Maine – Page 2 – Steve's Blog

The Wedding

Well all the preparation is done, the chapel is decorated, as is the venue for the party afterwards. Its been a couple of crazy days for Kathy with late nights and early mornings.

Not so much for me as I’ve got my wrist in a splint having taken a fall early in the week. Nothing broken but it hurts like hell.

So wedding today, tidy up tomorrow and then on Monday if the weather is good we’re off out somewhere. Don’t know where yet but we are.

Will post some pics of the wedding when I get round to it!

Busy doing nothing

Well its Sunday, Mothers Day, mothering Sunday, or whatever. Well it is over here in the USA.

Kathy took Jen down to Portland for a makeover before her wedding (which is next weekend) and then Jen is taking her out for lunch.

So I’m back here in Hallowell busy doing nothing. Its a sunny day so I may get my book (The Naming of the Dead) and go and sit outside and soak up some of those rays.

The weather has actually been better than they forecast – it was supposed to be much more overcast and cooler for most of the week. We’re hoping that next week the weather will hold so we can get out and do a few things – like getting to the coast or up to Bar Harbor – I kind of want to go up Cadillac mountain and watch the world go by!

Cinco de Mayo

“Over 100 years ago, France started a war with Mexico. In the Mexican city of Puebla, two forts blocked the advance of the French troops. There were about 6,000 French and 2,000 Mexican soldiers. The Mexicans were under the command of General Ignacio Zaragoza.

On May 5, 1862, the French attacked the two forts. Before the day was over, one of the forts was destroyed and more than 1,000 French soldiers were killed. The Mexicans had won the battle. This battle is known as the Battle of Puebla.”

So what has that got to do with me and Maine?

Simple – we had a day out yesterday and as part of the thank you for driving us down to New Hampshire Kathy and I treated our friends to supper at “On the Border” – a Mexican restaurant.

Me, being a simple Englishman had no idea that May 5th was a special day, and I’d been confused in the morning when I’d heard the DJ on the radio ( 102.5 – The Peak ) in the morning saying it was Cinco de Mayo.

Maine, of course, has almost no Mexican population but I guess any excuse to drink and eat too much!!

It was actually quite enjoyable.

Maine – here we come again

Well we’re off to Maine for nearly 3 weeks. We’ve got my step-daughters wedding to go to (I’m doing the photographs) and we want to spend time with Kathy’s mum and we want to go sightseeing. Kathy wants to go down to Pemmaquid and sit by the ocean for a bit.

We know that its not going to be easy going back. Because of the weather Kathy’s dad hasn’t actually been buried yet so there hasn’t been any real closure and we know that there are going to a lot of tears during the three weeks we are there.

Kathy wants to know if there is anywhere I’d like to go and there are a few places but it depends on which car we have and how we all feel. I’ll have to think it through and see how we all feel.

Happy Holidays

If there is one depressing thing about Thanksgiving it is what comes afterwards – yes that’s right: Christmas, or as they say in America “Holidays”.

Now I know the UK is far from perfect but we don’t leap into the “Happy Holiday Spirit” the way our American cousins do. Right after Thanksgiving the “Holiday” adverts begin. Holiday specials on jewellery, on power tools, on cars – yes they have Holiday Specials on the latest Ford Trucks. Its Madness.

But the madness really shows through when it comes to the Radio. Take 94.9 WHOM (Portland, Maine’s “America’s Superstation”) for example. It normally plays music that is OK to listen to… but not now, oh no, its now broadcasting “100% Christmas Music”. Yes you read that correctly – 100% Christmas music.. from now until Boxing Day… and its not even sodding December yet.

To the Coast

It was a wonderful sunny day and we had things to do. Kathy wanted to see the coast and I needed to get my shoes replaced and we needed to do some Christmas shopping.

So lets combine them all into one trip.

We headed off early in the morning down the interstate towards Portland. Our first port of call was LL Bean who are a huge supplier out outdoor clothing, hunting equipment etc. They never close and none of the shop doors have locks on them! Part of their guarantee is that if something goes wrong within the life of a product they will replace it. Well the middle of the sole on the right foot of the boots I bought from them las year had separated, the rest of the boot and the left boot were fine. So we took them back.. they told me to get a new pair. So I did and they were cheaper so they gave us a gift card for the difference – which we then spent on other things we needed in the store.

After that we headed to Portland and Tony’s Donuts which does a wide range of freshly cooked donuts. So after a breakfast of donuts and coffee we headed off to Kittery and The Stonewall Kitchen where we picked up Christmas Gifts for people.

We then headed back up Route 1 to Ogunquit and Perkin’s Cove

where we went for a walk along the Marginal Way which is a coastal path than runs just above the rocky shorefront. I’ll be adding some photos to Flickr soon.

Having had a good dose of ocean views, smells and sounds we continued heading north on Route 1 and stopped for lunch at Maniax Restaurant before continuing up Route 1 through Kennebunk to Portland where we got back on the Interstate and headed back to Sue and Jeff’s.

In the evening we went to Maria Libra’s Italian Restaurant which is just down the road in Hallowell. Extremely good food in a friendly environment – but if you want the Lasagna it’s advisable to book your portion in advance as everything is made fresh on the day and quantities of some dishes are limited.

Thanksgiving

Well its the day of too much food and too much turkey, and too much beer.

The Antacid manufacturers must love Thanksgiving and Christmas!

We are at Kathy’s parents for Lunch and then we will head back to Sue and Jeff’s where we will basically turn up at the end of their meal so it will be a second round of deserts for us

Let it snow!

Apparently whilst we were getting rained on in Maine it was snowing in England. Typical!

Anyway it started snowing here yesterday – it did about half an inch and its still lying on the ground this morning and we have had a few smatterings this morning. They say that its going to be like this for a couple of days so it looks like a white Thanksgiving for us this year.

Sue and Jeff got back from their cruise last night – they were about an hour late due to delays at the airports. Still at least they made it home – it looks like the delays on this day before Thanksgiving might be much longer than that

But cold is different

Well the rain has all gone now and the skies are clear. With clearing skies the temperature has dropped. Overnight it was 19°F (-7°C), it is currently (10am) 34°F (1°C) and temperatures are supposed to be staying low for the next few days. Still at least we are not on top of Mount Washington in New Hampshire – yesterday it was 4°F (-15°C) with the windchill taking it down to -28°F (-33°C).. brrrrrrrrrrrrr.

The other big difference is that the humidity is very low – often below 50% which means everything is very dry and the amount of static you can build up is pretty amazing.

Rain is rain, no matter where you are

It was raining last night and it was raining this morning. We flew several thousand miles and all it can do is rain 🙁 Although at one point the rain also contained some rather damp snow flakes we didn’t actually get any snow – according to the Weather Channel it looks like Augusta was on the southern edges. However they have said we might get some snow over the next day or so along with some colder weather.

It was another lazy day today, we spent some time up at Kathy’s parents before heading over to the Lions Club in Manchester to check the building out as Jen is planning on holding her wedding reception there next May. After that we came home, had some supper and settled down to watch “National Treasure” on TV.

It looks like we have slightly more planned for the weekend – including driving down to South Portland.