Friday 10th & Saturday 11th July - Boston

Saturday 11th July
After a slow start we strolled into Maynard this morning - it really is a small town, just three small shopping streets and everything is available except groceries. The supermarkets are situated, as seems normal, in out-of-town malls. We went to the local farmer’s market and it was interesting to see the difference between the produce on sale here to that in the UK. Locally grown blueberries - yummy, I wish they were ‘locally grown’ in Surrey.

During the afternoon Emma wanted to go to the ‘beach’, so off to the ‘beach’ we went together with a friend of hers. The beach is a lovely man-made sandy beach alongside a local reservoir, Centennial Lake, about 7-8 miles away and it was ideal. It has been quite a hot day and there were lots of pine trees to sit under. Although I sat in the sun trying to even-out the strange tan I have accumulated over the last couple of months. My feet are very stripy as I have worn the same Teva sandals every day, and as I have been wearing either t-shirts or shirts with short sleeves, my arms are brown up to half way between my elbows and shoulders! Apparently we are very lucky with the weather here, it has been very wet until we arrived yesterday. The hot weather certainly has followed us across the country. Hopefully it will stay nice while we are here.

Another delicious meal is on the menu again for this evening and Mike is, at the moment, baking a rhubarb and strawberry pie. I think I like this 'hotel'!

I have been told I have to watch some baseball on the TV this evening because Mike is taking me to see the Boston Red Sox play the Kansas City Royals tomorrow so I need to know something about the game. I am looking forward to that. Terry is not coming as sport doesn’t interest her so she will be hanging out with Nan and they will be doing their own thing for the day.

Friday 10th July
We left New York for Boston this morning. Well, not exactly Boston but Maynard, a small town about 25 miles west - a bit like Woking is to London. Maynard is a lovely little town - ‘small town America’ with a good community feel to it. I know we are going to have a lovely restful time here relaxing after all our travels.

I felt somewhat sad when we alighted the train - that was the last train journey of this ‘adventure’, but another phase begins now - the running-down bit where life begins to get back to normal.

Mike collected us from the train just after 3pm and we got here around 4. A beautiful mug of tea awaited us, together with home-made chocolate cake - heaven! And a home cooked meal was a real treat too.

We spent the evening sitting on the porch, having a wine or two and catching up.