Clinton's oratorical

We're in the midst of party conference season. Not just during election years, but every year - the major parties (and the minor ones for all I know) gather for their annual party conference. Usually held in some dreary seaside town, it's an opportunity to agree policy, grandstand, network and glad hand. They are broadcast on tv, but only on the parliament channel - highlights appearing on the BBC and other news programmes.

The Liberal Democrats
I couldn't even be bothered to comment on the Liberal Democrat Party conference last week. They are the "third" party - haven't really ever been in power (the Liberals were in Government in the teens or twenties). We did watch a bit of their conference (snooze). The best thing I can say about the LibDems is that they've had a colorful leadership contest in the past year. The once (and future?) leader, Charles Kennedy, has had his problems with the demon rum - and got booted out for being a drunk. Charley Kennedy has dried out now (he says), and so have the LibDems with an impossibly dusty-dull Ming Campbell. Campbell was selected leader because he didn't have such a colorful past - as say one rival who smeared a gay rival in a political contest - and then turned out to be gay himself. Or the not-gay candidate for LibDem leadership, the one with the wife and family, who turned out to be having "focus group" sessions with male prostitutes - and then blamed his lapse on the pressures of losing his hair.

The Labour Party
The Labour Party Conference has just finished up. It was all very interesting because of the leadership tussle between Tony Blair and the eternal contender and current Chancellor (like Secretary of the Treasury, but with budget setting and tax raising powers),Gordon Brown. Sometime in the distant mythical past, Blair made a deal with Brown who agreed to let Tony be leader for a while if he Tony stepped aside after one or two elections - or whatever the details were. Anyway, Tony Blair has won three elections as Labour leader...and Gordon thinks it's his turn now. Tony Blair has been under increasing pressure from his own party to step down. They think he's too right wing, too close to George Bush, too "presidential" in style.

What's funny, is that the Labour party seem to love Gordon Brown, and seem to want to practically annoint him as new leader when Tony goes at some yet indisclosed time before the next annual Labour conference. But Gordon Brown, though admittedly lacking in charisma or human warmth, is even more dictatorial than Tony and there are many rumours of how he brooked no dissent at his Treasury stronghold. Labour members seem to have fooled themselves that Gordon is somehow more left wing than Tony. Sure, Gordon makes noises about child poverty and third world debt, blah, blah, blah - but this is the guy who just will not let go of the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) which binds the public sector to a lot of really bad deals and lines the pockets of clever finance types.

Bill Clinton spoke at this year's conference. It isn't the first time he's spoken at the venue and he's always been well-received. Clinton, whatever his faults may have been, is a killer speaker. Everyone says so. The big boss of my work had been at the conference and seen Clinton speak. She's seen a lot of speeches in her day, but she said she'd never seen anything like that and was blown away. She tried to use Clinton's "challenging" style to rouse us all to do better, but sadly it just got people's backs up. Not everyone can have Clinton's oratorical.

The Conservatives
The Tories kick off their conference this weekend. We'll be watching this one a little more closely, not least because we know people and will be looking out for them on tv.

old places and old faces

I made a sort of drunken pledge with a friend on the "quit smoking" thing. We said we'd quit in September. She picked the date of the 23d as the quit date. I quit. She didn't.

We met up last night for dinner for the first time since I quit. She was smoking like a chimney. It was hard, but I didn't smoke. As we sat in the restaurant, I had the heretical, hypocritical notion that no one should smoke around me. Just like the urge to smoke, I took a sip of water and shook off that notion, too.

nekkid pictures, sacked teachers

Via Atomictumor

A popular, award-winning art teacher is given the boot after taking kids to the Dallas Art Museum, where they saw some nekkid statues. The trip was all above board, but Sidney McGee's contract will not be renewed after 28 years of service to public education.

Eee-gads. But sadly, this does not surprise me. VolMom bought a children's book about the Romans in Britain for her step-grandchildren. It had the word ass in it. (And no it wasn't a donkey, but a small denomination Roman coin - see you learned something). It also had a line drawing of a Roman statue of a nude goddess - appearing in the background of another scene. Anyway, her step-son found it all bit racy and decided that it was inappropriate for his youngsters.

I find this whole issue a little bit disturbing. I'm for a decent amount of modesty and all, but for goodness sake a little flesh in stone isn't going to make your eyes burn out. And if you won't look at nekkid statues, you are seriously missing out on some great experiences. Like The David*, which I have judiciously cropped...


...because frankly, it's more salacious this way.

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*This is merely a plaster cast housed at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London. It's fantastic. The original in Florence is pretty cool, too. But I saw the V&A one first - and the amazing thing about it is the scale and perfect proportions. You just don't realise how enormous it is because of Michelangelo's genius in sculpting.

Does Iraq make us less safe?

You've seen the stories about the leaked intelligence report which says:

"The Iraq Jihad is shaping a new generation of terrorist leaders and operatives,"

Other key points of the report include:

• Militants, although a small percentage of Muslims, are increasing in both number and geographic dispersion
• If this trend continues, threats to US interests globally will become more diverse leading to increased attacks worldwide
• Militants consider Europe an important venue for attacking Western interests
• The loss of key leaders in rapid succession would probably fracture al-Qaeda into smaller groups that would pose, at least for a time, a less serious threat to US interests.

I'm certainly not the kind of person who thinks that we in the West have brought this all on ourselves. And I know that there's a death-cult ideology in fanatical, radical Islam that began long before Iraq and is driven as much by internal conflicts with Islam and Arab culture as it is a reaction to the West.

BUT, can you blame people for getting mad when it appears to most of the world that the Iraq invasion was done under flimsy pretext. Can you blame them for assuming the worst motivation on our part when our leaders give us different reasons for going in after the fact and I'm still not clear what the real reasons are.

Muslims, in some respects are like that squabbling family that live down the block, constantly fighting each other, but turning on anyone, anyone who dares to attack or criticise their own. Invading someone's country counts as a pretty straightforward attack in my book, and in one sense it doesn't matter that most of the civilians killed in Iraq are killed by other Muslims. We kicked it off and we are responsible.

I don't for one second thinks this gives anyone an excuse to join up with their local terror brigade, but if the Muslims are burning with a sense of injustice already and we give them a real reason to feel a sense of injustice who are they going to turn to? If not by the sword, than by the hand (donations to terror groups, running terror websites) or the tongue (the fomenting anger of the Arab street).

It's true that there may have been the occasional agent of terror hanging around in Iraq before. And it's true that Saddam Hussein certainly wasn't going to be cooperative and help us root them out. But now Iraq is a swarming hive, a live-fire exercise in terror. We stirred the hornet's nest. Sometimes you have to do that, but I don't think we needed to invade Iraq. And now we have to deal with the consequences.

soothing wallabies

So, when I feel all anxious about quitting smoking, I look at the picture of the wallaby on my desktop. It's soothing. But it makes me think too much about wallabies.


Soothing wallaby

I've been sharing wallaby facts with my colleagues.

1. Wallabies can make excellent pets, but they must be bottle fed from babies (joeys) to establish a really close bond.
2. Wallabies can be house trained - i.e. trained to poo outside, but you can never quite train them not to knock things over with their fat marsupial tail.
3. Wallabies like water. If you have a house wallaby, and you're in the bath, sometimes they'll jump in with you.
4. Wallabies, particularly male wallabies, like to box. It's cute when they're young, but not so cute when they get big. (Particularly for Bennett's wallabies that seem to be hardiest as kept pets).
5. Wallabies are nervous creatures - you must protect them from getting scared.

I don't think all my colleagues appreciate learning about wallabies. One said "You certainly have done your research. Did you happen to find any recipes for wallabies?"

I can see her strategy here. To freak me out. But it won't work. I lived too long in rural Tennessee. I've eaten Bambi.

"I bet wallabies would make good eating," I say. "They're herbivores, kind of like deer. Plus they breed pretty quick, and it only takes 1 male to service 10 females. You could eat the surplus wallabies."

But the truth is, I couldn't butcher my own pet wallaby. Even one that wasn't being a very good pet. Plus, you can sell a live male wallaby in the US for around $800, which would make eating him a pretty expensive bbq.

ViL: Great Post from The War Nerd

This made me laugh.

"That left the whole mess to those poor bastards, our Brit friends. You know, we should get down on our knees and apologize to the Brits for making them trust us, making them believe we Americans actually had a clue and were leading them somewhere. You can see they've finally figured it out, that Bush and Cheney never did know what they were doing, but now the poor trusting Limeys are as deep in the shit as we are. I guess it's some kind of poetic justice, because we've done to them what they did to hundreds of other tribes: luring them into doing our dirty work for us. But it's no way to treat an ally."

It's so true...

semantics

So, you're trying to quit smoking, and your quit date is Sept 23d. Does that mean that you quit on that day (perhaps a full day of smoking, setting them aside sometime before midnight)? Or does that mean no smoking at all on the 23d.

I feel that it's the former. My husband felt it was the latter. Anyway, I suppose we both agree that there's not to be any smoking on the 24th. And there hasn't been.

I haven't killed anyone in my withdrawal pangs and short, short temper, yet. My nerves are going jingle, jangle, jingle - then screaming for nicotine. My lungs are missing that smoky, smoke - I feel a tightness in my chest - wanting that expanding power of a nice full drag on a Marlboro Red.

Football haiku

If you haven't seen the weekly haiku contest at Rocky Top Talk - go and have a look at this week's competition.

Tennessee Vols make
trash talk, in the haiku form
Our football foes quake

I've been reading and enjoying them, but since I was away in France, it was difficult to participate. I've made my first entry this week (and it's lamer than the above example). Great idea, Joel.

Go Vols

My personal jihad

According to some Islamic scholars, Ramadan - the month long ritual of diurnal fasting - begins tomorrow. Yesterday, I went to lunch with some colleagues, one a Muslim, to enjoy the last time she can eat with us during the day for month.

It was a good lunch. I also announced that I would be giving up something at the start of Ramadan. My Muslim colleague seemed pleased, although I explained it's complete coincidence. I had agreed a quit date for smoking some time ago, the 23d of September.

Ramadan has elements of purification (keeping clean of not just food, but also bad thoughts and actions and daytime sex) and also of struggle - overcoming normal bodily urges to become closer to God. In some senses this is part of a personal, inner jihad - striving to become a better person.

Goodness knows that giving up smoking is a struggle. And I will be striving to overcome my addictive bodily urges in my effort to stop smoking. Having a philosophical approach to it, has helped me in the past (yes, I've given up before and stayed quit once for 2 and a half years). So perhaps I will use the month of Ramadan and the concept of struggle and personal jihad to my advantage.

-0-

The other philosophical concept I will use during my month of struggle (and after) is the Finnish idea of sisu. I think sisu can be best thought of as will, grit, fortitude, guts and stick-to-it-iveness all rolled into one.

The lie of organic

There's been an E coli epidemic in the US. Packaged "organic", natural spinach has caused an E. coli outbreak.

You know what E. coli travels in? Shit. You know what organic veggies are fertilised with? Shit. Now, for a lot of things, using a slurry of potentially e coli laden shit as fertiliser doesn't really matter. E. coli is killed when food is cooked properly and you can get rid of a lot nasties on potato skins or similar by a good scrub down and proper cooking. But salad? Not the same thing. (I'm no food hygiene expert, but I'd bet that properly cooked spinach wouldn't have caused these problems).

A colleague of mine is big into the organic thing. I told her once: You want organic fruit* - like apples, fine by me. Generally, they don't taste any better and they're not any more nutritious, but they're not dangerous. If you want to pay more for nothing more than a status symbol and some kind of mental trickery that you're being healthy, that's fine by me. But organic leafy vegetables - I personally wouldn't touch them (unless I'd grown them myself fertilised with my own compost which contains no shit).

People, don't be taken in by the organic lie.

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*I can be as much of a foody as the next person. I don't think we should use more chemicals than we need to, am I'm very much into the idea of locally grown, picked-when-ready produce which is often more flavorful and more nutritious. Sometimes these are organic, sometimes not. Organic farmers sometimes also use older and more flavorsome varieties of fruit and veg which can mean that the end product is tastier, but it's to do with the variety rather than the organic status.

Metro waters down "English only rule"

Well, Metro has watered down the "English only" proposal, which would have forbidden communication of Metro Nashville business in any other language than English. It still contains provision for English to become the official language of Nashville government and has an "English first" provision. Good. The proposal was stupid and potentially illegal (violating Federal law).

I don't have a problem with English being the official language of Nashville. And of course I think that the better command of English immigrants have, the better off they'll be. But this proposal was clearly a boneheaded, bigoted attempt to pander to the anti-immigrant "minute men" crowd who seem to have an irrational fear of the other. And I hate to see policy formulated in bile proceed.

-o-

I do love the reverse "logic" used by many proponents of such policies. "Go back to your own countries and protest for your rights. You don't see Americans going to other countries demanding that English be spoken by government officials."

Well, I have seen this and I have done this, too. I can't imagine what it must be like for the average tourist in the UK or in the US who doesn't speak any English. It must be a baffling and unsatisfying experience. But when I go abroad - to say Hungary or the Czech Republic, I don't have the slightest intention of learning to speak one word of their complicated, arcane languages. I do expect customs officers and police and any other official to either speak English or find someone who does. And I do expect hotel and wait staff to speak to me in English and for menus to be printed in English. And should I fall foul with the law (for example for failing to validate my public transport ticket - a common trick I use when visiting such places - allowing me several free rides) - I darn well expect to be interrogated in English (briefly) and for them to apologise for the misunderstanding in English.

In France, they get uppity about such things - but you know they all do speak English, they just pretend not to, but it does help to at least start out with parlez vous anglais? And I've gone through any number of countries on the continent without having even the local equivalent of that phrase. I don't do this on principle or anything, my English first approach is based purely on laziness. If I do happen to know some of the lingo, I'll speak it. In Spain, I spoke my bad Spanish, and everything was groovy. And I did speak some French in France when I could tell they really couldn't speak English (you can always tell because they're the ones that don't mind if you struggle with French, get impatient and switch to English). We English speakers will go anywhere and just expect people to speak our language. Maybe we should be just a little more tolerant when some people don't speak quite enough English to be able to navigate complex discussions.

driving in France

I had meant to post about driving in France. After driving in the UK, driving on French roads was like a vacation in itself. UK drivers are extremely agressive and do not keep what I consider safe following distance on motorways (interstates) or any other roads and the roads themselves are not maintained to a super high standard.

Not so in France. Sure, there are bastard French drivers who speed. But on the autoroutes (motorways/interstates), the speed limit is 80 and the roadways are smooth and well maintained. And, of course, they drive on the right in France, which is good, even in my car that's designed to drive on the left. (Driving a car with a steering wheel on the right and driving on the right makes passing extremely difficult, though. You can't see around the slow moving tractor unless you pull right over into the opposite lane). I was pleased with my ability to slip easily back into driving on the right - I didn't mistakenly drive on left once while I was away. Of course, I did have some trouble accomodating myself to driving on wrong side of the road when I got back to the UK. (oops)

And the French road signs were - in the main- excellent, some of them worthy of adopting on US or UK roads.

There are warning signs (at least in Brittany) with signs showing safe following distances based on the outside white line painted on the roadside. Instead of being a continuous white line - it's broken - and the size and number of strips help to judge following distances. One sign says "1 trait, danger" and second sign says "2 traits, securite" - with a little picture showing what they meant (which was good, because I'm not sure I would have known what trait meant and looking it up in the French-English dictionary might have resulted in danger) People were driving so fast that I'm not sure that keeping two strips between you and the next car really represented securite, but the spirit was absolutely right.

There were many warning signs on the roads, signs warning that the road was a little messed up. And plenty of signs warning "Risque de _______". Risque was easy enough to figure out, but often I had no idea what exactly the risque was. A common sign we saw was "risque de bouchons" - which we finally deduced meant risk of crashes, as the sign usually appeared before traffic got heavy or there was rapidly merging traffic. Of course, it didn't actually mean that. Our dictionary said bouchon meant cork or stoppage, so I guess it meant risk of stand-still traffic. Still it made us proceed more carefully. Other "risque" signs were even less clear to us, some were those long French words that I could barely get my head around before the sign was past like "risque de abellissement" (I'm making that word up, but there were words like that). We'd discuss what this possible risk was - usually with fanciful possibilities - anyway, we never experienced abellissement or whatever the real words were.

Many of the roads were toll roads, and that was OK, usually. For long stretches, you'd get a card and then pay for how far you'd travelled when you exited (and that might be 6 or 7 bucks). But occasionally, you'd get toll stations after short distances with small fees - 80 cents or a dollar. I couldn't figure out if this was due to jurisdictional fee grabbing or a French job creation scheme. This was particularly the case around the Pont de Normande - a most amazing suspension bridge over the bay of the Seine.

And best of all, you know those official brown road signs which advertise coming attractions, like a park or a monument or an historic house? Well, in France, they have those, too, but they're fancy. They were the road signs I was most impressed with. I didn't get a picture of them and I can't find one on the Internet either, but they were fantastic. (Since they were mainly on the autoroutes, I guess it's hard to get a photo when you're going 80 or 90.) Not far out of Calais, for example, is the site of the Battle of Crecy (English kicking French butt) - the sign says Bataille de Crecy and there's a clever drawing of medieval warriors. They didn't just have a picture of the attraction, but often people interacting with the attraction - like visitors walking across the tidal flats to Mont St Michel. The Omaha Beach sign has soldiers walking onto the beach with their rifles held over the heads - and the artist has conveyed a real sense of the landings. Some areas get more than one sign, Bayeux for example has loads to see, so there are signs for the Bayeux tapestry, the WWII museum and the British war graves.

Most areas get a brown sign, but some are a littled stretched - for example a farming area gets a cool picture of cows (I could see the real cows from the road, you've just told me that there's nothing to see but cows). And the worst of all were "maisons de charactre" - and a picture of a typical, though old, French house. If the best you can come up with is "houses of character", your village sucks.

The brown coming attractions signs were one of the few things I saw that I thought - "Man, that would really be fantastic in Tennessee." Tennessee has loads of cool stuff to see. Major cities could have pictures of the Ryman, ducks walking to the Peabody fountain, a choo-choo train or some representation of the Lookout Mountain battle, the ever iconic Sunsphere or fans entering Neyland stadium. You get the idea. Smaller places have plenty of potential, too, for example, an image of Davy Crockett before you turn off to Lawrenceburg, or a Tennessee walking horse for Shelbyville, or whiskey barrells for Lynchburg, or colorful locals placing bets over a cockfighting pit in Newport.

Scoundrels, riots and lying politicians

Big news in Budapest, y'all. Politicians lie. They lie to stay in government. They stretch the truth, misrepresent their position, say things are going better than they really are. Via the The Telegraph:

"It's obvious that we lied [about the state of the economy] throughout the last year and a half, two years," he said. In an expletive-riddled recording, Mr Gyurcsany [PM of Hungary] said: "No European country has done anything as boneheaded as we have."

He went on to admit that it was only due to "divine providence, the abundance of cash in the world economy and hundreds of tricks" that the economy had not collapsed.

The Hungarian Prime Minister in a speech to members of his parliamentary party talked about lying to the electorate to stay in power. The speech was on tape. The tape leaked. Hungarians are understandably angry about it. They rioted in Budapest last night.

Now Hungary, of course, is a new democracy - so maybe they're still naive enough to be shocked by this. Maybe we've not had such a bald admission of lying by Mssrs. Bush and Blair. Maybe the mark of a mature democracy is to let things ride, knowing that the system of constitutional democracy is more important than any individual personality or series of mistakes and indiscretions. But it seems less amazing to me that Hungarians have rioted over this discovery than that the majority of the US population haven't reacted more angrily to a series of events from the rigged election in Florida 6 years ago, to the weapons of mass destruction, to the creeping dismantling of the US constitution by the Bush administration.

Missionary progress

My first day back at work yesterday, I was preparing a speech that I should have prepared before I left. (I'm giving it today - yikes!)

My colleagues were equally frantic preparing for a different and high profile event. Things were not going well. Nothing major...just a series of a unfortunate, frustrating, small things. Until they found out that the courier delivering materials for the event had been turned away from a high profile venue (if you're not living in a barn, you've heard of this place) for "security" reasons.

My colleague turned to me and said "Give me some good news. At least tell me the Vols are winning."

"I wish I could," I said. "But it's not bad, they're 2-1 and they only lost by one point at the weekend."

She seemed disappointed, but I feel that my upbeat attitude to the narrow Gator loss was helpful. I didn't mention that it was the first SEC game. I showed her the picture of the cute VOL-aby, which raised a smile, but didn't have the transformative effect I hoped for. A series of frantic phone calls later and the courier got through with the presentation packs.

But I think the important thing here is that I'm making a convert to Vol fandom.


The VOL-aby

I'm working on it

I took about a zillion pictures* while I was in France, and I'm slowly sorting through them and uploading them to my Flickr account. I'll be amending my holiday posts - adding relevant photos.

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* around 1,000 actually - but I won't be uploading that many - here's my vacation photo set.

Ann Richards

If you go away and are without access to the news, somebody always dies. This time it was former Texas governorAnn Richards- I saw a posting that Nashville Blogger Sharon Cobb had done Molly Ivins remembering Ann Richards. I interned in Houston one summer and Ann was governor then. I was so impressed with her forthright manner and her no-nonsense way of taking unruly legislators in hand to get the job of governing done. I'm sorry she's gone. She was a political hero of mine.

I'm baaaack

Wow, I haven't been at full sized keyboard - and one with an enter key in nearly two weeks. But we're back in ol' Blighty - jolly ol' England once more.

After a two hour delay to our ferry, and a churning, rolling channel crossing Albion welcomed us back with the white cliffs of Dover and London welcomed us back with a traffic jam. Ahhh, London - take me into your loving arms once more - ya dirty, old whore.



Update: The white cliffs of Dover were absolutely stunning. The ferry moves too fast for there to be viewing areas off the front, but the views from starboard (if that means right side?)were fantastic. It really was awe-droppingingly beautiful in the evening light. The weather was a bit hazy, so I'm sure it's even more amazing on a clear day.

Burg(h)ers of Calais

In our last remaining hours in France - we went to see Rodin's statue The Burghers of Calais. Then we went down to the sea shore to eat the burgers of Calais - real greasy gut bombs - just the kind of thing you want before a potentially rough channel crossing. The Vol-in-Law washed his down with French-brewed tequila flavored beer to prime the load.

The Burg(h)ers of Calais

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Update: The crossing was a bit churny, but there were no ill effects
Read more about the Burghers of Calais and the siege of Calais


More photos of Calais:

Last day

It's our last day in France - and we shall be spending some time in the hypermarkets of Calais - buying wine and beer (and hopefully some French cider) at low, low prices. Our hotel tv picks up British stations since we're only 20 miles away from England. We watched the news last night - and it really brought home how we've not just taken a break from work and London, but also from the war on terror.

Update: The big wine warehouse did not have the festival atmosphere I hoped for, nor were the prices, low, low, low. (Though wine was considerably cheaper than it would have been in the UK). And they didn't have a big cider selection either.



After our visit to the wine store, we went to a grocery store and stocked up on French sausage and cheese, as well as more cider. We had stopped at a Musee du Cidre - a place you could tour to see how they make cider, Calvados and pommeau. Calvados is kind of like apple whisky and I really don't care for it, but I love the nice apple-y cider of Brittany and Normandy. Of course, the cider museum wasn't open, but they were selling cider - so we tried and bought 6 bottles of the "brut" and 6 of the "doux".


Photo from the ciderie we visited featuring a portable still (a new must-have item for me).


Here's a site that explains cider making, though not from the place we visited. An article from the LA Times that explains Calvados and includes the line "But making Calvados takes more than an orchard. For starters, the Feds frown on stills on farms"

More wallabies

We went back to the Parc de Branfere to have another visit with the wallabies. It was quite a rainy day, which on the plus side meant less competition for wallaby affection but on the down side wet wallabies aren't as fun to pet as dry wallabies and they are afraid of umbrellas and my big green plastic slicker that I bought one very wet visit to Kew Gardens. Still, they were as precious as ever and I stood unprotected in the drizzle feeding them popcorn and returning their dewy gazes.

We also saw some lemurs that are allowed to roam free. There is a pack of about six (it's hard to tell - they jump around a lot) - and we got as close as 3 feet to them. I've always wanted to see lemurs up close - and they are as beautiful as in nature documentaries, but their expressions are kinda mean with their staring yellow eyes and they were actually a little bit scary. They seemed unafraid of us or anything else. They also liked to tease the wallabies. Wallabies are lazy creatures, but they moved off pretty quick when the pack of lemurs approached them. They knew who was boss - and the lemurs did, too.

Update: we also saw a couple of young albino wallabies. It seemed to me that wallabies in general don't see too well, but albino wallabies were extra blind. The Vol-in-Law spent quite a while trying to coax out the albino wallaby, with limited success.

Heading back

We've left the apple groves and sea shore of Brittany - and are heading northwards toward the ferry port of Calais - famous as a destination for British people looking to buy alcohol and cigarettes with less duty than in the UK. It's was pitching it down with rain yesterday - so we made less progress than we'd hoped. We got stuck in a monumental traffic jam in Rennes and rather than sit in the car we went
Into a Home Depot/ B and Q type place where I bought a special diffusion waterer type thing that you can screw onto a 2 litre bottle and keep container plants alive. That's been my only purchase in France thus far. But I'm very excited.
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French hours

(Drafted yesterday) I've been living next door to France for 10 years and refused to visit because - well, because it's France. But our little vacation (especially the wallabies) was starting to change my mind. However, this morning we were disappointed twice. First at the musee prehisorique (or some such) which explains the many pre-historic standing stones and monuments in this area. I carefully checked the guide book - but turns out it's closed on Tuesdays. OK - so we head off to one of the better sites - one with tombs you can go into. Well, it's open today but access was finished by the time we got there (just before noon) - turns out the staff take a long break for lunch. Well, the Vol-in-Law was pretty pissed and so was I. We snuck around the back to get a better look - and take some pictures. Then in the evening we head off to the alignments close to the town of Carnac. These are lines of megaliths - kind of like Stonehenge - only much, much smaller -in fact they're more like mini-liths - although a continuation of the alignments are maybe medium-liths. I knew they'd be smaller, but I thought it would be better than Stonehenge where you can't get anywhere near the rocks. Well, even in Carnac, they've got the damn rocks fenced in (kilometers and kilometers wire grill fencing) like they're going to get away. We discovered that you could go in and walk around the rocks, but only between the months of October and April.
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More on wallabies

I'm still thinking about the wallabies we fed yesterday at the Parc de Branfere, their soft, soft fur, their dewey eyes. Their sweet and gentle nature - how they'll let you love them for the price of a small bag of popcorn. I reckon petting wallabies is as good as swimming with dolphins or holding a couple of kittens.

I have a small list of things I would buy or do if I struck it rich or won the lottery. Now owning wallabies is on that list. You'd have to fence them in pretty good to keep them from getting run over or eating garden flowers, but they'd keep the grass short as well as sheep or goats might. I'd give them cute names like Boris and Juno and Darlene or Harvey (the ViL said he'd call his Clarence) , and maybe I'd put colored collars on them with their names printed on with a permanent marker (because frankly one wallaby looks much like another) - and I'd give house guests little bags of popcorn so that they could experience the joy of wallabies, too.

And maybe during football season, I'd dress them in little orange and white vests and get my picture with them in the Knoxville News Sentinel. I would call them VOL-abies!

Mock-up of wallaby in orange and white vest. Go Vols!

Wallabies!!!

Before our trip to France - I did a little Internet research - things to do in Brittany. I came across the Parc de Branfrere - where wallabies roam the grounds and the website features pictures of small children holding wallabies. I thought - yeah, I'd like to hold a wallaby. Well, we went to Parc de Branfrere today. And yes, there are wallabies, but the wallabies aren't really in to being petted quite as much as I would have liked. First of all the wallabies can go anywhere they like, but people have to stay on the designated paths. Wallabies won't come when called, they are much more interested in eating twigs. But then we worked out that if you find a wallaby NEAR a path, you can get its attention with the special, expensive popcorn (about 2 bucks) the park sells to feed the animals. It has to be very close to the path, because wallabies are very lazy and will not come far -even for food they want. Once they are eating - out of your hand - you can pet them with the other. They have the softest fur and sweetest doe eyes, fringed by the longest lashes. You can touch their ears, their tummies and backs. They are such gentle, sweet cuddly animals. But as soon as the popcorn is gone...they turn their backs and hop away on their powerful giant hind legs. I held back a handful from my bag so I could feed them again after seeing the other animals. We walked around to see the African plains (giraffes and oryx and blue gnus) and lots of other things. It started to rain so we waited in the cafe for a while, but I wasn't going to leave without going to the petting zoo and seeing the red pandas, so we donned raincoats and raised umbrellas and braved the wet. The red pandas were hiding from the rain, but the precipitation was good for the petting zoo (espace de contact) because all the animals (as well as the few visitors) were huddled under the eaves. You could hardly move for the mini-goats, alpacas and donkeys. The Vol-in-Law wanted some of the remaining popcorn to feed to the alpaca. I couldn't see the point since, they were right there and would have to flee into the mud and rain to avoid him, plus I knew without food there'd be no more wallaby action, but I relented. No sooner had I given him the popcorn and the alpacas had noticed but the ViL was surrounded by goats - one of whom tore it from his hands and ate the whole lot - plastic bag and all. (Despite our efforts to retrieve the plastic). Well, I was pissed. No popcorn, no wallaby love. I made the ViL walk back to entrance and get me another bag. I found a friendly wallaby and fed him the whole sack - petting him all the while - it took over half an hour for him to finish the popcorn, but I just sat there with my arm around him - the cutest animal ever (photos later) ----- Wallabies aside, Parc de Branfere is about the best zoo I've been to. The animals seem happy and they have plenty of space. It's a bit short on carnivores (only a couple of South American wolves) but lots of cool grazing animals, birds and primates. In fact, they have lots of different primates in great habitats that allow them to play and make eye contact with you. They had gibbons, lemurs, tamarinds, capuchins and cheese-eating surrender monkeys.
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Remembering Daniel Harlin

Daniel Harlin: father, husband, friend, brother, fire fighter, fallen hero.

On this fifth anniversary of 9/11, bloggers honor the memories of the 2996 killed by terrorists.

I thought this was a nice idea, I signed up. I wasn't really prepared for the impact of seeing the face of the person I was randomly assigned. There he was, an official photo, maybe taken for his New York City Fire Department ID - and like most official ID shots (certainly mine) - cold and impersonal and not very flattering. Still I teared up.

So how can I honor the memory of Daniel Harlin? I didn't know him, his friends or his family. I trawled the net, and I felt even more emotional as I started to find out more about him.

______________

Charles Foulds, a friend, said:

Daniel Edward Harlin looked forward to the start of deer-hunting season all year long. But when he and his friends finally arrived in the Catskill woods in November, he always offered up the best spots to someone else.

"He was a very unselfish guy," said Charles Foulds, who grew up with him and had hunted with him every year since they were both teenagers. "He never took the best for himself."

A quiet man with a contagious laugh, Firefighter Harlin, 41, had worked with Ladder Company 2, Battalion 8 on East 51st Street for more than a decade. But he loved the outdoors so much that he and his wife moved to rural Putnam County 10 years ago, settling in Kent, before having their three children. "He looked forward to taking the boys hunting when they got old enough," said his wife, Deborah.

This year his friends held their annual deer-hunting gathering in a Catskill cabin without him for the first time. "There wasn't a dry eye in the house," Mr. Foulds said.

Profile published in THE NEW YORK TIMES on December 19, 2001.

On one of the countless memorial sites where Daniel Harlin is listed, his wife said:

My name is Debbie Harlin. Danny was my husband for nearly 14 years. We actually knew one another for much longer than that. We share 3 beautiful children, ages 10, 8 and 4. The pain we feel today is the same as the pain we felt on 9/11. I don't expect that to ever subside. However, the support, comfort and caring expressed by each of you is extremely touching and means so much to myself and Danny's entire family. Thank you so much for your genuine concern for us all.

Kayla said:

Danny was a great person, dad, husband, coach, and friend. I am very close with his family and every time I would see him he would make me laugh. I wish I could hear his wonderful laugh just one more time. Danny was so great with all kids, they all loved him, and he loved them too. Danny loved his job, friends, and most importantly, his family! It is so hard to belive that Danny is gone, but you know what he really isn't gone. He is probally watching over me as I write this. Thinking of him now makes me happy, but then again sad. I lost a great friend and basically a great family member! I love you Danny! Thanks for everything Tough Guy!

______________________

Danny Harlin was a man who made a career of public service. First in the police, then as a fire fighter. He served his fellow New Yorkers daily and then served them in the bravest way, rushing in to save others as hell broke loose around him.

I could only find one other picture of him, still at work, but a photo that shows a little bit more of what his friends and family describe. A guy who would make you smile and laugh. I'll never know you, but I'd bet you'd have made me laugh, too.


















This post is about Daniel Harlin, but it's worth mentioning that 342 of his comrades and 3 retired fire fighters also died that day. The New York City government has a section of its website devoted to them.

South Brittany

We drove South yesterday to the Quiberon peninsula - and the Atlantic beaches. Brittany (and Normandy for that matter) are famous apple growing regions and there are cider presses dotted across the countryside. This isn't the kind of cider that you can get at Stout's Orchard in Lawrence County, TN. This is hard cider - about 5 to 6 percent alcohol. Cider popular in the UK - especially among unruly youth and drunks - but it hardly tastes of apple. Occasionally, you can get good French cider in the stores in London, but like much French produce the best is kept in France. We had a fabulous appley cider with our dinner in St Meene, and as we were heading out we saw the sign for the farm and decided to stop to get some. Unfortunately, the place was shut up tighter than a drum. We hope to be able to find a press with cider we like - but each one is so different. Restaurants serve local cider and we're in a different area now - Morbihan, and the cider we had last night was good, but not as good as the previous night's.
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How ' bout them Vols?

Hey, thank goodness for Rocky Top Talk, (link in the sidebar) which I just checked this morning. Joel, thank you for your timely posting of Volunteer Football results and coverage of the game - which meant that I could check the score from my flea bag French hotel. Thank goodness too for the whisker of a Tennessee win over Air Force. My husband's new favorite sport is taunting this poor Vol after UT losses, a sport he enjoyed most heartily last year. Today could have seen us travelling through France with a grumpy Vol and a mocking Vol-in-Law. Instead - it will be a happy Vol, blaring Rocky Top through the French countryside (a CD brought especially for the occasion).
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A good bed is hard to find

Having left Mont St Michel, we had to fix on a new place to stay the night. We decided to head into the heart of Brittany and stop in the medieval town of Dinan. Well, Dinan is worth a visit, but a lot of other people thought so too plus there was some type of air ballon festival and who knows what else - it seemed all of surrounding Brittany was there last night and we couldnt get a room. We drove further south to find no hotels or shut up B+Bs. We arrived at St Meene le Grand, a town that doesn't make it into the guide books and drove past a hotel that seemed like it might be run either by Mr Bates or Mr Fawlty - I rejected it. We tried another place, no rooms - turns out there was some kind of agricultural festival on in town. So back to the Bates Motel - as we figured it was marginally better than sleeping in our car in a lay-by. Well, they did have rooms available and at low, low prices too. Yes, the owners were creepy, yes the decor remains unchanged from the 70s, yes we had to use a flashlight to carry out suitcases up the darkened stairway, but actually it's alright, it was clean and quiet. And it's within walking distance of the town center where we had a fantastic and very reasonably priced meal at a very quaint creperie. That food was very welcome after a day in which I'd only eaten a grilled cheese sandwich and a cold tin of green beans. Sadly, our room did not afford a view of the fireworks that started at 11 - but we could hear them.
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A good dam is hard to find, part 2

In a previous post, I describe how we went out of our way to find the Barrage de la Rance - a tidal hydroelectic dam that is France's "number one industrial attraction". Turns out we were completely in the wrong part of France. Oops. Well, yesterday we were in the right part of France - so we went out of our way again (slightly) to see the dam. I'd only ever seen river dams, so at first approach the Barrange de la Rance is a little disappointing - low and squat. But we stopped in the visitor's parking lot and walked around to the seaward side and it was duly impressive - great torrents of swirling sea water the color of jade were sweeping through the gates. We got stuck in a horrible traffic jam on the way out, but it was still worth it.

The secret of Mont St Michel

My high school French text had a beautiful picture of Mont St Michel, isolated, rising above a vast tidal plain. I wanted to visit this castle-like abbey - I wanted to cross the causeway at low tide and explore the mysterious passageways and cloisters of the mount. So, yesterday I finally got my chance. The approach to Mont St Michel is through a clutter of tourist motels and cookie shops. Marginally classier than Pigeon Forge (there was no miniature golf - but in place of Porpoise Island or the Aquarium of the Smokies there was some kind of "Alligator Island" reptilarium). There are cars and people evrywhere. We payed about 6 bucks to park in a space that would be "reclaimed by the sea" in two hours. We fought our way through a throng of people - forevr in danger of being separated by shoulder-to-shoulder tourists. I freaked. This was not the lonely, windswept abbey of my French textbook. This was the line to the Grizzly River Rampage ride on a day of 2 for 1 admission. We stood on the ramparts and discussed strategy - how could we make this the experience I wanted? In the end, I decided we couldn't. I wasn't even going to be able to get a good photo - the sky was hazy and dull. So, we left - we just left after 15 minutes. I squeezed off a couple of shots and decided that I could put a tick in the Mont St Michel experience box. The weird thing was, when I reviewd my photos later, there was the Mont St Michel of my textbook - beautiful, isolated against the bluest sky. The secret of Mont St Michel is that it's incredibly photogenic.
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Airborne Rangers

We finished our D-Day tour with a visit to Ste Maire Eglise - a medium sized town which features the Airborne Rangers museum and a mannequin of a parachutists hanging stuck from the church roof (as happened). The Vol-in-Law commented that Ste Maire Eglise got lucky - only the 82nd airborne was supposed to drop in the area, but the 101st were blown off course and dropped in the same area - which meant that two divisions of veterans, their heirs and successors now visit the area - providing a substantial stream of tourists. We didn't visit the museum, it looked good, but after a tourist trap lunch and an attack by wasps (pestering souls of dead krauts, no doubt) - we decided to make our own breakout from the peninsula and move on to the Mont St Michel.
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Dead man's corner

On our tour of Normandy, if yesterday was "Saving Private Ryan" today is "Band of Brothers". Our first stop was the Dead Man's Corner museum in St Come du Mont. It's in a house that was once German para headquarters then became US para headquarters, a good place because it's positioned overlooking a cross-roads. The museum itself was nothing much, but it did feature Easy Company memoribilia (as well as a gift shop full of both genuine and replica militaria). The town itself is featured in a PC game "Brothers in Arms" - and the Vol-in-Law was finally able to crouch in person behind walls that previously he had only quaked beneath virtually. We met a fellow who appeared to be at least a bit eccentric - though it's hrd to tell when you can only understand 1 in 10 of the words he was saying. His only English was the opening lines of the Star Spangled Banner. He asked us our nationality - and couldn't have cared less about the ViL's "Anglais", but was genuinely enthusiastic about my "Americaine". It's been a while since that has happened to me in Europe. Apparently the town had received the genrosity of an American woman whose son had fought there (and lived - as far as I understand). It was she who taught him the words of the American national anthem when he was a small boy.
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Testing

<P> the blackberry keyboard is busted. That's why I can't have paragraph breaks</p> <p>Let's see if we can include HTML <b>code</b> to make it work <I>properly</i></p>
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La Pointe du Hoc

If you were in a rush to see D-day things in Normandy, go to the American cemetery, but make some time for Pointe du Hoc. First a bit of history, the Germans had some very big guns and defensive emplacements on a spur of land overlooking Omaha Beach (and a wider area). Their numerous concrete bunkers kept working unless hit directly by artillery. Colonel Rudder and 225 of his men scaled the steep cliffs of Pointe du Hoc and took out those guns. They radioed "mission accomplished" and asked for supplies, relief and reinforcement as there had been "many casualties". By the time relief arrived - only 90 men were still "battle ready". The point now is a moonscape of shell craters and concrete bunkers in various states of disrepair (though several are still in pretty good shape). You can really see the awesome destructive power of war. And the most amazing thing about it, is that the whole place is a dangerous, tetanus-threatening playground. You can clamber in and over the bunkers (even the ones that look as though they might finally fall in with a good shove). You can run over precarious paths between craters, and there's plenty of exposed rusty rebar and barbed wire to cut you good. There are plans to develop the site further, but I hope they leave it just as unsafe.

crosses row on row

We visited the American cemetery in Normandy today. It overlooks Omaha Beach, and we walked down to the shore first. Omaha beach is beautiful, surprisingly, unsurpassingly beatiful given its grim history. Wide expanses of golden sand, sweeping vistas, and hardly anyone on it. It looks like a beach to play on, if you overlookthe odd bit of misshapen metal wreckage emrging from the sand, but no one was playing. It was about as sombre as a beautiful beach can be, and my thoughts were certainly on the 3000 Americans who died there one June morning. The US government owns the bluff above, but the shore is French - and they've turned it into a nature reserve and forbidden anything related to fun. When we'd seen the beach we climbed the steep pathway to the cemetery. The US war monument commission maintains a pathway, but the rest of the face is brambles, bracken and stinging nettle - just as it would have been in '44 - except then it would have been covered in barbed wire, too. It wouldn't have been easy going, lugging yourself and equipment over steep and uneven ground - never mind under fire. The cemetery itself is beyond anything I'd really imagined. I'm generally choked up by such things, but in a certain way I was awed less by the sacrifice of these thousands of men, than by the "perfect memorial" to them. The immaculate, manicured emerald lawn was startling after a dry summer in London and a hosepipe ban. The marble crosses glowed and the central monument was clearly a testament to a young empire, built for the ages, with a clear design eye to Imperial Rome. There were few personal touches as there had been at the British cemetery (the tatty poppy wreaths, the faded photos, and even the personal inscriptions on many of the tombstones). I didn't know any of the names, and I wasn't looking for a person in particular, so the gleaming perfection and endless uniformity seemed oddly impersonal. I don't want to sound disrespectful, if my own relative was there - I think I would feel it was a careful, beautiful and fitting tribute. And I certainly think that every American who can should go. But it was a strange and lovely place.
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Mulberry

As part of the D-Day operations, two full size harbor kits were built in England on the orders of Winston Churchill. The parts - great concrete lumps and floating docks were tugged across the channel. They were Mulberries A and B - truly monumental achievements of engineering - and they were meant to ensure that supplis could continue to reach the troops if the harbors of Le Havre or Cherbourg couldn't be taken - or were destroyed. Such an artificial harbor had never been tried before - but they were up and working in record time offloading supplies and tanks and other necessities of war. Unfortunately, a big storm - the harshest June gale in 40 years -came before either could be completed and while the British one needed fixing, the American operated harbor was broken beyond repair. Parts of the British floating harbor are visible from the shore in Arromanches - and the construction and operatiion of the Mulberries are featured in a museum there. Sure, there are more emotional aspects of the D-Day landings, but I think in terms of pure cleverness, forethought and ingenuity these are most impressive.
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360 degrees of war

We're in Arromanches les Bains where there are two D-Day museums. One is just a cinema, atop a cliff, where you see a 360 degree film of archive footage of the Battle of Normandy interspersed with scenes from the present day. Called "La Prix da la Liberte" it's advertised cheesily and the concept sounds a little cheesy, too, but it's absolutely fantastic. It was really moving. Deliberately dizzying and disorienting, there are sweeping aerial shots of the peaceful French countryside with the occasional defensive emplacement still just visible beneath the encroaching vegetation - then the sound and the fury of war - closeups of the dead and the wounded - then the faces of the modern Normandy French, a wedding party - a market trader, shoppers - their faces all glowing with gratitude. You crane your neck looking at the scenes on the different screens - and then the obligatory shot of the American cemetery - the crosses row on row, ahead, behind, to the sides. The price of freedom.
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Creature comforts

Hotels in the UK might be generally expensive, cramped and a little dusty in the corners, but one great thing abou them is that they all, without exception, have tea makin facilities. That means, a few packets of tea, nasty instant coffee, some bicuits and an electric kettle. I've never seen this anyplace else (though some American hotels have a coffee maker in the room) and I miss it. Coffee by the cup in France is expensive and I can rarely get enough as part of the continental breakfast to satisfy me. Yesterday, I spotted a French equivalent of a Wal Mart and dashed in to purchase tea, coffee and the means to prepare them. We had our first tea last night which proved restorative after our sea creature meal (see previous post - Creatures from the deep) and coffee this morning. I'm fully caffeinated now and raring to go.
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A corner of a foreign field

Yesterday we visited the "Memorial Museum" in Bayeaux - this covers the whole of the battle of Normandy and turned out to be a good place to start our tour of Normandy museums as it provided a great overview of the campaign and has helped us make some strategic choices about which of the 26 other official Battle of Normandy museums we care to visit. I'm more impressed than ever by how much those valiant men accomplished in roughly 10 weeks, since I think it would take us almost as long to visit all the memorials. We also visited the British war cemetery and memorial. I imagine it is quite different in style from the American one (we'll visit that later) but it was very nicely done. It is a corner of a foreign field that is forever England. There is also a corner of that foreign field that is forever Deustchland, as there is a section for fallen Germans, too. I wasn't quite sure how I felt about that, but I suppose humanity is reunited in death. The Vol-in-Law didn't mind the German section "off in their little evil area", but was more disturbed by a small row of Czechs, Italians and Soviets in among the Commonwealth dead. We don't know their story, of course, but it seemed a strange grouping of allied and axis graves.
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Creatures from the deep

We just finished a platter of fruit de mer - une specialite de la region. I had a vague idea of what it was. The Vol-in-Law however was under the impression that it would be "fish and other seafood in sauces - not slimy intact creatures with chitin and eyes and legs that move when you pick them up.". The ViL was raised vegetarian, and even though he now eats meat - he likes to be separated from the means of production. The platter was absolutely enormous - I took a photo, and I wish I could upload it now. I had to eat a good bit of his share, too - in order not to seem rude or reveal or ordering faux pas - since he wouldn't eat any of the creatures that still had eyes. (Crab, shrimp, European lobster). It was good, but I have to admit - it might have been more palatable if it had been battered and fried.
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Born on the bayeux

We've just come from seeing the Bayeux tapestry. It was commissioned by William the Conqueror's half brother Bishop Odo to depict the events leading up to the Norman invasion (justifying it) and the battle of Hastings itself. I was a little worried that it would be disappointing after nearly a lifetime of wanting to see it. But it wasn't. It's in a darkened hall, and the free audio guides keep you moving along at a steady clip, so there's little bunching up and gawking, but just enough time to take in the rich detail. We've also seen the Battle site near Hastings, where the Bayeux tapestry was seen more as a propaganda rag - and Harold's ceding of England to William was seen less as a blood oath and more of an invalid contract made under duress.
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Vegetaux

We've only been in France for two nights and I'm already missing vegetables. The food is good, but it's all bread, cheese, meat and fish - with a side of bread. Last night we scoured the sidewalk menus of the retaurants of Bayeux looking for some place that served vegetables. After some discussion, the Vol-in-Law told me that Normandy was hell on vegetarians. I'm not a vegetarian, but I need my veggies. We finally settled on a Tunisian restaurant, because I know that sort of food - at least as it's servd in the UK is meat rich, but served with spices and stewed vegetables, tomatoes, peppers, onions, zucchini and even apricots. Well, not in Normandy. It's mostly just meat. One cool thing about the restaurant was that it had a cat in residence. A three-legged cat, missing its left front limb. It hopped between tables begging treats from patrons. I've never eaten in a restaurant with a cat before, and I have to wonder if it's some kind of health and safety violation. I took a picture of it, but the cat was distressed by the flash and hopped out into the road. Which then distressed the restaurant owner. According to my husband the French customers told on me "Americaine, photo, chat, blah, blah, blah". The cat was retrieved safely from the road and given its three-leggedness, I have to guess it wasn't the first time it had run out there. However, we were not offered the dessert menu.
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A good dam is hard to find

As we continued our road trip through France, we planned a route yesterday that went many miles out of our way and through slow back country roads so that we could visit a hydroelectric dam. A gal from the Tennessee Valley can't miss a dam if the opportunity presents. My husband asked me if I was sure that dam was where I thought it was, and I had to answer that I was only "pretty sure". He checked the guide book, and it turned out the dam was in a whole other part of France.

How we laughed.
-

Well, It's been quite an adventure packed day. We refused breakfast at our cheap and nasty hotel, and went out in search of a bakery. We bough delightul apple turnover things and a ham and cheese croissant thing that as it turns out really needs to be baked again to be edible - the cheese was all unmelted and the gooey sauce was slimy. . We then made our way to Etretat where we climbed the cliffs over the sea for som spectacular views of the channel. We climbed down to a hidden beach via a slippery path cut in the chalk face. By the time we finished we we pretty hungry and settled on a quaint beach front cafe. The waiter greeted us cheerily and asked if we wanted to eat. "Oh, yes" we said. "C'est finis" he said with an even bigger smile. Other than that, Etretat was lovely and I would recommend staying there.
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Death of western civilisation

I had a suspicion before I came that France didn't allow smoking in restaurants anymore. But as I watch the French go out on the street to smoke, (as I did) the notion is confirmed. I'm so disappointed with the French - the image of the beret wearing fellow with a cigarette stuck to his lip is endangered. I point this out to the non-smoking Vol- in-Law, who smirks and says "Yes, the lights are going out all over Europe."
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Allo, allo

Well, we're in France now with our brand new car battery and beacoup de klicks on the klickometer. We drove straight from Calais to Fecamp in Normandy stopping only at the loveliest rest stop/ gas station ever - all harmonious water features, reed beds and wildfowl. We climbed the observation tower to see lots and lots of fields. Fecamp is a seaside town with white cliffs that almost match those of Dover. Our hotel is cheap and nasty, but overlooks the sea.
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Missing the boat

We missed our sailing to France. But the nice breakdown guy directed us to a local garage where we bought the first souvenir of our journey - a new battery. We made a delayed 12:15 sailing narrowly having been waved thru passport control with the barest of gallic shrugs. He barely glanced at my American passport. We're now in the onboard restaurant - awaiting our first french food.
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A poor start

So we begin our holiday in the parking lot of the Travel Inn, waiting for the breakdown recovery service and watching a young girl attempt to reverse around an imaginary corner as part of a driving lesson. Also my blackberry's enter key has broken. So although I can still post - paragraph breaks will have to wait until I have access to a keyboard. I tried to clean it out last night with my husband's good Scotch and a q-tip, but to no avail. The Vol-in-Law brought some coffee and a cold croissant. This was desperately needed as we had skipped breakfast in order to enjoy our leisurely meal on the Sea France ferry all the more. We have missed our sailing.

And we're off

It doesn't auger well when your 9 day road trip is delayed by a dead battery.

But we called out the breakdown service and we were soon on our way and straight into a 10 mile tailback. At least we'd decided to stay overnight in Dover before catching our ferry to Calais in the morning. We can almost see the ferry port from our hotel room - the view obscured mostly by the dumpsters beneath our window.

New Vol resources

How 'bout them Vols?

How 'bout them Vol bloggers?

Excellent new Volunteer football resources online. I've begun my Vol blog roll (check the sidebar), which will take you to Rocky Top Talk, Voluminous and some new bloggers, too. And the fantastic new Rocky Top Brigade Vol aggregator.

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Even for the expat, you know it's football time in Tennessee when:

• You wear orange to work every Friday
• You amaze Brits with the Neyland Stadium seating statistics (even the slow-to-complete national stadium here doesn't seat that many)
• Every time we're near a live band I ask my husband "Do you think they know Rocky Top?"
• My computer desktop image becomes the aerial view of Neyland Stadium.

And I make dang sure that everyone around me knows it, too.

Shot through the heart

The Croc hunter is dead. Stung in the chest by a stingray while filming an underwater documentary, Steve Irwin died on the beach leaving behind his American born wife and two children.

Fellow Australian film maker David Ireland said:

"I don't want to go into this because I'm thinking of his family and what they must be going through, but they (stingrays) are very dangerous.

"They have one or two barbs in the tails which are not only coated in toxic material but are also like a bayonet, like a bayonet on a rifle.

"If it hits any vital organs it's as deadly as a bayonet."

Stingrays, dangerous? D'ya think?

I enjoyed Steve Irwin's shows, but that dude was craaazy.

cutest thing ever

Cutest thing ever. Indoctrinate them young.