Maybe the last swim...I don't know!

 Possibly the last session in the pool for me...but the ladies will soldier on!   It's been wonderful.
Thank you all for making it such a laugh!

Party!

Two sockeye salmon cooling

Today's the day we're having a party to thank the kind people who've given us hospitality during our stay.  Here's the culinary story so far...

Rare beef

Asparagus, peppers, sun dried tomatoes

Potato salad waiting for a final stir

Chicken and rice salad

 

Can't show you a picture of the salmon unwrapped...it went too quickly!   Also not featured, tomato salad, green salad and lots of desserts!

The party went with a swing.  The great thing about Americans is that they look after themselves.  They are confident socially. They introduce themselves to people and get chatting.  They help themselves to drink and they take home leftovers!

With Carol my wild Wednesdays partner!

With David

Lyn (r) from Book Group and Water Aerobics

The long, the tall and the short!

 

 

Another little number

Pinafore dress

Another little number from odds and ends.  Not my size though!

Last weekend but one...

Saturday was a glorious day.  Sunny and hot.  We did very little, except go for a walk in the afternoon.  A lazy day.  On Sunday the weather turned, which was a pity for the Atmospheric Sciences 'spring' picnic and BBQ which had to be transferred from a park to indoors at the university.  The BBQ was replaced by bought in barbecued food - although we may have been naive in thinking that there would be hot coals involved in the first place.  Anyway it was very friendly and our Chinese friends presented me with a Chinese cookery book!  Everyone went upstairs to the observatory at the top of the building after eating.  And when I say upstairs, I mean up stairs - at least 6 flights!  I can tell you that my knees did not like it and my lungs weren't too happy either.  When we got to the top I ambled over to the nearest window in what I hoped passed for a nonchalant manner and peered out, hoping for a quiet moment while the heavy breathing subsided!  Unfortunately, due to the rain and the low cloud, there was nothing to be seen, so I could hardly fix my gaze out of the window for long!  It was a shame really as the observatory floor is the highest thing for miles and as this part of Texas is pancake flat, the view would have been tremendous...and I'm never going up there again!

One small accomplishment...the completion of another project using left-over bits of yarn.  I'm slowly getting through my bag of odds and ends. I ran out of brown towards the end of the second sleeve so opted to finish in rust and added a hand sewn embellishment on the opposite side to balace the design.  Crafty eh?  And pompous!  

The long goodbye part V

Zhang celebration with Bob, Mary, Renji and Song

Another day, another dinner!  What a hard life! This time in an Italian restaurant and our generous hosts were Renji and Song.  Renji was celebrating his appointment as a distinguished professor and we were glad to be there to help him out!

We had a great meal and interesting conversations. Song had recently returned from visiting her parents in China where the pollution is so bad that she wears a mask when she goes out and only saw the sun once during the month she was there.  As more people benefit from increased income, prices in the shops go up.  Now Song does not go shopping without her brother or sister as she has lost track of appropriate prices to pay.  Apparently you bargain even in department stores.  She feels that her American born children will never fit back into the Chinese way of life.  Although they speak Mandarin Chinese quite well, they read and write it very little.  She also explained that you need to have contacts in China to ease your path through life and you also learn from an early age who you need to bribe.  Song had to give money to the doctor in the hospital to ensure good treatment for her father and parents also give bribes to their children's teachers.  I expect it's quite hard to learn the subtleties of this system. 

The long goodbye part IV

Something else to look forward to!

Must see...

War Horse

Managed to fit in a trip to the cinema last night to see War Horse streamed from London.  I expect everyone else has seen it by now! Even the 'cinema' atmosphere couldn't kill the drama.  We were transfixed.  Took Peter a while to recover at the end.