The Other Side of the Hill . . .

Took a little drive this morning heeding this sign:

And this caught my eye:

Not again?

Yes, more snow again

The next post will be from Blighty on Albion, Albion

And I scored another 48 on the first DSA theory practice test. 96%

Information - Position - Speed - Gear - Acceleration

Driving

     Most of us do it. It is a cultural rite of passage especially in the USA. How many take the responsibility seriously? I get a little nervous when I think about driving in England. Narrow roads; high driving speeds; new road layouts; different road signs and markings; so much more traffic compared to when I learned to drive. My driving instructor all those years ago was very pleased when I finally passed the driving test. He told me after the fact that it was the head examiner of the test centre who took me out and he had feared a different result.

     My brother-in-law showed me how to drive in a short wheel base Land Rover on a disused WWII aerodrome when I was about fifteen. I didn't really have a great interest in cars then and relied on push-bikes and public transport to get around. Only one of my friends drove. He had an old Ford Prefect at first then an Anglia, this was in Essex after all. My first car, an Austin A40, I shared with my sister.

     To prepare for the trip to England I'm boning up on The Highway Code.

      25 April Addendum: I passed the theory practice test two for cars so I think I know enough about the Highway Code not to do anything too egregious. I lost my copy of "Roadcraft". I'll take the other practice test in a couple of days to make sure.

Keep left.  Mirror - signal - manoeuvre

In full spate

No, not the meadowlark. But the Little Colorado.

On the 

left (below), ice on the river a few months ago; and on the right, the same stretch of river today.

And the pussy-willow was in its prime a few weeks ago

Serendipitous Morning.

     Watched an aerial tour of the south cost of England from Goonhilly Down to Dover on HDTheatre, another Discovery satellite channel. We'll be there in a few weeks walking terra firma, not flying around in a helicopter.

     The Sunrise Earth segment which followed was from Iceland. No clouds of ash or flowing lava, though. Plenty of geysers.

     Some of our cats like to bask on the kitchen window-sill in the early morning sun; but to catch this particular quartet in the window was quite unusual.

Stubbers, Leo, Tigerlilly and Marie

Siddhartha Gautama

Buddha

I was smitten by the inner light of poet Jane Hirshfield as she appeared in this film. Perhaps it was the way she was photographed but I find her absolutely captivating.

Half of Round Valley

      Still playing with this feature of the camera; can't keep the horizon on an even keel

No Title

       but you can call me 'Sir' or just plain 'Mister' but I prefer Alan. I've been rummaging the bookshelves again and found some more books I either read long ago, didn't finish or haven't even begun reading . . . 

       Stay tuned as is said in radio land . . .

Tempus Fugit II

     On the Welsh coast somewhere near Aberaeron August/September 1991. We made a week long camping trip around the coast of Wales. Now I think there must be lots more pictures of that journey for we stopped at many castles and Kathy was still using her Nikon quite a lot. Here is a shot she took of me in 1982

Somewhere in the Santa Monica Mountains, California

Nothing like a long drive

Salt River Canyon this morning

To Tucson. Why? Why not. To take the recorder to The Folk Shop for repair. I stopped to take pictures on the way mostly of the wildflowers. Some weren't so wild as near Dripping Springs, between Globe and Winkelman on route 77, Arizona Department Of Transportation (ADOT) had seeded the roadside as well as widening the road in places. It's been at least two years since I last drove that road.

Saguaro, cholla and eschscholzia californica

And cottonwood trees by the Gila river in Winkelman were 'snowing' their seed.

Salt River Canyon this evening

I shall console myself . . .

with a mug of Earl Grey. This is Frederick the Literate by Charles Wysocki. The humour is in the book titles, and authors.

Meet Chloë

     Kathy decided I need another husky . . . oh the joys to come. It has taken us two days to decide on a name. Too much like Zoë? Eh,eh. She's about seven months old . . .

I am now a

Sunflower. Now that I've forgotten what I answered the first time I took the fun quiz again. The questions seem to assume women will answer. What, aren't men gardeners too?

Waking thoughts . . .

     Occasionally I get a friend request on Facebook from someone hoping to find a long lost cousin or friend. This usually leads to a brief exchange to establish that I am not the person they were seeking. I then thought of other encounters with people seeking a relative or a favourite teacher. The first that came to mind happened along Topanga Canyon Boulevard in Canoga Park. I was walking along minding my own business when a car drew up and a lady hailed me. I turned and saw disappointment in her face; she thought I was her estranged son. He must walk bouncily like I do . . .

     Even though most city streets in the USA have sidewalks they are not put to much use. Pedestrians are viewed with some suspicion especially in places like Beverly Hills or Bel Air. I've previously mentioned my liking for maps, haven't I? Thinking of LA got me browsing the 1979 edition of Thomas guide, the taxi drivers' bible, for Los Angeles county . . .

     The second incident is memorable because the person sought was English and it was some time into the telephone conversation before the caller realized I was not the Alan Richardson, a UCLA professor, he remembered. Did he live in Venice too? So not only is there some poor soul out there who walks like I do there is someone else who talks like I do.

Trolling blogs . . .

Six degrees of affinity  

     Just sitting here browsing blogs on Blogger . . . so I stop at a blog every once in a while and explore the author's list of followed blogs. I've randomly collected a list of over two hundred blogs I cannot possibly follow daily. Some I follow publicly; some not. Some blogs puzzle me in that they are quite good but have no public followers and few comments. I've not answered the question, "Why do you blog?" Is it some kind of head banging neurosis? Too much navel gazing. Waffling for the joy of waffling. I awoke this morning thinking of the memories that made me. learning stuff at school which becomes obsolete. Knowing all the little fishing ports around the coast of England and their specialty catches. the towns famous for a particular product: Witney blankets; Coventry gloves was it? Whitby jet; Northampton shoes; Peterborough bricks . . .

Browsing blogs. I started at World of Poot. This brought George and Weedon Grossmith's Diary of a Nobody to my mind.

Anna Lefler is a stand-up comedienne who lives in Santa Monica for whom life just keeps getting weirder.

I don't really like colourful blogs I thought this kind of shenanigans was frowned on soon after the hoi-poloi started playing with HTML [Doesn't seem so garish now 4 April '10]. And black as a background colour usually works well only with photographs  That blog no longer has a black background but the type is pale [Edit 4 April '10]

Then there are the very personal public blogs that are up for a while then stop at an interesting point and one wonders, "What is happening in that person's life now?"

And the very private blogs for a select group of invited guests . . . I started one of mine like that and then thought, "What the heck?"

Dear diary . . .

     I've been feeling quite happy the past couple of days. Why? I've played on the recorder and hammered dulcimer each morning and the notes I string together begin to sound like music . . .

     The St Peters choirs combined for Ash Wednesday Mass and imposition of ashes; so we had a lineup of four guitars, bass, piano, violin, bouzouki and me on treble/alto recorder for some songs and nine singers . . .

  
Elizaphanian's sermon is a good place to start for Lent.

     Meanwhile I'll just carry on playing music . . . feeding the cats, walking the dog, sending Kathy onto the roof to clear the chimney as the fire stopped drawing properly and we had a smoky house this morning. Cruel man sending his wife up onto the roof. I'm out of the habit of climbing onto high look-outs and have allowed myself the luxury of fear . . . I stop and think. It's the getting down that is the hardest part for me now.

     And now deciding to make a few notes of another kind here . . .

     I might be moved to browse a few more books; finish the third re-reading of The True Deceiver; continue reading the very fat GRANTA 109; breeze on through Homer and Langley and sip some more of the Power of One in which I've read some stark descriptions of bullying and I know there is more cruelty to come . . .

Full moon

 

An adjusted snapshot of moonlight taken this morning at about 5 o'clock looks rather like day-for-night technique used a lot in old black and white western movies.

Three hours later under the sun the same scene looks like this:

One fence too far?

 

This small group gang of elk way out in the open seem tired. When I first spotted them most were standing, then as I took pictures several began to lie down. they were just too far away to get a decent shot. One usually sees antelope in open country like this.

The Big Storm

     California mud slides; flash flood warnings in Phoenix and southern Arizona; Interstate 40 closed and up here in the White Mountains it looks like this:

 

Reading

     Our small book group now has a place in the blogosphere to communicate with each other and the rest of the world.

     I mentioned Black Elk on a previous post . . . now I'm embarrassed - Kathy has a copy of Black Elk Speaks on her shelves.