This morning in Bryan

Our first visit of the day was to the quilt exhibition in the Brazos Center.  Very colourful and amazing work.  Some quilts were visually more successful than others, but the variety was interesting as well as the quilting stitches that show up on close inspection.

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Then off to park and take a free shuttle to the Texas Reds Festival in Bryan.  This was billed as a steak and wine festival.  There were lots of large wood smoking ovens on the streets and plenty of smells, but rather little sign of anybody eating anything and no signs to say what they were offering.  We didn't see the wine either, although see grapes being trod however - outside 'my' library.  I don't think we had our eye in, culturally, for what was on offer.  There weren't many people about.  Maybe it all warms up later in the day.  I mean 'warms up' socially because it was baking hot and a torrential downpour created a sauna effect.  This partly limited our energy for exploring further. 

We took refuge in the Village Cafe which I like and where I often go for lunch when I'm at the library. Peter had 'breakfast' and I had a raspberry, avocado, cucumber, tomato and spinach sandwich with Asian slaw on the side!

As you can see we were sitting at the lucky table!

A mixed week

The dashboard doesn't lie!

Monday was good...water aerobics and then a hot drive to the library in the afternoon.  I'm typing up the memories of a woman in her 90s who is recalling life in and around College Station where she has lived since the age of two.  She doesn't have brilliant recall for dates unsurprisingly, but she has a lovely lilting voice and an interesting turn of phrase.   I'm finding it fascinating.

The library is a beautiful building with a tin ceiling and lovely old oak tables and chairs.

Library view

Carnegie Library

Tuesday was good too.  Water aerobics again...this time in the deep diving pool wearing floatation belts and non stop action with the legs!  Back again for a quick shower and change and then up the highway again to the Country Club for book group.   A larger than usual turn out and everybody ready to talk about books they had read over the summer.  Much passing around of finished books and note taking.  They are a good group of women.  I didn't dare make a note of any books to read as I have found 20 unread books in my boxes here and must get through those first.    The only strange thing about meeting in a private room at the Country Club is that the menu choices are dire and the food very poor. I plumped for a shrimp Caesar salad which had the potential to do least harm.  The lady next to me had a very difficult time choosing.  In the end she ordered a club sandwich and sweet potato fries.  She ate about two fries, deconstructed half the sandwich and ate the filling and took the rest home!!!  I'm dying to ask why we don't meet somewhere else, but I'm too new...  See, sometimes I know when to hold back!

On Wednesday I actually went swimming twice!  Once in the morning as usual, then home and ready to go out for coffee with a friend who had to cancel at the last minute.  She broke her glasses and needed to go and get them repaired so she could prepare for her 'job' in the afternoon.   She works now and again as a 'model' patient up at the teaching hospital.  She has a scenario to learn and then goes and pretends to have some complaint or condition and gives the student nurses and doctors a hard time!   I took the advantage of the extra time to try and work out a better route to a nearby supermarket and cruised the aisles for this and that.  Came home, had some lunch and promptly fell asleep on the sofa! Got up in the late afternoon in time to collect Peter.  We went to downtown Bryan to an Irish bar, Murphy's Law, for the farewell for a head of department who is stepping down.  Lots of food, which we largely ignored as we were going swimming afterwards.  Into the pool again for several laps.  Nice!

This morning I gave myself a treat and stayed in bed and read my book (a piece of thrilling nonsense - no, not that one) and then did the laundry before collecting the swimming gear (mine and Peter's) and heading uptown to the library.  Three hours at the library and got to the pool before Peter and salivated at the gleaming, glistening water...into the changing room and WTF!  I had left my swimming costume at home.  Had to sit and watch Peter doing several laps.  Came home in a bad mood!

Pangasius

Tried something new tonight - blackened striped pangasius.  A firm white freshwater catfish from Vietnam.  Sounds a bit fishy (!) but it was delicious.

Letting it all hang out!

An interesting feature of water fitness is the lack of self consciousness among the women (and one man) attending.  Almost all of them are overweight and one is definitely well into the obese category but they are more focused on getting exercise and enjoying themselves than talking about weight and body shape.  There's no embarrassment in letting it all hang out and wobble about!

Everybody drives to the pool of course and they all come in their swimming costumes with a shirt or dressing gown over.  Nobody bats an eyelid when people emerge from their cars in in their dressing gowns.  At the end of the session they spread a towel over the driving seat, slip into their housecoats and drive home wet!   Of course it's warm enough to drive home wet, but still, I can't see it happening in England.   The idea of setting foot outside the house in bedroom gear...really!

Today the instructor brought her ghetto blaster (I'm sure that's not what they're called now!) and we did various dances to sundry tracks.   You try doing the can can or line dancing in the water!

No photographs today!  Surprise, surprise!

Last weekend in College Station

Some of the major activities over the weekend were getting up late, sitting around relaxing and reading!   But other things got done too!  We bought stronger lightbulbs and the house is now competing with the Blackpool illuminations.   We shopped for groceries and had a meal out with friends on Saturday night.  So much food that we brought some back and had it for a quick lunch on Sunday.

Sunday was also quite laid back, but we did go swimming in the morning.  The first time Peter has been swimming in ages.  The aquatic centre is divided into 3 pools and we had one to ourselves.  2 other people were using the other pool. We asked why it was so empty and were told "It's Sunday.  People are in church".  What!  All of them?   Anyway Peter is now so keen that he plans to come home after work and take the car and go swimming.  Whether I shall go with him - which would mean two swims in one day - remains to be seen!

It was a perfect day.  The sky a clear blue and the temperature about 85F.  We ate in the garden.

In the afternoon we went to the campus to the students' union - called the Memorial Student Centre - an amazingly lavish building which contains, among other things, a couple of art galleries.  The main gallery was showing an exhibition of interesting drawings, linotypes, etchings photographs and other media by Degas and some of his contemporaries.   The photographs show the interior of the students' union.

Students' union hallway

Reception desk

Donor board in Student Affairs

Flag room/lounge/study area

Then back home for more relaxation and reading before going to friends for a BBQ.  Now this might sound like an outdoor activity given the weather and their attractive garden, but the men went outside to cook the salmon and the women sat inside and then we all sat down to eat round the dining table.   The salmon was delicious and so was the Ottolenghi salad that went with it.  I had previously introduced said friend to Ottolenghi and she has bought two of his books.  I should be on commission!

Wake up gastric juices! Feel the goodness!

Almond milk
Banana
Spinach
Ginger
Blueberries
Melon

Delicioso!

Thanks Bobby in Florida for introducing me to green smoothies!

PS Notice the Kosher Salt?  It's a big thing here.  Don't really know why.  It seems to be the same as sea salt.
Anyway, no salt in my smoothie.  Way too healthy!

My new shoes!

Water fitness shoes...

Yes, they are a bit low key!

I was so energetic at water fitness yesterday that I made the soles of my feet sore and was told by the instructor that I needed water fitness shoes.  All the other ladies were wearing them, and I thought they were being a bit namby-pamby but apparently not!

At least if I sink to the bottom, the life guard will be able to see my feet!

More stamina than I thought...

Despite being shattered yesterday, I returned to water aerobics at 9.0 am this morning.  Not a particularly amazing feat you might think, but then you don't know that it was pouring with rain!!   It's a strange experience getting wet from above and below!   Another good work out and then off to the history library to begin transcribing a new set of oral history interviews.  

Our first weekend is almost upon us...will mostly be taken up with shopping and buying light bulbs.  Everybody except us seems to exist in perpetual twilight.  Our bedside lights are so dim it's impossible to read in bed or in most of the sitting room.  We shall have to exercise some caution though over the wattage of the bulbs.  Our landlords (delightful people who came round with a bottle of wine to give us a TV controller workshop) live just up the road and pass the house every day on their way to work.  We don't want to alarm them by lighting up the whole street and giving them anxiety about their electricity bills!

No stamina!

I'm lying on the couch completely exhausted and it's only 2.15 in the afternoon.

This morning I went to water aerobics at Bryan Aquatic Centre...most of the people I was bobbing about with on our previous visit were there so it was great to see them again.  But, the teacher had a slightly different approach.  A short stretch and warm up session in the shallow end and then off to a separate deep diving pool where we spent 40 minutes in the water doing exercises with noodles (polystyrene tubes) without our feet touching the ground. Arm movements without moving your legs, leg movements without using your arms and treading water with your arms in the air. That sort of caper!   So that's 40 minutes non-stop exercise.  Followed by a wind down session in the shallow pool and press ups on the pool edge.  Gasp!  This is going to do me good - or kill me!

I drove home and had an early lunch then set off to a talk at the university.  I was cheeky and took the student bus - a network of free transport for faculty and students that criss-crosses the city. It's how Peter gets to work every day.  You're supposed to produce your student ID but no one seems to bother.

I went to the Memorial Student Centre (a very upmarket version of the students' union) to the Forsyth Art Gallery Learning Centre for a lunch time talk.  I've been to one before and it was excellent.  Well...there were 7 of us in total and 6 of them appeared to be university staff from the Art department.

The talk was entitled

PARADOX AND PLUNDER IN THE GILDED AGE:

Mass-Media and Material Culture of the Klondike Gold Rush 1897-1898: 

Paper presented at the Forsyth Galleries

Gregory D. Phillipy

Gregory was a mumbler with a beard.  He didn't open his mouth more that a few millimetres and I had great difficulty in hearing or understanding him.  I kept looking round at others and they didn't seem bothered so I wondered if it was an accent thing.   I'm glad I looked the talk up when I got back because I had no idea this is what he was trying to put across. It was rambling and disconnected.   He had very little idea how to put his slides in context.  If he'd read out when he wrote for the website http://uart.tamu.edu/lecture_Phillipy I would have realised what he was getting at.  Perhaps he was intimidated by some of the audience who seemed to have been to the Klondike and knew all about it.  At any rate, it was a disappointment.

Caught the bus home and missed the stop so had to walk back up the road for about 10 minutes in the blistering heat!

Collapse of stout party!

Missions accomplished

I found an oven glove and an apron.  Apron's delightful isn't it?  It was truly better than any of the others, but it's enough to put the diners off! Still, as long as it does it's job and stays in the kitchen!  It was cheap and I won't be bringing it back with me.  I will take the bows off the pockets though!

This was the alternative...

Little Miss Cupcake! 

...I think I made the right choice.

The other mission accomplished was to find a water aerobics class.  I start tomorrow and then 9.0 to 10.0 every weekday morning.   I took the opportunity of being at the pool to have a swim.  There are two pools.  One was being used for a class and the other was divided into about 6 lanes.  A lone lady in one doing her own exercises in one place.  Two men swimming up and down and a lady who arrived and swam about 4 lengths and then got out.  I went up and down at a leisurely pace (of course), just enough to get a little puffed.  The water was warm and the air temperature was 98F.  Great stuff!

Greetings from Texas

What day is it now?  Oh, yes.  Wednesday.  We arrived on Monday, collected our rental car (red Dodge Dart) at Houston airport and drove to College Station, let ourselves into the house and then dashed off to the supermarket.    Armed with the essentials, we had a quick snack and fell into bed.  By this time our biological clocks were telling us it was 3.0 am. so we were entitled to feel a little jaded!

Up early (jet lag) on Tuesday and started unpacking.  We brought three pieces of luggage - a large suitcase, a hold all and a large roll along thing.  We then had help bringing the stuff we had stored after our previous visit from it's resting place in Peter's office.  It filled two large cars and included two more suitcases full!  How did we manage to accumulate so much!  The joke is that this house has some of the things we didn't have in the last house we rented, so now we have surplus equipment!

And then there's the fridge....

Most of yesterday was spent unpacking the cardboard boxes.  It was like Christmas!  I had no idea what could be inside any of them!   It turns out that I have 20 paperback books to read, not to mention what's on my Kindle.    We have started making a pile....stuff we do not need which can go back to UK when Peter visits in November.

I also had a major task to do in the kitchen.  Going through an already full larder and storing away on high shelves some of the food stuffs (I use the term 'food' lightly here) that have accumulated over various rentals and that we won't be using.   I turfed out the out of date stuff and removed from the refrigerator what was mouldy!    I'm a STASI  food inspector!!!   With some shelf space ready, I unpacked our food boxes.  I've got enough here to last a year, let alone 6 months!

Anyway, the house is now sorted.   We have used the cardboard boxes to create a recycling centre in the garage and I've contacted the city to give us some recycling bags and start picking up from this address.  The only job to do now is to get the printer linked to the wifi, but we can't find the cable we think we used last time.   Very frustrating!

The sitting room...darkened against the sun

My 'office' on the dining room table from where I write the blog!

Kitchen

Last night we lit the BBQ and Peter cooked two mammoth steaks (well, beef actually but mammoth in size!).  Too big to finish!  We had hoped to eat outside but it was too hot and humid (at 7.30pm) and I was bitten, so we retreated to the air conditioned kitchen.  The back yard is laid to grass which is now a dry and dusty scrub.  It will be interesting to see how it revives when we get some rain.   When it cools down we can make use of the table outside.

This afternoon my first mission is to find out where I can do water aerobics...the pool I was using has now closed for the winter!  Amazing when the temperature is still in the 90s, but I expect it's to do with costs.  Second mission is to buy an apron and an oven glove!  I'm a very messy cook!

Goodbye Norfolk Countryside, hello Texas!

Miriam and me

A six mile walk on Monday through the glorious Norfolk countryside with my intrepid walking partner Miriam.

An absolutely perfect day with sunshine, puffy clouds in a blue sky and the air fresh and bracing!   The Dilham Canal bordered the route for the first part of the walk (same canal we canoed along recently) and apart from a lone kayaker who swished past us while we were having lunch, we saw no one...just the odd swan.

Already looking forward to our next walk in the spring.

One of the many bridges

Swan

The light on the water...

Picking sloes

Striding out