20151108 – Tea Plantation; Surfers & Dolphins; Charleston; Fort Sumter Sure Started Something

Sunday – cool, cloudy and rain.

 

https://www.facebook.com/tony.w.edwards/posts/10156293844600249?pnref=story

Then after all that frustration it’s off to the supermarket / Starbucks for the excitement of the weekly shop.

Wow it’s quite cold. Well only 60F but after all the heat we’ve had it now feels colder than a witch’s titty in a brass bra doin’ push-ups in the snow. Dread to think how Belthorn’s going to feeling when we get back.

Finally a trip to the gym, including the Fitbit lady, who now has the bit between her teeth and wants to get those step counts up. I can see it costing a gym membership when we get home.


My sorry sense of humour

Latest Bud Light commercial. American pinkle water. Nothing like a proper Reinheitsgebot beer.

Mind you this adverts enough to put anybody off any beer.


Religious rant of the day
Real Time with Bill Maher: Fighting Fundamentalism


 

Monday – warm and rain, lots of it.

 

Teaching the tank to swim.

Teaching the tank to swim.

A real frog strangler overnight. We wake up to a flooded marsh and flash flood warnings are in operation. It’s forecast rain all day. Rather than hunker down we decide to take a short drive the Charleston Tea Plantation. They do a free (always a good word) factory tour and it’ll be indoors.

As we drive off Seabrook Island we begin to wonder whether we’ll make it as the only access road is severely flooded from the overnight rain. It seems that the recent hurricane has so soaked the ground that subsequent rains just overload the grounds ability to absorb anymore. Apparently the hurricane wasn’t so much the problem as the 1,000 year rain that came with it. Yes another weather superlative, the worts rains in a 1,000 years – perhaps the FSM can explain how they know that far back.

Tea plantation. It has the essential superlative accolade of course - the only one in America.

Tea plantation. It has the essential superlative accolade of course – the only one in America.

Anyway we make it to the plantation. Take the tour, sample some teas and of course at the end of the tour there’s the merchandising opportunity. I was surprised that tea was grown down here. Apparently the only tea plantation in America.

Home to The Charleston Tea Plantation, Wadmalaw provides the perfect environment for propagating tea. With its sandy soils, sub-tropical climate and average rainfall of 52 inches per year, Wadmalaw possess idyllic conditions for the Camellia Sinensis plant. This plant is currently used to produce both black and green teas and exists in over 320 varieties on the 127 acre grounds of the Charleston Tea Plantation.

Then it’s back home for afternoon coffee.


Rant of the day

Just watched a programme on the Drake equation which Attempts to define the number of planets with intelligent life – see below:

IMG_4467

Well I’ve come up with my own formula to help define the number of intelligent life forms to be found in the Palace of Westminster:

IMG_7181

Try it. No matter what values you use, for some reason, it always miraculously comes up with the right answer.


Religious rant of the day
The one thing there seems to be in abundance here, in the aptly named Bible belt, is churches. More churches than there are black Burkas being brandished and bounding around Blackburn. Surely to justify there existence people must have to visit at least 4 different churches every Sunday.

Can you believe this test. 100% correct. A*. Welcome to the bat shit crazy elements of the bible belt.

Can you believe this test. 100% correct. A*. Welcome to the bat shit crazy elements of the bible belt.

The above is an actual science quiz given to 4th graders at Blue Ridge Christian Academy in South Carolina. This particular Christian Academy is a tiny school, it’s private, it’s got Christian right there in the name so you know where they’re coming from, and like a good portion of America’s much-heralded private schools it apparently exists to give children the shittiest possible education that money can buy, the sort of education that will get them laughed at for the rest of their life. Or something. No, there’s nothing in American law that says you can’t give your children the silliest possible education. If you want, you can teach them that there’s a chocolate tea cup circulating around the sun and the moon is made of gorgonzola. It’s not nice, but you’re allowed

Unbelievable as it may be, but more than four in 10 Americans continue to believe that God created the Earth and humans less than 10,000 years ago. I’m sure the majority of those 40% live down here in the bible belt, but even more terrifying is they occupy Congress and the Senate.


 

Tuesday – hot and sunny and not humid.

 

Angel Oak tree. No it's not an angel and oak tree.

Angel Oak tree. No it’s not an angel and oak tree.

Weathers back to normal, thank the FSM.

Up and out to the gym, with lady Fitbit. Not too early though.

Looking around the gym is somewhat disheartening. Average age must be 70. Then you realise this is your age group, we’re well on your way to the big 70. Mind you it’s so much better than the alternative – we’re the lucky ones. After all who wants to be dwelling for ever in the fire, drinking boiling water, whilst surrounded by jihadi dickheads swigging back rivers of wine, while copulating with 70 voluptuous breasted, black eyed, perpetual virgins.

Maker of our Sweetgrass Basket in action.

Maker of our Sweetgrass Basket in action.

After lunch we have a drive up to the Angel Oak. A 400 year old Living Oak tree, on crutches to stop it collapsing.

As with all attractions American there’s a merchandising opportunity, even if it is in a rickety wood shack that may collapse around our ears at any moment. In there though is a black (yes you can say that in America) lady making Sweetgrass Baskets. She just so happens to have a lovely Elephant Ears basket. Quite a big one and just like we’ve been looking for. It seems to my now tutored eye to be well made and after some haggling we agree on a price, heavily discounted for cash.

Afternoon tea with skimmed milk of course. One has to have standards, none of this sloppy American tea making with  cream or half an half will do.

Afternoon tea with skimmed milk of course. One has to have standards, none of this sloppy American tea making with cream or half an half will do.

Then it’s off down to Folly Beach. Quite a nice little hamlet with a fishing pier and best of all free parking. Have a Starbucks at the hotel on the beach. All very relaxing as we watch the surfers and dolphins.

Folly beach fishing pier.

Folly beach fishing pier.

Pleasant end to another pleasant day.


Rant of the day
TOP ECONOMIST SAYS COST OF LIVING WILL FALL BY 8 PER CENT ON DAY ONE IF BRITAIN LEAVES THE EU:

Let’s get out and get our sovereignty back in the bargain.


 

Wednesday – hot and sunny and not humid.

 

Wendy with the number 3 tourist attraction in Charleston - pots for rags.

Wendy with the number 3 tourist attraction in Charleston – pots for rags.

Set off down to Charleston. Do the Fort Sumter tour. Very pleasant, a leisurely 30 minute ride out by boat; one hour on the fort where you can listen to a ranger give a most passionate and interesting lecture on the fort; wander around at your leisure; a small museum; a small merchandising opportunity; a pleasant boat trip back.

Fort Sumter Where the American Civil War Began

Fort Sumter

Fort Sumter

Decades of growing strife between North and South erupted in civil war on April 12, 1861, when Confederate artillery opened fire on this Federal fort in Charleston Harbor. Fort Sumter surrendered 34 hours later. Union forces would try for nearly four years to take it back.

Then do a 90 minute bus tour of Charleston. All very interesting and elegant but our tour guide has the most mono-tonal drawl we’ve ever encountered. We have to keep pinching one another to stay awake. The complete opposite of the passionate talk given by the ranger.

National Park ranger with such passion for her subject.

National Park ranger with such passion for her subject.

Catch the trolley down to the Apple store for a viewing of the new iPad Pro. Wow it’s fast, reckoned to be faster than 90% of todays laptops. Great screen and keyboard (not that they have any) seems to work well. Awesome for viewing TV or movies. Do we keep up to date? Hopefully it’ll replace my need for the a Macbook, and thereby save me a fortune and all that extra kit to lug around. With the keyboard I think I can do away with my MacBook. Do we or don’t we? We do.

Followed by a well deserved Starbucks, a stroll back to the car and home.

Another full day. Another great day. An expensive day.

Fort Sumter.

Fort Sumter.

Can you believe it? According to Trip Advisor the number 3 attraction in Charlestone is a bridge. Is Charleston so bereft of attractions that a bridge rates so highly. I think not. I rate Trip advisor, use it to plan visits and write reviews, but come on it’s a bridge. You can walk over it and drive over it and it’s modern, but 2,048 reviews – I bet they’re all vegetarian train spotters. Blimey, people will be writing reviews on the 4th tree on the right in park. No ones written a review on the Apple Store – yet!

It seems our fate around here to always end up in the rush hour traffic going home. It’s particularly bad due to the bridges. If there’s a boat going through one of the draw bridges well you might as well get your sleeping bag out and kip down for the night.

“Can’t see them in the dark because they’re black” says Wendy. Pardon, you can’t say that. You’ll be banning off white people going out after sunset next. Ironically we have this discussion at dusk, whilst whiling away a few hours in traffic, and then driving home, late and dark, down an unlit road which is just a tunnel of living oaks, out pops a black man. I swear he was in brown – camouflage – and attempting to do jumping jacks in the middle of the road. Fortunately I miss him, but I’ll be back tomorrow night.


Rant of the day
DSC_6705Talk about more security, more delays at airports, and yet:

On Tuesday the Homeland Security department’s inspector-general, John Roth, told the congressional oversight committee that in 95% of cases, his agents were able to get smuggled fake explosives and other banned devices through all the screening and pat-downs.

“The failures included failures in technology, TSA procedures and human error. We found layers of security simply missing.” He added, with devastating effect: “These results were not unexpected.”

If the bomb was planted by airport staff there can surely be no benefit to putting passengers through more trials and tribulations.

The Israelis laugh at us for our approach. They say that we look for bombs, they look for bombers. Of course that means profiling which our rather compulsive desire not to cause offense prevents us from doing.

Surfing off Folly beach.

Surfing off Folly beach.

Until they start profiling how can we ever have any respect for these security charades. Let’s face it not only are they wasting money and making life miserable, they’re putting our lives at increased risk by not doing the job properly.

PROFILE YOU KNOW IT MAKES SENSE. On top of which it might make the so called moderate muslims take a more active stance against these fanatical barbarians who are turning the World against their so called religion.


Religious rant of the day
Typical muslim gratitude.

Fort Sumter

Fort Sumter

A formal lunch between the French president and his Iranian counterpart during next week’s historic meeting has had to be scrapped after the Elysée Palace reportedly refused Iran’s request to serve up halal meat and no wine. It appears the Iranian presidency’s request for halal meat to be served and for the wine to be left off the table, which is a common request by Iran, was rejected by officials at the Elysée. “A meal had been planned but fell through,”.

In an attempt to reach a compromise, the Elysée suggested a breakfast meeting instead, but this was reportedly rejected by the Iranians as being “too cheap”.

What can you expect. Perhaps this geezers not bothered to read the Quran, the pure word of Allah, for it seems alcohols ok in paradise.

Elegant styled Charleston home.

Elegant styled Charleston home.

Quran 47:15 “…..rivers of milk of which the taste never changes; rivers of wine delicious to those who drink; and rivers of clarified honey (clear and pure) therein for them is every kind of fruit”. It seems though that us infidels – Peace be upon the FSM – will have to rot in hell and “…..shall dwell for ever in the Fire, and be given, to drink, boiling water, so that it cuts up their bowels….”

Good for Hollande. His only mistake was inviting the barbarians in the first place.

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