Weekly Ephemera #120

Not much happened this week which, frankly for once, feels nice.  A few highlights:

• We were invited to Thanksgiving Brunch at the Wife's niece's home today.  It was a nice departure from the major dinner on Thanksgiving Thursday.  We all had a great chat about 'things' and I came home with a new red dog hair coat - Thanks Ruby!!!
• I walked two times this week.  I would have done three but Monday was rainy and windy and I just stayed home and hunkered down.  The walks I did totaled 24.8 miles (39.9 km).  They were a nice meander around the downtown area of the city.  I was going to cross the pedestrian bridge and walk on the Iowa side but the bridge is being worked on as they add an extension.  Temperatures are finally feeling like fall but that won't last as colder winter temperatures are coming this coming week.
• In between the walks I watched some television.  The Wife and I watched the latest seasons of "The Great British Baking Show" and "Blown Away".  We enjoyed "The Remarkable Life of Ibelin" (⭐⭐⭐),  I watched "Star Trek: Prodigy" (⭐⭐⭐), the director's cuts of "Rebel Moon" parts one and two (⭐⭐), and "Madam Web" a Sony/Marvel movie (⭐½).

That was it for this week.  Have a good week everyone!

Book: Patrick Rothfuss' "The Narrow Road Between Desires"

I have mixed feelings about Patrick Rothfuss.  His first two books, "The Name of the Wind" and "The Wise man's Fears" were pretty good - the first of those I would say was even great.  The last book came out in 2011.  The third book ... has not been published yet and I am starting to think it never will.

The author has published two related books since his last big novel.  Both books have concentrated on one supporting character from the other two books.  The first was a novella about Auri - "The Slow Regard of Silent Things" which I liked very much.  The other book was my latest read "The Narrow Road Between Desires".

This novella follows Bast, a friend of Kvothe (the main character of the first two books).  His story, like all of Rothfuss' books, was well written.  The author has a way with words and his prose flows on the page.  If only he would actually write more.

I gave this book four out of five stars on Goodreads.  It left me wanting more but history has told me not to expect anything soon.  The progress of this series is too slow to satisfy the reader's desires.

Great Britain 2024 - Part Nine - Ending Our Trip In London

Day Twenty - 01 October

Winston Churchill.

We left Glasgow and took our next to last two train trips.  Over the last twenty days we spent one day and two hours riding twenty trains 1,389 miles (2,236 km) across Britain.  These last trains, the longest segment ridden, would take us to the start of our trip, London.

It was raining when we arrived and we took a taxi to our hotel located on the edge of Hyde Park.  If the weather had cooperated a walk in the park would have been nice but the weather and our busy schedule would prevent us from exploring this large park. To be honest, as it was near the end of our travels in Britain, I was too tired to do much wandering.

Day Twenty-One - 02 October

Westminster Abbey.

We took the tube to Westminster station and met our walking tour guide near the statue of Winston Churchill.  From the start you could see the Elizabeth Tower with its famous Big Ben bells.

First stop in the walking tour was Westminster Abbey.  A lot of history has taken place here and many famous British subjects are buried here.  Unfortunately the crowd of tourists were often standing on graves that you wished to photograph.  Still we saw the resting places of Isaac Newton, Stephen Hawking, and Michael Faraday.  While I gawked at the scientists the Wife gawked at the authors and poets.

From there we walked to Buckingham Palace to witness the changing of the guard.  Along with the regular soldiers there was a large contingent of Gurkha soldiers in their distinctive uniforms as well.

Buckingham Palace from the mall.

We walked to Trafalgar square where we stopped for lunch at the Admiralty pub.

After lunch we walked toward the river Thames passing number 10 Downing Street along the way.  At the Thames we got on a boat and cruised up the river.  Unfortunately the weather, which had been fairly dry most of the morning so far decided to get a bit wetter so we went inside the boat and admired the buildings through windows.  From the ship we saw the Shard, the Globe Theater, and other landmarks you could see on the way to tower bridge.

Tower Bridge over the Thames.

At Tower Bridge we got off the boat and toured the Tower of London.  We met the legendary ravens and saw the crown jewels and learned of the history of the tower and the beefeaters who guard it.

One of the Tower of London Ravens striking a pose.

The walking tour ended here and we walked to the nearest tube station and headed back to our hotel.  It had been a busy day full of walking and history.

Day Twenty-Two - 03 October

Today we were on our own and the weather cooperated with us.  We started with a tube ride and a short walk to the Globe Theater.  We toured the reconstruction of the famous theater where Shakespeare's plays were - and still are - performed.  

Inside the Globe Theater.

From there we walked to a place to eat suggested by one of the wife's students.  The place was a food court with several vendors offering everything you would want to eat.  We ate at the Black Pig.  Finding a place to sit was challenging (an understatement) but we finally found a seat at a picnic table.  We didn't have any drinks and the lines to places selling drinks were long.  The Wife enjoyed her sandwich.  I did not enjoy it as much.  Too messy and spicy for my taste.  This was probably the only meal in Britain that I did not enjoy (or didn't finish).

The London Eye.

We walked along the Thames to the London Eye.  We were early so we had some drinks at a chips shop near the eye.  We had skip-the-lines tickets but we didn't realize you needed an app to use them so we found a place to sit at the Wife sloooowly downloaded the app.  We were a bit early so we had time and we managed to get on the eye on time.  The view of london from the eye was pretty awesome.

The Parliament building and the Elizabeth Tower (home of the Big Ben bells) seen from the Eye.

We were tired from all the walking and touring so we made our way back to the tube and headed back to the hotel.

Day Twenty-Three - 04 October

We  checked out and took an Uber to the train station where we took our last train, the twenty-first - this one an express train to Heathrow Airport.  The rest of the way went fairly smoothly.  It was a long day but it was nice to be home.

The Wife and I really enjoyed this trip.  Meeting with friends was a delight.  Not worrying about a language barrier was comforting.  transportation, while there were a few hiccups, was easy to figure out.  It felt different from our 'normal' trips which are in more exotic locations.  This trip was about history and everywhere felt familiar and definitely not exotic.  This is probably how our future trips to Europe will be like.  We still have a few exotic locals to visit but that is for another day, another trip, and another post.

Pictures can be found in my 2024-09 Great Britain Google Photos album.

Weekly Ephemera #119

• I power washed the deck and spread winterizer on the lawn this week finishing the winter prep.  It was cold and windy when I washed the deck and I did a half-ass job on it, especially on the underside of the deck.
• An insurance field adjuster came this week and did a second inspection of the hail damage we got back in July.  He caught everything the first adjuster had missed and what we had asked for from the insurance company.  This is the same damage the desk adjuster, after looking at pictures, said she didn't see.  Not sure what was going on with the desk adjuster.  There was a heated discussion between the adjuster and my roofer.  Fortunately they smoothed it all out and shook hands at the end of the inspection.  The second field adjuster handed us a check covering the missed damage which made the Wife and I very happy.  The actual repairs will probably be done next spring once it starts warming up again.
• I deleted my Xitter account this week.  Since it seems I have to have at least three social network accounts at any one time I also opened a Bluesky account (@homerstravels.bsky.social).  I now have accounts on Discord, Mastodon, and Bluesky.  Most of the people I have been following on Mastodon also have Bluesky accounts.  While I don't really need Mastodon I'm probably going to keep it since I like to have a non-corporate run, multi server social network as a backup.
  
  I also switched from the free service IFTTT.com to the paid service dlvr.it to distribute my posts.  It is a little expensive ($99 per year) but it will post my blog posts to all three of my social media platforms and it does it in a nicer format than IFTTT could provide.
• I hiked two times this week.  We are in that rainy, windy, and cold period before the snow has arrived when walking is hard to do.  I was going to walk three times but an all day cold and windy rain kept me indoors for part of the week.  I walked a total of 25.3 miles (40.8 km) this week.  The second walk was over 15 miles (24 km) and was my longest walk since November 2022.  It nearly killed my legs.
  
  On that long walk my phone died.  The phone got stuck in some sort of loop.  By a strange coincidence I was only a couple blocks from my cell phone store and they were able to revive it. Phew!
• I spent some of the rainy days watching more episodes of "One Piece".  The Paul-Tyson fight resulted in us subscribing to Netflix a couple weeks earlier than I'd planned.  I will now start binging a few shows there this week.

Great Britain 2024 - Part Eight - Glasgow, Scotland

Day Eighteen - 29 September

We went to the Edinburgh train station the 'correct' way which was a heck of a lot easier.  Naturally going down the steps was easier than up.  We caught a train to Glasgow which was crowded (standing room only) but fortunately it was only thirty to forty minutes long.

The train station in Glasgow was literally next door to our hotel so we simply walked next door and checked into our room.  The hotel was on George Square the central square of the city.  The square is full of statues and a cenotaph at one end commemorating World War I veterans.

The Cenotaph.

We had some lunch in a crowded pub and visited the Gallery of Modern Art (GoMA).  Now, if you know the Wife and I, museums aren't much our thing but we had time to kill and the museum was free so we said what the heck. 

The Duke and his crown.

In the front of the museum is a statue of the Duke of Wellington on a horse.  On his head is an orange traffic cone.  The cone has been removed many times and it is returned soon after.  As a matter of fact we saw quite a few statues in Glasgow and Edinburgh with cones on their heads.

We took the elevator to the top floor and worked our way down.  The Wife and I noted that most of the exhibits were more about the GoMA building and its history more than it was about modern art.  

This evening we went to the Metropolitan Cathedral of Saint Andrew for Mass.  Afterwards we had difficulty finding a place to eat.  Our first choice was closed due to kitchen issues.  Their suggested alternative was too crowded and rowdy.  We ended up in the same pub where we'd had lunch even though it was crowded too.

Day Nineteen - 30 September

We ate breakfast in our hotel.  They had a nice enough spread but their pancake machine was out of order - a tragedy.

Saint Mungo mural.

We booked a short walking tour this morning.  It was drizzling as we waited for our guide in George Park.  At one end of the park they were filming some show - looked like a period piece.

Our guide showed up and explained the slave trader connection with the buildings surrounding the square.  She pointed out the unicorn on one building - the official animal of Scotland.  The Unicorn is said to be the only animal who could beat a lin in a fight (The British animal is the lion so lots of snark there) we walked through the city seeing religious inspired modern murals, the Glasgow Cathedral (with a view of the Glasgow Necropolis), and various old buildings demonstrating the history of the city.  We even saw the Doctor's TARDIS.  If we'd had time touring the Necropolis might have been interesting - next time.

The Glasgow Cathedral.

We ate at the 'rowdy' pub we'd passed over the night before.   We stopped at a grocery store on the way back so we could just eat/snack that night in our hotel room.

When we arrived in Glasgow we really didn't have a long list, or any list at all really, so we wondered what we would do with our two days here.  After our walking tour I think we could have spent another day (or at least had spent the time we had a little better).  Glasgow wasn't as interesting as Edinburg but there is still a lot of stuff to see if you know where to look.

Tomorrow we would be heading to our last destination, London.

Pictures can be found in my 2024-09 Great Britain Google Photos album.

Weekly Ephemera #118

I missed last weekend's Ephemera post as we had guests staying at our house.

• The Wife's aunt and cousin flew up from Florida and visited over last weekend.  We'd stayed at the cousin's place earlier this year.  They visited with friends and family in the area.  It was a very nice visit.
• The election ... well ... we all know what happened.  It sucked.  I hate all the uncertainty it will bring in the coming months/years.
• I'd given up ever getting enough money from our insurance company to fix the hail damage on our roof.  I'd been talking with them for four months with no luck.  The Wife said it was her turn.  One call later and the insurance company is sending a second adjuster out this week to reassess the damage.  My hope has been restored.
• I walked two times this week for a total of 23.6 miles (37.9 km).  Both walks were after the election results were known and it was nice to be distracted.  Unfortunately I saw my first cybertruck out in the wild which yanked me back to reality.  Damn it was ugly.
• We cleaned all the furniture and stuff off the deck.  I'll be power washing the deck to get it ready for winter.

Great Britain 2024 - Part Seven - Edinburgh, Scotland

Day Fifteen - 26 September

It was raining when our friends dropped us off at the Berwick-upon-Tweed train station.  We walked in about five minutes to eight and were on a train to Edinburgh by 8:00am.  Just over thirty minutes later we were in Edinburgh.  The hotel was not far from the train station but, for those not familiar, Edinburgh is a multilevel city.  The train station was on the lower level and the hotel on the Royal Mile was on the upper.  Google maps was ... confused.  We walked around in the rain looking for the stairs up to the upper level.  I eventually found a long staircase that took us up - it was not the right one.  It got us up but it was not the nearest to our hotel.  I eventually got my bearings and we reached our hotel.  My roundabout way of getting to our hotel added a couple blocks to our wet walk.

The Holyroodhouse.

We decided to walk to the Holyroodhouse, the royal residences when the royal family visit Edinburgh.  The walk wasn't long and mostly downhill but it was raining and windy and the short distance felt much longer.  We got an audio guide and walked through the opulent home and the attached Abbey while we learned about Mary Queen of Scots.  On the way back we took an Uber to avoid the rain and the uphill.

The Uber dropped us off at the Malt Shovel Inn where we were going to have lunch.  It wasn't open yet so we explored Cockburn street with it's restaurants and shops.  We bought some souvenirs and sweatshirts (as the weather was a bit colder in Edinburgh than my clothes selection could handle).  We returned to the Malt Shovel and had lunch.  This is where the Wife started her haggis tour.  She would have haggis nearly every meal, in one form or another, for the rest of our stay in Scotland.

We spent the rest of the day staying out of the rain venturing out only for food.

Day Sixteen - 27 September

Dean Village.

After breakfast we headed out to meet up with our walking tour guide.  The rain had stopped and today would be perfect for a six to seven hour walking tour.  The tour took us past the Sir Walter Scott monument, Dean Village (an old style neighborhood), a restored Georgian-style home, the home of the Scottish First Minister, a park with memorials and views of Edinburgh Castle, the Royal Scottish Academy gallery, and broke for lunch on Cockburn Street.  We ate at a pub before we rejoined our walking tour group.

Edinburgh Castle.

After lunch we walked through a close (a narrow ally/stairway) to the Royal Mile.  We visited Saint Giles Cathedral (we learned about the history of Edinburgh and the Scottish/English conflicts), Greyfriars Cemetery (we learned about Bobby and grave robbing), our guide touched on the Harry Potter connections to Edinburgh, we visited the Grassmarket and Victoria street, and entered Edinburgh Castle.  Our guide took us around the castle before saying goodbye and letting us spend our own time exploring the castle grounds, enjoying the views, and visiting the Scottish crown jewels.

It was a very busy day full of history.

Day Seventeen - 28 September

Our last day in Edinburgh was light activity-wise.  We had an Underground Vaults tour in the morning.  It was a late addition as most of these tours had a ghost tour angle that we really didn't care for but we had the time so ...  The tour wasn't that bad.  The vaults were originally used for restaurant/pub storage.  They eventually were occupied by the poor, workers, or students.  There were ghost stories naturally but, in general, the tour was interesting.

View of the city from Edinburgh Castle.

In the afternoon we went to Saint Mary's Cathedral. The Wife purchased a large icon that she thought would fit in her bag (it didn't) and would have to carry the rest of the way.

We stopped for lunch at the Conan Doyle Pub close to Sir Conan Doyle's birthplace.

I liked Edinburgh.  There was a lot of history and the multilevel nature of the city gave it interest.  It was odd crossing a bridge and looking down to see another house lined street running underneath.  We spent three days there but you could spend a week or more exploring this interesting city.

Next ... on to Glasgow.

Pictures can be found in my 2024-09 Great Britain Google Photos album.

The Day After

 Despite being a pessimist, I find myself always

underestimating the stupidity of the American people.

Book: Yevgeny Zamyatin's "We"

The ninth book of the year was a precursor to, and inspiration for, George Orwell's "1984".  Yevgeny Zamyatin's "We" was written in 1920-1921 in Russia.  It was purportedly a result of the author's disappointment with the direction the Bolshevik revolution was headed.  "We" is considered to be one of the early books that formed the dystopia genre of science fiction.

"We" describes a far future when the One State, a totalitarian state that conquered the world after the 200 years war, rules over everything.  Everyone lives in literal glass houses so nothing is hidden.  Everyone lives according to a detailed schedule dictated by the One State to guarantee the happiness of the people.  Sex requires authorization from the One State, anyone can request to have sex with anyone they want (if the One State agrees), and the authorized dropping of shades during sex is the only privacy allowed.

D-503, the main character, learns of descenters that throw his whole worldview into turmoil.  Can a revolution be the final one or will there always be another?

Despite being written in 1920 the world the author created feels plausible and terrifying.  The people - referred to in the books as 'numbers' - are generally happy with their lives.  Seeing happy people who do not realize what they are missing is a bit unsettling considering how ill informed many Americans are today.  Are they really happy or do they not know better?  Is the lack of discord the same as happiness?  Is the lack of personal decision-making and responsibility freedom?  "We" could have easily been written in 2020 with only a few tweeks to scientific terminology.  

I gave this book four out of five stars on Goodreads.  I'm not sure I should have read it when the world we live in currently is in a turmoil of its own.  It is not a hopeful book but seeing a totalitarian society from a happy member of said society is thought provoking.

Great Britain 2024 - Part Six - The Holy Island

Day Thirteen - 24 September

We taxied to the Oxford train station.  When we couldn't find our train on the schedule we asked a station employee who told us "that train hasn't run all week."  He provided an alternate train route that would get us to Berwick-upon-Tweed an hour after our original scheduled arrival.  Our arrival time was important as we were going to the Holy Island of Lindisfarne.

The Holy Island of Lindisfarne is only accessible by a causeway that submerges during high tide.  You have to make sure you arrive at low tide so you can get across (apparently people get stuck on the causeway during high tide often).  I used an online booking site to reserve a taxi from Berwick-upon-Tweed to the Holy Island.  A couple trains later and we arrived in Berwick-upon-Tweed.  We waited past the time for the taxi until I gave up and called the taxi company directly.  They had no record of our reservation and had never heard of the online taxi booking site - crap.  They sent over a taxi and we headed for the Holy Island.  I figured the online site was a scam so, as we drove, I tried to see if I could cancel the charge to our credit card.  The charge was still pending so I couldn't contest it yet but, twenty minutes later, a credit appeared in our account.  I was relieved to see the site was not a scam and they had refunded my charge without being prompted.  Whew.

Our hotel on the Holy Island.

We arrived at our hotel (the taxi cost one half the charge from the taxi booking site - whew again).  I left our bags with the Wife at the hotel and I walked a couple blocks to another hotel to claim our key.  When I got back to the Wife our friends, N_k and J_n, who drove up to join us for a couple days, were there.

The only industry/businesses on the island are pubs, a few small hotels, fishing, and tourism - no grocery stores or other businesses you find in most towns.  Everyone had to leave the island to get things (or have things delivered).  This made the town feel cozy and old.  It had a magical atmosphere at times, especially when all the day tourists had gone.

The remains of the Lindisfarne Abbey (right) and the church of Saint Mary the Virgin (left)
from a nearby ridge. 

There are basically three things you can see/do on the Holy Island.  The first of these is visiting the abbey and Saint Mary the Virgin church.  The Lindisfarne Abbey was established in AD 634 and was the location of the first significant Viking raid on Britain.  It is sometimes considered the beginning of the Viking Age.  This Abbey, once led by Saint Cuthbert, has become the end point of a pilgrimage.  St. Cuthbert's Way is a 62.5 miles (100 km) pilgrim route from Melrose to the Holy Island.  We saw several people with backpacks walking the streets of the town often with big smiles on their tired faces.  It reminded me of the Camino including getting a certificate when you finish.

We visited the abbey and church before climbing up a short ridge where you had a great view of the abbey complex, the north sea, and the Lindisfarne castle.

This evening we ate as a small pub with good food.

Day Fourteen - 25 September

The second thing to see/do on the Holy Island is bird watching.  The entire island is part of the National Trust and there are trails and bird sanctuaries throughout the island.

The bay at low tide.

We got up and had breakfast at our hotel before going out to walk the island's trails.  The weather that had been rainy, drizzly, and overcast the past few days was absolutely gorgeous this day.  The sun shone through fluffy clouds and not a drop of rain in sight.  We walked along the north sea coast to a blind where we watched waterfowl swimming on a marshy pond.

The grassy hike along the island coast.

After completing a loop we headed out to the third thing you can see/do on the Holy Island.  We visited the rather impressive Lindisfarne Castle.  The 16th century castle rests on the highest point of the Holy Island.  You walk along the harbor to get to the castle.  Along the way I touched the North Sea for the first time.  We toured the castle that was renovated in 1901 by a magazine publisher who bought it.  It changed hands a few times before the National Trust took it over.  It was pretty cool and offered views of the harbor the castle once protected.

We visited the castle gardens - once vegetable gardens - and admired the late summer flowers and the buzzing bees.

We had lunch in a cafe before we split with our friends.  The Wife and I went back to the Abbey to visit the museum and go into the abbey ruins.

The Lindisfarne Castle as seen from the Abbey grounds.

We met back up with our friends for dinner.  The food was excellent again.  When we left the pub the streets were deserted.  It was high tide and all the visitors, except for the few with rooms on the island, had gone home for the day.  The past couple days had been a delight.  It was a short but relaxing respite from the go-go touring we'd had over the past couple of weeks.  Good company, good weather, and a place with a lot of history and nature - just what I needed.

We decided to get up early enough the next morning to beat the end of the next low tide.  This would give our friends a five or six hour head start on their drive home and we would take an earlier train to our next destination: nearby Scotland.

Pictures can be found in my 2024-09 Great Britain Google Photos album.