A few shots from Lanzarote

Time for da Mardi Gras, by Pam

I know that I haven't done well in keeping up with this blog so let me apologize for that. I've been reprimanded by Lee and Mike, our neighbors across the road, for not giving them something to distract them whilst working. We see them regularly so it's hard to believe that there would be something I could write about that they don't already know but here goes.
My time to leave for home is fast approaching, although it is only for 3 weeks that I'm sure will pass very quickly. It will be 2 months to the day between the flight here and the return yet I still found myself saying last night that I'm running out of days to get everything done to prepare for my flight home.
We have had a few adventures since my last post. Aside from visiting here in England to see friends, we went to Lanzarote for a week with Tim and Anne Locke. They live in Lewes, south of London and Phil has known Tim since they were at Cambridge together. The Lockes were a good pair for such a holiday retreat as they encouraged excursion to other parts of the island and what magnificent excursions they were! Phil has a place on Tenerife but hadn't ventured to any of the other 6 islands that make up the Canaries. We found it to be charming and diverse, with wonderful touches of art from Cesar Manrique scattered across this lovely little escape. If you ever get the chance to visit, I say take it!
Now I'd like to address some things that have been running thru my mind in thoughts about this edition of the blog. It has struck me that most people don't greet or even make eye contact when approaching someone on the sidewalk. Coming from a place where conversations are often conducted from across the street, and often with a neutral ground in between, it feels unnatural to not acknowledge a passer-by. I've started a campaign to end this by uttering some sort of greeting to at least one person on each excursion. If everyone that reads this blog does the same thing, it won't be as noble as the motivation for Phil's walk, it might just make life around us a little brighter.
There have been things that I have discovered about London which will forever remain with me, no matter how long I go between visits. One is the sound of songbirds outside of our bedroom window. I wish I could record this magnificent sound, but I'm not sure a recording would ever do it justice. I don't know what kind of birds they are but I will miss their beautiful warbling when I've gone.
Another nice thing has been the gift of flowers from guests coming for dinner or one of our parties. We've had fresh flowers in the house much more than I have had at home and although friends at home are prone to bring wine or beer when visiting, the flowers thing has been a huge hit with me.
I'll miss the buses, trains, trams, and the Tube (London's underground transport). It has been incredible to know that walking to the end of the road or up the hill into the village is all that is between me and the rest of the city... or entire country, for that matter.
Getting to know Phil's world, his family and friends, tromping around his Alma mater at Cambridge, even thru the cold, the rain, the overcast days, has been a fabulous gift. I never envisioned living in London for 2 months, seeing the sites I've seen... and there's more to come!
I'll try to share some photos and an update during Mardi Gras but I make no promises. You can be sure I'll have alot to report, and the adventure continues when Phil meets me in Munich when I return from the States for a European escapade in which we hope to visit Austria,Lichtenstein, Switzerland, and maybe Belgium and The Netherlands.

Laissez le bon temps roulez!!!!

The Southern Belle chillin' in Jolly Ole England

Well, boys and girls, since Phil didn't know what to write, not being an Englishman in a foreign country any longer, I thought I'd give a little of a Yanks perspective on y'all's neck of the woods! One thing I have to say, right off the bat, is that your weather lives up to every crappy thing I've heard and then some! We were told that the weather had been lovely... until the day before we arrived. Figures! We were greeted by a warm house, for which I was extremely grateful, and bedding was easily found since we were knackered from a longer trip than we expected.

(For those of you back home, 'knackered' means really tired. Don't worry, I'm just tryin' to speak the language here so the natives will understand me.)

The house looked a little sad from having tenants and the garden out back was in horrendous condition due to COMPLETE neglect for 18 months. The house looks like people live here again but the garden is still a jungle. I'm waiting for nice weather, which I've heard may be sometime in April or so... Hope Phil doesn't mind tending it in the cold. I'm sure I have something pressing indoors that needs my undivided attention, at least until the sun comes out!

Speaking of undivided attention, I have continued with my purse, uh, lady's handbag, idea with a new twist. Still using the cigar boxes, but with wine labels that I've had for years and maps of London, the Underground, better known here as the Tube, photos of familiar London sites tweaked on Picasa ( a Photoshop-type program from Google, check it out, I love it) and probably do some other European cities, as well. I've decided that since they're one-of-a-kind works of art, they must be named. The Tube bag is named" Mind the Gap" (Londoners will get this one),"Califonia Dreamin'" is naturally California wines, "Parlez-vous vin francais?" French wines, "In Vino Veritas"for the Italian wines since Italian is still the closest language to Latin, and with those names you should kinda get the idea.

We haven't been sightseeing (Did I mention the weather?) but we have had family and friends over to visit. Phil's sister Jacqui and brother-in-law, Richard accompanied Master Alfie Jake Goddard on his European debut. Alfie was born in August and was a trooper to travel all this way to meet his adoring fans. In honor of my fellow American, I slapped together some good ole cornbread dressing, injected a turkey and made a sweet potato casserole for Thanksgiving dinner. I brought the Cajun injector (that would be like a big syringe) with me from the States and all I can say is thank the Lord for the internet! Did you know that you can make a halfway decent cornbread with DRIED POLENTA? There was even a recipe for injector liquid! Who knew it was only butter, lemon juice and chicken stock? Anyway, it was a great feast with loved ones so it was a nice way to begin the time here.

We also threw a party for the neighbors here on Foxwood Road. Between the food that I made, the back-up food that Phil bought in case we didn't have enough, 14 bottles of wine, several cans of beer, and the 16 or 17 people that we had in and out, Phil has decided that he likes having parties...so I'm going to show the Brits what we eat on New Years Day to start things off in the right direction, as well as help us revive from the previous night's festivities.

We share an evening with fanily tomorrow, then head for Lewes (that's pronouced Lewis) to visit a couple that Phil's known since his days at Cambridge, home Friday to go down to the pub with some of the neighbors, then Saturday morning, bright and early, we're headed to Leeds about 200 miles north of here. It's a couple of hours on the train, I think and it's supposed to be very pretty.

Do me a favor, would ya? Pray for a little sunshine over here? I'd greatly appriciate it and so would my dormant camera!

Yesterday we had a yard sale to get rid of some of the stuff we threw out after having the clutter consultant in.

It was a great success, yielding a profit of over $200, and it also taught me something about the social role of yard sales, which are uncommon in the UK.

Some people came through the gate, looked over everything in seconds, and disappeared, clearly not finding what they were looking for. But others were determined to buy something, and spent half an hour or more picking over every item and bombarding us with questions before making their decision.

Several times, people sat down and exchanged life stories with us. One guy had arrived in New Orleans in a similarly unconventional way to myself: he rode randomly chosen freight trains from New York, ended up here, and liked the place so much that he stayed.

Another was the owner of a strip club in Bourbon Street, and I asked him how business was. He told me it was booming, not least because the conference trade, which collapsed after Katrina, was getting off the ground again.

At the moment there are tens of thousands of ophthalmologists in town, many making a beeline for his establishment after the day's last PowerPoint presentation on extorting vast sums of money out of unfortunate shortsighted people. The last conference had been for US police chiefs, but they had sensibly stayed away from Bourbon Street.

He bought a little portable grill, and I imagined lots of near-naked women making themselves toasted cheese sandwiches while they waited to go onstage.

Much of the stuff we were selling was Pam's old clothes, which attracted considerable attention, mostly from men. The first time it happened, I pointed out 'That's women's stuff you're looking at', but he ignored me and bought a couple of skirts. As the day wore on, we sold maybe fifteen more items, and maybe ten of those were bought by men.

Several people were in fancy dress. One guy wore a top hat so battered it looked like it had been hit by a cruise missile, and told me it was 150 years old. Another was clad in an extraordinary Mad Max assemblage, all painted in silver: miner's helmet, sleeveless singlet and lots of studs and leather. As soon as he came in, he spotted a rather fetishistic chain belt of Pam's; our eyes met, I said that's perfect for you, and he bought it.

This is a city in which many people have wardrobes full of fancy dress and bring it out at every opportunity: Mardi Gras, St Patrick's Day, Halloween.

There was more exotic clothing on the menu today, when we held a farewell party for neighbours and friends. The Saints, our local football team, were playing at home, so we timed it to start after the match, and several guests turned up in team gear, complete with gold-glitter eyeshadow and fishnets.

This is a city in which no one cares what you look like or what you get up to in your bedroom. Here, people parade around in exotic costumes for the hell of it, shedding their old identities and making up new ones as they go along.

A couple of weeks ago, the signs began appearing on trees and lampposts all over town. I gave them scarcely a second glance, though the words struck a vague chord somewhere at the back of my mind.

Eventually, as the tide of publicity grew, it dawned on me: these are the opening stage directions of Waiting for Godot, and the signs were advertising free performances of the play by the Classical Theatre of Harlem.

The first night we went, it was so popular that we were turned away. But we persisted the next night, and were rewarded by one of the finest theatrical experiences I've ever been privileged to enjoy.

The setting could not have been more poignant: outdoors in the Lower Ninth ward, at a crossroads, just a few hundred yards from where the Industrial Canal levees broke.

The Lower Ninth, much of it several feet below sea level, was almost literally wiped off the map by the flooding. It was already one of the country's most poverty-stricken areas, and 98 percent of the people were black, leading conspiracy theorists to mutter, perhaps with some justice, that this part of town is low on the recovery agenda.

Where many other districts of New Orleans are now a bustling cacophony of bulldozers and jackhammers as reconstruction money starts to find its way into people's bank accounts, here all is silent. The streets are empty, the shattered houses are fast succumbing to the weeds, and there is talk of turning the area into floodplains or golf courses. This is what the world will look like when civilisation ends.

Which makes it a perfect setting for Godot, and I don't think I've ever believed in a play so much. I felt I was watching a real drama unfold before my eyes, and I cared deeply about the characters.

I'd seen the play once, and read it once, and what I remembered was the stifling sense of claustrophobia. It's as though the action takes place inside a seamless box - we can't be sure what, if anything, exists outside, because the characters' memories and perceptions of it are so flimsy and fragmented.

But this was outdoors, and real life was all too obviously happening not much more than a stone's throw away. Birds twittered, car stereos thudded, and a man shouted dementedly in the distance. There was a powerful echo, and if Pozzo yelled loudly enough into his loudhailer we heard every word bouncing back at us.

This time, I had a strong sense that the possibility of redemption lay just beyond arm's length, but the characters were so intent on waiting for God to save them that they failed to reach out and grasp the opportunity being presented to them.

Godot is a tragicomedy, and the cast milked it for every laugh and every surreptitious tear. It was a wonderful production, and yet in one sense it failed.

Before the play started, we were asked if any of us had been residents of the district. Out of 550 people, only a couple of dozen raised their hands. And later, as one cast member took a short cut through the audience, he ad-libbed: 'What a lot of white faces here in the Lower Ninth'.

Part of the purpose of tonight was to tell people here that the world still cared about them. Another part must surely have been to encourage poor black people to experience something that might otherwise have passed them by. Three of the five actors were black, their body language was black, and they inserted little black in-jokes into the script.

While we were waiting in line, an African American guy in his forties came up and asked me what was going on. I told him it was one of the greatest plays ever written.

What's it about, he asked me. But as soon as I started summarising the plot, if you can call it that, I felt stupid and knew that I'd lost him.

I heard a rumour there was free food, and I'm hungry, he said.

I told him there had been free food the previous night, but there was none on offer now. He looked disappointed, and disappeared into the darkness.

Afterwards, we stood on a dark street corner and phoned for a taxi, but like Godot it never came. Eventually, we flagged one down.

'It's lucky I happened to be passing,' the driver told us. 'The reason your cab never showed was probably because you've got the projects just round the corner, and a lot of drivers won't come here because it's all black people.'

He was from Pakistan, but he was the third taxi driver I've encountered here with less than wholesome views about the people who make up 80 percent of the population .

They always start their sentences: 'I'm not racist, but'. One, just a few nights ago, told me that the reason I sometimes found it hard to get things done in New Orleans was not because the city was recovering from a catastrophe, but because all the jobs were occupied by shiftless, inefficient blacks. Another asked whether I planned to live in this country permanently. I hoped so, I said, but there were a lot of hoops to jump through first.

'They should just let people like you in automatically,' he told me. 'You're just what this country needs. You're respectable, and you're white.'

It was late evening, and I was sitting down at the computer with a bottle of Blue Moon Belgian-style beer to tell you about a funny sign I saw today when I heard the now-familiar blare of a brass band passing outside.

At first I thought it was a belated Halloween parade, but gradually it dawned on me that this was a celebration of the Day of the Dead - All Souls' Day.

The dead are always peering over your shoulder in New Orleans. The ghosts of the early settlers who perished in a dreary succession of swamp-borne epidemics and natural catastrophes still stalk the streets after sunset. Because of the high water table they could not be hidden away beneath the ground, so they were interred in necropolises, streets lined with monuments inscribed in French, German and Italian. Many gape open and empty after their denizens floated away in the flood two years ago.


The day of the dead is a Catholic festival with strong voodoo connections, and people still congregate in the cemeteries to clean relatives' graves and replace the sun-blanched plastic flowers.

Although the revelers parading down our street with lamps, candles and skeleton outfits were mostly middle-class white youngsters using the event as an excuse for yet another party, they were keeping alive an old and worthy tradition of ancestor worship.

Halloween was just as spectacular as my first one last year, the streets of the French Quarter a joyful, heaving mass of pregnant nuns, bandaged zombies and naughty nurses. Time was when I used to mutter excuses when invited to fancy-dress parties, but here I've long since stopped caring. We were the king and queen of hearts. I look like I've acquired a huge beer belly, but it's just the way the costume hangs - honest.


A man fluttered up to us in Decatur Street and said: 'Ooh, nice tiara, darling'.

'Why, thank you,' Pam replied, flattered.

'No, not yours,' the man said in a mildly irritated tone of voice. 'His'.

And finally, the sign I saw beside the road today. I found it so funny (and strange too) that I almost fell off my bike. It was an advertisement for a construction company, and for a moment I thought maybe they specialised in rather non-PC housing for people with learning difficulties. Their website is here.