Coming late to Los Angeles

Did I tell you that there was a web site which will tell the position of the ship. Vole dam

I guess due to the rough weather we are late.

Yesterday was hot ,they opened the huge roof over the pool and people were sun bathing

Wine tasting

The bargain of the day.  For 15 dollars you got a wine glass and 6 tickets for six glasses of wine.  along with a little snack

I tried 4 Chardonnays

All very different but the French won out

Breakfast and promenade

Swimming?

The pools have. Nets over the   Even so the water is crashing against

The edges

The us is shining and it wld be lovely to swim but the

Rainbows.  tTher is a complete.  Arch of a rainbow the end one almost at our feet 

We wOke in the. Idle of the night being thrown around on the bed which is quite narrow.

At first I considered not getting up rto GO but need drove me to clutch my way.   I tried not to clutch at Mary's bed and staggered I to the bathroom.  Hanging onto the various handles

Later with a slim line of light coming through the curtains I got up dressed and took myself up to drink and eat

Gravel makes you thirsty.

Eventually I got a tea and took it to Mary who was curled into a small ball inthe bed but my noises woke her !  I opened the curtains to see a lovely pink sky and blue streaks arollingnsea with white caps. But the temp seemed balmy! I am sitting on the couch with the door open writi gmthis

Up very early and the hot breakfast is still screened off

I am up , it is not 7 in the morning but there is Lways coffee or tea. And juice

The temperature I the cabin was hot as itisi warm outside. I opened the doors to the balcony and propped  stool to keep door open

LoaAngeles

Los Angeles

We are docked by the queen Mary that is now a hotel

Ship board first afternoon

Lions gate

Land

This is Saturday and this is the first sight of land sincewednesday

Cormorants

Looking

Like ducks all in a row

On our way

Mary Mary with her lack bagEarly this morning on a calm sea we crossed the Satelite

Channel in Gary's. Boat 

The bus arrived about 1000 and was very full

Now on The Spirit

Apples

APPLE PRESSING.
There will be some photos to include in this note, but this weekend, September, 21, about a month earlier than normal I opened the garden/orchard to all the islanders to come and pick apples and to to press them for juice.  People began to  pick on Friday , early Saturday morning people started arriving until late in the day.  It really was looking quite splendid with piles of apples in lareg contaiers efverywhere. One of my friends brought his aluminum boat over and after cleaning it out thoroughly we filled it up with water and some bleach, dumping lots of windfall apples into that container.  It was delightful tosee the young families coming over with their small children, families lying on the grass under trees, and new comers meeting old timers.

Sunday starts about 10 and the set up of the huge chopper and the presser always presents difficultleis.  At first the outside electrical outlets which apparently are very sensitive blow out and there is lots of tooing and froing into the fuse box.. but finally it was set up, meanwhile people were chopping.. with the new chopper it is not necessary to chop them too fine, and so it began.  A certain routine, halved apples thrown into the chopper, the resulting mash dumped into the press.  We rent a presser which works amazingly well, the dumped mash fits around a rubber bladder, which is filled up with water and thus presses onto the mash and the resulting juice runs out in great profusion.  The dry material left is composted or thrown out for the deer. 

Sometime in the middle of the day the BBQ is lit and hamburgers sausages, etc are cooked up.. pople have shown up with yummy things.  If we had had it a month later it usualy is quite cold and every one is glad of the  hot food, but today with was hot, and the cold drinks were welcome.

This is the final thing for me to do before really settling down to tidy the house and to organzie all the tickets and pack. We leave on wednesday morning early.. about 0900.  It is not like going on a plane, where you are whisked off across the world marking off the hours backwards or forwards, here there shall be a slow shifting of sun and time.   I wonder if they will make us do something odd when we cross the equator or the international date line.  

Travel planning

TRAVEL PLANNING.

As anyone knows who wonders the world there is always something to organise.  Being a little older than when we were both in Australia we find we have to have hotels to go to, for example, when we arrive some place.  Mary keeps talking about her travels in the outback, on the back of a flat bed, staying on the floors of churches or community halls and even in a jail.. when there was not cheap accommodation.  We are not going to go that way.

We have arranged for hotels for most places.   Some expensive .. but never 5 stars..

funnily enough suddenly we are both excited about our return journey.  We fly from Fiji to Hawaii arriving at 0300 in Honolulu, we will stay for a few hours in the airport and then fly to Kona and hole up for a week.

But I am getting ahead of myself.  

Did you know that Canadians need a visa for Australia?  You fill in forms on line and the Aussie Govt says ok and then suddenly you have a visa.. nothing to show in your passport tho.  Apparently they swipe the passport and it will show .. voila.. a visa has been obtained.

SO THIS IS ANNA IN FRANCE LYING ON HER FRENCH BED BOUGHT FOR HER ABOUT A YEAR GO. I CAN SEE  she is surrounded by toys that are taking a lot of room.  

It has been an interesting day, worrying about her yet being content that she is ok.

Anna I various beds

Anna on her bed at home.

The trouble for me when planning to a long  time away from home is the question of what to do with my boon companion.. my dog Anna.  When we realised that my husband was going to die soon he turned to me as we drove away from that hospital where the doctor had given us the news.. which really was a death sentence,  and Henry said you should get a dog.

After three years or so I decided  to follow through with his suggestion .  We had always had samoyeds.  They are not a particularly well know breed, and in fact are often thought to be a husky type dog which they definitely are not.  Yes they are good in the cold but probably do not have the stamina of a husky and their temperment is quite different.  Sammies need people.  They were bred and raised by tribal people in north Siberia.  They were loved and taken into the family , their wool was collected and woven   they herded reindeer and they were left to guard the children while the hunters would go to gather food.  When they went with Amundson to the pole he took dogs and among them were some Sams.. and he wrote in his diary how at night the average sled dog with curl up in the snow for a well earned resk where as there were these other dogs, from the Sams who wold come around the campfire and climb on their laps.    People sometimes buy these dogs thinking they can be left outdoors all the time.. but that is so wrong.. Sammies need people and my dog is no exception.

So what to do with her for over a two month absence.  Last year when I sent to France for my operation I took Anna with me.  So this Time I sent her to FRance to be with my daughter and husband and her three children.  Most of the village where my daughter lives also fell in love with my amiable dog and so there was great excitement that she was returning.  I sent her off early tuesday morning from Victoria to Vancouver where the agency I paid an enormous sum of money to, picked her up and took her for a run and break.  Then on to Lufthansa to Frankfurt where she also had a small break and walk.

My daughter has just picked her up this morning.. so 27 hours after leaving here, not all of it in her carrier.

Now I can get on with my travel life and preparations.

Mary and I leaving for S America via Amtrak.. in 20-11

Here is a photo of Mary on the Clipper as we leave Victoria. 2011

cannot take anna with me

My wonderful little dog who seems to love me a lot is being moved to Europe so that Catriona and family can look after her while I am on the "high seas"
The top photo is her being measured for a photo to send to the agency who is handily the
transportation of her to Geneva and ultimately  to France.
She leaves here Tuesday morning at 0600 for Victoria Airport , flies to Vancouver and then after several hours wait flies to Frankfurt.  She has to wait there for
several hours before flying to Geneva.  The customs there shuts at 1730 so Catriona has to be there very much on time ..
It will have been 27 hours en route for Anna.

Looking mournful

Why we are going

Over the years Mary T and I have discussed places we were near but did not visit. One of those places was the great desert in Australia. Mary had tried to bike across it, but after a few miles of hard slogging was told by someone that there was no way she could manage it as there was no available water for miles and miles and miles. She turned back.. This must have been nearly 55 years ago. I lived there for year during a sabbatical leave with my husband in 1964/65. We arrived in July of 1964, having spent a month in New Zealand where Henry lectured. We had our first born('63) child with us, Sarah. We flew into Sydney from Chirstchurch. We were several days late as we received a phone call from the air line we were travelling with saying that their planes had been grounded due to the habit they had developed of the wings dropping off in mid-air. We agreed to stay on the ground until that problem was fixed. We bought a Holden station wagon when we were Sydney and with our suitcases, mostly filled with baby equipment we drove to Canberra. We were housed in apparently very good accommodation due to Henry being a Professor. ( he was actually an associate professor, but as the Australians did not have that classification he was given the benefit of being a full professor). This meant a long house near the lake. The houses had been designed by architects in Sydney who were not entirely aware that Canberra is much colder, especially in the winter and at night than Sydney. The houses were chilly, un insulated, and air conditioning meant large holes in the upper end of the walls,near the ceilings which made it a perfect place for the Huntsmen spiders to come in, which they did most nights to lie behind our heads to get the warmth. This was a terrible problem for Henry who would remove them with a mop hopefully before I woke up, but occasionally they dropped off the mop onto the bed.. they are heavy.. and I would wake and shriek. There was one source of heat and that was an anthracite fire place ( anthracite no longer exists I gather) located at the far end of a large living room. I lit this most days as it snowed lightly most mornings in August. Shortly after we arrived Henry took off with geological colleagues to do mapping in the outback, I received graphic letters from him describing the creepy crawlies. He slept on an iron bedstead, being careful to keep the blankets well tucked in, under the wonderful desert night sky, but as you know, sand does not hold heat so at night it gets terribly cold. In the morning he said he looked under the bed to see little piles of bones which the trap door spider would have shoved out of his burrow, having feasted on a mouse or two. Meanwhile I was learning to live in a city which had been specifically built, ( like Brazilia). They had backed up the river to make a lake, but one could not swim in it as it was very polluted and the sailing community had to have typhoid pills if they fell in. The meat in the shops was wonderful and plentiful , but there always seemed a shortage of vegetables. A van would come around with fresh vegetable every once in a while. I took up knitting. When I was there it was not surprising to see people buying half a whole sheep or lamb ( tried to buy lamb while keeping house in NZ but the butcher told me it was all sent away to the UK or North american so i could only buy mutton)huge tranches of beef in steak or roast form. There was still little refrigeration so people tended to eat quickly what they bought. We had a small fridge.. a perk of our "good" housing. But I digress.. this is not a spot for telling my Australian story. I should say that I would often say to Henry that we should go back, as we were glad to leave it, but memory dulls the bad stuff and I would have liked to emphasise the good. So this is an opportunity to relive, in part , to improve my memories of Australia.