If Only I had a lot of Wealth,

I'd be able to make this picture more perfect, by buying the place next-door and opening
the "Bastrop Concrete Company". 

"Modest Attire for the Feet"

 
Them Texians take their footwear seriously. 

Or frivolously, I never can be sure. 

The Red Dirt Girl was rather taken with these technicolor cowgirl rain-boots.
I was all ready to buy her a pair. (It was almost her birthday).

But hey, she's a girl, she couldn't decide.

 xxx

 Maybe these?
Well no. She confessed she couldn't really see herself wearing them.

Like I couldn't see myself wearing any of these.... Themes from "Bonanza" and "Rawhide!"  were running through my mind.



Only us, er, 'more mature' folk, will remember these guys.

And last but not least, a collection of Gil Elvgren cowgirl pin-ups!

Healthy Eating?

I was happy to see that in Texas I'll be able to get all those green tasty vegetables that I love,  all fresh and misted regularly with probably nastily chlorinated water. Mmm, multi coloured cauliflowers!

But then I move along a little:

Holey Moley! Prickly things! I'd be scared even to try pick one up and put it in a bag, let alone eat the nasty vicious thing.  Now, when I was a kid, there was a comic with a tough guy cowboy character called Desperate Dan. He was tough. Very tough. He might eat cactus. 

But me? Well... I confess, the idea has entered my head, and there's only one outcome. But raw? steamed? fried? 

"Edible cactus can be eaten raw or cooked. To cook, steam over boiling water for just a few minutes (if cooked too long they will lose their crunchy texture). Then slice and eat! Cactus can also be cut and sautéed in butter or oil for a few minutes.
Steamed cactus can be added to scrambled eggs and omelets, or diced fresh and added to tortillas. They can also be substituted for any cooked green in most dishes.
The pads can be served as a side dish or cooled and used in salads. They taste especially good with Mexican recipes that include tomatoes, hot peppers and fresh corn."

Ah.

" be sure to handle them with heavy leather work gloves and scrub them hard to ensure all the painful little barbs are off. Either way, handle them carefully or with gloves just in case."

Mm.

Like a Bra, On the Wire,

Bras on a wire.  

Swansea, South Wales.

April 2012

Like a bird on the wire,
like a drunk in a midnight choir
I have tried, in my way, to be free.
Like a worm on a hook,
like a knight from some old fashioned book
I have saved all my ribbons for thee.
If I, if I have been unkind,
I hope that you can just let it go by.
If I, if I have been untrue
I hope you know it was never to you.

Like a babe, stillborn,
like a beast with his horn
I have torn everyone who reached out for me.
But I swear by this song
and by all that I have done wrong
I will make it all up to thee.
I saw a beggar leaning on his wooden crutch,
he said to me, "You must not ask for so much."
And a pretty woman leaning in her darkened door,
she cried to me, "Hey, why not ask for more?"

Oh like a bird on the wire,
like a drunk in a midnight choir, I have tried, in my way, to be free. 

 

Leonard Cohen.

Tsimpansi!

It comes as something of a surprise to find a chimpanzee sanctuary amidst the valleys of south Wales. But why not?  I ask. 

Perhaps Wales is a place where chimpanzees, maligned, treated as second-class citizens, passed over in the job-market, and the butt of speciesist jokes, particularly long for escape, and safe haven. 

Fellow Tsimps! Coelbren offer you a new life!

"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

( And this reminds me of another thing. Many non-british people think Welsh is just a dialect of English. It is not, it is a language much older, with different roots. Welsh is completely impenetrable and not in the least understandable to an outsider, really, try to figure it out? guess the meaning....  forget it.

Most roadsigns are bilingual, sometimes Welsh first, sometimes English first. My mother, though her parents were Welsh speakers, was dissuaded from using  her native tongue as a child, on the grounds that those who were to succeed in life would do so in English.

So much so that her school handed out punishments if you were heard speaking Welsh.

She could sing in Welsh, and won prizes at the national Eisteddfod , and she could swear wonderfully... As kids, we were in awe of her welsh cussing, which she thought she could get away with in a country of saisnegs.

Sadly, she was no longer fluent in conversation, a thing she always regretted.)

Ashes

Croeso? with this weather?

On friday, I left work a little early, and pointed my car south and west, toward Wales. Why? because my mother,  who died a little over a year ago, was a little Welsh dragon, born and bred in South Wales. No matter that she'd actually lived more of her life in Yorkshire, she was welsh through and through, and the coast of south Wales was ever in her heart. She'd decided, after long and careful thinking, a) that she wanted to be cremated, because worms would get her otherwise, shudder.... Burial at sea was out too, because of crabs and starfish and creepy things..., but cremation was fitting, she thought, for a small dragon.

She decided her ashes were to be halved, and half of her was to be forever with her husband of sixty years, my dad, and the other half on the cliffs of the Gower, the coast she never really left.

 Caswell, Bay, the Mumbles, Glamorgan.

Hence the four and a half hour drive, on a filthy rainy friday night. It's been delayed and postponed, until at last, most of her family could get together to say goodbye... again.

The grieving is over, that was a year ago. We got together to walk on the beach, exchange stories, and laugh.

We could all, I think, hear her laughing as we set out into the gale, -freezing, torrential, rain. The plan had been to distribute the ashes on Worm's Head, a distinctive promontory attached to the mainland by a low-tide-passable causeway.

I started to strew the ashes, after we'd ascertained with a makeshift windsock, the likely spread, and safe areas in which to stand....

In moments, my coat was plastered with ash.

Amidst the laughter, my brother took over, and headed for a little outcrop, and attempted to hurl the rest into the gale...  He also got liberally coated.

After which we found a handy waterfall to wash our hands.

Luckily, I was able to borrow a dry, un-ashed coat before we went into the hotel, where a meal was booked.

The hotel overlooks Rhossili Bay, where we holidayed as children, with our cousins.
It doesn't always look so grim, see here.

The Worm's Head.

It was good to meet up with our relatives, though we don't see each other very often, it's like coming home, we're never strangers when we meet. I learned a few stories, told a few, ate well, and then, of course, had to leave. Getting home was not easy. The storm had left an estimated 10,000 homes in south wales without electricity, my route home had to be changed because of fallen trees, power lines, accidents, flooding, flood debris... It took six and a half hours, and at one point my engine coughed because it was swallowing water... Not good with a high-compression diesel, an inch deeper and it might have meant a wrecked engine. Luckily, when the cough occurred we were climbing out of the deepest bit.

Agh!. Anyway, about three and a half hours later, I was home. Hot shower. Bed. Wonderful. She'd have worried about me driving in that horrible weather, my mum, my friend.

The Red Dirt Girl, my 'very special friend' wrote a piece about her.

Here they are together, on a happy day out together in York.

Fantasy Mansions on Tiny Plots of Land

 

 

 

A few images from my recent wanderings around The Woodlands, Texas. This part of the township is probably amongst the highest priced real-estate in the area, situated close to the lake, and within a short distance from the mall, the business area, and a couple of miles from the interstate, for the commute to Houston or access to the airport. 

Like many places in the U.S, this whole township was founded, by my terms, approximately yesterday, it rings to the sound of saws and hammers, crews of hispanic workers were eating their lunch in whatever shade they could find as I wandered by with my camera. For some reason, I didn't take many photographs, though I was fascinated by the mish-mash of styles. One moment you're wandering past a New-England sea-captain's house, full, I'm sure of sea-chests, carved narwhal tusks, and paintings of whale ships hunting Moby Dick.

Next you're passing a hacienda, in which flamenco dancers whirl to the sound of a gypsy guitar.

And then, in the blink of an eye, you're in the antebellum south, plantation houses with white pillars and shadowed porches. You can almost hear the mournful sound of slaves singing as they haul their heavy sacks of cotton.

Across the water, rectilinear houses straight out of sixties futurist architecture, old english cottages, absolutely no coherence whatsoever on terms of overall architectural vision. My impression is that I've stumbled accidentally into a secret Hollywood movie lot.

Apart from the construction workers, nobody's on the street. Every house looks perfectly professionally decorated and furnished. Where are the people? Where are the children playing? Where are the elderly folk, stopping to chat with a friend? The householder pruning a rose?

Nowhere here looks like a home.

If I had the money at which these mansions are priced, would I want one?

No.

I like land around me. A small house is fine by me, but when my neighbour sneezes, I don't want to have to wipe my windows. I'm modest in my needs.

This is more my style!
near the Colorado River, in Bastrop, Texas.

(More about Bastrop very soon. Posting this week has been interrupted by fatigue. Returning from my stay with Red Dirt Girl, ( her latest post about our travels here), I was plunged back into the chaos which is my normal work life, so much had piled up awaiting my return, and my sleep patterns were slow to readjust, so I've tended to get home, eat, shower, and fall into deep sleep, awakening just before midnight, then a fretful night of drowsing and waking, watching the curtains become paler as dawn breaks outside, I'm tired... Tomorrow, I plan to leave work early and start driving south toward Wales. The weather forecast is for unrelenting rain, not perfect as the family meets to scatter half of my mothers ashes on the cliffs where she walked in her youth. 

The drive's about five hours. We'll see how the tiredness goes. If I'm in a mental state of decrepitude by the time I get to Hereford or thereabouts, I'll seek a cheap business-type hotel, and continue early. 

The route I'll use is via the Brecon Beacons, but I suspect all I'll see of that beautiful countryside is rain and grey cloud.

I doubt I'll get time to post more until maybe monday....

Mounted Police on Sleepy Horses, Stopping Mad Dogs and Englishmen

 

The Woodlands, Texas, is not misnamed at all. It's a largely invisible city,you can drive from end to end of it pretty much unaware of any buildings. Everything is screened and blanketed by trees. Running, cycling and walking paths criss-cross it, residential neighbourhoods are small enclaves, yet not physically far from village malls. Yes, I know, village/mall= oxymoron to we brits, but over there, in a city that started a few heartbeats ago, it's not so strange. 

 As in most of america, there are a confusing number of different law-enforcement departments. I've never understood it and probably never will. Sheriffs departments, police  Mounties?

Around and about, you see these guys, the mounted police, they clip-clop through the mall car-parks, they roam the jogger-tracks. I like them. I like the fact that they're out there, cop and horse, not cop in a tin box.

One of them stopped me, as I was wandering from the Woodlands Mall toward the area of fantasy housing neat Lake Woodlands. Where was I going? There was an initial touch of suspicion, possibly by the fact that I'd stopped at the roadside and clearly tossed a mental coin as to direction.  A true Texan would of course be in a car. Or a huge truck.

But as soon as he heard my accent, he smiled and became my pal.
Update : They're not actually Police, they're a private mounted security company, Alpha and Omega.

Because?

Mad Dogs and Englishmen

 Go Out In the Mid-Day Sun

In tropical climes there are certain times of day
When all the citizens retire,
     to tear their clothes off and perspire.
It's one of those rules that the greatest fools obey,
Because the sun is much too sultry and one must avoid
     its ultry-violet ray --
Papalaka-papalaka-papalaka-boo. (Repeat)
Digariga-digariga-digariga-doo. (Repeat)
The natives grieve when the white men leave their huts,
Because they're obviously, absolutely nuts --

Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun.
The Japanese don't care to, the Chinese wouldn't dare to,
Hindus and Argentines sleep firmly from twelve to one,
But Englishmen? detest a siesta,
In the Philippines they have lovely screens,
     to protect you from the glare,
In the Malay states there are hats like plates,
     which the Britishers won't wear,
At twelve noon the natives swoon, and
     no further work is done -
But Mad Dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun.

It's such a surprise for the Eastern eyes to see,
That though the English are effete,
     they're quite impervious to heat,
When the white man rides, every native hides in glee,
Because the simple creatures hope he will
     impale his solar topee on a tree.
Bolyboly-bolyboly-bolyboly-baa. (Repeat)
Habaninny-habaninny-habaninny-haa. (Repeat)
It seems such a shame that when the English claim the earth
That they give rise to such hilarity and mirth -

Mad Dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun.
The toughest Burmese bandit can never understand it.
In Rangoon the heat of noon is just what the natives shun.
They put their scotch or rye down, and lie down.
In the jungle town where the sun beats down,
     to the rage of man or beast,
The English garb of the English sahib merely gets a bit more creased.
In Bangkok, at twelve o'clock, they foam at the mouth and run,
But mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun.

Mad Dogs and Englishmen, go out in the midday sun.
The smallest Malay rabbit deplores this stupid habit.
In Hong Kong, they strike a gong, and fire off a noonday gun.
To reprimand each inmate, who's in late.
In the mangrove swamps where the python romps
     there is peace from twelve till two.
Even caribous lie around and snooze, for there's nothing else to do.
In Bengal, to move at all, is seldom if ever done,
But mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun.

Noel Coward, 1931 

"Coward wrote the song while driving from Hanoi to Saigon "without pen, paper, or piano". "I wrestled in my mind with the complicated rhythms and rhymes of the song until finally it was complete, without even the aid of pencil and paper. I sang it triumphantly and unaccompanied to my travelling companion on the verandah of a small jungle guest house. Not only Jeffrey , but the gecko lizards and the tree frogs gave every vocal indication of enthusiasm"."