it out of my system after writing to United Airlines. And I did get to see the Munich airport; I'd never been in Germany before! Suffice it to say that Alice arrived, as planned, on Friday, and I on Saturday, NOT as planned. So we started our adventure on Sunday.

We walked. A lot. Someone said it was too bad we didn't have a pedometer but I'm glad we didn't. That had the potential for making our forays into quantifiable items, risking them being judged by the number of steps rather than by what they were. We loved every step. St. Peter Port is the biggest city on the island and we walked up and down that city, mostly up. It has what's called The Cliff as part of its topography. The harbour is at the foot of the cliff and the town just kept filling in the space between the water and the rock with buildings. Eventually people began to build on the high part, too. The result is a darling small city with buildings just cheek-by-jowl, many of them dating back 3-6 centuries! Walls are often 2-3 feet thick. And rock retaining walls are everywhere.

I have no idea how old this particular wall is but you can see it wasn't built yesterday. :)

The age and history of the island fascinated us. There have been humans on Guernsey for thousands of years; I think we were told that artifacts have been found dating back to 8,000 B.C. Castle Cornet, somewhat a "newbie" given the age of so many places, has been there since the 13th century and is used up to this day.

There were so many places to see that I think we both could spend another week there. We visited: the Guernsey Museum--small, lovely, well done, AND there was a band concert there the afternoon we were; (We were sure it was just for us.) 

Vale Castle--come upon by mistake, quiet, very old: "evidence suggests has a history stretching back to the Iron Age" (from www.visitguernsey.com);

the Le Dehus dolmen or "passage tomb"--small, pitch dark, impressive (3000-2500 B.C.) but not easily found, and this claustrophobe couldn't enter it; (I put a water bottle against one of its stone to give some perspective, sorry!)

Victor Hugo's home--large, over-decorated (by him) to the nth, great inspirational views, very worth the visit;

 

Castle Cornet--a fortress from the 13th century that is still a military site and which houses museums devoted to various segments of Guernsey's history and its military forces;

the Occupation Museum--small, filled with such interesting materials and information! and the reason we had come to Guernsey at all;

the beautiful nearby isle of Herm--not big enough to be an island (1.5 x <0 .5="" apologies.="" beaches.="" car-free="" for="" formations="" great="" holding="" local="" m="" mi="" my="" of="" one="" p-r="" p="" paper="" prehistoric="" s="" shots="" stone="" the="" those="" tranquil="" walking="" where="">

My photos bring back all the happiness of this trip. I won't bore you with more because one person's travelogue is another's insomnia cure. 

The highest praise I can give to this vacation is that it was everything I hoped it would be. 

Visit Guernsey. (Maybe read the book first.) With or without the book, you really will be glad you did.

P.S. I could add a bit about what we saw in London but as I said, I was trying not to bore you to tears. Let me know if I should add a short post about that bustling city. Thanks!

Okay, so the last time I posted here was, apparently, August 2012. Something momentous must have happened then! I'm not going to look. What I will do is use this space to provide a short summary (I hear you all out there, you know. Saying: Carla short? How much stronger an oxymoron can you make?) of my trip to the isle of Guernsey and to London. I'm here right now just to make sure I can still post here and provide this as a link for you. You're thrilled, right? That's the spirit!

I'll be back later, either tonight or tomorrow.

A malevolent thunderstorm rolled through here early this morning. No. It didn't roll. It pummeled, pounded, marauded through here. Having grown up in the Midwest I'm used to big thunderstorms. And I love thunderstorms. Until this one I've thought the NY storms are mostly wannabes.

This one had the fiercest lightning I've ever experienced. I felt like I was up in that storm as I watched it out my sunroom windows. No, that's not really right. I felt like it was down on the ground trying to absorb the earth. It was powerful!!

I had awakened a bit earlier hearing a pretty good downpour. But I knew that all our at-risk windows were closed (nothing vital would get soaked) so I went back to sleep. Then through closed eyes there was a HUGE bluewhite flash that literally lifted both me and Bruce from our mattress. The crack of thunder was simultaneous so it was a bluewhite flashcrash. Bruce said immediately, "We were hit." So we got out of bed to look for fire. Weirdly enough, we never lost power. ?

No fire anywhere but a strong smell of ozone near the bedroom. Big surprise. That's when we stood and just watched the storm envelop us. It was the most violent-feeling storm I've experienced. It was just furious! We got 3/4" rain in about an hour, so I thought maybe since it couldn't electrocute us it was trying to drown us. (Not really, but it did RAIN.)

This morning I went out to assess damage ... and to see if we really had got hit. I found a piece of the white trim from the back of the house on the ground about 8' from the house. And then saw the corner it came from.

There are shreds of that shingle on the stones, too. And I could NOT figure out how it had gotten under the eaves. We have a 28" overhang on the sides! Finally, when Bruce figured out it was the exit point, it made sense.

We can't find the entry point. We do have a metal roof, but for heaven's sake, we're a one-storey ranch surrounded by 80' trees. How did the lightning find the space directly over the house where there are no branches???

I told Bruce we were lucky that neither of us had been touching our brass bedstead!

Fresh Bread!

I love making bread. I didn't always. The parts I didn't like were the mess it made on the cupboard (flour going everywhere when I kneaded the dough) and my uncertainty about whether I'd kneaded it enough, too much, used too much flour, too little. That's why I made sweetrolls more often than bread. Then I used the recipe that came with my first Cuisinart. Perfect. No mess, no fuss, no kneading, no guesswork. Loved it.

Friday I used my new Cuisinart for the first time and made the recipe for Classic Wheat Bread that's in the booklet that came with the processor. Lovely loaves. Lovely! And even though I think the water was a little too hot and almost killed the yeast. I was patient enough to let the dough rise properly and was graciously rewarded for that. We're already in need of more loaves so I have dough rising right now. This is another experiment because the only yeast I had in the house was the rapid-rise type. The dough was stickier. We shall see how it turns out. And I'll put a photo with this as soon as it comes out of the oven.

Then I'll invite you all over for fresh bread and butter. (NOT butter substitute. Never. Not on homemade bread.) Coffee? Well, I think tea goes better but I'll allow coffee. Better give me a call to let me know you're on your way so that I turn on the heater in the porch; it's so nice to sit out there.

See you soon?

Politics as Usual ... or Worse

I'm so tired of hearing analyses, predictions, poll results, statistics, negative ads. For the first time since I turned 21 I actually don't feel like voting. I will, but my heart isn't in it.

Our country has become meaner. Too many are unwilling to see nuances, shades, possibilities; too many want everything to be in high contrast, black & white, yes or no. It makes for much easier decision-making when you don't have to take any mitigating circumstances into consideration. Shoot the bastard. He done wrong.

When Air America, the liberal talk-radio station, began a few years ago I heard or read why there had never been (and no longer is) a such a thing. The commentator said that liberals feel it's their duty to listen to all viewpoints and that kills the anger that listeners and callers are looking for. And then I heard Al Franken on Air America and he was doing exactly that: presenting three viewpoints on a topic. How can you have a good heated argument with THREE people? You need only two, and it's best if they hate each other. Needless to say, Air America folded ... last year? Anyway, it's gone.

I want the media to leave me alone in a political season. I want our political season to mimic Canada's: candidates campaign for 6 weeks. No more. I'm sure there's fundraising going on before that period but the actual campaign is 6 weeks. I don't want to move to Canada (partly because I haven't paid attention to their political system and don't have much of a clue as to how it works). But I don't want to be here either.

I'm tired. But I'll vote.

Walking

My daughter runs. My other daughter does the elliptical. I walk. (I would be the oldest one here.) But I walk pretty doggoned fast, if I do say so myself--2.5 miles in about 42 minutes. I've walked for exercise for years and years and have decided that I simply love to walk. People say that runners become addicted to running and maybe I have the same affliction. If I don't walk, I don't feel out of sorts, but I definitely don't feel "in sorts." Walking makes me feel good. I know, I know, it's the endorphins. But I prefer to say that it makes me feel good.

These days I'm walking in "Adirondack fall foliage."


Saranac Lake, about 45 minutes into the mountains from me, was reporting that this past weekend was peak colors for leaf peepers. It's still fun to think that I'm living in a "destination" for downstaters who come up here just to drive around! And I'm sure that many of my readers (I believe I've added a few occasional peepers of my own--up from my 2 original readers, my daughters who read it occasionally out of obligation [But hey, that's what offspring are for, right? To be there for their addled elders.])--who live in equally beautiful parts of the world. But out here, New Yorkers, and even more so, New Englanders, make such a big deal out of it! So I try to appreciate the bejeezus out of it.

So go for a walk. It makes you feel good.

Top Ten

Starla's top 10 reasons not to surround your house and yard with 50-100-year-old oak trees:

10. Acorns


9. The size of the mulch pile that never seems to decrease because it's made up almost entirely of oak leaves, which take about 30 years to biodegrade, and acorns, which apparently never do.

8. Big acorns

7. The bunker mentality one enters when the sound of acorns pelting down from on high and hitting the metal roof on the house creates the sounds of an artillery target zone

6. Little pointy acorns

5. The tiny caterpillars that rappel down by the hundreds from the oaks in the summer--even the county extension people don't know what they are--and that probably feed on acorns

4. Chenilles, which is what my husband calls the lame-o "flowers" oak trees produce, precursors of acorns, which, if not raked (like one is some serious OCD patient) will mat in the rain and create a walking surface much like that of a greased cake pan.

3. The need, aside from one's normal OCD needs, to rake acorns because it becomes impossible to walk across the acorn-studded grass, which is akin to walking on marbles--even in shoes it's not fun.



2. Injuries caused by acorns rocketing down from 60-80 foot trees any time a breeze stronger than 2 mph blows

And the number one reason not to surround your house and yard with 50-100-year-old oak trees:

1. The insult of being hit by an acorn while raking said objects



I'm thinking maples.....