Thud!


From the moment I landed at Heathrow Airport my spirits came back down to earth with a resounding thud. Twenty four hours earlier I had been sauntering around Piedmont Park with Christian in 80 degree heat, dressed as had become the norm during my trip in the ubiquitous shorts, tee-shirt and flipflops. English temperature upon my return was in the high forties, the sky was grey and everything about the place looked drab, drab, drab.

Goosebumps in May? I had not bargained on that. The other real contrast I had not expected - but I don't know why. I had just spent fifteen days in the company of Christian and, at different times, family and friends of Beth, now I was back to my usual existence, alone for many hours at a time.

With no-one to talk to, no-one to share my experiences with - no-one to bore with my holiday stories is the truth - all I could do was sit and reflect on the best holiday of my life. I actually needed the time to process all that had happened, so much was packed in to such a brief period that some events were almost subsumed by the next.

On the penultimate day Christian and I drove to near Birmingham, Alabama to visit a motorcycle museum. On the way we stopped for breakfast, something of a ritual on our road trips, and, in the absence of a Dunkin Donuts we settled on yet another Waffle House. We'd been to enough of these to know that we could find our way round the menu easily enough - the humiliation of my Subway visit still too fresh in my mind to want to risk a strange menu and language difficulties in Alabama!

To the delightful young, pink-haired waitress called Amethyst - birthstone for February as she pointed out - we gave our orders, pretty much just small variations from our previous breakfasts. As always we had both asked for our eggs "over easy", an Americanism I'd heard enough in the films but still enjoyed the novelty of actually saying it.

Amethyst called out our order to the cook - are these the ones Americans call short order chefs - and was met with a strong and withering response. I struggled to understand it all - the cook didn't have subtitles under her face so that we Brits could follow her tirade. Eventually I understood that she was complaining that there was no such thing as "over easy", the waitress should have asked for "over light" I think.

So now I'm confused. Over easy worked just fine for thirteen days and now we'd gotten our waitress a public dressing down for it. As though she cared. She was still smarting from being told to wash out her purple hair as it was too bright, too brash for their customers. Hence she'd changed it to pink! As far as I can now tell the options for eggs in the US roadside diners is from the selection, over light, over easy and over cooked but which one you ask for is anybody's guess.

I had been told many times before by friends who had visited America that the bacon there is very different to ours, "they can't do bacon properly the way we do." Well, what do you know, I absolutely adore American bacon, far prefer it to ours and since my visit have experimented with cooking it for the flavour and texture they achieve. Have managed to get the right degree of crispiness but so far ours has proved a touch too salty. The search continues.

On my third day in America we were off, to Alabama this time too but in this case to Talladega for the race. As we crossed the state line from Georgia into Alabama Christian studied his mobile intently and, sure enough, after a minute or two the time set itself back one hour from Eastern Time to Central Time. Beth was checking her phone - I guess because she's American I had better call hers a cell phone! - but her time didn't alter. Bizarrely, at this time I received a text, something I never expected as all my friends knew I was out of the country and therefore it wasn't worth texting me until my return.

The text was from my mobile (cell) phone provider welcoming me to the Isle of Man! For the benefit of the American readers I should point out that the Isle of Man is, surprise, a small island, population 80,000, in the Irish Sea between England and the Irish Republic. How a signal from Alabama placed me in the Irish Sea I'll never understand. Modern technology at its best, I guess. T-mobile redeemed themselves five minutes later, however, with a follow-up text which said, "Welcome to the United States of America". I'd only been there three days!

My return to England held something of a surprise for me. During my lifetime there have been fifteen general elections, all resolved quite satisfactorily, if not always to the pleasure of various participants. This sixteenth was the first one I was going to be out of the country for - an unfortunate fact caused by the Prime Minister's lack of knowledge of the date for the Talladega race or my travel plans, although he only had to ask.

I applied for a postal vote and British efficiency excelled again - they sent me my voting form some time after I left the country. Thus I was in no position to make my mark and what happens? A hung parliament, that's what. My first reaction was that hanging was too good for some of them but quickly realised I misunderstood the meaning of the phrase. I blame myself for the outcome, of course. I should never have left the voters to cope by themselves with such an enormous task. Simply, I should have tried to get the main event moved to some time after the Talladega race.

Three good things have come out of the results, though. Firstly we have ended up with a coalition government which should prevent the worst excesses we have seen before from the two main parties. Secondly, we have a promise of electoral reform, something long overdue and I have advocated for a very long time, and finally the coalition has agreed to introduce fixed term parliaments of five years in future - instead of elections being called at the whim of the incumbent Prime Minister - a move I suspect agreed upon to make it much easier for me to arrange my holidays and thus avoid a repetition of this whole sorry business!

Brits'n'grits

First of all I need to acknowledge that the title today - the first that is nothing to do with songs - was suggested by Christian and I think probably sums up the fortnight quite well.

The story of me and grits has continued - last Sunday I went with Christian, Beth and Beth’s family for breakfast at a restaurant called Famous Amos in Jacksonville, Florida. They showed me there the proper way to eat grits, with plenty of melted butter stirred in plus liberal doses of salt and pepper. I really don’t like salt, don’t use it at all so passed that by but certainly smothered my grits with butter and pepper. So now I am able tell you how much better grits is when eaten properly.

But I can’t lie to you.

On Tuesday evening we went to dinner at Beth’s aunt’s house. There I managed to continue my run of meeting relatives I saw at Christian and Beth’s wedding last July but actually getting a chance to speak to them properly this time. I met a few last weekend in Jacksonville and on Tuesday night I had chance to catch up with Beth’s cousin, Kathy, her son, Austin who really loves railways, plus Bob and Sindy. Bob is Christian’s boss these days but the reality is when you see them together they are a comedy double act who just giggle and laugh their way through life.

Sindy was kind enough to give me two books as a present, the first a lovely photographic book about Atlanta which will always remind me of my trip. The second book was a cook book. How she knew I liked cooking I’ll never know. But it really was a thoughtful present. Especially as every recipe includes grits!

As this is being written on my last afternoon in the USA - for this trip at least - I am mindful to think back over the things I have seen and done during this trip. One incident not mentioned in this blog previously happened when we were at the gardens with all the sculptures near Murrells Inlet.

We walked into one of the sculpture buildings and were greeted with a “Hello!” by an elegant and elderly woman sat behind a desk. Christian and I walked around a bit and then our path led us back past this desk. The lady asked how we were, heard the accents in our answer so queried where we were from. Christian told her London in England but he now lived in Atlanta.

This dear old soul told us she used to live there but left when it became too fast and hectic for her and she and her family moved to South Carolina for a quieter, more tranquil life. I asked how long ago she left and she told, “Oh - let me think - it was - er - oh, heck - when was it? - er - I guess my son was in the fifth grade then.”

“Would it be tactless of me to ask how old your son is now?” I ventured.

“Oh - er - how old is he now? - er - he’s - er - let me think - yes - he’s seventy two.”

She looked barely seventy herself but it turned out she was ninety-two and, apart from having a fading memory - we’d allow her that, wouldn’t we? - she was as bright as a button. We walked around the room a few minutes longer then Christian said, “There’s something I have to say to that lady.” Off he went and simply said to her, “I have to tell you that you are a very attractive woman.” She was most certainly that. Reckons he made her day.

Wednesday was spent at the Barber Motorsport Park near Birmingham, Alabama. There they have a motorcycle museum. One of the things I’ve learned from this trip is that America certainly knows how to do museums. This particular one was stunning, really huge covering five floors and crammed with excellent examples of nearly every bike ever made. And that with another six hundred examples which they just don’t have room for so we can’t see. All very impressively laid out in a magnificent building.

For the second time during a museum visit Christian and I were shuffled quickly through one part because they had a tour party coming round and clearly the tour groups are worth more effort than two men strolling around on their own. Shame that but it wasn’t a problem. The only reason I tell you this fact is because of the group we had to move aside for at the motorcycle museum - a group of eighteen ladies, all immaculately dressed and beautifully coiffured hair, and sixty-five if they were a day. Not, dare I suggest, your typical bike fans.

The strongest impression I take back home with me from this visit, though, is undoubtedly the friendliness of everyone. Not just friends and family but also the countless times a total stranger has asked, “How ya doin?” as I’ve walked past, or just smiled and said, “Hi!” And one whiff of our accents has opened up all sorts of chats and big, friendly smiles. Christian’s big smile and his accent make everybody melt - you can see it happen. Yup. This sure is a friendly part of the world.

And, although America can be so very different to Europe I realised the reality is that with most things life here is much the same as ours really, it just needs to think in bigger distances, etc. Here it is really normal to drive forty miles just to visit a friend, a distance British people would think hard before going. The buildings are taller, the cities larger and grander, the distances between vast compared to ours but it seems people still live the same sort of lives. In England the big topic seems to be X-factor, in the USA American Idol. Every time Beth’s family were together that subject came up.

Tell you what, though. American toilet bowls baffled me! Why are most of them half-filled with water? It freaks me every time I see that - seems a waste of water and utterly pointless. And - as a man who is heading - no - racing headlong into old age and knowing that the time comes when body parts start sagging those bowls full of water hold promise of a cold, wet future!

I’ve also grown very fond of always being dressed in tee-shirts, short and flip-flops. That’s a great way to live. Hard to see what it could be that takes women so long to get ready to go out anywhere, though! I will definitely miss the shorts and flip-flops back in the UK apart from the three days a year we can comfortably wear them.

And your women too. I will miss them. I could not help but notice that there are some really gorgeous looking women here. With all the self control I could muster I managed to survive by using up every ounce of discipline I could and only fell deeply in love five times a day.

This blog went out to more people than I had ever envisaged. Thank you so much for taking the time and trouble to look and I just hope that somehow they were maybe interesting and entertaining. This will be the end of this particular blog as the holiday ends in a few short hours.

I have been writing another blog which has been read by precisely nobody! It started as practice for this and was used occasionally to write thoughts and feelings about things going on in my life. I can’t say I put too much thought into what was being written believing it would never be read. But I have had some very encouraging and kind feedback about this blog relating tales of my visit to Christian and Beth so maybe - just maybe - I could be tempted to write the odd piece for that - and heaven knows some of the pieces I write can be odd!

If you are interested in that the blog is at www.kevinisawally.blogspot.com

Bye-bye America - it’s been so much fun discovering one small part of you.

Love and ((((HUG))))

Kevin

The boys are back in town

Sure, Christian was so looking forward to seeing Beth again after their longest separation since before they wed, and we were both looking forward to seeing her family and friends in Jacksonville again, but you just cannot imagine the feeling of being two little boys who had to go and rejoin the grown-ups after our six day jaunt through some of the southern states. It was a feeling akin to having our toys taken away.


Beth’s parents, Pat and Dick, and her sisters, their families and Beth’s friends were so, so welcoming - incredibly I feel like I’m part of the family, so much hugging and kissing was called for, but I had shaved especially for the occasion . . .

I was taken on Sunday to St Augustine, the oldest inhabited place apparently in the US. I’m assuming here that the Native Americans were pretty much all nomadic and so never established what we’d know as townships.

St Augustine, for me, gave confusing messages. It has some of the most beautiful buildings to be seen in the USA but it is what they are doing with those buildings that bugs me so much. Am I to believe that the original Spanish settlers liked nothing more than to relax in an Irish Bar or to shop for tee-shirts and fridge magnets? As far as I can see this happens the world over - in Stratford-upon-Avon, Shakespeare’s home town in England, it is far easier to buy a piece of Waterford Crystal than it is to buy a loaf of bread. And in creating tourist-centred towns they seem to destroy the soul of what was originally there.

To me, St Augustine is very much a twenty-first century town dressed in eighteenth century clothes. If ever there was a place crying out to be a living historical village St Augustine would be it. To walk down that main road and be able to see a period dressed blacksmith working at his forge, to see bread being prepared as it used to, to see what ever sort of lawman they would have had at that time - do we know what their legal hierarchy was? - to see an 18th century school being run would have been so entertaining, so much fun and what a way to educate your children by bringing them to actually see a living example of how it all begun.

But, sadly, with so many people earning a good dollar selling tourist tat how can you undo what has been done? Who would give up their chance of taking that quick buck to create a wonderful example of living history even if it could eventually turn a profit once the whole idea got up and running. If my thoughts have offended any Americans, especially Floridians who I know are proud of their treasured town, then I am sorry but I only know to say what I see and what I see is an opportunity sadly missed.

Never before have I been given instructions for a bathroom which told me to turn left at the first sink, go down past the bath/shower and second sink, turn right at the end and there I would find the toilet. In the house I live in a moment’s carelessness as I open the bathroom door will see me crack my shins on the toilet bowl. Compared to what I am used to the bathroom Pat gave me to use was huge!

A conversation I had with a dear friend two months ago caused me to check on something I do every day and take very much for granted. I discovered that each day I spend exactly six seconds looking in a mirror, never a second more. After a shower and getting dressed a quick check to make sure my hair isn’t sticking up anywhere is all I need to see of me, thank you. The reason I mention this is because the bathroom I used at Pat’s had two huge wall mirrors and some odd little ones scattered about so with alarming frequency I would look up from whatever I was doing and see various views of myself. And that is how I discovered that middle-aged man’s body is absolutely not an attractive site, is it ladies? I’m back to my six second look at my hair!

Talking of bathrooms reminds me that on Christian’s and my travels we obviously had to use various restrooms along the way. There I found American restrooms are adorned with exactly the same graffiti as those in my homeland, only the phone numbers are changed. All sorts of alluring and enticing offers being made, but cruelly not for straight men - we actually become a persecuted minority, it seems. But how curious that virtually every town, both American and British has a guy called Richard who seems to like writing this stuff. Or Big Dick as he prefers to be known.

The price of petrol or gasoline has raised its head a few times during our stay here, especially for Floridians who watch the price of their fuel hike up every summer so that a tidy profit can be creamed from the influx of tourists. It is with some annoyance that they watch their prices rise to over three dollars per gallon.

Comparing prices can be a tricky business because UK prices are marked at the pump in pounds per litre although older English people still try to work out how much it is per gallon. The situation then gets more complicated because the English and American gallons are completely different sizes. But Christian, Beth and I have wrestled with the maths and can at last make a direct comparison. Whilst Americans get mad at their prices rising above three dollars a gallon I can tell you that for the same volume fuel the British are starting to protest at paying seven dollars forty. And do you know why ours is so much more expensive? A simple three-lettered word gives the answer. Tax.

On a visit to Beth’s sister in Jacksonville we stumbled across something which offers a solution to high fuel prices and could become a useful multi-tasking aid for the future. Built by a teenage neighbour who understandably is off soon to college to study mechanical engineering, ladies and gentlemen I present to you the motorised bar stool!

Georgia on my mind

Those tourist buses, they're the only way to first see a new place, aren't they? I drive trains in to Liverpool in England virtually every day and yet knew nothing really about the place until I went for a ride on their tourist bus. They have a huge Catholic Cathedral in the city centre, a round concrete structure which, because of its shape and Liverpool's large Irish population, is known locally as Paddy's Wigwam. It was on the tourist bus that I learned that the four bells hung side by side in a tower at the front of the cathedral are known to the priests and congregation as Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. I also discovered that to the rest of the Liverpudlians those four bells will always be referred to as John, Paul, George and Ringo!

So it was inevitable that Christian and I would ride the tourist bus in Savannah today. What a fabulous city. Such a rich history and so much of it still in tact. The tour guide was a sweetie who told us loads of little tales and didn't hang back from sharing her opinions with us all. To one couple, asking about visiting a particular house, the scene of the crime in the book, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, she said simply, "You pay twelve dollars fifty and you get to see three rooms, a garden and they positively will not discuss the book with you. If you think that might be good value . . ." and let that sentence hang in the air. The couple went to another house.

I had originally thought I would return to some of the squares and take some, no doubt, artistic shots of spanish moss and antebellum houses. And then I thought; You know what? You can find excellent pictures of that stuff on google images. You wanna see them, look there and you'd find better photos than I'd ever take. Like this one:

Instead Christian and I just roamed aimlessly around and let fate take us where it will. We've found ourselves in some wonderful places just by letting life decide where we should go. It certainly found us an awesome burger joint today serving some of the best - and genuinely award-winning - burgers we ever had. A card on the table proudly told us, "New Belgium's Skinny Dip is a full-bodied, figure friendly beer perfect for the lightly attired summer months. Cascade hops frolic with ample malt to create a bright, citrusy nose that's as crisp as a frothy dip in a mountain pond." Now - if I'm to be open and honest with you, I like to frolic as much as the next man - really I do - would welcome the chance, truth be told - but I'm not too big on having a bright, citrusy nose or a frothy dip. Is there any chance I could just have a beer please?

A couple of hours later, after seeing a container ship sail into the port, which induced the odd "Wow" from us and even the occasional "Ooh!" and "Aah!" as our linguistic skills grow by the day, we said idly that we both fancied a coffee. As we went off in search of it - and let's be fair here, in America searching for coffee is not especially taxing - I said what we could really do with was a New Orleans jazz band playing on a street corner. Two blocks later we stumbled across these people outside a coffee bar. Ok, so they aren't from New Orleans nor are they a jazz band but we weren't about to quibble with that.

These guys epitomised all I have found in the deep south. Take another look at the black guy on the left. Look at his guitar. Notice anything? See that? - No strings. Neither could he sing. In fact all he did was rock side-to-side with the music and strum noiselessly on his stringless guitar. He had learning difficulties and could only walk with the aid of a walking frame. But to the singer/guitarist and the double bass player he was part of the band, they gave him solos where he just rocked to the beat and earned his own rounds of applause. That's cool, isn't it? Christian and I sat for a long time, drinking our coffee, eating our gelato and just watching the show. If we'd have done the tourist thing we'd never have stumbled across this scene. I'm glad we did.

Remember a couple of days ago I said we wouldn't be staying in the Bates Motel in Savannah? Well, we're not. But neither are we staying anywhere salubrious. Another wash basin in the bedroom. Just less Mexicans in the next room this time.

But out tour of the hotels and motels of the deep south has raised one of life's big problems for me. Showers. Every single one is a work of art to get it to the right temperature and flow, is it not? I have grappled, wrestled and fought with many a tap/faucet and shower hose. And what is it with the controls? The only guidance they give you is an "H" on one side and a "C" on the other, or - if they are trying to be really helpful - they colour one side blue and one side red.

Toasters don't have just blue and red to guide you. Neither does your oven. Nor washing machine. So how come that is considerd good enough for showers? Here's my suggestion, and I'm looking for your support here. The temperature control should be marked as follows. Arctic Blizzard - Nipple Hardener - English Rain - Mississippi Shower - Lobster Rinse - Blisters4Free. And the flow rate could be marked from softest to hardest as Soft Drizzle - Sensual Pleasure - Comfort Rinse - Depilator - Tattoo Remover.

How easy would that be to set the shower just how you want it? Are you with me on this? We could make it happen!