Off to the North - Massachusetts here we come!

Oh we are so blessed to have our lovely, kind American friends! From the moment we walked off the plane at Worcester airport and saw these smiling, so-pleased – to –see –us faces, we have had a ball! So many, many thanks to Joe, Judy, Rich and Judi. It was like the 2 years since last we saw you just vanished!

As for the wonderful state of Massachusetts, thank you Joe and Judy for living in such a gorgeous place. As we were coming into land, we saw trees, and trees and lakes and trees and hardly any houses and it was like wow! Not what I expected at all. Joe and Judy live in the country surrounded by tall trees and forest, with neighbours close-by, and a stream through the bush. Their home is just lovely – warm and welcoming.

The house is run on under-floor heating, has a fire place, own generator (for power  cuts). It has a fish pool and lots of bird feeders, a barn for horses and squirrels and chipmunks running around. They have 4 dogs which are kept inside except for going out for supervised walks cause there are coyotes around that would eat them! In winter there is lots of snow, with snow piled up to the windows. They have their own mini-snow plough!  Joe says it gets down to -14C …..

The first evening the two Judy,i’s put on an Italian meal (in recognition we all met in Italy) with lots of wine and laughter and catching up. We watched a baseball game between the Boston Red Socks (Joe and Judy supporters) and the NY Yankees (Rich and Judi supporters) and it was engrossing. The conversations between the two factions, with Dave with some knowledge and me with none but asking all the questions as per usual, discussing who’s batting average was the best, which team had the best pitchers etc. I was fascinated by the passion that was going on (Boston won by 1 run by the way!). Bed 1pm!

Brenda’s day!

The one request I asked was to see some Autumn/fall foliage. Trees changing colour etc. Our lovely hosts had put a lot of thought into this and we spent the day touring rural Massachusetts – gprgeous town to gorgeous town. The trees were starting  to change colour – great – however it was the magnificent homes and gardens that were the bonus and totally unexpected from my perspective. They were so well-kept and so like what you see in the movies – tall trees, leaf-lined wide streets, lots of trees around houses. I was in raptures – Joe was giving me a hard time cause every two minutes it was ‘cool!’ …….. ‘wow! Look at that … cool!’

We went to Stockwell (home of James Taylor and mentioned in his song ‘Sweet Baby James’ – a beautiful town- for  a look at a Catholic Shrine (our friends are Catholics) and then to a glass art gallery (yes – I found pieces I liked worth 75.000, or above – a lotto wish-list) and lunch at this lovely old inn that was full of history. Note the big pumpkins outside.

That night after Dave produced his Mount Gay rum bottles, we played the adult version of Cranium! What a laugh! It was girl’s against the boy’s – and got louder and more raucous as the night went on. Boy’s won (Dave has talent  drawing with his eyes closed by the way – I think he cheated!)

Bed by 12.30am

Today was a lake cruise day. Darling Joe and Judy had organised a paddle-boat steamer ride on the send biggest lake(but the best scenic lake) in Massachusetts. It was  lovely. Lots of lake houses around the sides with own private jetties and boats, private beaches. It is very shallow and there is trout in there.

Did you know this lake freezes in winter and you can ice skate on it!

On the way around we passed a small island with it’s own bald eagle nest. The nest is about a meter deep and queen size bed size in diameter! Lots of building to make it me thinks.

the lake had a  big Indian name - see on the T-shirt

For lunch we  visited this lovely pub type place with unusual food by our standards.  I had potatoe skins stuffed with cheese and bacon. There were large bread sticks you can dip into a hot cheese sauce. There were lots of pumpkins and scary things around as well. I thought the sign was amusing but app. it is a problem during snow time! 

At the end we visited an apple orchard ……. Not as we know it Jim! It was very large with many different varities, selling the apples in paper bags. They also sold apple pies, apple dumplings, pumpkin pies. A fascinating place!