Forecast is for rain all day and for once they’re spot on and it’s not too warm.
Never mind, make the most of it a trip to Wendy’s favourite Publix supermarket, some jigsaw time and a bottle of wine, not before 17:00.
Our America States and America National Parks jigsaws have arrived from Amazon. How sad can we get, but they will help us plan our ROAM – “Rest Of America” – road trip where we catch up on the 7 states we’ve not visited yet and hopefully a lot of the remaining National Parks.
How amazing is it that all these water molecules know exactly what to do and where to go. I don’t know whether you ever stop and think about the amazing science all around us, but it’s all very ingenious.
Yeah, it’s indoor pickleball at the local recreation centre again. Manage a good two hours play without much rest. Best of all It’s FREE.
Then back home and get ready for a rare lunch out. We’re going to have lunch with Mitch and his partner. Mitch was a lifelong friend of our good friend Hal, now departed, and we often met him in PC. As luck would have it he lives just 3 miles North of where we’re staying so got in touch with us about meeting up for lunch.
Had a very pleasant lunch with Mitch and Chuck. Reminiscing about Hal and generally putting the World to rights. Chuck had an interesting career, one of his jobs was stoping the alligators get into Weeki Wachee where his mother was one of the mermaids. He was also a Padi instructor so we got to talking scuba. Nice to see them both and hopefully we’ll catch up with Mitch in PC in the summer.
What’s going on? Been in Hudson Florida now for just over a week and alas no mystery call from any of Jere’s many friends. Why we even had to resort to going out with some of our own friends. There was a time when we could rely on Jerre from PC getting one of his many friends to get in touch to meet up, but it seems he has no mates near Hudson.
Then it’s back home for afternoon tea and a dirty Chai.
Lazy morning as usual then off up to Weeki Wachee for a kayak down the river. Wendy comes along but gives the kayaking a miss. It’s a lovely float down with the flow, absolutely no effort. One of the best kayak trips, river is quite shallow you could wade all the way down. Fortunately the suns out and it’s quite warm. Wendy goes for a sandwich in the car and then a stroll around the state park.
After the kayaking we both go for a rangers talk on Floridas wildlife.
Back home for afternoon tea around the pool watching the wildlife in Cow Creek.
Lazy start dealing with Virgin Atlantic, always an ordeal unless you’re actually on board a plane.
Off down to Honeymoon state park don’t you just love a cafe where tips are compulsory if paying by card and they don’t do coffee. Don’t they not know this is America.
Have a stroll down the osprey trail, see plenty of them along with woodpeckers and other new species never identified before.
Then onto Tarpon Springs sponge docks famous for its Greek community of sponge divers. Now it seems to consist of shops selling soap, sponges, shells and a super abundance of $5 car parks. Like Blackpool in Florida but without the tower, pier, “kiss me quick hats” or funfair.
Turns out we went to Honeymoon beach in 2020, oh what a memory we have.
Time to leave our three bedroom, three bathroom luxury and head down to Siesta Key for two weeks.
It’s a pleasant drive down with clear blue skys but the Iguanas will be dropping out of the trees at this temperature. Never mind if we come across one I’m sure we can barbecue it.
Manage to check in early. Wot only one bedroom, how will we cope?
Then of course it’s off to Publix for my daily dose of torture.
Get settled in. Free bikes and kayaks, but they’re very basic sit on tops with no backrest – oh these first world problems. Pleasant little pool, barbecue area and sheltered deck and loungers. Dock onto the waterway but today it looks a tad wild with the wind.
Lazy start to the day. It’s clear blue skies but I think the Iguanas will still be tumbling out the trees.
Just a lazy relaxing day sat around the pool.
Lazy morning with newspapers and coffee around the pool. Clear blue sky and the Iguanas have stopped falling out the trees.
After lunch off down to Turtle beach. I go kayaking while Wendy sits in a sun trap and gets some sunshine. A couple of hours kayaking around the islands and mangroves, all very leisurely. Alas no gators or manatees.
Then we drive down to Siesta beach, Americas number 1 beach. Perfect very fine white sand, like plaster of Paris. Have a pleasant stroll, then back home for a late afternoon tea. Perfect end to a perfect day. This is the life.
As most American rentals seem to lack a kettle, or if they do have one it’s a stove top kettle with a whistle on it that whistles when the water is boiling. Yes, my American friends, you need boiling water to make tea with. Anyway as our kettle was whistling over breakfast this morning it got me to pondering who was bright enough to dream this idea up. Hop over to Wikipedia for the answer:
A whistling kettle is a kettle fitted with a device that emits an audible whistle when the water in the kettle starts to boil. The action of steam passing through the device causes vibration, in turn creating the sound, known in physics as a tone hole.
The exact mechanism by which this occurs was not fully understood until a paper, The aeroacoustics of a steam kettle, was published by R. H. Henrywood, a fourth-year engineering undergraduate at the University of Cambridge, and A. Agarwal, his supervisor, in the journal Physics of Fluids in 2013.
Harry Bramson is the inventor of the whistling tea kettle.
For the sake of my sanity will Boris please resign. I have to sit here every morning listening to Wendy rant on about Boris being an idiot, liar and should man up and go. Then we have “he’s another arse licker” comments on any minister or politician who supports him. “Can’t stand him” seems to be reserved for any of the arse lickers who she just doesn’t like the look of. Mind you on the plus side it’s stopped her going on about cross channel illegal migrants.
