The final blog

It's time to move on.

This blog began in October 2011 when we emigrated from the UK to the US. Initially intended as a means of keeping family and friends up-to-date with our adventures, it quickly acquired a much larger following. Each month, around 300 people from around the world visit the blog, and I have made new friends through sharing our experiences of being an English family making sense of our new lives in the States.

This blog has been about the novelties and cultural shocks of living in the US: the complicated bureaucracies of renting an apartment and getting a driving license; the significance of cops carrying guns (even the Environmental Police are armed); the quality and the cost of the health care systems; the up-beat child-focused education systems; the frequency of elections and the overwhelming enthusiasm for an active democracy. I have also written about the crazy changes in weather which brought us snowstorms, Hurricane Sandy and the polar vortex, and the experience of living in a city under lockdown while the police hunted down Tsarnaev, the so-called 'Boston Bomber'.

The plan had been to live here for a year or two, to have a few adventures and new experiences, and to then return home to our more familiar lives in the UK. But plans change and we like it here.

Museum day at Maria L. Baldwin school

Each morning, Iola skips enthusiastically to school. The education system lacks some of the content-driven rigour of the English school system, but she benefits tremendously from being a learner within a system which is responsive to students' interests rather than being as standards-driven as the English system. For example, when Iola's class were given the opportunity to research animals, she made the choice to specialize on oxen. She devised her own research agenda and research questions, built a PowerPoint presentation which she presented to parents on 'Museum Day', sculpted a pair of oxen in art, wrote a series of poems, and drew a picture of oxen which has now been included in the mural on the school's library walls. Iola is 8 years old. (She also now speaks with a Boston accent so thick that strangers sometimes ask how we are related).

Maya as Abigail M. Alcott

Meanwhile, Maya's experience of education in Cambridge has been a broad mix of learning new social skills and hoovering up state-wide awards. In June, she will be representing Massachusetts in National History Day in Washington D.C., and she has brought home trophies for best Greater Boston Middle School negotiator for Model UN and best Middle School debater for Eastern Massachusetts. While we have had concerns about the quality of her school and her experiences of being bullied, it seems that endless doors are opened daily to children in New England - Maya's National History Day work, for example, has included correspondence with leading academics in this area, personal tours of local museums, and access to private libraries to view first editions of relevant books. As well as receiving a letter from the Chief Superintendent for Cambridge schools, Maya's success in the National History Day state finals has been acknowledged in a personal letter from a Massachusetts senator. Maya is 11 years old.

Nathan's work has taken him to Texas, Atlanta, Tennessee, New York, Washington D.C., Rhode Island, Colorado, Kentucky and Florida. We know he likes what he does, because he always looks tall when he is happy! His only real regret about life in the US is that he's not allowed to grow a beard (jeans are in, facial hair is most definitely out!)

And I've been fortunate enough to be part of several interesting writing communities here in New England, as well as having the opportunity to develop my virtual community of writers through my work with Cafe Aphra. I also write a fortnightly column for the local homeless newspaper, Spare Change News, and I help manage a local community meal each week. I have made lasting friendships with a diversity of wonderful people, completed my first novel, plunged midway into my second, and acquired a new library of books (mainly from skip-dipping and perusing the give-aways people leave in local 'free libraries').

But, in terms of this blog, it's time to move on. We're not newcomers, off-comers (to borrow from Cumbrian English), or outsiders these days, and the cultural shocks now work in reverse: when I visited the UK two weeks ago, I felt more like a foreigner than I do here in North America. We've made the decision to stay, to put down roots, to see what happens next. We'll be moving into a new house in Vermont at the end of May, and I've decided to move the blog too. Please visit us at http://fowlerfamilyparryinvermont.blogspot.com/. I'll be writing about our new lives at the foot of Mount Mansfield, about life in a small Vermont community, and about settling down, growing-up and keeping chickens.

And thank you for visiting this blog, and for reading these posts. Not only have I loved writing them, but I've taken real joy in hearing what y'all think.

I can see clearly now...

For the final few months of last year and the beginning of 2014 I thought I was going blind.

I have always been short-sighted. I have no memories of a time when I didn't need glasses. and, because of the severity of my myopia, my family optician prescribed my first contact lenses when I was eleven years old. I have worn lenses continually since. For nearly thirty years my daily routine has barely changed: get out of bed, put in my lenses, clean my teeth, and do these in reverse at the end of the day. Within hours of both my daughters being born, I was wearing my lenses and the only times I would have been seen in public wearing spectacles was on a long haul flight.

Without lenses, I can't see the optician's wall chart, let alone see the letters written on it. Without lenses, I can't see my feet in the shower, I can't see people's faces when I talk with them, I can't count my fingers with my hand outstretched. But, because of the time and place I live within, I have never had a real lived sense of being short-sighted. I have always had access to contact lenses or glasses. I have always been able to see. I have always been lucky.

Everything changed in September 2013. I visited a new optician in a shiny shop in Boston's financial district. He was a hairy little squirrel of a man, reminiscent of Woody Allen and almost Dickensian in his obsequiousness and hand-rubbing. I trusted his eccentricities were illustrative of his competence and made the error of expressing my frustration that I could not fully relax while sea-kayaking in case sea-spray knocked out my lenses. It was a foolish concern and has sparked a series of events which make me grateful now to be able to see my computer screen as I sit here in thick-lensed glasses typing this blog.

The optician, let's call him Doctor Uriah Heep, was excitable, as squirrels often are. Using handfuls of long words, he showed me his latest technologies and enthused about a new contact lens designed for cases like mine. He cited statistics and research. In real terms, he told me, these new lenses wouldn't wash out if a wave hit my face or I found myself underwater.  I would be able to see in the dark. And, he said rubbing his palms together, surely I deserved a bespoke pair of lenses after all the years I had endured a one-size-fits-all technology.

I am naturally an optimist. I believe the best in people. I give generously to pan-handlers and street musicians, on the off-chance that the money might be well spent. I bear no ill-will to the persons who twice burgled our home in London or the air crew member who stole all my jewelry when we flew to America. After my fifteenth visit to Dr. Heep's optical practice, I realized Dr. Heep had taken my 'glass-half-full' approach to life and turned it into something very dark indeed. It is possible that if I saw Dr. Heep on a dark night - unlikely, I grant, now that I no longer have any kind of night vision - I would hit the gas pedal rather than the brake. On that final visit, I sat in his black leather optician's chair and waited for him to make the magical adjustment which would allow me to read the letters on the board. The tears streaming down my face probably didn't help me focus, but there was no denying that whatever he did, I couldn't see the letters. I saw him clearly enough, however, and he shrugged.

To be technical for a moment, part of my short-sightedness is caused by an astigmatism - a bulging at the front of the eye. The front of the eye is covered by the cornea, and my cornea is shaped like an American football. (It's only writing this now, that I finally understand why both Dr. Heep and the subsequent Dr. Pugh, kept making comparisons with footballs. All this time, I have wondered why they have been referring to a non-symmetrical bulge as a football, but we're in America now and, Toto, it sure ain't soccer).

If Dr. Heep had had more sense he might have anticipated the extent to which my cornea has been moulded by rigid plastic lenses for more than 12 hours a day for nearly 30 years. Taking away the rigid plastic lenses, therefore, resulted in fairly significant changes in the shape of my cornea. Which meant my focusing power could shift significantly during the course of the day. Which meant my brain would struggle to process the distorted data it received from my troubled eyes. Which meant some days I wouldn't be able to see, even with glasses, and other days I would have double vision. If Dr. Heep had had an ounce of compassion in his little rodent body, he might have mentioned to me that, for the next few months at least - if I was lucky - my eyesight would be wrecked. If he had had the honesty and integrity which make the best of us human, he might have mentioned it was possible I might never be able to see properly again.

He didn't, of course. He had a few attempts at trying to fit me with lenses through which I could see. He failed. He shrugged.

Without good sight the world becomes a very different place. I can't use our local subway because,when I step onto the escalator I feel as though I am about to fall: my eyes don't read enough information for me to have a sense of depth. I can't use the computer for more than an hour at a time because I lose my focus and can no longer see the screen. I can't drive at night because my eyes are unable to decipher what they see outside of the halo of oncoming headlights. Over Christmas, the deterioration in my vision coincided with a trip to England to see family and friends. By late afternoon each day. I had double-vision. Ordinarily I would have made jokes about seeing two of my favourite people in the same place, but I was exhausted and spent most of the trip wanting to lie quietly in a darkened room.

When we returned to the US, I bought a new computer which had good voice recognition technologies and a large screen. And I found a new optician. She's plump and middle-aged, a committed lifelong spinster with an enthusiasm for fluffy jumpers and cats. She used to teach science in high school, but prefers ophthalmology to the classroom. We have spent a lot of time together recently and she's told me a lot about her life. The first time we met we both hoped it might be a fleeting encounter: she was relatively unconcerned and I still hoped that Dr. Heep's incompetence might be easily remedied. My new optician, let's call her Dr. Pugh, examined my eyes for an hour and we agreed things were looking good. Just to be on the safe side - and Dr. Pugh is a big believer in living on the safe side - she asked me to return for some minor tests at the end of that day, by which time my eyes had changed radically in both shape and power. Since then, there have been a plethora of consultant appointments, additional tests, and brightly colored charts which map my cornea's gradient and shifting nature. Some days it feels a bit like trying to understand what's happening in Antartica: we all agree there are changes and deteriorations, but there are varied explanations on how we got to this point and what we might do to repair some of the damage. The latest plan involves a new pair of lenses which will gradually mould my cornea back into something an optician might hope to see.

I've been wearing them for a few hours a day and I'm hopeful they might work. When I walk into coffee shops, they don't steam up. I've even done some driving in the dark and it's felt fairly safe. I haven't tried out the subway escalator yet, but I'm gradually starting to look on the bright side again. In all likelihood, it's going to be a fairly slow process, but I appreciate my glasses now in a way I never have before and I value all the things my eyesight allows me to do. It's a good place to start afresh.

Frozen rivers and meditating hobos

It's getting a little warmer, so I wanted to share a few pictures before the polar vortex heads North and everything melts.

Ice has formed on the insides of the windows in our apartment, and different rooms have generated different ice formations.

The ice is nothing, however, compared to a tale that a fellow dog walker told me today about his father-in-law's house in Wisconsin. He lives in a hemicycle house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright with floor-to-ceiling glass windows and underfloor heating. On very cold days, the ice on the inside of the windows can be up to 4 inches thick!

Cambridge looks beautiful in the cold. The River Charles has frozen: milky white ice reflecting a low winter sun. It's a shame in a way that there aren't more tourists here to witness this transformation of the Harvard buildings: the few people who are outside are hurrying towards their destinations, wrapped in layers of hats and scarves.

Every generalization, of course, has an exception. I met a boy called Ezekiel today. He's dreadlocked. A traveller. He told me about how he's been Kerouac-ing across the States, finding rides on freight trains and hitch-hiking. He pays his way through selling hand-written books of his poetry.

Ezekiel - 'call me Zeke' - sat down on the kerb to dig a book of poems he had written from his bag and, almost instantly, a police car pulled up and a cop wound down his window to ask Ezekiel if he was ok. Having been assured that there was no problem, the cop drove away.
'Do you get much trouble from the police?' I asked.
'Man, it's like you wouldn't believe some days. Like yesterday...' Ezekiel paused and coughed. 'I was having a great time. The sky was so beautiful, man! I was on my back on the Common - meditating and everything - and the next thing, there were cops and an ambulance and all that shit.'
'Were you ill?' I asked.
'I don't remember anything about it,' he grinned, standing up with his poetry book in his hand.
He read me a couple of poems, swaying slightly from the effort of staying upright. His poems were good. I bought myself a copy and recommended he sold some of his work to Spare Change News, the homeless newspaper. As we said goodbye, I thought about advising him to keep warm, but realized how useless such advice would be.
'Go to California,' I said. 'The skies are meant to be even more beautiful out there.'
He grinned, shook the dreadlocks out of his face, and raised a hand in farewell.

Iced coffee

They're calling it a "polar vortex", which sounds more like a new type of ice cream than the current weather. While it is nothing like the images being shown on the news for the MidWest, the temperature in Cambridge this morning is around 11F (about -12C) and the windchill (a really mean NorthEaster) is bringing the 'Real Feel' down to -16F (-26C). However, the schools are open, the roads are passable, and two cyclists passed me on the school run this morning  (which does seem a little keen even by my standards).

The most challenging aspect of the New England winter isn't the temperatures, as much as the length of the season. The first year we were here, there was no real winter: November was bright and sunny, we had a little cold weather in December and January, and spring arrived early in March. That's atypical. Last year, winter lasted a full six months with the first snow fall in November and the final snow dump in April. Even we - bright eyed and enthusiastic little Englanders - were bored of snow by April.

At the start of winter, everyone is excited by snow - especially on weekends, especially if you have children, and especially if you enjoy tobogganing, skating, skiing, or snow-shoeing. We've not been skiing yet - a matter of time and money both being in short supply - but snow means people snow-shoe and Nordic ski around the local golf course, skate on a nearby pond, and toboggan down every slope in Cambridge.

And at the start of winter it doesn't seem too arduous to dig out the front of one's house. In fact, Nathan and I are so enamored by snow that we also dig out our more elderly neighbors on each side of our house. The city places legal responsibility on householders to keep the sidewalks outside their properties free of snow, and a plethora of small local businesses are paid by the council to clear and grit the roads. If you don't keep your sidewalk free of snow, you are fined by the city. If the roads aren't kept relatively free of snow, I suspect that people start to sue the council.

The major challenge for us is keeping the house warm. I'm writing this  now in fingerless gloves, several sweaters (I've been Americanized enough to no longer say 'jumpers') and a hat. I fixed a cup of coffee to drink when I sat down at my desk, but it's already cold (I love iced coffee in summer, but I can't quite face the idea at the moment!) I could turn up the heating, but our oil bill last month cost $800. We keep the thermostat low, but the apartment we live in is part of an old wooden house. Earlier this year, I convinced the landlord to have insulation put into the walls (the previous two years we lived here there was nothing between the external aluminum sidings and internal plaster board walls), but the windows don't comfortably fit into their frames and, at the moment, there is ice on the inside of the glass in most of our rooms. It seems strange that such an extreme climate (in summer, the temperature can peak above 100F) can generate so little interest in insulating and weather-proofing one's property. The city has been advertizing a few funding schemes to support people in better insulating their homes, but there has been little uptake and, despite the lack of insulation, it is normal for people to talk about keeping their thermostats around 70F during the day, 65F at night. We live in an area where people have a ridiculous amount of disposable income, but the wastefulness shocks me.

Of course, we're lucky to have a house, even if it's cold enough to freeze my coffee and make me wear a hat indoors. In Harvard Square, there are a few homeless people who have not managed to secure places at hostels and who continue to sleep rough. Alastair, for example, had a bed in the local Harvard University hostel for two weeks over the Christmas period, but is now back on the streets. It's bearable, he says, as long as you have enough corrugated cardboard between you and the ground and a really good sleeping bag. The girls and I like Alastair: we always stop by for a chat when we're in Harvard, and buy him a bowl of his favorite broccoli and cheddar soup. He says it warms him up far better than a cup of coffee. We take him hand warmers and Iola has decided to save up her pocket money to buy him a new fleece top. Once you're on the streets, there aren't many ways to get your life back on track. The safety net of the welfare state might have increasingly big holes in the UK, but in the US it doesn't really exist at all.

A few days ago, we became very concerned about how Alastair would manage when the weather was so cold that it made the inside of our noses hurt when we breathed. Throughout the day we kept thinking about him sitting there on his cardboard box, hoping that the day would bring him enough money to keep him keeping on. Eventually, I jumped into the car, drove down to Harvard, parked in the bus stop and ran across to Alastair's pitch. It was so cold that my fingers started to hurt before I crossed the road, and I realized that I should have put on a coat before rushing out of the house.

'Alastair!'
'Hello,' he said, raising an eyebrow at my coatlessness.
'It's really cold.' My ability to state the obvious sometimes surprises other people as much as it surprises me.
'Aye.'
'The girls and I.... we were thinking... do you want to come to our house for a bath?'
From the stories I have heard Alastair tell, I know that he has been propositioned in many ways over the years. He used to work as a roadie for a couple of punk bands in the 70s and 80s, and has told me stories that stretch my imagination beyond anything I have read in books. But, despite his many varied experiences, the look on Alastair's face clearly told me he had never before been invited to have a bath by a shivering English woman in the middle of a polar vortex.
'Errr, I'm fine here,' he replied.
A long pause stretched out between us. I wrapped my arms around myself to try and keep the last bit of warmth in my sweater and fidgeted from foot to foot.
'You were in your house thinking about me out here,' he said more quietly.
'It was more the girls really... it's really cold... they were worried about you.'
He gave me one of those smiles which look sad even though they reach the eyes. 'Thank you.'
'You're welcome.' (Iola has taught me to say 'you're welcome' every time someone says thank you).
Alastair coughed lightly. 'It's really cold,' he said, looking at me standing there shivering. 'Go back home and get warm.'

The bright side and the night side.

It has been a struggle to re-adapt to life in Cambridge after our wonderful summer in Vermont. Nathan is working long hours away from home throughout the week, the girls' return to school has brought some problems along with it, and the traffic is unremittingly horrific. Just when I was ready to pack up my bags and move elsewhere however, Cambridge reminded me of all its best qualities.

As part of the 'Play Me, I'm Yours' initiative, 75 pianos have been set up around the Cambridge and Boston area and the weather has been perfect for a little al fresco busking on the way to and from school. It's a joy to have fragments of piano music drifting down the street and I love the elements of surprise in what people elect to play: at the weekend I saw a teenager with bright purple hair perform an incredible Bach piece while an elderly lady in Harvard Square bashed out a great bit of honky-tonk to the whoops of admiration from her friends.

This weekend was also the New England Americana Festival in Harvard Square. The timing was perfect: Iola had a sleepover with a friend (apparently, first is worst, second is best, third is the one with the hairy chest... and so, Iola solemnly announced beforehand, this would be her friend's best sleepover ever whereas it would have a hairy chest for her!). Maya is old enough to come out with us in the evening, so we all headed out to Club Passim. It was a wonderfully eclectic mix of ukuleles, banjos and the amazing Roy Sludge (we've been singing 'Back the Truck Up' ever since!)

On Saturday, Maya took part in a cook-off competition - part of the City Sprouts scheme of which she had been an intern through the summer. Again, the weather was perfect, a local band were playing music, and local dignitaries evaluated the cooking. Cambridge is a great place to be a child: these kind of events seem to always be well-attended, the judges took their jobs seriously, and every child had something to celebrate (although, philosophically, I have some concerns that the children here have no opportunity to experience even minor defeats).

Saturday night was a revelation for me. For the past thirty years I have worn contact lenses. They give me a good quality of sight during the day but my night vision has never been fantastic. Two weeks ago, I was fitted for new contact lenses. Technology changes: three decades ago, my lenses were tiny convex circles of glass. After a couple of years, my eyes became too dry to wear these, so three tiny holes were drilled into each lens to enable greater oxygenation of my cornea. A few years later, I moved into gas-permeable lenses which allow some exchange of oxygen to the surface of the eye but also mould the cornea to their shape. This month, an optician measured the topography of my eye and fitted me with lenses which have the same rate of oxygen-exchange as the naked eye. My optician (think Woody Allen with more hair) was unremittingly enthusiastic about the potential of these lenses: I would see better, feel better, have greater comfort levels... However, it has been agony as my poor corneas have struggled to adapt to the new lenses and I began to believe that I was just too old and set in my ways to benefit from any more new technologies. As much as my optician bounced around the room with his relentless enthusiasm and waggly eyebrows, I no longer believed a word he said.

And then I went out in the dark.

I have always assumed that night-time has the opacity of mist. It doesn't - and that probably comes as no surprise to anyone reading this, because it was certainly of no surprise to poor Nathan who spent Saturday night being the audience to my wonder:
'Nathan, I can see the shapes of the cars behind their headlights! The buildings have edges! The lights don't have blurred halos around them! People have faces!!!'
The plan had been to walk over the river into Boston and enjoy a quiet drink in one of the pubs in Beacon Hill. In the end, we just walked and walked and walked. I was ecstatic about everything I could see and Nathan looking longingly into the windows of the bars and the restaurants we walked past. I know he was looking longingly, because I could see his face!

Cowgirl up, princess!

We are fortunate to have wonderful neighbors, both in Cambridge, MA and in our new shack-in-the-woods in Vermont. In Cambridge, Maya takes cake-fuelled Mandarin lessons with our Chinese neighbors who supply me with exquisite teas and feed Ed the cat a series of delicacies; while Iola sits on Lollipop (the Cambridgian dog who lives on the other side) and takes the girl-across-the-road's bunnies on walks to the park. In Vermont, Iola runs wild with Grace, our neighbor's daughter, while Maya tells Raylene, our 'Vermont Nana', all about Cambridge and England (both equally foreign and glamorous in Raylene's mind).

It takes about two and a half hours to drive from Cambridge to Vermont, but they are worlds apart. Cambridge is a pocket of well-mannered liberal intelligentsia: morning conversations at the local dog park might range from discussions about astrophysics and neural pathways through to the advantages of linen bedsheets over starched cotton. Cambridge prides itself upon being 'the most opinionated zip code in America': I recently had a large bite on my arm and I was offered a plethora of opinions and advice from members of the dog-walking community, friends and neighbors. It was a poisonous spider, an earwig or a nasty mosquito. I should go to the pharmacy, I should go to my primary care provider, I should go to the accident and emergency room. I should take Advil (with plain yoghurt so that it didn't upset my stomach), anti-histamine, a herbal tincture; I should dress it with a steroid cream, leave it to breathe, cover it in tea tree oil.

The Cambridge day is always busy: rush hour starts before 7am and there seems to be a designated time for every activity. The passing months are dominated by elections, with ever-changing brightly colored bill boards in the majority of gardens, car bumpers adorned with political slogans, and canvassers urging people to vote. (I am still not familiar enough with American politics to fully comprehend the diversity of elections, but there seem to have been at least five this year). Cambridge abounds with well-dressed gray haired ladies leaning their bicycles against railings and making complicated coffee orders (half de-caf - single shot - soy latte); polished tanned men in casual clothing and expensive shoes discussing important things in very loud voices; children hurrying away from the school gates towards their soccer practice, (ice) hockey practice, softball and baseball and basketball practice; piano practice and choir. People here build complex, busy, achievement-filled lives. At the school gates, parents talk about the different savings schemes they have set up for their children's college expenses (in most cases, these funds were established before the children were conceived) and thoroughly assess the relative merits of the $2000 a term cello teacher over her slightly cheaper counterpart. The recession, which is still visible in some parts of the country, didn't even come close to touching this place: the average three bedroom condo sells for three-quarters of a million dollars and the property market is so buoyant that realtors rarely advertise properties. (There is, of course, a very real artery of poverty running through Cambridge - and I have discussed this in previous blogs - and many of the wealthy people we meet are, quietly and discretely, benefactors of art galleries and museums and charities, but poverty tends to be neither seen nor heard on the tree-lined streets of our immediate neighborhood).

Vermont runs to a different schedule and a different accounting system. Take George, for example. In May, I drove up to Vermont from Cambridge to discuss the possibility of sinking a well into our land with George; George drove over from the next town. I arrived on time, he was several hours late. In Cambridge, I would have been annoyed (we Cambridgians don't have time enough to wait around for tardy well-diggers), but in Vermont... well, I sat on the porch and listened to the silence and watched the shadows shorten and all seemed well with the world. When George arrived, we drank coffee together and talked about the view; he told me tales about a well he had dug for a strange eccentric who lived in a castellated property filled with guns, we talked about his father who had started his business, we talked about Vermont and we talked about my own roots in North Lincolnshire. It was one of those long, rambling conversations which make life richer, whose words stay at the front of your mind for days afterwards. We hoped to get the well sunk before we spent the summer at the cabin, but George's schedule is dependent upon the weather. His business only works in summer: during mud season, there is the danger that his rig might topple or sink; in winter the ground is too hard to drill. That means in summer, George works extraordinarily hard whenever the weather will allow. The well was finally sunk on the second-to-last day of our holiday. The next morning, Nathan and I woke at 5am: George was outside, ready to start his day's work. George's clock is set to Vermont time.

Yesterday, in Cambridge, our handyman - let's call him H - paid an impromptu visit. The landlady pays H a monthly retainer to maintain the property (and I use the verb 'maintain' in its very loosest possible sense). I see less of H than I used to: he has taught me the valuable lesson that it is far easier to fix things myself than to expend energy trying to persuade him to do anything for me. Also, the dog always tries to eat him.
Yesterday, H was very cross. He likes to keep a close eye on the property: not so much in terms of repairs, but in terms of making sure no-one else has been paid to do the things that he hasn't.
'Did you move the humidifier in the basement?' he asked. Most Americans begin their conversations by asking how you are, but H was in a straight-talking kind of a mood.
'No,' I answered, grabbing hold of Truff who had managed to get his mouth into dangerous proximity with H's leg.
There was a long moment's silence: an interrogative kind of silence filled only with the low, hungry rumblings our our little pet mongrel.
'Maybe,' I said tentatively, 'The electrician moved it.'
'You had an electrician?' Previously, our landlady has paid H extra to do the electrical work on our property. H is not a tall man, but he grew several inches in his outrage. The dog licked his lips.
'We had to, the inspection found bell-and-tube wiring from the 1920s feeding some of the plugs.'
'Plugs? By plugs, you mean electrical outlets.' He nodded wisely, evidently pleased by his linguistic dexterity. 'I have some bell-and-tube wiring in my house too.'
'It's illegal.'
'Illegal? By illegal, you mean there isn't an earth.' He nodded again.
'It's not safe.'
'You mean it's old-fashioned.'
The problem with English-American bilingualism is that even the simplest words can be wilfully misconstrued. I suspect H would have liked the conversation to continue for several more hours, but I decided it was a good time for a dog walk.

In Vermont, a neighbor, Matt, has been doing most of our handiwork for us. Like most of the Vermonters in that area, he has several different jobs. He has built up a large timber yard from scratch and sells firewood to residents within a fifty mile radius. Since the recession crippled Vermont, people haven't been buying as much firewood; some people can no longer afford sufficient firewood to keep them warm through the winter. Firewood is traditionally sold by the cord, which is meant to be 128 cubic feet. Some of the local families who have been struggling to make ends meet have found that Matt's cords mysteriously expand in direct relation to their need. Matt didn't tell us this - but word-of-mouth travels rapidly through this area. I imagine him as a kind of reverse Grinch: sneaking a bit of extra here and there for the cold days, the winter days, the holidays.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Matt's firewood business hasn't been as profitable these past few years, and he also works building roads and doing local handyman work. Over the past couple of months, he's made our lane driveable, prepared the site for the well-digging, mended the outside staircase. We always look forward to his visits. He pulls up in his blue truck and his daughter hares out to run wild with Iola (they catch frogs and put them in bottles, pick up snakes and salamanders, avoid the poisonous hairy caterpillars, investigate every rotting log, chalk patterns on the cave walls). He has an enormous German Shepherd dog who follows the girls around the property, rounding them up if it thinks they've strayed too far.

Matt takes his time finding a way into any conversation. His hands tend to be shoved deep in his pockets, his smile is as quiet as the sun behind the cloud of his beard.
'I did this... last time I was here,' he says - and points out some detail or other. The patched-up repair to the chimney ('I thought it would get a better draw for you'), the extra joist on the stairs ('I just wanted your girls to be safe'), the tree that he chopped down to make space for George's crew ('I thought it would be easier for them to have a bit more clearance for the rig').
Last time we saw him, we were stacking the firewood he had delivered for us. He showed us how to stack it the Vermont way and then, worried that the stack we had already made might fall, restacked it all, working happily alongside us while the girls' voices drifted through the trees.
He had a bandage wrapped around the index finger on his left hand.
'What happened?' I asked.
He smiled sheepishly. 'I was putting a new roof on my stepfather's house yesterday and the ladder slipped. A piece of tin sliced the top off my finger.'
'The top?'
'Yeah,' his smile became more rueful, 'straight through the bone.'
'Did they sew it back on?' I asked.
He didn't seem to hear my question, but looked at his finger. 'It was kinda difficult working with the finger stuck out at an angle - you wouldn't think one finger would cause so much trouble. If I caught it on anything then - oooh.' He grimaced his face and pursed his lips.
'Does it feel better now?' I said.
He grinned again, still not answering. 'There was so much blood, I wrote my name with it, right there on that roof.' He laughed loudly, enjoying the ridiculousness of it all and it dawned on me that he hadn't gone to A&E, that he hadn't, in fact, even stopped working.
Matt's story moved on to another incident when he chopped a finger off. He described a cold morning (in Vermont, cold normally means below 0F), how he was chopping timber, how his hands were so cold that he made a mistake and the blade sliced straight across the base of his little finger.
'I took my glove off and there was no finger there and I just kind of panicked.'
We nodded in sympathy.
'So I put my glove back on and kept working until I'd finished the load of wood I was cutting.'
'You kept working?'
'I finished the job and then went inside and had a soda. I think the sugar helped calm me down. I took my glove off again. Still no finger.'
'Did you call an ambulance?'
'Well, the sugar helped calm me down so I drove myself over to the doctors and he said he could sew it back on. I've no feeling there though.'
He flicked his little finger and grinned, 'See, no feeling. Nothing.'
As he left, we repeated our invitation for him to visit us in Cambridge. He looked at me with the same baffled gaze that H gave me when I talked about the safety of our electrical circuits. 'Cambridge? By Cambridge, you mean all those people, all that traffic, all that talking.' He shook his head. 'I like it here.'

Vermont's influence colors our Cambridge lives. The girls seems easier, more relaxed; Nathan's beard flourished during those weeks in the summer and we all mourned its shaving; I ignored all the opinions that Cambridge gave me, and just ignored the bite on my arm until it went away by itself, and we found a new mantra on a fairground ringside in Vermont:

'Blood clots, sweat dries, bones heal. Cowgirl up, princess!'

A Day in the Book Fridge

Today was Rosh Hashanah (L'Shanah Tovah to all), which meant that the Cambridge Public Schools were closed for a day's holiday. It's okay to have a day's holiday two days after the start of the new school year, but I was feeling slightly aggrieved by the allocation of only one day's holiday a year to each religion. The Muslim and Jewish children have really happy holidays to celebrate, but Christianity has been given Good Friday. Good Friday?! Couldn't we at least have claimed Christmas, for God's sake? It won't be long, I am sure, before Hallmark develop a line of cards wishing friends and relatives a 'Happy Good Friday'. Perhaps they'll be adorned with brightly colored graphics of a smiling Christ strolling through the streets of Jerusalem with a cross perched lightly on his back....

Anyhow, now is not my time to reconcile my irritation: this blog is about Iola's day out in Boston, otherwise known as how to spend a day in a book fridge.

At 8.30 this morning (and it is important, here in America, not to say half-past eight as no-one knows what you mean), Iola and me joined the other sardines on the red line into Boston. At the first Boston stop, we leapt out of our subway carriage and collected one of Iola's best friends.
'Let's go to the library,' I said.
'I don't want to go to the library,' A replied.
'It's a nice library,' I said in my most coaxing of voices despite being already aggrieved by Cambridge Public School's religious policy.
'I want to stay at home with my cat.'
It's a nice cat - all fluffy and black; I would have quite liked to have stayed at home with my coffee.
'We could find books about cats,' I said wheedingly, wishing I had poured a second cup of that coffee before facing a truculent seven-year old.
'I don't like libraries,' said A. 'They're lame.'

It's probably perfectly reasonable to not like libraries when you are seven years old. The books that you are able to read by yourself are always much shinier in the book shop, they smell nicer and all the book shops in Cambridge let you eat cake while you are looking at them. Libraries have a lot to compete against - shabby books that another child has already read, a fierce librarian telling you to keep the noise down, a complete absence of anything eatable (unless you are a toddler who might gnaw discretely at the edges of each page). So, how to convince a 7 year old that a library would be good? How to rescue Rosh Hashanah before A dissolved into tears and A's mother had to take the  morning off work so that we could sit on her sofa all day with the cat?
'It's not really a library,' I said.
A looked at me with profound suspicion. 'Really?'
I looked at Iola and Iola smiled back at me before turning to A: 'It's a book fridge.'
'A book fridge?' It never fails to amaze me how much suspicion a seven year old can carry in their voice.
'Yes,' me and Iola vigorously nodded. 'With Harry Potter,' added Iola.
'Books about Harry Potter?' asked A.
'Ooooh no,' Iola said with an even bigger smile, 'With rooms out of Harry Potter.'
We were on our way.

Entering the Boston Athenaeum is breath-taking: there are long galleried rooms of books, there are high vaulted ceilings, there are huge arched windows looking out onto the graveyards which litter the center of Boston (it might seem unusual to an outside that this city centers around graveyards rather than financial institutions, but the costumed guides which hurry tourists through America's early history probably generate as much wealth here as banks and insurance companies put together. We'll leave the skyscraping corporate buildings to Houston, TX and London, England; in Boston we have dead bodies). Entering the Boston Athenaeum is particularly breath-taking when you are part of a cobbled together mission of Harry-Potter-meets-Spy-Kids-while-travelling-in-time.

Looking for clues

Harry Potter on the rooftops

Books

Moving bookshelves

Creeping unnoticed with stealth and silence

I would like to offer my most humble apologies to any readers we disturbed while shuffling silently on our bellies along the glass floors above the reading rooms; I can give the greatest assurances that no books were harmed while we searched the pages of early volumes for clues to our mission; and I would like to stress that only a couple of fingers were squashed as we moved the book shelves using the amazing cog system. I would also like to offer my thanks to the janitor who turned a blind eye to our game and the librarians who were willing to play along.

And the outcome? Iola was utterly happy and fell asleep before 6.30 pm (not half-past six, remember); the children had an insight into book preservation, demonstrated that they were able to be absolutely silent; we had a fascinating discussion over which books the girls would like to have preserved for their own grandchildren; and, at the end of the outing, A begged me to take her to the library next time we go. Libraries aren't lame anymore apparently, they're cool ('of course,' Iola retorted, 'They're book fridges.')

Destination 4: Gloucester, MA

I'm virtually out of words at the moment. My eyes are square, my mind is empty, and my book is two chapters short of the ending. But all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, so...

When the sun shines what better to do than bobbing about in a boat? Here's an assortment of photos for the grandparents, the wider family and every one else who is interested.

Playing cat's cradle on board the MV Lady Jillian.
The ship's captain showed the girls lots of magic tricks, but they couldn't make their fingers disappear no matter how they tried. 

Where Iola goes, the Truff follows...

... but he hasn't learnt to climb trees yet. 

This one is for Auntie Lucy... we found a ship with your name on it. 

Maya smiles all day long...

... while Nathan goes for a more contemplative approach.

See what happens when I try to get on camera?

Fire fighters

It is one of the simplest things to understand about living in America: fire fighters are heroes. There might be television shows and books galore about corrupt cops and disillusioned doctors, but I can't think of anyone who'd try to do the same with American firefighters. They're the good guys, period.

In England, fire fighters have been through a lot: cost-cutting, changes in employment law, and the fact that most of their call-outs now relate to traffic accidents. I know this because I had a very long conversation two years ago with a firefighter who was showcasing his equipment in Newcastle's Eldon Square. I felt sorry for him - no-one else seemed to want to talk to him because the next stall was giving away free food.

In Massachusetts, firefighters attend every emergency call. According to the City of Cambridge Fire Department:

The mission of the Cambridge Fire Department is to protect the lives and property of the people of Cambridge from fires, natural and man-made disasters, and hazardous materials incidents; to save lives by providing emergency medical services; to prevent fires through prevention and education programs; to provide defense against terrorist attacks.

It's possible to make that description even simpler: if something bad happens in Cambridge, you call 911, and a fire truck appears with firefighters who will make everything better. When Iola had her bicycle accident last year, a fire truck was the first thing that arrived at the scene and one of the fire fighters sorted out emergency childcare for Maya, the best hospital for Iola to attend, and a dog walker for Truff (who was a new puppy), while his colleagues cut the bike away from Iola's trapped foot with industrial metal cutters.

Every local neighborhood has its own fire station: this one is ours. It's a few hundred yards from our home - Taylor Square, Neighborhood 8. The building has been there for more than a hundred years. Nowadays, it houses two fire engines and an assortment of fire-fighting and emergency-related equipment; in the past it probably had horses and horse-drawn wagons. Children are always welcome. Iola likes to visit and climb up into the cab of the fire trucks and look at all the equipment. In the olden days, children probably stopped by to feed the horses. They give away bags of candy at Hallowe'en.

As heroes, fire fighters here aren't surrounded by discourses about cost-cutting or strikes or trade unions. The general sense seems to be that they are an incorruptible, essential public service and their level of funding reflects the value of the work that they do. Certainly, becoming a fire fighter is a popular career choice. There are annual recruitments which are advertised across the city. It's one of the most competitive job recruitment processes (and that in a city which houses Harvard, MIT and many world-leading technology and biotech companies).

A few months ago, some of the local firefighters gave a talk at Iola's taekwondo class. They showed the children the equipment they wear. It weighs more than 30lbs. Today, I had a conversation with a local firefighter who also undertook training at Boston airport. The emergency crews there have special state-of-the-art equipment which weighs virtually nothing and protects the body from almost unimaginable temperatures. 'It's amazing stuff,' he said and described how kerosene had been ignited, the flames covered him and he was unhurt except for a burn on his forehead where he hadn't secured his helmet properly. 'Not a serious burn,' he was keen to point out, 'not a third degree one. Probably just first degree.'

It was the same kind of material which the Arizona fire shelters were made from. The fire shelters which were meant to be almost fail safe in the event of a fire-fighting emergency. The material is amazing, almost fail-safe, ground-breaking... the kind of material you would expect a twenty-first century fire-fighter to wear, the kind of material you would expect a superhero to wear.

And it's easy to think the firefighters are superheroes: they turn up in any emergency and make everything better. But that's my naivete. They're not really super-heroes, are they? Super-heroes don't die.

Running, 5k, Title 1X, and Happiness...

Today, Sunday June 30th, I ran my first 5k... It was named "Take the Lake" and took place at Lake Quannapowitt in Wakefield MA.

I ran this race with a running club (Title 1X) which I have been participating in for 8 weeks... This, as Stacey (our main coach) told us, "is our race. It is the race we have been working towards. Now, lets take the lake!" 

We (me and the rest of Title 1X) walked to the start... We had warmed up already and we were ready to start to run... But it was a big race; there must have been over 1,000 people; and we were near the back. So we count down "5, 4, 3, 2, 1" and we do not take off... We stand in place. Then we start a slow jog. Or, we started a slow jog and then we remembered that children are small, adults aren't crammed together that much, and we can dart between them, just to go ahead. 

Then we started to run. Not a jog, a run, because we were there to run, right? That was when we started...

Ahh, I love running. The freedom, the way of escaping the world, and the thrill of it. It certainly is exciting to weave through people, to overtake runners slower then you, and also to know that you have a pace and they will fall behind you... So we wove in and out. Then we found our pace. My pace was just over 6 mph. That's good. That's steady...

A coach caught up to me. She is called Jesse... We started up a conversation. I kept my pace and she ran along with me. Once in a while we would stop talking. Each time we did I would check my breathing was steady and I would "listen" to my body as we had been taught. I was running well. I was enjoying it, sorry, no, I was loving it.

I would just like to tell you a bit about what we saw as we were running. I look ahead when running, I don't look behind. Wakefield seems like a quaint little town, stuck in two different times. First of you have the rows of bungalows and curving roads... Those seem pretty modern. Then you have old, brick churches, and lush greenery around the lake. This has not purposely been preserved, it was the people who don't litter, and are respectful of the environment. It seemed a very modest town.

The town was missing one thing, music. I love music! I want music to always play. I wanted music on that run. I wouldn't have cared how it was played, but I wanted music! My longing for a bit of music meant I overtook even more people. I wanted to hear what they were playing.

Then I was half way... Water and walking break... Only half of the water I ended up drinking, the rest I threw on myself. Then (surprisingly enough) we littered!!! We got to throw are cups on the ground and keep walking/running. So that was the end of our ten-second water and walking break. Lets keep running!

Then we were lead onto a dirt path... It was a bit downhill, more chance of overtaking! I slowed down a bit but kept on running.

After around 5 mins we came to the 2 mile marker. More water, no walking. I then realized that drinking water while running doesn't quite work out... So I poured the rest on me and threw the cup down. 

"I am ti-red, I am ti-red" was what my legs were telling me. Instead of listening to them I asked Jesse to talk. Jesse talked and I kept moving. "I can do this, I can do this." I knew I could so I slowed down and kept moving.

200 yards to go. We do double that for warm up so I sprint. When I say sprint I don't mean "go a bit faster", I mean "how many people can you overtake." Jesse said "lets overtake her, nice and slowly..." I zoomed ahead.

Then I remembered I was tired and 200 yards isn't as short as it sounds. Then I saw mummy. She was cheering and I sprinted again. I didn't care how tired I was, I was happy...

So I did it, I completed my first 5k under 30 mins with a little help from my friends (and mummy)!

Destination 3: Gifford Woods State Park

We arrived in America carrying the usual stereotypes, including the well worn assumption that everything in the United States is BIGGER. Generally, I'm wary of stereotypes: in my experience, stereotypes tend to humiliate the person who holds them by revealing how little they actually know about the world. In Cambridge, MA, the notion that things are 'bigger' in the US isn't very accurate:  the average person is no bigger than anywhere else (although I have seen some sizeable biceps being flexed at my gym); the houses are generally smaller because land is so expensive; and the amount of SUVs and gas guzzling people carriers is balanced by an equivalent amount of Toyota Prius and little city toy cars. So, if you had asked me on Friday whether I felt that things tended to be bigger in the US, I would have put my head onto one side and thought for a few moments.... maybe the muffins? But no, not generally.

Then we went camping.

We've camped a fair bit in the UK. Pre-children we toured Scotland with a dog who looked liked the Truff, a small tent, a couple of sleeping bags, and rucksacks which jangled with the pots and pans hanging on the outside. The overall effect was more hobo than boy scout, but we were fairly self-sufficient, carrying what we needed on our backs. Our only moment of true envy was when two German bikers turned up on huge Harleys and unpacked a tiny gas stove and an espresso maker. The smell of their coffee mixed with the spray coming off Thurso Bay still haunts me, and I wish that I had had the courage to speak to them (and then cadge a coffee). After children, we camped a lot in our little red VW van and, when we'd grown too big to all fit into the van, we migrated to an awning fastened to its side. I love camping: the setting up a temporary home, the connection with the night when you are somewhere without electricity, the early morning first-light coffee when the birds are practicing the opening bars of their dawn chorus. I also love the people watching because camping in the UK (unless you are wild camping) tends to pack you cheek to jowl with other campers.

This weekend we went camping in Gifford Woods State Park. We have a new tent (which is enormous), and new sleeping bags (which are huge - for the first time in his life, long tall Nathan has a sleeping bag which covers him from his chin to his toes). The campsite we chose seemed typical of most campsites in the State Parks - about 30 pitches, a couple of toilet blocks, and signposted walking trails. This was camping on a whole new scale and our jaws dropped when we were given an entire corner of the forest to ourselves. Everything seemed super-sized to our English eyes: the trees, the amount of firewood we were give to burn in our enormous campfire (an unexpected boon when we realized that the tiny camping stove we had bought didn't work), the warning signs about hiding our food from the forest's black bears.

The next morning we followed one of the signposted trails. Vermont is skiing country and the route was also part of the 2,200 mile Appalachian Trail. The gradient took us almost vertically up a mountainside. The views were stunning (but if you look closely at Maya's face, you'll see that her vertigo is alive and well!)

The girls and the dog proved themselves to be brilliant hikers. The girls were rewarded by suitably American-sized ice-creams on the drive home, the dog slept for fifteen hours straight.

Meanwhile, I needed a bit of time to process the enormity of it all and attended a Quaker meeting that evening. I arrived at the Friends' meeting house with only a few minutes to spare. There was only one other person in the meeting house. This is unusual for a meeting, but the only criteria for a Quaker meeting is where two or more people come together for prayer and worship. The thing I love about Quakers is the absence of ceremony: the meeting starts when people arrive and sit down, and the hour might pass without anyone saying anything or might be interspersed by someone feeling moved to say something. Normally these words are quite spiritual, and are referred to as a 'ministry'. After about fifteen minutes, the only other person in the meeting house spoke.
"Do you think we're in the right place?" he asked. "I'm Mike. I've not been here before."
It took me a few minutes to process his words - my mind was elsewhere, and I wondered for a moment of two whether he was speaking metaphysically, offering a ministry reflecting upon our place in the world perhaps, or literally. He kept looking at me as though expecting me to say something, so I decided he probably wasn't speaking to God.
"I've not been to this meeting either," I said.
"I think we should be somewhere else."
I often have that feeling, but felt that now wasn't a good time to tell him this. I offered a non-committal 'oh' and avoided the temptation to say 'let's stay here, this silence feels good.' Now that we had spoken to one another, it would have felt uncomfortably intimate to sit alone for the rest of the hour in a Meeting Hall where we shouldn't have been.

We found the other meeting together - it was in a different room within the Meeting Hall. About twenty people looked up from their meditations as we apologetically entered the room. There was a lot of fidgeting after we took our seats: we had disturbed the silence. Afterwards, I was invited to stay for tea but, seeking solitude, I cycled slowly home. I've left a little bit of my heart on a mountain side in Vermont and I'm looking forward to my next opportunity to collect it.

Summer 2013: Porchfest

Although summer officially begins on Memorial Day (Americans liking to keep their calendars simple), the warm weather brings a plethora of festivals and celebrations to our area. There are disadvantages to living in a densely populated area - the traffic and the difficulty in escaping to the countryside, for example - but there is a lot to be said for being able to walk to at least two different festivals every weekend from May through to the middle of October.

Today, we faced the difficult decision of attending EarthFest or PorchFest. EarthFest is sponsored by Whole Foods... think live music on a big stage, free food, a range of stalls, and that sunshine-y festival vibe on the banks of the River Charles. Nice.

PorchFest is a little bit different. It's not sponsored by a big organization, it doesn't sell anything, it doesn't have any stalls, and it doesn't have a single venue. PorchFest takes places on people's porches all over Somerville (the neighboring city whose city limits jut up against Cambridge just a 10 minute walk from our house). Musicians from all over the United States set themselves up on people's porches and play music. There were about 100 porch-venues today - we only saw a handful, but we'll be back next year. Here's a visual guide for one of the strangest, eccentric, and most enjoyable festivals we've ever done.

Step 1: Fill up with food at a favorite local diner
(Baby back ribs, collard greens, cornbread and pulled pork at Redbones Barbeque). 

Step 2: Find a porch.
(Hornography - trumpets, trombones, saxophones of all shapes and sizes, a melodica and a woman playing a triangle. Their set included the theme tune to the A Team, a medley of Inspector Gadget and the Pink Panther, and a few A-ha covers).

Step 3: Find another porch.
(The Hot Porch Mamas - intricate melodies, wistful country tunes, and a fast few jigs on the fiddle. Awesome music. We knew they were good and had this confirmed by eavesdropping on the excited recording agents who were sitting in deck chairs next to us).

Step 4: Take a break and climb a tree. Just because...

Step 5: Have a parenting dilemma.
(Amazing funk band, fantastic front man, but - ahem - how to explain to Iola not to copy the crotch-grabbing bit of the dancing. Maya blushed beetroot and said it was a bit 'too sexy').

Step 6: Find some local art (in this case, the painted pet shop) and have a photo session.

Step 7: Repeat step 3... (Appalachian country band with beautiful melodies between an old guy and a teenaged girl. Magic).

Step 8: Abandon the map that you've been using from your mobile phone, and just follow your ears
(I have never heard such happy musicians - the singer was still at High School, sang like an angel and was quite possibly the happiest person I've ever met).

Step 9: Revisit previous blog on popularity (this band drew a crowd because they're hip and popular. They are also unremittingly miserable. Think Leonard Cohen without the music or the poetry of his lyrics). 

Step 10: Head for home with smiles on your face and your toes tapping to the tunes that you've heard. 

We'll be back next year - one of the best festivals ever. If anyone wants to join us - it's the week before summer starts....