If you're going to San Francisco be sure to take a camera everywhere

For the number of folk to whom I have waxed lyrical about our trip to San Francisco I have been pretty tardy about putting up this blog. Sorry. This has in part been due to the fact that we came back absolutely shattered and because we took that many pictures and had that much fun that it is difficult to know what to tell you about without potentially boring you rigid.
We resided at the Monarch Hotel, Geary St. It is a European style hotel which has recently been refurbished. P may not have booked it if he had seen the neighbourhood first, it was truly difficult resisting the adult entertainment centre opposite especially when it was just $7 an hour to watch the lap dancers from your own private room. Not to mention our other Mecca to adult pleasures.


I did consult some friends as to whether I should put this photo up and for those of you disapproving I obviously asked the ones with bad taste. Other than the area the hotel was clean but there was no coffee in the room and the breakfast is additional.
Close by there was an Edinburgh Castle pub but trust me, not even the lad from Fife Mr Hynd would venture in there, the password was a grunt, plus a flash of your scar and gold teeth.
SF is fresh, cool and still v hippy but with an intelligent speed so there is not a huge amount of jesting material, occasionally we found our own….
The second one I thought was a new branch of the Yorkshire Bank..



There are great views at every turn. Central SF from Russian Hill, view from the top of Coit Tower (Russian Hill) which was followed by another hair-raising ride down Telegraph Hill, Phil in Alamo Square with the Victorian painted ladies and SF city view in the background, Bay Bridge and Pier 29.







Here I got a sudden rush of work sickness so got a photograph which I may use as a screensaver to remind me of all my work colleagues. The publicity says that you are extremely noisy (understatement of the year) and smelly (possibly after conferences).

The highlights were…Cycling over Golden Gate Bridge to…..



Sausalito, which is Italian Alps in flavour

And Tiberon where Sharon Stone apparently has a property, the rest of the residents looked that old they would make great props at US Halloween party…It was like Toy Town or Camberwick Green…not a spot of muck on the Fire Engine or Patrol just shiny shiny bells and paintwork.

You then catch the ferry back having cycled lots of kilometres and the view of SF is spectacular.

We cycled the bridge twice, second time in an attempt to get to Muir Woods..We stopped two thirds of the way up the photo is halfway looking out over the valley (has to be said said in Welsh accent). We freewheeled all the way back down and I didn’t realize just how high we had climbed despite what my legs and lungs had been telling me for the previous hour. It was exhilarating especially as being barmy English we didn’t wear hats. By the way I cannot exthol enough the benefits of a wide, gel seat.

We did culture too, going to the DeYoung Museum of Art in Golden Gate which has a top floor 360 degree viewing lobby which is just spectacular. I also tried to get with the artistic flow.





Then we went sporty and played a round of pitch and putt. It had been 30 years since I had wielded a golf stick. Last time was Sewerby Park near Bridlington, with my dear old dad who managed to slice a ball into the flamingo compound of the children’s zoo. I also followed him in true style hitting a branch of a tree 8ft above the point I struck the ball. Raargh I was as awesome as Tiger Woods and as effective as “Frosties” Tony the Tiger…It was the only branch on that side of the tree….accuracy was all. The best bit was watching everybody duck as the ball went into free fall pin ball machine mode between club, branch, tree and floor. I must have hit the ball hard as even Phil ducked and he was 50 yards ahead on the other side of the freeway doing a David Bellamy impersonation.
And so to the Trolley buses, they are wonderful to ride and the trolley men are as sarky as any New York taxi driver.


The other great tourist attraction was Alcatraz.. I picked the evening tour on our last night so we would see it partly in daylight and then once inside dusk would be coming in. What a sense of hopelessness there must have been for many men.




And apart from our burgeoning property acquisition business,




I momentarily considered branching out into this profession, then remembered all the POOH
and was worried I might have to deal with owners who prefer their pedigree to go about in luxury only.

Laugh we nearly crashed our bikes …xx

Glen Campbell - one night only but not after 10 pm

You know Wichita is not far from us and I haven’t seen any linemen wearing the appropriate helmet and tool belt up telephone poles tapping housewives wires, just official looking guys in dusty black suits …..Where is this going you could justifiably ask…. Galveston actually 309 miles south on the Gulf of Mexico. Not content to claim U2 as their own the US also has Greece, Paris and Palestine within it’s remit, honest we went through them all. Anyway we went there to buy another gaff

and ended up inside this for a beer.

It also has a bijou restroom I didn’t realize how bijou ‘til I sat down

and could still see the tattooed ladies applying ……lippy….I think. P had just had a brief encounter with them as they strutted onto the deck of Woody’s, 15 year old daughters with attitude is one thing, mature ladies with the big A, and I know what you are thinking……. 6 ft of rugby player does fit under a bar stool when the need arises.
When we arrived I thought we were looking at the North Sea…Bridlington but at 86 degrees.

Swimming in the sea, isn’t it lovely when once you have got out you don’t have to don a gum shield to stop you biting through your tongue as you judder under your towel and risk poking your eyes out with the goosebumps which burgeon on your whitey purpley arms. Last day the wind whipped up apparently there was a hurricane 100 miles out to sea.

Never have my legs stung so much from the sand blowing up the beach, sure there is a depilatory/body wrap patent lurking in there somewhere – Dead Sea mineral treatments… pah for wimps… And so to the educational side – Galveston is an island with bayous. It was almost wiped out by a hurricane 107 years ago when it was dominated by a small number of rich families all of whom to their credit helped rebuild the island with true Victorian patrionist zeal.

See the historic sector where we added to our expanding property empire (I need a rest from the beach house balcony sometimes) and also our mosquito bites. We also ate in the historic neighbourhood – and listened to bands playing in the bar…I still have not conquered my urge to burst into “Oh Lord won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz” and I always have to finish it because there is a great hound dog kind of yowl halfway through…very cathartic.
The bands brings me to another contradiction about my hosts that challenges me ….2 tons of metal at fast speeds in the hands of 16 year olds, “Guns are Us” and yet the latest we have seen a band play is 10 pm and the Elvis impersonator of all time (well he would be wouldn’t he) is performing at the Glass Cactus starting at the unholy hour of... 5 pm…does everyone have to go in for “us teas” before 10.30 or else they turn into pumpkins? It was surreal though being in the US sitting outside a Greek restaurant on the Gulf of Mexico eating Baklava, drinking Turkish Coffee listening to Elton John haing just been in the antique centre where there was a 1970’s melamine tray from the Yorkshire Dales on sale…
On our way back we took in NASA Space centre though I am amazed we got there with such help as shown

Roisin acquired her prize posession of all time ..an astronaut soda (fizzy pop to you) bottle to prove it. I touched a piece of the moon (yes I know I was already touched by it) and we were able to see into the space station and the guys working up there live. P explained the purpose of helium spheres and generally had an engineer’s hypo which culminated in him crashing the space craft a couple of times in the test environment….he claims it was a dodgy gear stick. 6 hours went by without us even noticing.

And finally to Houston…big buildings…We had a great meal in a restaurant in the Montrose district noted for antiques, arty shops etc.. 3 guys sat next to us made Graham Norton and Julian Clary look like Rocky Marciano.. if campness were reflected in shoulder pad size (yes I know that’s Dallas but they weren’t there) they could only enter buildings with garage door access.
And finally to round off to (can you guess)where it is

This was not part of the Galveston road trip.

Roisin and I risked arrest for you to get this shot (Pardon the pun). The Book Repository Museum was very good. Sobbing children of the 60’s and amateur ballistics experts in their Sunday “sports” patterned (fishing rods, footballs, marine wildlife type of thing) shirts and sneakers were a little distracting but the storyboard style display made it easy to absorb. I do have a sneaking envy for those who were teenage/adult in those days only being the literal child of the Sixties.
Look away now if easily scared this last section is me attempting to conquer my fear but instead shattering glass for 200 hundred miles. Fortunately there is no photographic evidence of this. NRH2O water park (NR stands for North Richmond).. A water based roller coaster for which two of you sit in a “dingy” and are pushed off from a very great height..Friends and daughter went before us, recognized the scream half way down and at the bottom witnessed our expulsion with only P’s legs and head on view. My strategy had been to get as low as possible, what a futile exercise that was. After the first drop I was told that was it, the worst is over……lying SOB. The first anyone really saw of me was as I crawled out muttering “Holy S..t”. Never ever ever ever, to the power of 1 million, again. I am still applying cream to my skinned cocchis. I don’t need adrenalin pumping round my system that fast it makes me all unnecessary.
By the way the wee ones have finally flown but not before we got the shot we wanted..

And finally I have to admit Texas does dragonflies and sunsets really well.




And the Wichita Line man is still on the Liiiiiiiiiiine da da da da da da da da
Better still here's the real thing....
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Just him and Me and We are proud to be grandparents.

Thought I’d throw in a Daily Star type headline to attract attention….actually it’s three baby boar swallows nesting in our porch and a baby gecko, stand at ease Heidi, that wandered in from the balcony and almost got hit with a John Grisham. As technical director I was key to the geckos safe removal….lifting my legs off the floor then jumping when it shot under and out from under the TV table etc, giving Phil an animal handling development opportunity gathering it up in a sieve with a paper trapdoor below. Ratifying his suggestion that we don’t leave the balcony door open do we…just in case next time it is a black widow. And talking of bugs I availed myself of the apartment complex bug man service. We went through a phase of being bitten really badly, no cats and dogs about etc but thought for good measure book them.
First question was “Have you seen it” to which I wanted to say “Is it on the trolley, can you point to it” but my stony ground image reared up and stopped me.
“What should I have seen”,
“A bug”,
“No just a feeling, though there has been the odd orange one bout ½ inch in size”.
Snort followed by “That’s a dune bug…..”
“Well should I be worried about them ???? Do they bite?”
“They’re from the outside, they die when they come in.” (Aren’t all bugs from the outside?).
“You got a dawg or a caat?”
“No just a man” Huge sigh…wanders around spraying all the edges with his little portable can and spray.
Conclusion....for the bug man to get excited it has to have appeared on British TV advertising insurance or be able to survive a nuclear explosion and ice age, have large antennae sort of thing and then scuttle and generally disappear when you switch on the light……NOT IN MY KITCHEN SCUSE ME.
Maybe I will experience his job satisfaction from hereonin because we have just had a weekend that was the first 100 degrees weekend and I have managed to make my legs go brown - you beautiful fair skin folk will understand the level of achievement here. I have tried to be responsible in this, building up slowly so 9 weeks not bad I think....Burnt my bum on the side of the sun lounger though and P burned finger ends when he first picked one up that had been left in direct sunlight for about 5 minuteswithout a towelling cover.
This was direct contrast to last week, our first major road trip..we did the bank holiday style weekend away with torrential rain…in San Antonio…allegedly four hours drive away. First picture coming up, found a reason to make an ambitious conversion.

Next two... For me if the boats were less gaudy the River walk would be even prettier.

My girls would be proud of me up the tower in a lift on the outside which was built for the 1968(?) World Fair. P was impressed and wondered if I would have the screaming ab dabs when I felt the darn thing sway..
the earth did move for me but I managed to keep my reaction under wraps.
The Alamo was the other reason for going

and the mustachioed chappy within.
I had hoped to get my big brother a Davy Crockett hat to replace the one our old boxer dog mauled in about 1967 but he and my other brother will have to make do with a mention of being there in spirit in the visitor's book. The quality of tourist products these days...and the fact that my brother's head is not the size it was when he wore short trousers. There were 15 Englishmen in the Alamo and I think 3 Scotsman and a couple of Welshman too...we were impressed.
Had dinner on Friday night in an old brothel come general store known as Liberty’s. Everything was on a slant, bar, walls, ceiling, floors etc. The most cosmopolitan place we have seen yet in Texas. It was also the longest we have been allowed to sit at a dinner table. Saturday night on the River walk was a combination of polite Hull City Centre Friday night rowdiness and traditional Mexican bands serenading diners. The trumpet playing was v melancholic.
Sunday we bought a new gaff in the German district ...
Then the drive home, the last time I gripped the dashboard in such a way was reversing down an almost single track, hairpin, dust road on the Susten Pass in Switzerland this was because the enormous spaghetti fuelled Fiat driver in front of us tried and failed dismally to apply mouth to engine resuscitation to his van which could not carry three of him up a 1 in 3 and so had commenced a reversing death slide, and hell anyways handbrakes are only for turns into parking spaces in the middle of Rome. Photo is a bit blurred to show full extent of cause of white knuckle ride but this went on for 30 minutes.
The photo is not taken at the deepest point as I was trying to tell where the edge of road was while P tried to judge the middle…did you know that fan belts whistle and slip when they get wet and it actaully only takes 6 inches of flowing water to move a 2 ton car (sorry...actually some of you probably do know that now). Like Hull there are counties in Texas awaiting the approval of federal funding to fix the flood damage.
Last one is the sunset over the Trinity River which is next to our apartment.
I had forgotten to mention the magical creatures for me…the fireflies at dusk, can’t capture them on film as shutter speed to slow. But they fill me with the same joy as fireworks..Simple soul I hear you say.
Oh and the HIM AND ME bit of the title…the name of the dentist with whom we have registered. Whilst a reference to the number of people at the practice I think it will be used as the opener when presenting the bill…That’s just $2,000 for the scale and polish. Bye to y'all and have a good conference to those to whom it means anything. xx