Pat's paintings

My sister Pat turned out to be the artistic one of the family.

For a long time she concentrated on Castles and Roses which was the traditional paintings that one found on the Narrow Boats on the English canals. I think everyone in the family has one or two examples of these.

I hung one of her seascapes in my living room and it's one of my favourite paintings.

All of my Grandchildren have something painted by their "Auntie Pat", the latest being a superb Teddy Bear on the wall of the Twins' nursery.

Now I say all that because I want you to realise I have the greatest respect for my sister's work before I say this:
Nobody can tell me that the mushrooms in the first Fairy Painting above are not 100% phallic symbols and that Pat wasn't having a "pornographic interlude" when she painted them.

I told her this on the 'phone and she swore to never paint another mushroom (pornography is not exactly one of my sister's strong points, that area is most comprehensibly covered by another of my Mother's children).

So, not wanting the Pornographic Mushrooms to be lost to the world, I have posted them here and await the full blast of the trans-antlantic wrath that is sure to follow.

Pancake breakfast

In honour of our friend Margaret who, we hope, will now be looking at this Blog from time to time.
Pictured here with one of her daughters Anna, (Katie didn't make this trip) at breakfast in our old house in New Jersey when they came to visit a few years ago.

We always try to visit Margaret and her husband Ken when we go to England and last time we got the bonus of seeing Anna also.

Margaret has been Sue's friend since they were children (I won't say just how long that's been !!) and she
was our Maid of Honour at our wedding which was 41 years ago so you can see that we're old friends.

Only now we're "OLD", old friends, if you see what I mean.

Crabtree Lake

This is Crabtree Lake, also near us in NC, near the Raleigh Durham airport. Very big carp in here also. The post that can be seen in the first photo is one of many scattered all around one shoreline. We were told that the rangers used to hang fish feeders on these poles with automatic timer releases that encouraged the fish to stay in areas where they could more easily be caught. Only in America!!

The lake is polluted now with PCB chemicals and so the fish can't be eaten, and if they can't be eaten then most U.S. anglers just don't fish for them so the automatic feeding stations are not being used.

NC lake

This is in Umstead State Park about 5 minutes from us in North Carolina. A huge park with three separate lakes in it. The lake is definitely worth fishing. The State Ranger that we talked to said that there were "monster" carp in here. She also told us that they had stocked Grass Carp which were also now very big. No overnight fishing here though, the park closes at 8 p.m.

North Carolina beaches

The beach at Wrightsville North Carolina. About 1.5 hours east of our NC apartment.