Thursday 15 December 2016

Airborne


Between flights I always forget completely how uncomfortable air travel is. 
At the start of a holiday, it's an inconvenience to be overcome, in order to get to a destination. So no matter how tedious and bone-crunchingly (or more to the point muscle-tighteningly) uncomfortable it is, there's always the holiday to look forward to.  
Coming home is slightly different. Yes, there's home and family and friends and pets to look forward to. But it's a night flight for us these times. And even with extra leg-room, three seats each to ourselves, head-phones, blankets, pillows galore, books, and music, nothing (nothing) can dull the engine noise (it roars, like white noise gone horribly wrong) and screaming babies. 
But oh what memories.












And what to look forward to - home. 




And Christmas. 

I think I can lie down and try and sleep now. Unless the dulcet tones of the captain get through the racket to announce turbulence and seat belts. 
Oh for the 'chance to dream'. 
....
I slept for one hour. 

Tuesday 13 December 2016

Packing to leave means looking through some photographs. It does. Really.  With a nice cup of tea.


And some furry-ish friends. 


And some not so furry, or friendly.


What a time we've had. 


Okay. I'm going. One bag packed......











Saturday 10 December 2016

Frank Lloyd Wright

Much of Florida is only about a metre above sea level.  This means that wherever you go, you're not far from a lake.  In fact I've just googled "how many lakes in Florida?" and the answer is over 30,000.  Thirty thousand!  On 3 million acres of land.  Lake Okeechobee, not far from here, is the second largest lake in the whole of the United States.  So, when we decided to go to Lakeland, a town only thrity minutes drive away, we knew we were in for a treat. 
And yes there were lakes galore.  But first we headed for Florida Southern College.  An amazing place. Many of the buildings were designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, and some weren't actually built until decades after his death.  But they are all true to his vision and design, well ahead of his time.

This is a wall of one of the chapels he designed for the college. This inner wall echoes the outside walkways that he installed so that students were under cover for much of their day.
And yes, they are quite low.  No basketball players here, I would surmise! 

The window in the smaller chapel is striking,

and let's in a lot more light than the 'windows' in the other.

I found the whole experience really fascinating, and I rather wished I could have been a student here.


But what about the lakes?  Well, I could imagine living in one of the houses around Lake Hollingsworth.  I was so impressed by them that I forgot to take photographs!  It would be very tempting to buy one, if I won the lottery. However, I understand that in order to win, you have to buy a lottery ticket.  Hmm.  

We had lunch on the banks of one of the lakes.  And we had plenty of company.




I must say, they were very polite birds.  No squawking.  No pestering.  No pecking.  Just pathetic, begging looks!  
But we were hungry after our college walk.  They begged in vain. 

















Tuesday 6 December 2016

Disney in the rain

These photographs were all taken with my iPhone this morning after a huge deluge fell on Magic Kingdom, but before I had to run inside a store to hide from the thunder and lightning! It's December 6th. 











It was lovely to look at the world of Disney from a different angle.  Nothing artificial.  All beautiful.