Well yes I'm home.. it's Good Friday, been home eleven days.. 

Just always feel so bereft when I leave my family.. Like I'm sort of exiled from them.

Above a can of soup I had.. picked it up in a store when we went food shopping.. have to admit, although very nice it was nothing like and no where near as nice as freshly made and eaten out of a giant bread roll on a pier in San Francisco!

I also picked up a microwave meal and when I heated it up the lid melted!! So therefore, not all microwavable! 

Going through some wonderful old photographs suddenly I saw my mom's handwriting!! A card to my aunt Rita and family.. from us! 

That was strange seeing her handwriting out of context as it were..

We went to a wonderful 'old' place.. old for the US of A.. Raynham Hall Museum, Oyster Bay out on Long Island..

This is my new pad, out over the other side of the lake.. mmm juts kidding, my cabin by the lake could be built here though, never quite known where I'd like it situated.. this could be it!

Here is the Museum.. a beautiful old building, wonderful history, just us three and a random man in the tour, well worth visiting, learnt a lot about this area and the men who lived here..

Raynham Hall Museum..

At my cousin's I used the Google search thingy to identify their cat, I'd seen one before at a client's when working in England, and placed a 3D by his side!

At work on my break, surrounded by crates.. 

Thinking of the sun outside.. and happy thoughts of things.

M.

It is often the small steps, not the giant leaps, that bring about the most lasting change.

Queen Elizabeth II - 1926-2022 - Queen of the United Kingdom

TWA Hotel at JFK, New York

This blog is purely photographs taken at this amazing iconic TWA Hotel..

From the outside..

To the what appears to be old walkway to board the planes ...

The rooftop heated pool overlooking the runway..

An overnight stopover, a day pass.. and here one can lounge and enjoy...

There are rooms 'set' in the 1960's..

Below on four legs the blue plexiglass item.. zoom in.. it's Barbie!

Cant move stuff around, probably more against stealing which is understandable, so everything is stuck down..

It truly is an amazing building, and I am so lucky my cousin decided to stop and let us spend some time.. 

Below the whole building from the designers point of view..

From shoeshine to the old telephones..

The teal room is maybe a bit too much!

And all the TWA uniforms.. wonderful! 

I left wanting to put on a pair of 4" stilettos and pencil skirt with maybe a cashmere twin-set! 

M.

 

Old Westbury Gardens

Just photographs today, tired from having to get up in the night, and a disturbed break, when I was actually having a catch-up nap... Give up, only five full days left now... six sleeps... if I can sleep.

June 4th 2018 Astoria Park NY

If I post these photographs from Astoria Park a million more times before I stop posting at all... then expect it.. this evening is lodged in my memory as an all time special!

Old Westbury Gardens

These last few days have been very much up or very much down! I was sent a photograph of Pippa which completely floored me... and feels like I have swallowed a lead weight... I have become quite good at blocking out things which hurt my head, but not everything is so easily blocked...

Atlantic City

Feel some words of wisdom should be written here... lol

I have so many happy things to think about, I do, and I know where I am is making it worse, I haven't been able to speak to people I normally speak to, on the phone or face to face, people who are important to me, seven weeks is four or five weeks too long!

Empire State Building - Day 3

Just...

Lots...

Of...

Photographs...

From here!!

New York - Day 2

Today, I was up and down early for breakfast, brought it back up to my room, I'd paid for a double room, no price difference than a single but more comfort, also meant I had a double breakfast!! Lol

And after eating, I stashed away the bottles of water and a muffin to eat with me! Camera and waist bag, and back pack!! Lol off I went! Turning right up 7th, all the way.. paused a while in Times Square...

Then, onwards and upwards! Reached Central Park and walked to the area where I scattered mom, it's a bit overgrown there, apart from the two trees where I scattered her about... They are neither overgrown or grown! Or even there anymore!! 

I could not believe it!

What the hell!!?!!

How bizarre is that!! If mom was alive she would be freaking out about this! Off all the tree's these young ones are gone!! Why....

So, I sat on the rock I also left her in.. I sat for a couple of hours and read, actually, one of her favourite books, she read it to me when I was a small child, maybe not the right thing? I don't know, but if fired up my imagination, and kind of links also to all the Egyptian books and stories I also heard..

Oh the book! Lol sorey!
She by H. Rider Haggard


I strolled then back out of the park and headed for Christopher Columbus!

And hence back down 6th Street... To a Burger place I wanted to visit!

All the way down... Down down down... To 19th Street! One helluva way... That day I walked 6.5 miles!!

So.. I reached the place the Burger & Lobster, absolutely wonderful! Great place!

After much time in there, and plenty of coffee to fuel my long walk back, I did!

By way of 5th Street and Madison Square Garden Park, where I sat and either read or people watched in equal measure!

Then I continued down and made my way across back to 7th and the hotel, where I collapsed! Happily!

Empire State of Mind - Day 1

Okay enough already!

I arrived into NYC, Tuesday morning, about 11:30am great flight, easy through immigration, straight out with my baggage and into a cab!

Zero conversation with the bullet proof glass between us! But got to the hotel quick and easy at that time of the morning.

Joined the check-in/check out line, and checked in! That took about ¾ of an hour!

But at 12 noon I had my keys and headed for my room.

I sorted my stuff out, and out I went, I walked down 7th across to 6th and stopped for coffee and a pastry... Continued down 6th to Greenwich Village and stopped in a friend's cousins tea room, but they were still serving lunch, so didn't stay.

I sat in a pretty little park there, the sun was really hot, one beautiful day... then I walked back up 7th and up aways past the hotel, turned around at some point, my body clock was telling me 10pm! But 4pm real time!

I bought some fresh deli food and took it back to my room... Ate and chatted on here... And went to bed!

Steady steps on the road...

Above photograph taken on New Years Day... Beautiful day... up there in the blue beyond is a person paragliding... Lol, honestly there is, you may have to zoom in, he is about centre!

I took a zoomed in shot, but only with my phone so blurry... will leave it up to you!

Another nice shot from in front of the town hall here in Alhaurín El Grande...

I had had to take myself for a walk, Pippa was refusing to leave the street, its been hit and miss, sometimes she gets ten or twenty feet away from the house, she goes down to the house where they're working, and she goes in if they are there, for a cwtch... Pippa checks out three houses, her favourite places to stop by! Lol...

This tree, now bare... was in flower when Franco died... last year... It of course, gets to be reborn each year... as do we in a different way...

I have felt happier here recently, happier in a different way, because its all I can, its all anyone can do; and therefor now, back to wanting to go back home! I always have said, always say.... If you're not happy where you are you cannot be happy where you want to go, because we take ourselves with us... don't we!  So now, here I am feeling happier and now want to leave here again!  I might sound slightly crazy you know, most of the time! You should be in my head!

The other day someone called to see if the house was still for sale because she had a buyer!! Then today as if in conspiracy someone else said, what are you doing here still!! You should go home! Everything will be so much better!! Lol...

And suddenly everything and everyone is pointing me back to America!  So I am going back to work soon! Been a month and need to focus!

Talking to a friend the other day, had to laugh when I read these words that came after whatever I had said!

"Excuse me, but how, in the seven realms of Hades, are you confused?  You're a California Girl hun.  Confusion is not an option."

This says it all!

Life can be beautiful in different ways... #Alba

Fire Island

Back from the states now... Clothes washed dried and put away... cases cleared...

Link to a short story in pictures... https://plus.google.com/108650660073393704923/stories/78cb1f52-6348-37fd-9d39-8744d8d93232146bff9c524/1?authkey

Hope this works!

Some beautiful flowers on this tree above at a cousins home out on Long Island...

Great wall plaque on their home too! Could do with one of these here...

Yes, looks like I stalked their home...

Fire Island, and its lighthouse, was a good walk along from the car park to the lighthouse, looks small here... considering the real height of it though!!!  And everywhere I went Cardinal birds were with me, word on the street was that to see a Cardinal means someone who has passed over is nearby... Hmmm just checked this out on the net, there are so many meanings, I guess all it really means is... I saw lots of Cardinals!

Just a tree near the lighthouse... I liked it, its here!

A view from the top of the lighthouse, up there was a man, I said 'hello' and inquired about the place some more, turned out he had been to Neath! He was someone best man back in the 1970's... small world then!

What a view from here... Also from here you can see the city...

The beach was quite empty up until nearer the car park when it really got packed out, lots of people sunbathing, lots in thongs! Men only seemed!! OMG!! NO!!!! Really????

We were the most dressed people there! Me and cousin walked with our feet in the warm ocean... beautiful day, beautiful ocean... Just Beautiful...

TTFN
Marian