Celtic rockin with the cat

Surfing about on some of my website haunts while listening to Celtic rock music on Live365.com when Scotia hops up onto my lap and as I begin scratching her around the ears she starts doing that paw kneading which given the music was like doing a jig. Whoops, the tunes slowed down and she's on the floor batting around a piece of paper.

Sisters and Mother Go on Holiday

This is a snapshot tale of a trip that Carol and Lois planned to take their mother to Sweden. The photos are just a small sample of the ones available and a link of all of them to view will be sent to relatives and friends that we expect would like to see them. By request we will send the link to those that they would like to see them as well.

For some time now Carol and Lois have been wanting to take their mother, Margaret, on a trip to Sweden to visit relatives there. Well the time had arrived and they left on the trip on Tuesday, July 17th beginning with a stop in England to attend grand daughter Lena's graduation from a missionary college in northeastern England. Carol and Lois chipped in together to buy airline tickets for Lena as a graduation gift so she could join them on the trip to Sweden. As this trip was being planned Lena's mother, Bev, was able to acquire tickets as well and joined them in England so that makes five on the trip altogether. Bev is married to Carol and Lois' brother Greg. Also, they are all Swedish descendants.

Margaret, Carol and Lois at the bus station
ready to ride to Boston's Logan airport.

Lois and Margaret at the gate at Logan waiting
to board for the trip to Manchester, England.

The train platform on their arrival from Manchester
to the town near to Lena's college.

This is a train that was going by.

Here's Bev on board the train from Manchester
enjoying the company, I'm sure.

This Lena's dorm.

Carol knows I like pictures of food, this is her
first meal at a local pub after checking in at
the campus. Ham, turkey, potatoes, peas, corn,
cranberries and Yorkshire pudding.

Lincolnshire countryside.

Couldn't help myself, there is never a shortage
of this being spread.

Nearby church.

A friend of Lena's, Margaret, Lena, Lois and
Carol after Lena's graduation.

Lena and Bev.

Parent's and friends of other graduates, the
folks on the right have a daughter who lives
in the same town as Carol and I do, small world.
This is inside their camper they were staying in.

We love seeing these campers as we have our
own though these European ones, "caravans", are
much smaller and are quite tidy and popular.

Lena having a snack on the train now to London
to fly on to Copenhagen where they will pick up a
rental car and drive to Sweden.

In the rental car Lena gets to sit between her mother...

...and her grandmother.

This is the bridge between Denmark and Sweden.

With Carol doing the driving Lois is the navigator.

On the right road to Lenhovda.

Here's the meal that awaited them at their
cousin Gunborg's house.

Lena outside a National Heritage site that they visited.

Margaret and Gunborg at Anders house.

Back to the rental car. They had reserved a "van" so
they could comfortably transport five adults and their
luggage and this Audi is what awaited them. Not bad.

Gunborg (2nd cousin), Margaret and Inga Brita (3rd cousin).

We won't get into how everyone here is related,
they just are. Lois, Magnus, Richard, Mecala, Carol,
Bertil, Margaret, Jonathan, Gunnar, Gunborg and Lena.

Bev, Gunnar, Anders, Bertil, Gunborg,
Margaret and Lena.

On the road home heading to Copenhagen to catch
their flight to London then to Boston.

How to pack a car for traveling.

Lois heading for terminal 3 at the airport in Copenhagen.

Margaret waiting to go home.

Going about our business

Spoke with Carol last night in the hotel she, Lois, Margaret, Bev, and Lena were spending the night in before driving to Sweden. The heavy rains in London Friday had canceled a lot of flights which then backed up flights out of Heathrow Saturday so they were a little behind schedule. All in all in spite of some irregularities in getting to Heathrow they are all well and I hope to hear from Carol soon to hear how the drive to Sweden went.

Meanwhile back here in little old Maine it's the newsletter daze time again. The town newsletter is the weekend focus, now out for proofing as a final draft. I'll need to get started on the church newsletter. Ian has gone with me for my daily walk which makes the time fly as we talk about a bunch of different things. Ian left late yesterday afternoon to see Taylor and after I talked with Carol I decided to go out to eat at the church's roast beef supper. I got there near the end time of the dinner and the place was packed with more vehicles looking to park after I arrived. I payed for my meal ticket and got in line and right after I got in they closed up sales as they were running out of food.

This weekend Ian had laundry duty and today muffin baking duty for our week's supply then he proceeded to clean up everything he used and then came up with a supper idea, nachos and baked up frozen potatoes. That worked for me, Taylor came to spend the evening and joined us for supper as well - what a feast.

A interesting sky view over our backyard from this afternoon.

Carol has landed

Actually yesterday morning UK time. When she called Ian and I here it was just after 5pm, 10pm there. She was a bit tired, didn't get in a good nap after arriving at Lena's campus. The flight went well as did meeting up with Bev, then taking the train to Grimsby. She thought she and Lois would go into "town" today to have a look around. We may not hear from her until tomorrow evening.

Meanwhile, back on the ranch, Ian and I are going about our business. I prepared supper last night, a pesto creamy pasta with polish sausage medallions mixed in. That hit the spot. Tonight Ian is out on OA business at the local Boy Scout camp - I did the grocery shopping, not much variation from what Carol buys, been paying more attention the last few trips to the grocery store with her. She's still the champ though!

I seem to be dealing with the "Flapper Follies" lately. Last week the flapper in our downstairs bathroom toilet starting letting water run into the bowl. It took me three trips to different stores to get a flapper that fit. Cripes it's just a standard toilet but it seems they don't sell a generic flapper anymore. The third one works fine now. Then this morning the upstairs commode failed! Well this time, one trip - one flapper, did the trick though it was purchased from a fourth store.

Never a dull moment

It's been several eventful days in a row for me. Saturday we attended the Eagle Court of Honor of one of the scouts from our Troop. I had a speaking part talking about some of my memories of his time in scouting. Real nice spread of food after which included BBQ-ed pork ribs and drumsticks. Great for the diet. Earlier in the day Carol and I made a trip to the mall, at Borders I bought the paperback of "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix". I'd like to read the book before seeing the movie. I really enjoyed the "Goblet of Fire" and Ian made a comment about this one that indicated this should be good as well.

Sunday we went to cousin Donny's family gathering for the second year in a row. My cousin Ike and his wife Judy were there. I haven't seen them for about 4 years, since my mother's 75th Birthday party at my sister Kathy's place. Great to see uncles, aunts and cousins again. Kathy was there and brother Dave with his family. A rain shower blew through but there were plenty of places under cover to talk and eat which by the way everyone brought a food item so more eating was involved as were a few of my favorite brews.

Persons of interest: back row L-R, Carol, Mom and Kathy.
Group of four in front: Dave and family, wife Carolyn,
daughter Melissa and son Danny.

Monday, back to the dentist for the final work on the latest root canal and the dentist began the work on a new crown for that tooth - joy, joy. I'm glad to get to this point and away from the difficultly I was having as that tooth deteriorated over the last few years.

Now, as I type this Carol is on a plane headed for Manchester, England as she, Lois, and their mother begin their British and Sweden journey. In Manchester they'll meet up with Bev, their brother's wife, take the train to Grimsby and meet up with their niece and Bev's daughter, Lena, to attend her Missionary college graduation. After that all five of them will take a train to London and fly out to Copenhagen, pick up a rental car and drive to Lenhoven, Sweden to meet and visit with some relatives there and do some sightseeing. They'll be returning here a week from Friday and I hope to report on their travels regularly while they're gone so check back every couple of Days.

Ian and my first night of being on our own without "Mom"
around to feed us hungry guys. Ian whipped up a
Shepard's pie so we survived our first night without
starving. A close call indeed!

Comments on recently viewed DVDs

I've gotten a little behind mentioning recent movies Carol and I have watched. Calling what I blog about a review would be disingenuous as writing my thoughts on movies can be a bit fragmented at best so I'll stick to a few comments and recommendations now and on future blogs. Also, we don't watch a lot of films, we're on the Netflix one at a time plan which is best for us as we like to plan on settling down with a movie on Saturday nights.

Three weeks ago we watched "The Holiday" with Cameron Diaz, Jack Black, Kate Winslet, and Jude Law. Both women, one that lives in a small town outside London and the other in LA/Hollywood have each are anxious to get away from bad relationships leading into the Christmas holiday season, meet through a vacation house swapping website and make the deal to swap houses for a couple of weeks. Of course this being a "romantic comedy" (not my usual genre of choice) the characters of Diaz and Winslet both manage to meet someone though the propose of the swap was to get away from relationships. There is much humor playing off the crossing of cultures and accommodations. Jude Law's character is that of a charming rouge which becomes an interesting twist later in the story. Eli Wallach also has a role, someone I haven't seen in a movie for a long time.

Both Carol and I enjoyed this movie immensely and give it two thumbs up.

The movie we watched last week was "The Prestige". The Netflix description: "At the dawn of the 20th century, rival magicians Robert Angier (Hugh Jackman) and Alfred Borden (Christian Bale) are desperate to reveal each other's secrets. Obsessed by the escalating competition, the two illusionists begin to perform increasingly risky tricks -- which soon turn deadly. Michael Caine, Scarlett Johansson and David Bowie also star in this taut psychological thriller from director Christopher Nolan." Not a bad description for Netflix, Carol and I often wonder if the person who wrote them actually watched the same movie as us. The only problem I had with this flick were the low tones used in many conversations which I found difficult to hear. Otherwise we were entirely engulfed in the story. The obsession that Angier and Borden had for undoing each other's performances was relentless and like any good movie the twists at the end keep us talking about it often on the Mt. Chocorua hike the next day. Late in movie there is an element to the story which added a science fiction angle to what was happening though I wouldn't say it's calls attention as that. Again, two thumbs up from us, check it out when you get a chance.

Tonight's movie, "Happy Feet".

Camping and hiking weekend

We went to Pine Knoll Campground in Albany, NH this weekend and Saturday morning we hiked up Mt. Chocorua. We hiked it nine or ten years ago with Ian, Lois, Jim, niece Lena and the sister's Dad. Apparently we didn't learn our lesson that time so Carol and I are doing it again. We hit the trail about 10:15am, the weather was perfect, mild temperatures, some clouds moving in and out. Not far from the campground we took the Piper Trail, we made good time, about 2 and a half hours to the top with a couple of breaks along the way. Lot of people up there when we arrived. Must have been around 40 hikers spread around enjoying the view, eating lunch, etc. After checking out the view ourselves and snapping some pictures we moved down off the top to a spot I located on the way up which got us out of the wind with a ledge bench and against a rock wall where we had our lunch and could enjoy a view of our own without people around. By the time we cleaned up to head down there was a steady stream of more people arriving and as we worked our way down the trail we passed many more including a girl’s camp contingent strung out along the trail.

Our accommodations are ready.

Evokes visions of Lewis and Clarke doesn't it?

Nice to know a little history before tromping around.

Carol is always ready to go on a hike.

Can't say we didn't know which way to go.

Nice to have an idea where we are.

Once we cleared the treeline we'd stop every now and
then to admire the view.

That's where we're headed.

We weren't the only one's headed that way.

At the top of the world, depending on one's prospective...

Someone had to provide a little class up here.

Sunday morning at the campground, just outside of our campsite.