What were you expecting?
Last week, there was a blogger/social media conference in New Orleans, and a lot of the bloggers I read were there. Dooce just posted a picture from her trip, and I want to go back! To New Orleans, not necessarily to the conference (although I would probably really enjoy one of those). I want to go right now.
Right now!
…to miss New Orleans? [Written Wednesday night, March 30th, edited today.]
Honestly, I haven’t left yet, but I imagine I’ll know pretty soon. These last two nights have been among the best ever. Everyone I know is missing out. Last night, I went to Preservation Hall and met Shannon Powell (drummer for Harry Connick, Jr, for six years (not anymore) and on what I consider to be his three best albums), and tonight I saw Mr. Powell play at the Palm Court Jazz Cafe with some awesome New Orleans musicians AND Jerry Weldon and Wendell Brunious, both of whom have played (and do play) with Harry Connick, Jr. Jerry Weldon plays tenor saxophone, and I swear I recognized his tone (not his face) the minute he started playing. Have you heard him play “A Nightingale Sang on Berkeley Square”? I have, at least a thousand times. I’d recognize that sound anywhere. (Branford Marsalis plays it on the album, but Jerry plays it on The New York Big Band Concert video, which I unfortunately only have on VHS. That will change soon.)
Here’s how it went: Last night, Shannon told me he’d be playing at the Palm Court tonight at 8. I made plans with a coworker (that would be Crazy) to go there for dinner. She got waylaid by our clients, so I went there by myself, still expecting her to show up once she got rid of them. (She never did.) I walked in the door a little before 8, and when the hostess asked me if I wanted to sit at the bar, I said (a little excitedly), “I’m here for the band. And the food.” She laughed a little (at me, I’m sure), and gave me a table for two right at the edge of the stage.
That's my table. And my second hurricane.
The band came on, Shannon popped over to say hi, and they were great. At the first break, I stopped the bass player (Richard Molton) to tell him how much I enjoyed his playing (he was really good). He said he hadn’t been playing this kind of music lately (since Katrina), and he felt out of his element. I told him it didn’t show. He asked me if I was local. I said no, and he said he thought I knew Shannon. (!) I explained. Nice guy. Then I left him alone to take his break. Shannon came by to say hi again, sat down at my table. (Wait – it gets better.) He said, “Your favorite trombone player is here.” “No…” He nodded. “Introduce me?” He did. We walked over to a table near the back of the restaurant, and I met Lucien Barbarin, hilarious and fantastic trombone player for Harry Connick, Jr. SO cool. I went back to my table and texted Corey, “I just met Lucien.” His response: “This is epic. Get pictures!” Pictures! Of course! I went back to Lucien’s table and said something like (I’d had two hurricanes, so I’m not sure exactly what I said), “Excuse me. I’m sorry to interrupt you again, and I know this is a bit fangirl-ish, but could I get a picture of the two of us?” He’s a gentleman and all-around nice guy, so of course he said that would be fine. I handed my phone off to I don’t know who (maybe Richard?), and got my picture of me and Lucien.
My dark and blurry picture of me and Lucien
And then I got a picture of me and Shannon.
Great hat
I have a picture of me and Richard, too, but it’s way worse than those two. We’re backlit and you can barely make out our fuzzy faces.
The band went back on for their second set, but this time, they had a few people sit in. Wendell Brunious on trumpet, Jerry Weldon on tenor saxophone, and some guy whose name I didn’t catch on guitar joined in. It’s amazing to me that these guys can sit in with a band used to playing together and pick up on all the arrangements. Or, if they don’t, everyone can handle it. They’ll all figure it out, play well together, handle any hiccups, and the audience will never know. Professionals. So cool.
Did I mention the singer? Topsy Chapman, who was fantastic, did “At Last” and I nearly cried.
After the second set ended, I told the trombone player how much I enjoyed his playing (that might have happened after the first set – he looked like he was having SUCH a good time), I talked to Richard the bass player again (found out he’s been playing his second best bass since Katrina because his first one was destroyed after sitting in something like nine feet of water), said goodbye to Lucien and Jerry (Lucien hugged me!), talked briefly with the younger guys who were with Lucien (both playing in Harry’s orchestra – one subbing for a couple of weeks, one who’s been with him for ten years – oh my god!), and then Shannon offered me a ride to my hotel. We were walking out with him and his trumpet player (not Wendell). I told him that wasn’t necessary, he didn’t need to drive me home. He asked me if I’d rather walk. ‘Not really.” (It was late and it would have taken me at least half an hour.) So he dropped me off at my hotel. I have the date and time of his next gig (tomorrow night), and I will be there.
I was there, it was awesome, and I will tell you about it very soon. But first, a couple more pictures from that night.
That's Jerry Weldon (you know, the guy with the saxophone). Lars Edegran is in the back on piano (he was at Preservation Hall the night before). I never caught the names of the other two guys.
The whole band, with my empty table (and third hurricane) up front.
That's a classic Jerry Weldon move.
John told me a number of times that I should go to Preservation Hall, so Tuesday morning I looked up the website. I recognized the name of the guy playing that night (because I’m a big Harry Connick, Jr fan and a bit of an obsessive nerd, I happened to know off the top of my head that Shannon Powell was the drummer for his big band in the early nineties (We Are In Love is possibly my favorite album)), so I planned to go after work. First set started at 8pm. Unfortunately, I had to get through the whole day first. I invited my coworker, who I’ll call Crazy (the only other person on this trip who actually works for my company – everyone else we worked with that week works for our client agency), and we got invited to dinner with one of the clients. I didn’t particularly want to hang out with anyone from the agency after working hours (I was hoping to relax. I didn’t want to be on anymore.), but I didn’t have a not-rude way out just then. Anyway, she wasn’t interested in going to Preservation Hall. I could handle dinner.
Dinner was uneventful, even boring, especially because Crazy bailed on me. It started pouring down rain (like flooding rain – we could have swum down Canal Street), and she called to tell me she was staying in. I had an teeny umbrella that barely kept my head dry, but nothing was keeping me from Preservation Hall that night, so I met my client coworker outside her hotel, and we ran through the rain to the Palace Cafe. Got drenched from about mid-thigh down. The food was good (I had andouille crusted fish – spicy and delicious), the conversation was boring, and as soon as I dropped client coworker back at her hotel, I headed out.
If you’ve never been, Preservation Hall (at least where the band plays) is this tiny little room with dirty wood plank flooring, a few wooden benches in the middle of the room (maybe four) and along the walls, a row of cushions up front, and some standing room in the back. The entrances to the room are on the left side if you’re facing the street (and the band). There are two doorways on that side, one near the front of the room and one near the back. You go in through the back and leave out the front, and the doorway near the front is right by the band. When I came in ($12 cover, and $2 for traditional requests, $5 for other requests, $10 for “When the Saints Go Marching In”, noted on a little sign on the wall behind the band), the band was playing, and as I passed the front doorway, I looked in, saw Shannon Powell (Shannon Powell!), and he waved at me and gave an enthusiastic “Hey!” That was awesome. I gathered he really liked to see people come in to hear him play. There were a ton of people there already, so I joined the crowd in the back and found a spot where I could see. Sort of. If I stayed on my toes and looked over a guy’s shoulder. Still, the music was awesome, and we all had a good time. The set ended about nine, maybe a little before, and I stuck around for the next set. I watched the people leaving talk to members of the band (Shannon Powell on drums, Lars Edegran on piano, Clive somebody on trumpet, somebody else on bass, and Scott somebody on trombone) as they filed past them on their way out that front doorway, and I decided I’d talk to Shannon and gush a little on my way out after the next set. I found a better spot along the right-hand wall for the second set. The crowd this time around wasn’t as lively. I was the most enthusiastic person there, clapping to the beat, having a wonderful time. Totally fun, and I decided to stay for the third set. How often will I get to see this? I’ll manage staying out late on a work night. My enthusiasm didn’t go unnoticed. After the second set ended, Mr. Powell came over to meet me. Wanted to know who his fan was, I think. It turns out he said hi to me when I came in because I look like someone he used to work with who left town a while back. He thought she may have been back for a visit. Yeah, that’s not me. But still, I’m an enthusiastic fan. He asked me what I was drinking (I didn’t have a drink), and I said nothing right now. He beckoned me along after him. We went across the street and stepped into a bar. (Johnny White’s.) I was feverishly trying to think of what to order that wouldn’t be either gross (to me) or totally lame (to him). He asked, I said rum and coke, he said he’s drinking rum, too (rum and orange juice, I think), I said that sounds good, and he ordered me one. And waved me away when I reached for my wallet. He bought me a drink. ! We chatted a little (where am I from, where are you touring next, etc), and he asked me if I wanted to hang out with the band later. I panicked a little, said I couldn’t, I’m here for work, and I have a presentation in the morning. Lies! My presentation was the day after, in the afternoon. He said something about getting my number so we can stay in touch and catch up when he comes to DC. (I was thinking to myself that I was not that captivating during that conversation. Still, he’s didn’t come across as sleazy. Just friendly.) Anyway, I regretted the presentation lie and decided I’d tell him I mixed up the days if he asked again. (He didn’t.) He said he’s playing at the Palm Court the next night (Wednesday). I asked about it, and he said they have great food, great music. I said I’ll be there. We went back to the hall for his third set, and I took my spot back on the wall. Good third set (the crowd was better than for the second set). We all danced at the end. The guy hugging the wall behind me thanked me on behalf of the band for being able to clap on the right beat (2 and 4 as opposed to 1 and 3 like a few idiots in the audience). I tipped the band (as you do), and Shannon said “Palm Court tomorrow?” “I’ll be there at 8.” I headed out and walked back to my hotel, grinning like an idiot at everyone I passed (it was a little before midnight), and called Mindy to rave about my evening. What did she want to know? “What are you going to wear tomorrow?” We have priorities. It was SO. MUCH. FUN.
I’m back home, where spring has sprung, but it’s not warm enough for me. Not after a week of mid-70s in New Orleans. Not after only needing a jacket late at night on my way home a jazz club. And speaking of weather and jazz and awesomeness, if I hadn’t made notes during the week, I wouldn’t know where to begin. Since I did, I’ll begin at the beginning.
I got to New Orleans Saturday afternoon and made it to my hotel. Pretty straightforward. Finding my room after that was not so simple. I was in Building 2 (or was it Building B?), which is up an escalator, up another escalator, across the breezeway, forward and then around to the left, past the gift shop that wasn’t open even ONCE the whole week, up an elevator, down a hall, and around another corner. The gym (which I faithfully visited every morning except for the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth days), was back the way I’d come in and then another half-mile in the opposite direction from the front desk and up four floors. It was a workout just to get there.
Everyone else (Mom, Dad, Mindy, Corey, Candy, and Gaby – we were only missing John and Mark) got there a few hours later, and after dinner, Mindy, Corey, Candy, and I headed to Bourbon Street. That was…something. I may not have been in the right mood. Crowded, loud, dirty. We wound our way through throngs of girls in short prom dresses, frat boys, and vomit. We did find a Dixieland band playing in a bar, though (Fritzel’s European Jazz Pub – beware the link if your speakers are on: music starts playing as soon as you land on the page). That was cool. Something I learned (although not that night): many musicians would rather you didn’t call it Dixieland. Traditional New Orleans Jazz is the preferred term.
The next morning (Sunday – it was a beautiful morning), we had brunch at Brennan’s. I could do that every week. You’d have to roll me home every week, but WOW. Loved the place, loved the strawberries and cream, LOVED the bananas foster and crepes fitzgerald. My entree was meh, but everyone else’s was reallyreally good, and I tried them all. From there, we hopped the streetcar to the Garden District (after changing into our UK gear – Go CATS!). Those houses are amazing.
Detour to talk about the weather. It was so warm. SO warm. And breezy, and wonderful, and WARM. All the windows (big windows) on the streetcar were open and it felt so nice. /detour
A little after 4pm (game time!), we hopped off the streetcar and Corey and Candy asked a nice stranger where we might be able to find a sports bar. You can’t run around during March Madness with your UK gear on and NOT watch the game. He sent us to one a couple of blocks away, practically empty, except for three people together at the bar and maybe another guy. Just after halftime, one of the three at the bar walked by our table on her way back to her seat. She was wearing a UK shirt, too, and Corey high-fived her. Mindy and I looked at each other. She looked really familiar to both of us, but it’s a little ridiculous of us to assume we know everyone in the world wearing a UK shirt, right? Well, right, except not in this case. I went over to ask her. “Are you from [town redacted]?” “Yes.” “Did you go to [high school redacted]?” “Zannah?” So, yeah, we went to high school together, had friends in common (loyal commenter IBCRandy, among others), remembered each other vaguely, but enough. Totally weird. She lives in the neighborhood we were in. What are the odds? The stars aligned for me this whole trip, but more on that in another post (or three). So that was cool. And UK won, which was also cool. Too bad they couldn’t keep that up.
Dad, Corey, Candy, and Gaby all left on Monday (after breakfast at the Cafe du Monde, where we watched Gaby wallow in powdered sugar), and I went to work for a few hours. I came back to find Mom and Mindy waiting in my room (it was kind of sad to come back after work the next day and have no one to meet me). Mindy made an inspired dinner decision (I think it was her choice), and we went to the Grapevine Wine Bar. No live music, but the wine made up for that. We killed three bottles and ate appetizers (scallops, beef medallions, cheese and crackers, baked brie, and something else…mussels!) and skipped dessert. Partly because who needs dessert after three bottles of wine, and partly because fudge cheese didn’t sound particularly appetizing. I’m not making that up.
On our tipsy way back to the hotel after dinner, we met a three-man a capella group on the corner somewhere along Decatur and sang with them. Met some people on the way back home (all new friends), and then Mom and Mindy left the next morning (Tuesday). Tuesday night is when my solo adventures started, and I’ll get into them tomorrow. I’m typed out.
I’m both ready to come home and ready to stay for a month. More music please! I keep finding out that all these musicians I would LOVE to see are regulars at this club or that bar or that restaurant over there, but only on nights I’ve already missed or nights after I leave this week. I need more time to see them all, but I really want to come home. I really want to be on vacation, really. Having to work is really cramping my style. 
I am officially one degree away (or is that two? I know someone who knows him.) from Harry Connick, Jr. Tonight was awesome. Details to come.
Just busy. Taking notes. Will probably have some time tomorrow night (when I’ve been abandoned by all who love me) to catch up. See? So busy I have to start in the middle of my sentences.
I’ve never cows look as happy or move as fast as the ones in this video. If I’d been confined to a muddy yard and barn all winter, I’d be happy, too.
(A very special happy-cow-in-spring thank you to nn.c for the video link.)
More credit goes to Nancy for finding Tom and Lorenzo. If you like celebrity fashion (if, like me, you browse through People magazine after the awards shows to see all the dresses while waiting in line at the grocery store) and you want to read snarky critiques, you will love their blog. This post about Daniel Craig is hilarious.
If you’ve ever gotten tired of listening to your three-year-old (or four-year-old or five-year-old or thirteen-year-old) tell jokes badly, you may want to watch this. Or maybe you don’t.
I’m supposed to be packing. Not packing tonight will lead to panic in the morning. Actually, it will lead to not sleeping tonight, since the clothes I’m going to pack are strewn across the bed. (I may be over-packing. A bit. Don’t try and stop me!) So I’m packing.
Have I said where I’m going? I don’t believe I have. From tomorrow night through Friday, I’ll be in New Orleans for work. I have to support a conference for the client. Or support the client at a conference. Whatever. I’m going to miss John’s band’s first gig that isn’t a block party. (Hey, if you’re in or near Bethesda and you want to see a band Saturday night, let me know. I can get you in.)
Right. Packing. I’m going.
I’m traveling for work next week (for the first time since last June – this isn’t anything like a continuation of last spring’s craziness and stress), so I’m making lists. I have so many lists I need a list to track my lists.
I can’t think of anything I have to do that doesn’t fit into one of those categories. Sometimes a list like that makes me feel organized, like I can get everything done in time. Not so much tonight.
Day 4 in Wales was Sunday, I think, January 2nd. Since we’d already had some issues with things being closed due to the holiday, we assumed Sunday wouldn’t be any different and switched our castle plans (we always have castle plans) for outdoorsy-type activities. Like hiking along Offa’s Dyke. Of course, our travel guides didn’t say how to get to Offa’s Dyke (which is a very long trail along the English-Welsh border that passes near our village somewhere), so we asked Carl (the go-to guy while our landlords were away). Got his directions (which were quite vague: “Follow the lane out to the road, then go straight.” It sounds straightforward, but there wasn’t really an option that was clearly “straight” when we got to the road. And he left out the “veer right when you get to the fork” that would have been helpful later on), set off, and finally found the path (marked with acorn signs) about a mile from the cottage. (Once we found the path, we were set.) So we started hiking. And hiking. And climbing. Up and up and up. Spectacular views, better and better the higher we got. We’d warm up from the exertion, then stop to take pictures and start shivering again. We climbed all the way to the top of a mountain, and I stopped some people coming back down to ask them the name of it. I’d like to know what mountains I climb. I’ll add it to my list. My growing list of all of two mountains now. He struggled a bit, but came up with Penrhyddion (I’m guessing at the spelling, but I’m pretty sure I’m right – pronounce the two d’s in the middle like th), which I haven’t been able to find listed as a mountain on Google. I’ll keep looking. After taking lots of pictures from the top (we were so high there was a light dusting of snow!), we headed back down. All in all, we hiked about four hours. Came back to the cottage, the bottoms of our boots caked in mud, had some tea and biscuits, cleaned up, and went looking for dinner. Every pub that says they serve food on the sign outside is a liar. We went into one that clearly said they serve food, but when I asked, no, they don’t. We had a pint anyway and met some very friendly people (a guy who lived in Houston when he was a teenager who came away from the experience with a dislike of Texas and another guy, drunk, who called himself the local idiot) with lots of advice on how to spend our next few days.
Oh, we saw sheep, too. Lots of sheep. Honestly, the castles we did end up seeing were totally cool, but I think this was my favorite day.
View from our cottage of where we were headed
The path was clearly marked, once we found it. John wants to know why the acorn is upside down.
These narrow lanes are not much fun in the dark.
I'd like a door like this in my yard someday. Leading to my secret garden. Maybe the gate should be wrought iron.
John climbing over an honest-to-goodness stile
Check this out - a gate for the dogs who can't get over the stile!
In case you weren't sure what it was for.
View from level one, back towards the village and our cottage
Any idea which way to go now?
Sheep!
Bracken!
I think one of the small hill gods lives here.
Sheep for Jess
View from a bit higher up (but not the top, not yet)
Mountains we didn't climb. At least not that day.
Damn, we took a lot of pictures on this hike. I’m skipping to the end. When John posts all of our pictures in his gallery, I’ll point you there.
The top! See that white stuff on the ground? Mm-hm. Snow.
I think that town is Denbigh. Hard to say, though.
I may or may not have been dancing in circles while singing songs from The Sound of Music. You'll never know for sure.
Let’s see…if Day 2 (in Chester) was New Year’s Eve, that makes Day 3 New Year’s Day. We’d stayed up until midnight the night before but not doing anything crazy, so what few plans we’d made for the day started with a run. Of course, when the alarm went off at 7 and it was still pitch black outside, we decided to put it off. Looked again at 7:30 – still very dark. (No streetlights, no houselights = very dark.) We finally got up at 8 (skipped the run), showered (Have I mentioned the shower? Stand-up shower, pretty small (barely enough room to turn around in), but it had great water pressure and a wide showerhead so you were pretty much under the spray no matter where you stood. Quite nice.), and headed north and west to look for breakfast. Yeah, nothing’s open on New Year’s Day. At least, not in the morning. We stopped at a Sainsbury’s (supermarket) and noticed a small crowd of people waiting outside. NOT OPEN. It was a couple of minutes before ten, so we joined the waiters on the assumption that the store would open at ten. They opened a few minutes after ten, but close enough, so we picked up some croissants and a couple of bottles of water and ate a flaky breakfast in the car. Kept driving west. We didn’t have any solid plans. We just kept driving to see what we could see. We saw a high stone wall that looked like it surrounded a park, so we pulled off the main road and headed down one side looking for a way in. Didn’t find it, but we did see a sign and some steps climbing the hill into the woods.
Can’t you just see them beckoning? There was a golf club just down the road, so we pulled into their parking lot, reached for hats and gloves and cameras, and then it started pouring down rain. (It had only been misting before.) Our Welsh weather gods were nice to us, though. We waited a couple of minutes and the rain settled back into a light mist again. We started climbing. There were a lot more stairs then we expected, so we kept climbing. Eventually, we got to the top of that hillside and came out on a wide track – practically a road. Left or right? Left went uphill, so we did, too. First clearing:
This is where we came from
That's where we could have gone
And this is where we did go. Road less traveled, right? We're adventurers!
But before I move on up the trail, here’s the view (part of it) from the first clearing.
A little gray, a little misty
Back to the trail. Not long after we left the clearing, our road narrowed down to a path wide enough for only one person with not much between the edge and a probably very painful tumble down the mountainside.
Guess where that path led?
More steps! Substantially more slippery than the first set.
So up we went. Path path path, trail trail trail, and voila! The top!
Not as impressive as we were hoping for.
It was a clearing with two mound-type little hills (Druid burial grounds, right?). Whatever, it was the top. There was a path across from the one we used to come in, but it looked like it was just heading to an overlook with the same view we’d already taken pictures of, so we didn’t go.
Haunted, I think.
Speaking of haunted, this next clearing-type place in the woods with lots of leaves (is it a clearing if it’s still got trees? They’re widely spaced, but still…) looks like it was used in every movie ever made. Blair Witch, Holy Grail, Stardust, other movies with scenes in woods…
We stopped at the same place on the way back down to get a few more pictures since the mist had cleared a little.
We were on the north shore of Wales - that's the bay.
Waves crashing on Wales
Back down the steps…
A bit more treacherous going down than up
and back to the car. We went back to the main road and were following the stone wall when all of a sudden I heard John: “Holy shit!” “Oh my god, what?” I nearly drove off the road. Yeah, he got a glimpse of this over that stone wall:
I followed that stone wall as far around as I could, but we couldn’t find a way in. We saw one entryway, but it was marked private. It’s not possible that that’s a private castle, right? We must have been missing something obvious. I pulled over so we could take pictures. Of course. (Click on them – they get bigger.)
We think we might have been able to hike there, if we’d gone right instead of left at the beginning and hiked for another three hours. After we took our pictures of Totally Awesome Castle #1, we got back in the car, still heading west, and looked for lunch. We stopped in a likely-looking town, parked the car on the main street, found a couple of cafes (all closed) and went into the first pub we saw. Open, yes, but not serving food. I asked the guy if anyone was serving food today. He listed two places, both nearby. We went into the first place (a pub called Prince Madog, I think). Open, not serving food. The barman said they’d have a great Sunday roast (tomorrow), and the only place he knew of that was open was this other pub around the corner. We went there. Open, serving food. Finally. We were hungry. This place was HUGE. Three or four levels, definitely a pub with pub food, but a layout more like a restaurant with the highest level of tables on a gallery overlooking the next level. Food was okay. We saw another pub owned by the same company a couple of days later; we think they’re the equivalent of TGI Friday’s. Anyway, they were open and that’s all that mattered. We had a pint and some lunch and gave up on finding anything else open on New Year’s Day. Almost gave up. On our way back we stumbled on Bodelwyddan Castle (which looks AWESOME). The sign at the entrance said it was closed, but the gate was open, so we drove in anyway. There’s a hotel attached to the castle, but when I went in and asked if the castle would be open for tours soon, they said it’s only open on Sundays and Saturdays and not at all that weekend. So yeah. Not open. No castles for us. We drove back to Denbigh (the town closest to our village). It was getting dark, so we wandered around a bit, found that the takeaways all opened at five (it was about 4:30), and hiked up the road to the castle to pass the time. (Denbigh has a castle.) COOL castle. Was it open? Of course not. Closed for excavation or something, so it didn’t even open up later in the week. I took some terrible pictures of it in the dark that night, and then we picked up some Indian takeaway, watched the second Daniel Craig Bond movie (bought the DVD at Sainsbury’s that morning), and I took a long bath in our GIANT bathtub with the vanilla-scented bath bomb Emily bought me for Christmas. It fizzed as it dissolved and turned the bathwater yellow-ish green. Very exciting.
I don’t know why I’m having a hard time with this. I want to tell you all about our trip, but I keep putting off writing it. I don’t want to be boring. We did this, then we did that, then we took more pictures. Would you like to see my slideshow?
Okay, I’m over it. Come see my slideshow.
I like the E at the end of cafe there. Is it purposefully whimsical or just a happy accident?
First, the title of this post is not accurate, since Chester is not in Wales. I know, I know. We went to Wales only leave it again after one night. We’re terrible people, I’m sure. Shut up. After fourteen hours of sleep, we were well rested and ready to see something. Since it was the morning of New Year’s Eve, we decided the nearest city might be a good place to ring in the new year, so we headed to Chester, less than 45 minutes from our cottage. I wouldn’t call it the most exciting of days, but we had a nice quiet time. Saw the ruins of a Roman amphitheatre, right outside the old city walls,
and then went looking for lunch. We spent a lot of this trip hunting for our next meal. We wandered into the shopping district,
had lunch at Dutton’s (I had a really good panini – roast beef, horseradish, brie, and onions),
Hello from Dutton's
bought a toothbrush, and spent some time exploring Chester Cathedral. Someone was practicing on the organ. A cathedral tour isn’t complete without organ music as a soundtrack.
We didn’t know quite what to do with ourselves after that, since it was only five, but all the shops had closed and it was a bit early for dinner. We were coming to the realization that we weren’t going to make it to midnight, at least not in Chester. We wandered around town a little bit and found ourselves back at the old city walls. We’d seen several signs saying that Chester has the most complete city walls in Great Britain, so we decided to see for ourselves. We walked the entire circuit on top of the walls, starting at the amphitheatre. (It was only two miles.) It was dark by then, so I didn’t get a single good picture. They’re all too dark, too blurry, too grainy, or all of the above. Except of the ferris wheel. Is it a requirement in the UK that every city of a certain size have one?
When we finished our sentry walk, it was still not quite 6:30 – I’m boring myself here. Short version – we didn’t do anything exciting. Had dinner at an Italian place (whether we were going to be allowed to eat there without a reservation was not entirely clear for the first few minutes, but eventually we were shown to a table – very good dinner),
and then we headed back to the cottage. We weren’t sure we were going to bother staying up until midnight to usher in the new year for a while. On the one hand, why not? It was New Year’s Eve, we were on vacation, we could walk on the wild side and stay up late. On the other hand, why bother? We were by ourselves in a cottage very near the middle of nowhere with no champagne (we had a bottle of wine and some beer, though) and no TV. What would we do, watch the clock turn to midnight?
I won’t keep you in suspense any longer. We did, in fact, watch the clocks turn to midnight. Happy New Year!
Our Welsh home sweet home
The cottage was super cute. It’s basically just two rooms, one on either floor. Downstairs, you walk in the door into the kitchen, which is all along the wall to your left. To your right is the rest of the room, with a table and chairs, and then the sitting area. Two leather loveseats, a sheepskin rug, a coffee table, the woodburning stove, and a mostly useless TV. (It’s got cable, but the cable wasn’t working. You could see what was supposed to be on each channel (banner at the bottom of the screen), but there was no picture or sound.) I say only mostly useless because there was a DVD player. We just didn’t have any DVDs. To get upstairs, you climb this wooden spiral staircase, and then you’re in the bedroom. Nice bedroom. GIANT bed, a big armoire, and a bathroom with a HUGE bathtub and a walk-in shower. It’s a nice place. John took pictures of the rooms, but for some reason I can’t get to them right now. I’ll post them later. Our landlady said they were going out of town on New Year’s Day and wouldn’t be back before we left, so if we needed anything, we were supposed to go knock on Carl’s door (the end unit of the stables they turned into apartments). If it was anything big, we could text her and she’d take care of it from her vacation spot in the Canary Islands. I need to look up where those are. So really, after the first day, we didn’t see her or her husband again.
We found out pretty early on that we had a very very very weak internet connection. John able to connect, but usually not for more than five minutes a day. I wasn’t able to connect at all. Anyway, it was our first day there, we made it in one piece, met our landlady, and went back out for some supplies. Basic supplies. Like something for dinner (we couldn’t quite face a meal out). Over the course of the first couple of days, we slowly discovered that we needed a few other things that weren’t supplied in the cottage, like a washcloth, dish soap, a dish towel, and matches (for our wood-burning stove). Our first errand was to head off to Morrison’s for the food stuff. We didn’t know we needed that other list until the next day. We did the best we could to stay up as late as we could, thoroughly determined to beat jet lag into submission. I think we succeeded, but that first evening was rough. I would have given up around 6, but John set a goal of 8pm, and we managed to get there. We didn’t have a lot of help, though. No internet, reading was putting us to sleep, no cards, no games, and a TV whose cable connection (or whatever) doesn’t seem to be working. No DVDs. 7:30 rolled around and I started getting ready for bed. Which is when I found out I’d forgotten my toothbrush. Wish I’d noticed that before our trip to Morrison’s. Luckily, I had toothpaste, mouthwash, and floss, so I managed. That got me through ten minutes. I really was counting minute by minute at that point. The second the clock hit 8pm, I turned off the light and passed out. We woke up fourteen and a half hours later feeling SO much better. But that’s Day 2, and I think that’ll have to wait. Just talking about how tired we were that day is making me sleepy.
View from our bedroom window
Alternate titles: The Journey That Wouldn’t End, Why Did We Think It Would Be Fun To Drive Four-ish Hours From London While Exhausted When We Could Have Flown Into Manchester, Which Is Only A Little Over An Hour Away?, or Luckily, We’re Good With Maps
I’ve spent most of the last three days in a comfy chair in front of a roaring fire with the dogs curled up on their dog beds at my feet. I’ve finished two books and started another. In fact, over the last twelve days, I’ve read six books and a little of a seventh. And all of that reading has been done in Wales, in transit to and from Wales, and in front of this fire at home. HEAVEN. Totally awesome vacation. A vacation about which and to you I plan to tell. Starting now. And starting with the airport.
There were a lot of lines and a lot of people in them. I know the airport is traditionally busy during the holidays, and we were flying four days after Christmas and two days before New Year’s, but I’ve flown on and near holidays before, and this was truly the busiest I’ve ever seen Dulles. We waited in a long long line before we could go stand in the longer line to check in for the flight. The ante-line, I guess. The guy moving people from one line to the next was a jerk. He kept yelling at people who walked in between the two lines (who were using the only path available to them to get where they were going), but he’d yell like this was the third time they’d done it and they just. weren’t. listening. I’d kind of understand that if it was the same people over and over again, but it WASN’T. And then, of course, we waited in line at security. We went through the new x-ray machines with no issues or possibly inappropriate pat-downs. The guy behind me in line didn’t fully understand the x-ray machine process. He was standing in the middle of it, like you’re supposed to, and one of the TSA agents asked him if he had anything in his pockets. If he’d done ANY traveling in the last two decades, and he seemed like he probably had, you’d think the answer would have been no. Of course, it wasn’t. “Just my ticket,” he said. The TSA agent said he should put everything in his pockets in the little bowl they provided. He handed over his ticket. They started to scan again. “Sir, do you have anything else in your pockets?” “Just some change and my keys.” “Sir, you can’t have ANYthing in your pockets.” He put his change and keys in the little bowl. Started the scan again. “Sir, do you have something ELSE in your pockets?” “Just some kleenex.” Really exasperated now. “SIR. You can’t have ANYthing in your pockets.” “Not even kleenex?” “Nothing, sir.” “Oh. News to me.” I was dying.
This may be surprising to some of you, but even after waiting in all those lines, I was not worried about making our flight. Not anxious. Our flight was supposed to leave at 5:46 and we got to the airport and started waiting in lines at 3:35. But that reminds me – I think our cab driver must have been new. He was a little early to pick us up (not the issue), and we were a little late getting out the door (also not the issue), but then he had no idea how to get to the airport. I might not expect him to be able to get out of our neighborhood without help (although he got to our house without us AND he has a GPS), but seriously – once you get to the main north-south road, there’s really no excuse for not knowing you a) have to get on it to get there and 2) it’s SOUTH. On top of that, on the access road leading to the departures drop-off section, he didn’t seem to know he needed to be in the outer lanes for departures and not the inner lanes (for arrivals), despite the signs, until the last minute when he went veering across a couple of lanes filled with cars. I didn’t have a lot of confidence in this guy. But whatever, he got us there with plenty of time to spare. And that was the end of my worrying.
The plane ride was pretty easy, if cramped (economy sucks and we didn’t pay the extra $90 each for 5 extra inches – we did on the way home). I got an hour or two of sleep, I think, but John didn’t get any. We were in the middle section of three on the plane, near the back, with John on the aisle and me in the middle, and a totally ungrateful guy on my other side, a fact I discovered when they fed us. (I knew he was there, of course – I like to think I’m pretty observant – but I didn’t know he was rude until then.) The flight attendants were out of pasta dishes by the time they got to him, and I guess he doesn’t eat meat (beef was the other option), so he said he wouldn’t have anything. I’d already gotten the pasta, but hadn’t touched it yet, so I offered it to him. Did I get a “Thanks, that’s really nice of you” or “No, thanks, I’m not really all that hungry, but I appreciate the offer”? No. I got a shrug and “okay.” Whatever, dude. Then he put his blanket over his head and we didn’t see him again.
Landed, customs, picked up rental car (silver Peugeot – there’s a word I still can’t pronounce), blah blah, nothing particularly exciting. It was sometime between 6 and 8am in London, but I don’t know for sure ’cause we stopped looking at clocks. It didn’t matter anymore, and the actual time was somewhat meaningless just then. We had a four-ish hour drive to get to our cottage in North Wales, a big map, a road atlas, and two drivers who thought it was the middle of the night. John drove first while I navigated. Driving on the left, thankfully, was not as hard as we thought it would be, and we made it just past Birmingham (about halfway) before John was too tired to drive anymore. Adrenaline had kicked in for me, so I was ready to go. It worked out nicely. He was able to take a nap as long as we stayed on the highway (I’m sorry, the motorway), so he could navigate for me once we got into Wales and onto winding, narrow, two-lane roads with no shoulders and either tall hedges or stone walls on both sides. Of the very narrow roads. But more about those later. That morning, we were just trying to get to the cottage. Which we managed, sometime before 1pm. I can’t tell you exactly what time it was since none of our clocks seemed to be accurate. Our phones didn’t update because they didn’t have a network to connect to (we knew that), the clock in the car didn’t match the clock at the coffee place we stopped at on the way, and the clock on the oven in the cottage didn’t match the clock in the car.
Damn, I can be long-winded sometimes. Here are some pictures from the drive (when John was driving – I snapped some pictures from inside the moving car, so none of them are actually good). I’ll continue tomorrow.
It was a grey and misty morning.
Breakfast in Oxford
This was not easy after being up more than 24 hours in a row.
More story and better pictures tomorrow. Promise.
We heard this song a couple of times on the radio while we were away. Love it. Makes me dance.
I kept forgetting how close together everything is in the UK. I’d look for a town on a map, estimate how long it might take us to get there, and then be completely surprised when it took half that long. That couldn’t have been illustrated for me any better than on the traffic report we heard on the BBC on our way back to London. This under-five-minute report covered traffic issues from northern Scotland all the way to southern England. The ENTIRE COUNTRY was included in one traffic report. Crazy.
We were born in the wrong country. We’re home. We’re resting. We want to go back right now. We had a great time. Wish we had two more weeks.
I promise to provide details and such over the next few days. We didn’t have internet (no more than five minutes a day of a really slow connection counts as none at all), but I did take notes, so I have something to work from. And SO many pictures. John and I have to go through them, and he’ll probably post all of them (I’ll point you to them when he does), but I’ll leave you with this one for now:
Attack of the Molting Chickens
Our host has 7 chickens and 2 guinea fowl. She kept apologizing for their appearance, since the chickens were molting, but I don’t think I’d have noticed if she hadn’t pointed it out. They ran around the yard like – yeah, like that. I managed to get them all in one picture only once.
Speedy chickens
They were surprisingly quiet in the mornings. It was the guinea fowl that woke us up the first morning. Fourteen hours after we went to bed. Thirty-three hours after we got out of bed Wednesday morning.
Anyway, it’s dinner time and then movie time and I’ll tell you all about wonderful, magical Wales (and Chester and Liverpool and the four to five hours of countryside between where we were and London) soon.
John and I went to visit his parents this weekend. Normally, we wouldn’t have brought the dogs, but I forgot about this trip until last weekend, and by then, the kennel was fully booked. So it was either stay home with the dogs (we can’t use a pet-sitter anymore) and have John go by himself (the point of the trip was so he (and his brother, coming from Connecticut) could help his dad do some car stuff) or figure out how to handle the complications of bringing the dogs.
Complication #1: John’s parents have a dog who, the one time they met, didn’t get along all that well with Riley. We think it might be because they first sniffed each other out in the kitchen, Riley’s territory, and not somewhere slightly more neutral, like the yard.
Complication #2: No fence. They have an invisible fence, and while Mabel has a collar and is trained to it, our dogs are not.
Complication #3: We needed a secure place to lock Roxy up if we all went out so she’d be separated from the other dogs and unable to hurt herself if she were to have a seizure.
Complication #4: Is it really okay if we bring the dogs? I don’t want to force our animals into anyone else’s household.
All of these issues have solutions (say hello in the yard, keep them on their leashes, use Mabel’s old crate, be direct and ask the question), and after I talked with my mother-in-law, I felt better about most of them, so we decided to try it (obviously). We’re not in any hurry to do it again, but at least we know it’s possible. I think Mabel was happy to see us go. I know Roxy and Riley are happy to be back home.
Update: Apparently, Roxy was SO happy to be home she went into convulsions. Just one seizure, it’s been about two and half weeks since the last one, and I’m relieved she waited until we got home to do it. I can only imagine having to deal with this on the side of the road with a frantic Riley. She’s in the last stages of getting back to normal right now.
I do want to tell some stories about this vacation, but that would involve adding pictures, and have I mentioned how draining it is to upload pictures to this site? I don’t have that kind of energy. Some people at work were giving me a hard time for coming back from vacation on a Thursday (why not take the rest of the week off and come back on Monday?), and while I see their point, it’s totally awesome to go back to work on a Thursday. Two-day work week! The weekend is right around the corner. And as fun as that vacation was (it was totally fun), I’m very glad to be home. I love my bed. And my dogs. And my kitchen. Well, I don’t love my kitchen, but it’s bigger than what we were working with in Georgia. Not that I spent much time in it.
Okay, maybe this is going to be a little bit of a vacation post. I was reading The Bloggess just now, and of course I’m laughing hysterically at today’s post (that should totally go without saying), and I had a similar experience over the weekend, and then I started writing the story in my head, so here it is.
Background: My family (Mom, Dad, brother, sister, me, assorted spouses, and one almost 5-year-old) decided to stay in a cabin in the mountains in northwest Georgia for a few days. In the mountains. In the woods. Not in a clearing in the woods. In the woods. With me? Okay. ‘Cause this will become important. John and I were supposed to arrive just before midnight Friday night (fly into Atlanta, rent a car, drive an hour and a half), but our flight was delayed (a lot) and then, only about 7 miles from the place, the road was blocked by a police cruiser because the power company was removing a tree from the power lines. After about 20 minutes of sitting there (no map, no Internet connection to find a map), I finally asked the cop if there was another way to get where we were going. There was, of course, and we finally got to the house. In the woods. At about 2:30 in the morning. Oh, after we pulled into the wrong driveway. ‘Cause it was a gravel road that was more of a track up the mountain. In the very deepest dark. Because it was in the woods! And the power was out. Dad met us at the right driveway with a flashlight and helped us get inside (where there were no lights, because the power was out) and find our bedroom. With a flashlight. Because there was no power. Being up the mountain meant we were using well water, which gets into the house via pump. Which totally doesn’t work when there’s no power. So, you know, no flushing. And bottled water for brushing teeth and washing faces and hands. NO POWER! But we were ready to collapse into bed (a bed we never collapsed into again after that night – I promise I’m getting to the point) when the power came back on, and so did every light in the house. Anyway, most of that background was not really necessary, but let’s just say it illustrates how tired and ready for bed we were the next night, having only gotten about 5 hours of sleep the night before.
I was washing my face in the bathroom when I heard a very loud, somewhat shocked “JESUS CHRIST!” from the bedroom. I came running and found John standing about three feet away from the foot of the bed, kinda pointing towards the pillow. “There’s a scorpion. IN the bed.” “Can’t be. Scorpions don’t live in Georgia, they live in Texas and New Mexico and deserts and stuff.” “Zannah, it was a scorpion. Go look.” “Um, no.” He twitched the covers a little and I saw something scurry under his pillow. I got a little closer and saw it come out from under the pillow and go upside down under the mattress. Kinda looked like a scorpion to me, but I wasn’t about to get close enough to really look. Besides, it couldn’t be. Either way, though, I didn’t want it in the bed. John was pretty freaked out, and I wasn’t brave enough to get it, so I ran upstairs and grabbed Corey before he disappeared into his room. Normally, I’m the one who finds the big ugly bug, and I’m the one who completely freaks out. John walks into the situation knowing what to expect (I’ve already shrieked about the bug), so he’s usually able to handle it fairly calmly. This time, he was the one who found it after nearly LAYING DOWN ON TOP OF IT, so I think he was well within his rights to be a little less than rational. Anyway, big brother came down, we both grabbed shoes, and I helped him lift up the mattress so he could WHACK the damn thing dead. And then he put it in a plastic bag to show every person who came to the house over the next few days. ‘Cause he’s a boy. Thanks, Cor, for killing the scorpion! After Corey left (with the scorpion, which he left on the table for everyone to find at breakfast), John and I discussed whether or not we’d be able to sleep in that bed. I was actually fairly okay with it, I think because I’m not the one who found it, whereas all those other times I have been the one surprised by the spider or the centipede, I can’t sleep because of all the creepy-crawly nightmares. According to John, that kind of inconsistency is one of my most endearing (or is that infuriating?) qualities. Anyway, we did a thorough search of the room and the bed, checked all of the blankets, all of the sheets, took the pillows out of the pillowcases so we could shake them out, lifted up the mattress again, looked under the bed with the flashlight, then checked the drooping fabric underneath the box spring just in case they were nesting (isn’t that something you’ve heard of? A nest of scorpions? Maybe that’s vipers…), and when we didn’t find anything, we decided it was time to go to bed. Gingerly. And without much sleep. Every night after that, we did the same bed check.
After the scorpion IN THE BED, the spiderwebs that apparently only took 10 minutes to string up across every doorway and sidewalk, and the millipede on the wall over our bed the last night (I called Dad to rescue us from that one), John and I have decided that although we like the idea of having a house in the woods, the woods will totally have to keep their distance. Nature (the buggy part, at least) is not for me.
(I counted six, which I totally (seven) put in on purpose. For reals. Think I can go higher next time?)
Roxy is fine. Thought I’d start with that, since that’s pretty much how John started a phone call to me late at night on the first Monday I was in Rhode Island. That’s two weeks ago now. John got home from work that night and everything was fine. He went out to rehearsal at Will’s place just before seven and got back right around ten. He said both dogs met him at the door, as usual, wagging their tails and looking stupidly happy, as usual. But Roxy was soaking wet all around her neck. And then he saw this:
And this:
And lots more. Those two pictures are of opposite corners of the first floor of our house. There was blood EVERYwhere. It was on the dishwasher, the blinds, the walls, all over the floor, the couch, and, of course, the dog. Who was fine (and not really bleeding anymore). John spent a couple of hours cleaning up, and then he brought Roxy upstairs to sleep and left Riley downstairs. Roxy spent all of Tuesday at the vet, who didn’t have much to say. She had a shallow gash along her shoulder, which apparently bleeds like a scalp wound would on a person. As far as we can tell, Roxy had a seizure while John was a rehearsal and Riley did his crazy holding her down thing and in all the thrashing around, managed to scrape her shoulder. Blood flew during the seizure, I’d imagine, and then Roxy did her recovery thing, which consists of her wandering aimlessly around the first floor, rubbing on everything and bumping into every hard surface. This time, she tracked (and rubbed) blood all over everything within reach.
She really is fine. John said she wasn’t bleeding anymore by the time he got her into the bathtub. The vet didn’t even have to shave her. We realized we can’t leave the two of them loose in the house when we’re not home after this, and so we can’t use the pet-sitting service anymore. We can crate them while we’re at work or when we go out, but if we’re out of town, we can’t crate them all day and all night except for the three hours a day the pet-sitter is visiting. Maybe if we had a house-sitter… Luckily, the kennel had an opening (two – they have to be boarded in separate runs now, too) for the RI trip, so John left them there Wednesday morning and came to see me Wednesday night.
While I’m documenting seizures, she had that one Monday night two weeks ago (6/14), another short one the following Tuesday night (6/15), and she had one yesterday around noon (6/27). Short, we were home, no big deal. Every person who answers the phone at our vet’s office knows who we are. I called this morning to update her file with yesterday’s seizure, and all I had to do was say just that: “This is Susannah, and I’m calling to update Roxy’s chart.” They used to have to ask for my last name, my phone number, all that stuff, but not anymore. On a positive note, two weeks ago she only had two seizures in a row, 24 hours apart instead of 12. This time, she had one yesterday around noon and hadn’t had another one by the time I left for work this morning. She seems to have broken the three-in-a-row-12-hours-apart pattern. Yay!
I don’t make smart food choices when I’m traveling. See yesterday’s post for exhibit A. I bought a custard-filled muffin and a cookie. And that was not an isolated incident. Now that I’m home (Ahem. I’m home now.), with access to a fridge and cabinets and a Wegman’s, all I want to eat is fruit. And vegetables. Salads and turkey sandwiches. This used to happen to me in the Navy, too, when I got back from being at sea for a stretch. Fresh food disappeared fast, and we didn’t get supplies all that often. I’d come home craving leafy green stuff. SO not normal for me. But it’ll be great if I can keep it up.
Keeping myself up today is something else. I’m not nearly as tired as I was the last time I had to get up at 3:30 for a 6am flight (and I’m pretty sure that’s due to getting close to seven hours of sleep last night), but I can feel sleepiness rolling in. I don’t think I have more than two hours left before I’m unconscious. Hopefully John will get home before then. Both so I can see him and so we can eat. I’m hungry and I’m pretty sure I missed lunch today. I had breakfast in Chicago while waiting for my connection (bagel, banana, iced vanilla chai – best drink ever), and that’s the last thing I remember eating. 8-ish. I’m gonna have an apple while I wait.
