“Oh Darling, Let’s Be Adventurers.”
What a surprise! Today is again cloudy and damp. The breeze is a strong one so the streets and yards will be littered with fallen leaves. It is a warm day.
This morning I had a library board meeting. It was a quick one so I got home when the coffee was still hot. On the way into the house, I noticed a small red something in my garden. I investigated carefully. It is a mushroom, the first red mushroom I’ve ever seen in the garden.
On the way to my meeting, I rubbernecked a bit. Many houses have pumpkins on their front steps. Some are decorated for Halloween. The house down the street has a giant web across its picture window. A spider, the stuff of arachnophobia, is climbing the web.
I like to think of myself as an intrepid traveler. I don’t do tours except for city tours to orient myself. The longest trip I’ve taken was the eight weeks I spent going from Venezuela to Rio. This trip was pre-computer. I bought travel guides and planned everything. Even now I am amazed that my two years of college Spanish was enough. In any language I’ve studied, I always hear more than I speak which has always worked well. I remember in Caracas going to the ticket depot, a huge building filled with kiosks representing the different bus companies. I wandered until I found the kiosk selling tickets to my next destination, Mérida at the foot of the Andes. We got the tickets and found the bus on which we were the only foreigners, the only English speakers. The Venezuelans sort of adopted us even to ordering our lunch at a mid-day stop. We had mountain trout, and it was delicious. I knew then we’d be okay.
Morocco was my first solo trip. This time I used my computer to plan my visit. I figured my high school French would be enough. It was. I had an amazing time.
I took two trips to Ghana by myself, but it was easy. It was like going home after a long time away.
This morning I got three books at the library. I’m happy.
Explore posts in the same categories: Musings
October 9, 2018 at 1:15 pm
Much the same weather over here today and from tomorrow we’ll have warm and sunny weather.
I do understand more of the languages I’ve studied than I speak, unless I get angry because then most of those languages pop up in my head 🙂 🙂
It is funny because if one know English, some German and Swedish it’s really easy to read dutch but it is impossible to understand someone talking dutch 🙂 🙂 🙂
Have a great day!
Christer.
October 9, 2018 at 3:33 pm
Christer,
Tomorrow we’ll have really warm weather but I don’t know about the sun. I hope for it.
I was at the dinner table on a boat I was taking down the Parana River from Paraguay to Buenos Aires. My table mate spoke English. When a man speaking Spanish came to the table to explain about a tour the next day, the woman asked me what the man said. I repeated it in English. She was quite surprised at how much I understood.
I couldn’t understand a word o0f Dutch. The owner of the hotel where we were staying sat down and introduced himself to us. He gave me a menu and had me read the choices in Dutch. He laughed at my awful pronunciation.
Have a great day!!
October 9, 2018 at 1:46 pm
I have some natural spider webs at home and in the garden, does it count as Halloween decoration? I’m even partly ready for Christmas too, my plants are still decorated with some straw stars I forgot to remove last Christmas.
It was cold at night but warm and sunny in the afternoon, a nice fall day. It’s already dark outside now.
October 9, 2018 at 2:19 pm
Birgit – I brought an Olive Wood nativity back from the Holy Land and I have been trying to think of a reason to put it up now. I am blasting right through the whole Halloween and Thanksgiving deal and in to Christmas
October 9, 2018 at 3:17 pm
Hedley, it may be a little bit blasphemous but I’m thinking of a 3-in-1 decoration. A big hollowed pumpkin as shelter for the holy family with ears of grain as part of the shelter and as traditional symbol for (at least European) Thanksgiving. Leaves the question whether pumpkins are common food in the holy land to make it work…
October 9, 2018 at 3:36 pm
Loving your creativity – there is a market for this
October 9, 2018 at 3:38 pm
My Dear Hedley,
I collect nativity sets and have many from a variety of places I’ve been. There are three from Africa, a couple from South America and some different ones from the US and Europe. I leave them on the mantle all year. For one set from Ghana, I used clay to build a couple of Ghanaian compounds and a wall around them. I bought things that resembled the tools for the garden. I also built a beehive oven.
I figure you can leave that set anywhere for any time.
October 9, 2018 at 3:39 pm
Birgit,’
I love your idea!!!
October 10, 2018 at 8:03 am
Kat – I love Christmas decorations. I especially treasure a Santon nativity that Mrs MDH and I bought in Aix-en-Provence. As we travel we try to pick up an ornament to bring a remembrance to our tree – yup came back from the Holy Land with a new nativity, a shepherd’s field and some olive wood decorations
Time to get the tree up and get the season started.
October 9, 2018 at 3:36 pm
Birgit,
Of course they count as Halloween decorations as the decorations are just mimicking what is real.
I leave my nativity sets on the mantle all year.They are unique and many are from Africa.
I know about the darkness coming so early and the morning light coming so late. My timer lights outside come on really early now.
It was a nice day despite the clouds.
October 10, 2018 at 12:31 pm
My Dear Hedley,
I have ornaments from Ghana which I cherish. I also brought back some from many countries including Italy, Ireland, Hungary, Portugal and England.
I also love Christmas decorations. I have many vintage pieces and ornaments from our tree when I was a kid. My house becomes a winter wonderland.
October 9, 2018 at 10:42 pm
Some time I just get lucky. When I left for work at seven it had stopped raining and the streets were dry. I filled up my tank anticipating a long very wet drive home. It rained heavily most of the day. One of our instructors came to work at lunch time and said her rain gauge at home had accumulated an inch and three quarters since the rain begin at about nine in the morning. By the time I left to drive home all the rain had moved out to the east and I had a normal ride home. The high today was only 65 with all that rain. By morning we will be in the upper 50s with a forecasted sunny day.
October 9, 2018 at 11:06 pm
Bob,
We get the clouds but no rain.
An inch and three quarters is a lot of rain. We can always use more rain!! I love rainstorms when it pours and you can hear iron the roof and windows.
You did luck out with a rainless drive to work and then home again.
It was in the high 60’s, low 70’s today.I even have my windows open as the house felt hot. Tomorrow will be in the mid 70’s. Int sounds like a read on the deck day!
October 9, 2018 at 11:33 pm
In west Texas folks call the kind rain we had today as, “It rained like a cow pissn’ on a flat rock” 🙂
October 10, 2018 at 12:30 am
Bob,
I haven’t ever heard that before. It is certainly descriptive!!