Vermont

On Sunday, Kim and Janet came home and were relieved that i had not destroyed their house (apart from one doorhandle, a cat's saucer, a triple-time-zone clock that now has two zones, a spot on the floor where I dripped Tide washing liquid and it took the varnish off... i think that's all). One last brunch at the Waverley and i was off to Burlington, Vermont, where Amy met me at the airport and showed me the place where people can sit on rocking chairs to watch the flights take off and land. As she said, there's not a lot to do in Vermont. We drove out to the frozen lake and stood on it at sunset - in the pic, Amy is wearing my hat to confuse the viewer.

She lives in a new house on the outskirts of Burlington with a tortoiseshell cat called Pym whom she adopted from the shelter recently and who hid under the bed for most of my stay. There's a pair of red cardinals in her garden - i saw the coxcombed female on the windowsill outside when i was in the kitchen and then the stunning all-red male flew past later as Amy was telling me more about them, which was co-operative of him.

Last night we dined out (L to R): Alison, Amy, their fab friends Manny and Amey, and me, at a place that was meant to be like an English pub. I taught them English phrases like busman's holiday and tuppence ha'penny. They promised to mispronounce and misuse these liberally so they spread through the state before my next trip.

This afternoon Alison came and took me out to the house in the woods. She is about to guest-blog here and i will guest-blog on hers. I have 6 readers and she has about 6,000 so i think the pressure is on me. Oh and it's minus two degrees fahrenheit or minus 18 centigrade. IT'S TRUE.

H x