American Thumb - Day 23 - Home

I was so jet lagged yesterday I swear I was hallucinating.  And so I know that I'm actually putting this up on day 24, but on day 23, I couldn't do anything.  And I'm still calling it day 23, just for continuity.  Hope that's okay.  

Anyway, we're home now.  And driving back over the moors near our house yesterday, seeing smoke-like mist on the hill tops, hearing the wildlife and the babbling brook in the woods next to our house as the afternoon got quiet made me realise that we have it pretty good here too.

When you go away for three weeks, you can learn a lot, not least what your house really smells like when you get home.  For the record, ours is okay.  I've also learned that when a holiday is this good, it's hard to go home.  I've learned a good bit about America and Americans too.  I know I know - whatever I say about America and the American people will be a generalisation.  And I don't think I have anything to say that hasn't been said by the millions of other people who've had something to say on them. 

America is full of normal people going about their lives in a completely normal way.  I'm so glad we got out of the cities and saw these smaller towns where real life was going on.  There were small towns everywhere where kids rode their bikes, people played in unfenced yards and neighbours walked across to chat to them.  In Nashville we stayed in a proper suburb, along one of those mailbox lined streets where front yards all joined.  It was so peaceful, so nice.

The landscape of America is beautiful.  I knew I loved mountains (not to climb or do anything athletic with, just to look at), but I didn't know how much I loved them until nestled in White Mountains, or faced with the awesome snowy face of Mount Washington or driving through the mist and virtual rainforest of the Smoky Mountains and some jaw dropping vista opening up out of nowhere.  And trees.  I knew I loved trees, but the places we visited were blessed with an abundance of them, more than I've ever seen.  And the tallest I've ever seen.  And in my book, the taller the better.  New England was a bit like someone took the Lake District, Sherwood Forest and The Highlands and threw them all together in one place, making all the lakes bigger, the mountains taller and more sprawling and the trees taller and more plentiful.  I would have loved to have got further into the Smoky Mountains but half an hour's driving had got me hardly any distance.  I would like to go back and walk the Appalachian Trail some day.  Paul, the aviation guy we met at the airport on our way home, is going to walk it when he retires in a couple of years.  2,700 miles he said.  I would love to do that. 

They have everything here: snow, mountains, deserts, sun drenched coastline, rolling countryside, forests, lakes.  They've welcomed so many immigrants over the years that it's not hard to get a slice of other cultures if you visit the right places.  I get why you might never go anywhere else.  And I've also started to get why so many Americans seem so proud of where they're from.

American pride is a very real thing.  Their flag is everywhere, not just on court houses, schools and municipal buildings but in people's front yards and out front of some shops and high on the roofs of houses.  I never met any of these flag owners of course - who knows what they're actually like.  But I get the impression, it's all in the name of pride.  In England, the St George's Cross has been hijacked by morons and, understandably, decent people are reluctant to fly it.  It's a shame.  But then maybe that kind of display of pride isn't how things are done over here.  For example, in Boston, there were so many people wearing jumpers that just said 'Boston' on them.  And they can't all have been tourists.  They were workers and people on their rush hour commute and people on their way to the baseball.  But these weren't team colours, these were sweatshirts declaring the pride in their city.  Imagine walking round Manchester with a sweatshirt that just said 'Manchester' on it.  You'd have to be either a tourist or a student.  If you weren't, you'd be mocked or mugged.  I'm not saying we don't do pride over here, but the American version of it is overt and visible and I like it.  Perhaps we should take more pride in our pride.

Whenever I go on holiday I always try and take something back with me.  I don't mean souvenirs (of which there are many from this holiday), but some little way of life I can meld in with my own.  Normally, that's just a bit of tranquility that I try to retain as long as possible but which tends to dissipate within an hour of getting back to work.   

 - I want to drink more coffee.  Good coffee, and not too strong like the tar at work.  

 - And I want to be chipper more.  I don't want to be insanely friendly to everyone, don't worry.  Just, more chipper day to day.  

 - I want a more positive outlook.  Twice I went up to the desk in hotels and asked to change rooms because I wasn't happy.  I would never have done that in England.  But there was something that made it permissible in America.  Even before I got to the desk, I knew the people I spoke to were going to look at a solution for me, not focus on the problem, why it had happened or why I was unhappy.  And I was right.  Both times they moved me to better rooms, no questions.  Maybe it's emblematic of a better outlook all round, or maybe it's not.  But it felt that way.  And I'd like that outlook too.

 - I want to take up a team sport.  Loads of the people I met seemed to play something, even the old guys who got together at the bowling alley in Cape Cod as soon as it opened.  None of them were very good at it, which bodes well for my meagre ambitions.  Just to get together with friends and have a go at something.  Apologies in advance if I rope you into it.

I know it's not all good.  I saw everything through the rose tint of a holiday.  I saw a few Trump posters and met a few supporters here and there and it didn't please me to see them.  But then, I remember driving to A&E the night before we left England, my thumb bound in tissue, and seeing as poster urging me to vote Conservative.  In West Yorkshire!?  I was horrified.  But thankfully some upstanding citizen had had the good grace to deface it.  But it just goes to show, we can say what we like about Trump and the frightening potential of America's population to elect him, but we haven't done much better on our own turf.  Most people didn't vote Tory and most people won't vote Trump.

And on Trump, I'll just say this.  Trump isn't going to make America great again.  America is already great.  It really is.  Of course, there are things that aren't great: healthcare, poverty, drugs, guns.  But those aren't things Trump is going to address.  America doesn't need Trump.  I hope its people don't elect him.

But let's not forget, there is a part of me that will forever be American: the tip of my thumb.  More important than any of the above, my thumb rebuilt itself here, fuelled by American food, air and enthusiasm.  I imagine my cells adopted a positive attitude to their task and took pride in their work.  The cut is becoming a scar, silvering over like a little sheriff's badge at the end of my thumb.  My left thumb.  My American thumb.

American Thumb - Day 22 - New York, New York to the sky

"Ladies and gentlemen.  The pilot has just announced that the wifi on board isn't working...he says there's a one to two per cent chance it might work but the left filangee blah-de-de-blah blah blah..."

I have a blog to post and the aeroplane/airplane is letting me down.  Curses.  It was all going so well.  Well, I say that but...

The postcards!  Since just about day one, we've accumulated postcards that we intended to send.  And in Cape Cod, I remember the thrill as we discovered a load of American stamps in the glove compartment of our hire car.  And yet here we are, installed in our flight seats with not a postcard written and not even an idea where we've stashed them.  If you think were meant to receive a postcard I'm sorry.  But I hope I've written enough in this blog for everyone to feel like they've received a postcard.

Plane update: we haven't taken off yet but two fussy old dears in the seats in front of me have just switched to two empty window seats.  Absolute score.  They were quite clearly the types to lean their seats back.

Today was hot, so hot that I wish I'd changed my tshirt before I checked my suitcase in.  We spent the day in Brooklyn, walking from our flat to Prospect Park.  It's not far on the map but when you get to walking it, it's about four miles.  When it's hot, it feels more like eight miles.  If you're pregnant, it probably feels like 16 miles.  If you're three years old, it probably feels like...nothing because you're tired and you sleep in a buggy most of the way.  That's the thing about this country.  It's so big that when you look at a map, everywhere looks like it's no real distance away but really, it's miles.  I always thought Nashville was really west and really south but when you get there and look at the map, you realise you've travelled all that way and hardly gone anywhere.

Anyway, today we see a ton of Brooklyn, which is one of the least touristy things we've done all holiday.  It's an odd mix.  On one block you have idyllic treelined streets, the brownstones and their stoops looking exactly as they do in films and Sesame Street in the sun that filters through the leaves.  People work their front yards and smile and say hi as we pass.  On the next block the yards are full of rusty vehicles and at the curb side, music booms from a 4x4 while about eight toughs hang around it smoking.  That's as much description as I can provide because I didn't want to look at them too long.  I just kept pushing that buggy.

We didn't get lost but we had to stand and check our map a few times as we traipsed through some industrially unglamorous areas.  We stopped for lunch at a nice little cafe and eventually found the park so worn out that we were barely able to take advantage of it.  But S played on the playground and made some friends, wandering around holding hands with another girl from one of the local schools or preschools or whatever they have here.  It Was very cute.

We make our way home by navigating some of the outer reaches of the subway system, surrounded by screaming school kids and dudes with blaring stereos.  We navigate like locals but I'm not sure we blend in with that crowd, given that we're not that young, not screaming and not blaring music.  Also, I'm carrying a buggy most of the time.  The subway is not good for getting around with the buggy.

We make it back to the flat and take a minicab to the airport.  We're so early for our flight that I'm embarrassed to tell you exactly how early.  But I like airports and we have to be somewhere so it might as well be there.

At our gate, we meet a guy called Paul from the Aviation Administration.  He used to be a cop but now travels the world training and advising people.  In what, I don't know, but he talked a lot about the places he'd been, was super interesting and so incredibly nice I thought he was worth a mention.  Before he goes off to board the plane (with the pilot no less), he gives me an Aviation Administration key ring.  Chuffed to have a souvenir of such a nice man.

Anyway we're well in the air now.  I'm watching Deadpool and it's quite fun.  S is asleep but keeps waking up and going slightly nuts, then falling back to sleep.  E is watching Brooklyn which was a book we both read that I hated and I won't watch the film on principle.  I imagine she just has Brooklyn on her mind.

Plane update: E and S are sleeping and I've moved so they can stretch out.  I've slotted into the two empty seats behind those old dears who moved earlier.  Guess what.  They've leaned their seats back.  I knew it.

American Thumb - Day 21 - More New York and S's birthday

Bears!  At last we saw bears!  All through Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine and New Hampshire, (and harbouring an outside hope in Tennessee) we wanted to see a bear.  But today, two!  Two grizzlies by the rocky stream, both curled up asleep.  S presses her head against the glass.  'Wake up bears,' she says.  They don't.  It's a hot afternoon in New York and a lot of the animals at Central Park Zoo are rolling with their natural instincts and are sleeping.  My natural instincts are telling me to do the same.  

S has inherited E's knack for waking up at the crack of dawn on her birthday.  She's very polite about it.  'Mummy, daddy,' she whispers, 'it's my birthday.'  After a hug an an excellent rendition of happy birthday from E and me, she runs into the kitchen and sees the balloons and the medical tape banner and the cake and the few presents we've brought with us and from the bedroom we hear her say, 'Wow!'  She opens her presents and plays with her new toys for a while.  The little Mickey Mouse figurine ends up coming out with us for the day.

We head to Central Park Zoo.  It's fairly small as zoos go but it's great.  The bears are asleep and the snow leopard is a bit dozy but the two sea lions in the big pool which forms the centrepiece of the zoo are absolute show offs.  One, presumably the young one, darts about the pool, leaping out of the water while the old lazes on the rocks, grinning at people just feet away from the edge of the pool.  Feeding time is genuinely exciting and the two of them go nuts and S laughs her head off.

It's a beautiful day and Central Park is looking beautiful.  We head to the fountain and the lake but can't bring ourselves to go much further.  It's hot and walking through the park becomes hard work.  We decide to head back to the street but even getting back out of the park is exhausting.  I don't know why.  Maybe it's because, unlike the rest of New York, the paths aren't flat or straight and sometimes you don't really know where you're going.  It's like traipsing through a wasteland.  But we get there and land in the top end of Broadway.

When the weather's good and you're in the tourist-y part of town, you don't half get hassled in New York.  Everyone's out to sell you something, to trap you in conversation, then ask you for money.  It's annoying because you can't switch off.  But as long as you can so 'No thanks' and move on you can avoid getting sucked in.  A hell of a lot of self made hip-hop albums are thrust towards my hands.  I don't know what it is I'm putting out there.  Maybe it's my swagger.  My swag.  Kids say that sort of thing in the Snipchats and Buzzword articles, right?

S gets the birthday ice cream she's been craving and has a great time both eating it and throwing it all over herself.  The joy she takes in doing both is joyful in itself.  In yet another trick of perspective, I accidentally took the best photo of my life today in which a buggy-bound S appears to be strangling a tiny woman.  Here it is.

Our friend Paul is in town.  He's a flight attendant for British Airways and by coincidence he's ended up here at the same time as us.  Previous coincidence has seen us meeting him in Bangkok.  We go for coffee in Grand Central, then take a walk looking for food where we all do the classic thing of mooching past several good eateries and deciding against them for no real reason.  In the end, we decide that our last night in New York should be spent in an authentic and fairly seedy pizza joint which sells pizza by the slice.  I fight the urge to buy a whole pizza and begrudgingly make do with a slice which is what Paul, E and S are doing.  And it's a good thing.  The slices are as big as S.

We leave Paul and had planned to head home.  We spent so long in town yesterday, we figure we should get home earlier tonight.  But E wants to go to Macy's and we decide tonight is a better time to do it than tomorrow and end up on 34th Street at sunset.  The Empire State Building looks amazing and I take a ton of pictures.  I work really hard and run miles down the street to get a shot of the sunlit tower with the moon in the background.  Here it is.  It probably doesn't look that impressive but it was grand to be there.  E buys two pairs of trainers in the Macy's sale.  I'm delighted about it because, being pregnant, she hasn't bought any clothes this holiday.  The feet haven't changed shape at all.

We end up back home at about 10.  S is still awake and still buzzing.  I think it's been a good birthday.  And it's been a great last full day in America.

American Thumb - Day 20 - New York

I've only ever been to New York in winter before.  Today it is sunny and warm and it's like seeing the city in its Sunday best.  We head straight into Manhattan and down to Battery Park to the waterfront, the Statue of Liberty across the water, the bulk of the financial district looming over us.  Holy cow this city is tall.

We take lots of photos, sneaking the occasional selfie just the two of us so we can pretend the kid's not here and we're on a romantic getaway.  In a display of shamefully touristic behaviour, E and I take photos where we look like we're holding the Statue of Liberty between our thumb and index finger.  It's a trick of perspective and the statue is actually very far away but it's fun to try and get it right.  We review the photos.  I've directed E quite well.  She has directed me terribly and I just look like I'm holding air.  E thinks she looks pregnant.  In actual fact, she is pregnant.  I also look pregnant.  I've been drinking a lot of root beer.

After a picnic lunch, we head off to meet my friend Jon.  We both grew up in the mighty South London suburb of Wallington but Jon moved out to the States about 12 years ago.  We've kept up with each other really well over the years but have only seen each other a couple of times since he moved and to see him here is just joyful.  He's never met E or S before but he starts by presenting S with a teddybear for her birthday tomorrow.  The charmer.  She hugs him and from then on they're the best of friends.

We all head off  to the Staten Island Ferry which is a free trip out to Staten Island.  It's a wonderful journey just for providing great views of Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty.  We take a ton more photos, S tears about and Jon and I catch up.  Of Staten Island itself I have to be honest, all we saw was the food court at the ferry terminal because we got straight on the next boat and came back.  But not before I asked a couple of cops to pose with S.  I don't know what possessed me.  It's the chipper side of me coming out again.  But they're really happy to do it and S gets a buzz out of it.

With hugs all round, we leave Jon back at work and head off into the city.  We go to the World Trade Centre Memorial which is these enormous pools in the foundations of where the towers were with waterfalls running into them.  It's spectacular and moving.  Then we head up to Grand Central, the most stunning train station I've ever seen.  Seeing the sunlight pouring through those massive Windows reminds me that I had a huge poster of it on my wall when I was a teenager.  Thanks IKEA.  I've been to New York twice before and always go to Grand Central, though I've never caught a train.  It's because of that poster.  And possibly The Catcher in the Rye as well.  

From there we head down 42nd Street, snap the Chrysler building (which is my favourite skyscraper) and then to Times Square where S sees someone in an Elmo suit and gives him a hug (for a few dollars).  From there we head down Broadway and see the Empire State Building.  It's like we're doing a potted tour of New York and it's awesome.  Where Broadway meets 5th Avenue, we come to the Flatiron Building and Madison Square Park.  It's a beautiful part of the city, with a stunning park, some of the best looking skyscrapers and a bustling food market and I never knew any of it was here before.  I love how a city can reveal itself like that sometimes and man, New York does it well.

Tonight we manage to order pudding for just about the first time since we've been here.  Mostly, the portions are so big that we don't make it to pudding.  In fact, tonight both our meals are among the biggest we've had since we've been here, but we made an agreement before we got into Big Daddy's Diner that we were going to do this.  So after we've gorged ourselves on enormous burgers and mounds of tater tots we force down a slice of key lime pie between the three of us because we've never had it before.  It's good stuff.  But being so full, getting home is a struggle.  E and I waddle, S falls asleep.

One day in New York is enough to turn my thumb dressing a murky grey.  Back home I slip it off an underneath, my thumb looks...just like it's had a little cut and is healing over.  It's almost a non event.  I consider leaving it unwrapped but E convinces me not to.  "New York does not have the fresh air it needs.  Maybe if we were in Maine."  I wrap it up again.

I don't believe in fate or that everything happens for a reason.  But tonight, as E and I make a typographically shambolic but otherwise beautiful banner for S's birthday tomorrow, we realise we're stuck for string or anything to hang it with.  And then I remember the many rolls of surgical tape I'm carting about for my thumb.  It's as if the stars aligned when I sliced the top of my thumb off and bled all over the celery and led me to this magical moment.  We tape the banner together and hang it from the window frames.  Although I just heard it fall down.  I'll stick it back up in the morning.

American Thumb - Day 19 - Nashville, Tennessee to New York, New York

The theme of today is headaches.   It might be the early start.  It might be the cabin pressure on the flight.  Or possibly, just possibly, it might be food poisoning.  E and I have tandem headaches.  For me it's quite debilitating.  For E, the trooper, it's a mild hindrance, though I have no doubt we're suffering the same things.  She does a much better job of minding S than I do who, thankfully, doesn't seem to have any symptoms of anything bad.  I am a little bit pathetic.

The plane from Nashville to New York is the smallest I have ever been on.  My head grazes the ceiling as I walk down it.  And the seating is just four across so I find myself separated from E and S by an aisle.  This, however, falls neatly into my favour as I can doze and wallow in my head pain.   The two of them doze too though so I'm not entirely shirking my responsibilities.  Then the guy in front leans his seat back and for a moment, my knee is trapped and I am woken.  I hate him.  There are two types of people in the world: those who lean their seats back on aeroplanes and those who do not.  One is despicable, the other is not.  It's amazing how many people crave that extra inch of comfort, seemingly oblivious to the fact that it causes about a foot of discomfort directly behind them.  Those buttons on the seat arms that let you lean back should be abolished.

As soon as we get out of the airport in New York, some woman is hassling us to get in her car.  She says she's an Uber driver and talks fast, says we can pay by credit card but we have to hurry.  It's almost laughable.  We ask to see ID and say we've been quoted a rate into Brooklyn of about half what she's demanding (which is not strictly true but almost) at which point she sort of gives up on us, gets in her car and drives off.  A few years ago we'd have been suckered into that kind of move.  But already the friendly, smaller town America we've become used to over the last few weeks seems a long way from here.

We yellow cab it to our Air BnB accommodation and sure enough, the fare's fair.  Madison, our host for the next few nights, greets us and shows us in.  On Thursday, S will turn 3 and Madison knows that because she and E have sort of hit it off over text since we booked to stay here.  As such, we walk in to find helium balloons, a birthday banner, party hats, a cake and a stash of other party food.  It's so incredibly kind and E can't help but give Madison a great big hug.  The flat itself is lovely too.  We're going to be very happy here.

Heads pounding, E and I lie down and park S in front of the TV which is heaven for her, if not the most solid parenting.  I'm not sure I manage a nap but roll around with my hand on my head for a good while before opting for a piping hot bath.  That normally sorts me out.  

Then we venture out into Brooklyn to get some food for dinner.  Our stretch is fine, but round the block it's not the most gorgeous neighbourhood.  Nobody looks like they've landed on their feet and everyone's rushing around.  The people who aren't rushing look unhinged.  In the supermarket, the cashier is miserable.  I mean that, not only is she not nice, but she looks like deep in her soul, she is terribly unhappy.  For a moment, she makes me feel miserable too.  When I wish her a good day at the end of our transaction, it's the first time in two and a half weeks that I haven't meant it.

I'm so glad we've experienced those parts of America where people have been more relaxed, had more time, been more smalltown.  Yes Boston and Nashville are cities and both had their weird and rundown bits, but generally what I saw of those places was somehow...better.  Maybe it's the size of the city.  Maybe New York is too big a place for people to care too much about one another; too much going on, too many pressures.  But it's no different from any of the big cities back home.  I've been to New York a couple of times before but not for ten years and I do love it.  I'm just glad that I now know there's so much more to America.

Anyway.  Something out there must have done me good because as I'm writing this, my headache is gone.  I am shattered though and have tha nice drowsy feeling you get when you overcome a hangover and can legitimately go to bed feeling okay.  Oh.  What if this was a hangover??  One beer??  Naaah.  Surely not...

A few closers about Nasvhille:

I didn't buy a guitar.

I didn't buy a Stetson.

Nobody stole our passports.  Boo.

American Thumb - Day 18 - Last day in Nashville

Today we visited the Grand Ole Opry, one of the biggest venues in Nashville.  All of country music royalty have played there and as the name suggests, it's a grand old building.  We hovered around for a little while and took a few photos in the sun, forcing S to stand by the huge guitars that guard the entrance way.  She was pretty annoyed that she couldn't climb all over them.

There's a huge mall there too and we spent some time in there too.  I wore my cowboy boots, expecting to fit seamlessly into the role of Nashville local.  However, I only saw one other person wearing boots.  Everyone else must have been tourists.  I tried to give the guy a nod, the way mini drivers do to one another but I don't think he could see me from under the rim of his massive Stetson.

I've half fancied a Stetson.  I tell a lie.  I have completely fancied a Stetson, but there's no way I could pull it off.  A Stetson is one of those things that might possibly make you look good, but the sheer fact that you're wearing one, makes you look like an idiot.  I once wore dark glasses in a nightclub.  I managed to persuade someone else to do it too so I wasn't alone.  I told people I was doing it for a laugh, but that only accounted for 5% of the reason I did it.  95% of the reason I did it was because I thought I looked totally awesome.  It took a brutally, unkindly honest stranger to bring me back down to earth and make me take them off.  I took exception to the guy, but he was doing me a massive favour.  I was in a nightclub, wearing sunglasses.  No matter how good I thought I looked, I looked like (and was) an idiot.  Stetsons are like that.  No matter how good I might think I look parading round the Yorkshire countryside or the streets of Manchester in a Stetson, I would look like an idiot.  And in those places, there's no shortage of people who'll tell you so.  And I am grateful for them.

This afternoon we napped.  S napped of course - she nearly always gets a nap in.  But today, E and I napped.  It's a right of passage for a holiday.  Actually these days, it's more like a necessity.  And yet, more than two weeks in to this holiday and this was our first.  Shocking.  I'd like to say we woke up renewed and invigorated.  People always go on about the restorative powers of napping and I'm inclined to agree.  But we woke groggy and disorientated and lay there, S climbing all over us, saying, 'We should go out,' over and over again.

Eventually we headed downtown to try to get in a great looking place called Puckett's that was too busy for us yesterday.  But it was too busy for us today too.  We headed back out and found Edley's, a barbecue joint that our hosts had recommended.  If there's one type of food they seem to do well here in Nashville, it's barbecue.  I've never appreciated it all that much before but this was excellent.  And with proper cornbread too.  I tried to make cornbread once.  It came out the consistency of a thick slab of cork.  I therefore assumed I didn't like it, given how I was so well practiced at making authentic cornbread.  But it came free with tonight's dinner and done well, it's terrific.

Steve and Sarah had invited us up for a drink tonight so when we got home, we headed straight up.  They're such cool people that I felt a little flustered, like I was on a date and I bought beer as it seemed like the right thing to do.  I haven't had a drink the whole time we've been here but I had a beer while we were up there, got drunk and disgraced myself.  Just kidding.  I don't think I disgraced myself.  They were such great company.  We chatted and the kids played and I came away with a ton of music recommendations from Steve's vast collection.  I'm looking forward to getting my teeth into some new stuff.  As much as I want to stay here, I didn't ask Steve to get me a job.  His job sounded hard.

"Write drunk, edit sober," said Ernest Hemingway, apparently.  We're on an early flight to New York today and I don't have time to edit this.  But my one beer has seen me follow half of Ernie's advice.  Apologies if 'one-beer-drunk writing' makes for terrible reading.

American Thumb - Day 17 - More Nashville, Tennessee

When I was a kid, there was a point in every holiday when I would hear real life calling me back.  It would normally be at the end of a particularly fantastic day.  Or when I realised I had just crossed the halfway point of the holiday and there would always be less than half of the holiday to go.  Or when there was just a week left and I could imagine what I was doing a week in the future.  As an adult, I've largely managed to snuff out that way of thinking, because I've realised there is no joy at the end of that line of thinking.  But today I heard that little call from real life, just faintly.  It's testament to what an awesome holiday this is.  And today has been a particularly fantastic day.  Today is also Sunday and in 168 hours, I will be dealing with the dark knot of dread in my stomach as I prepare to get back to work* on Monday morning.

The sun is out this morning and we head towards Downtown Nashville.  A tip from our hosts sees us park over the river and cross over into the city on the grand, iron pedestrian bridge named after local notable, John Seigenthaler.  It's an awesome way into the heart of the city, the view getting better the further you get along it and the activity gets clearer and clearer.  There are vibrant parades of shops and rooftop bars full of people, even though it's only 11 in the morning.  I assume they're all having elevenses, but they could be boozing.

The Johnny Cash Museum greets us as we hit street level, next to Mr Hats, which sells Stetsons and boots.  Round a corner and we're on Broadway and you can't hear the traffic for all the music that's going on.  The place is lined with bars which are already busy and in every one of them, there are people on stage playing music.  Some are solo acoustic gigs, some are full band.  From out on the street, S and I watch one band for a little while.  She's entranced by the drummer.  With only a little encouragement from her dad, S is very into drummers and drumming and for her 3rd birthday (which is on the 19th), we've got her a drum kit.  It's okay for me to tell you this; she can't read.  It'll be a nice surprise for her to get home to.

We eat lunch at a diner that first opened in the 1940s and I'm pretty sure we're served by one of the original waitresses.  When we go in, we can only order off the breakfast menu.  By the time our food gets to us, they're serving dinner.  The oldest waitress in the world may also be the slowest.  A mathematical error sees me leaving her a massive tip.  But fair play to her, it can go to the retirement plan.  But she's lovely and the food's great and now I feel bad for making fun of her.

With S asleep in her buggy, we visit the Nashville Visitor Centre and the Country Music Hall of Fame and check out all the stars in the walkway.  We also go to Hatch Show Print which has printed gig posters in Nashville and further afield forever and still does.  We picked up a few things there.  Then we ended up in the Nashville branch of that boot shop we were in the other day.  Given that the podiatrist told me to throw out my old black boots and brown boots, I did the decent thing and got a new pair in black and a new pair in brown.  E got new boots and we even got some for S, which we justify by saying they will do her for winter.

We go back to Drifters for dinner, the place we chickened out of last night.  The mood is much more relaxed, it being a Sunday night and the sun still being out.  There's a band on called The Willies, who are much better than the name suggests.  They play honkytonk style bluegrass and are superb.  After dinner, S wants to join the other people dancing, which means I hold her and bob about a bit while, for some reason, she beats me about the head.  Music really moves that kid, sometimes in a weird way.

We drive home through neighbourhoods, rather than the major roads we're used to.  It takes us through the balmy Sunday evening where people are going about their own rituals before starting another week.  People sit on porches, kids ride bikes, families walk, people queue out the door at a couple of local eateries.  Every side on Nashville is awesome.

This holiday has been so amazing, hearing that call back to real life has only served to entrench the fantasy of living here, in one of the mindblowing places and awesome communities I've had the joy of experiencing.  I would love for this holiday to last forever and I'm glad there's a good bit of it left.  

But that said, I know that real life isn't bad at all.  I love where I live and we have a great life.  And now, I have two pairs of cowboy boots that I can mosey into work in.

*I love where I work and 90% of my colleagues are wonderful.

American Thumb - Day 16 - Nashville, Tennessee

Today is the first day of the holiday that I leave the rucksack at home.  The rucksack is full of guidebooks and maps and spare clothes for S and the folder in which I keep all the documents I printed for the holiday (confirmation of car hire and accommodation and insurance policies, stuff like that, none of which I've needed).  E could probably carry that in her ever present bag, but I like to take my bag because also in it are our passports.  Carrying my bag allows me to take our passports everywhere we go and allows me to check they're still there every ten minutes or so. 

But today I leave the bag and the passports behind.  Because if the worst happens and someone comes and steals them just so they can claim British citizenship (or whatever passport thieves like to do), I would be delighted.  We would have to stay in Nashville forever and that would be wonderful.

We head to Centennial Park which is pretty central but on the other side of town.  There's a full scale replica of the Parthenon there.  I don't know why and don't bother to read up on it so I'm both impressed and merrily bamboozled by its presence.

In the park today, there's a free festival on.  We figure we'll stay for a couple of bands before heading off for some lunch and to see a bit more of the town.  But live music is one of the main reasons we're here and the calibre of what we see is so high that we stay from start to finish.  And it's not all country music.  There might be a country tinge to most of it, but it's basically just good music.  Highlights include Chasing Summer and Andy Davis, both of which you should check out if you can.  

There are also loads of kids activities and workshops.  S picks up a guitar and stands behind a mic and rocks out with the other kids making an intolerable racket.  She also meets the mascot of the local radio station.  It's a moose and S is smitten.

The headline act is Robert Randolph and the Family Band.  There's a real buzz about them and Robert Randolph himself is said (by Steve, our host) to be the best pedal steel player of modern times.  A pedal steel is a sort of table top guitar which is played with a slide and worked by lots of levers and pedals.  I've only ever heard it in country music but the way this guy plays it makes everything sound like a cross between Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Wonder.  Seriously, you should check him out.  The festival switches from being a good time, to being a party and it is awesome.  People in this town really love their music and make no bones about getting involved, dancing along and showing their appreciation.  It's a great thing to see.

The weather is perfect all day long.  S is lathered up so she doesn't catch the sun.  My blue eyed, red headed wife doesn't catch the sun.  Black haired brown eyed, I am now a redneck.  I have to get better at this.  Though with the British summer stretched out before me like a barren wasteland of grey cloud, rain and cold, maybe I don't need to bother.

S falls asleep on the way home and by the time she wakes up, it's late but we head out to find somewhere to eat.  We find a barbecue place that's been recommended as kid friendly.  But it's late on a Saturday night and the place is about as kid friendly as, well, a bar on a Saturday night.  There's that said of threat and chaos that I remember from when I used to go out on Saturday nights.  There are tough looking biker types and the place stinks of beer.  Still, E eyes a free table in the corner and thinks we'll be fine.  There are no other kids about.  In fact, there's no food about.  Everyone's just on the road to getting hammered.  I make a rare judgement call and get us out of there.  E disagrees but we leave.  I say it looked like it was about to go off.  She says it didn't.  She clearly hasn't seen as many Westerns as I have.

Everywhere else is closing up so we nip to the supermarket and whip up spaghetti, meatballs and salad.  Cooking for yourself is one of the perks of Air BnB.  We're shopping and cooking and eating like proper Nashville residents.  We could properly live here.  But sadly, nobody's stolen our passports.  Yet.

American Thumb - Day 15 - Dollywood to Nashville, Tennessee

S has been in Tennessee for two days and her accent has already wandered into being a Southern drawl.  When she says 'hotel', she says 'ho-tayul' and has started to say 'oh my!' at the drop of a hat.  She's also dropped 'mummy' and 'daddy' and has moved on to 'mom' and 'dad'.  I don't mind it but E hates it and I am beginning to see the first major battle lines being drawn in our little family.

Today we all slept late.  We're absolutely nailing this holiday thing, but it means we're all shattered and will need another holiday to recover.  So we woke up a little later than planned and pulled ourselves together quickly to make sure we got to Dollywood in good time to enjoy it all.  We did.  It is joyous, loud, colourful, a little trashy, massive, in short everything you would want a theme park to be.  And America does this sort of thing so well.  We get straight in and get S measured at this place that then gives her a colour coded wristband which lets us know which rides she'll be suitable for.  Pretty clever huh.  Then we head for the area with the most suitable rides.

The whole place is remarkable and the weather so beautiful that I get photo paralysis.  I want to take pictures of everything around me, but instead I keep taking selfies of me looking like Chewbacca in front of a backdrop of brightly coloured buildings and a brighter sun.  I need a shave.  And possibly a haircut.

The kids' rides are awesome and vary from the sedate to the little bit white knuckle.  S's mind is blown by riding a zebra on a carousel.  But then we ride a tiny roller coaster which goes really fast!  In between screams of joy, she says, 'Don't worry daddy,' a lot and I have to wonder if maybe I'm screaming too much.  

On calmer rides that she can go on without her parents, there always seems to be one kid bawling, bumming all the other kids out.  On the bumblebees and the ducks, both of which go round and round at a walking pace, S sits in the carriage looking dead eyed and bored.  It's only when we get her on the 80 foot ferris wheel and the oddly spinning super fast things that look like they're going to collide that she seems truly, truly happy.  So we err on the side of risk and get our little thrill seeker on as many of those rides as we can.  She has a wonderful time.  Until we go on one of those water rapids rides in the round boat thing with the bumper. It's E's idea and I'm up for it so we drag S along, ignoring the warnings that this ride will get us wet.  The ride drenches all of us, proper, soaked through, which is unfortunate because S hates getting wet unless she's in the tub.  Here's a photo of us, our clothes cold, wet and clingy, but we're happy.

We approach Nashville as the sun is setting.  I have no idea what it's like as a city; I only have my outrageously positive preconceptions.  But like Boston, the skyline is immediately arresting.  Against the blue pink orange sky there's something intriguing about it.  I can't wait to get in the thick of it tomorrow and check it out.

We drive back to Nashville to find our accommodation for the next four nights.  It's out first foray into the world of Air BnB and I have no idea what to expect.  Communication with our hosts Sarah and Steve has been good and very friendly and they have a little girl around S's age so we're hopeful.  We find the house and Sarah's sitting out front playing with Adeline, their daughter, while Steve is fixing his motorcycle.  We get out, make introductions and it's like meeting up with old friends.  These people are so nice and so friendly, I feel woefully inadequate like I'm offensive and boorish and horribly uncool.  Feel free to tell me I'm none of those things when you see me.

And then I see the apartment we're staying in which is in the basement of their house and I feel woefully inadequate again.  I was expecting, well, a basement.  But it's a huge, open plan place, with everything you'd need to live there forever...which is an option I'm tempted by.  There's good music already playing (Led Zeppelin, Creedence, CSR, The Grateful Dead) and a Taylor guitar stood by the TV waiting to be played.  I haven't played guitar since I left home a couple of weeks ago.  It felt great and it's a quality guitar.  I have a horrible HORRIBLE feeling, the spirits of Nashville are going to pressure me into buying a guitar while I'm here.  

Late now.  Off to bed.  'Night y'all,' as S says.

American Thumb - Day 14 - Harriman to Dollywood, Tennessee

Well thumb fans, yesterday, I took the tube bandage off my thumb.  It had become baggy and grey like an old sock and in Nashville airport, I felt brave and daring like a new man, so I took it off and binned it.  It had been pretty ineffectual for days, aside from serving me like a comfort blanket.  The result is that I no longer have that comfort blanket and my thumb just has a plaster on it.  It looks like the thumb of a normal person who just cut it a little.  This is the road to recovery.

So this morning, I changed the dressing on it.  It's been about a week since the last change.  I line up all the things I need and again, borrow some scissors from reception.  The receptionist, who looks like Blanche from The Golden Girls, asks me (imagine a southern drawl), 'You need to fix your boo boo?'  It makes me feel a bit ill, but I keep it together.  She asks me how I did it and I tell her I was chopping vegetables.  'Are you one of those fast choppers?'  I tell her I'm not and she finds this hilarious.  'Maybe get someone else to do your chopping for ya,' she says.  Anyway, here's a photo montage of my thumb, pre and post cleanup.  It looks pretty gross.  Ta-daaaa!

Tennessee is hot.  We slather ourselves in suntan cream.  I learn the hard way that I cannot wear grey here, increasingly obvious sweat patches forcing me to return to the car to change tshirt In a brief display of public semi nudity.  I am now wearing black which attracts the heat of a thousand suns and am sweating more than before, but at least nobody can tell.  They just can't get too close.

The car we have now is a Ford the size of a tractor.  It has more controls than the plane we flew here on.  It doesn't even need a key to start it.  I have to ask the rental guy how that works.  He winces and suggests something less high tech.  We laugh and overstate how tech savvy we are and how fast we get used to these things, beneath the surface begging, 'Please don't take this technological wizardry away from us!'  Anyway, we drive it off.  It's great, but not needing the key to unlock it is wreaking havoc with our OCD.  Every time I pull the handle to check I've locked the car, it opens.  I have to stash the key fob far from the car, run back to the car and check it's locked, then run back to the key fob before someone steals it.

We spent an hour in a shop called Two Free Boots today in Sevierville, Dolly Parton's home town.  The principle is that you buy one pair of cowboy boots, you get two free.  Yup - we're doing it.  We found a couple of pairs each but couldn't decide.  We'll pick up the search in the Nashville branch over the next couple of days.

Tonight we're staying at Dolly Parton's hotel, the Dream More Resort.  It's awesome.  Islands in the Stream is playing as I cross the little bridge that funnily enough, bridges a stream on the way into the check in desk.  There are photos of Dolly everywhere which would be ghastly if you're not a fan.  But then, why would you be here if you weren't a fan? 

I leave E and S at the hotel and go for a drive in the Smoky Mountains.  They're constantly misty and steam rises here and there from the endless clumps of trees, hence the name.  They actually look how I'd imagine rainforests to look, the trees are so lush and densely packed across the mountains.  Again, I was expecting dust, so it's quite something to see the greenery on such a massive scale.

After dinner, we go down to the hotel fire pit to make s'mores with all the other kids in the hotel.  These have always been a mystery to me.  You toast a marshmallow, then jam it between two sweet crackers with a piece of chocolate.  It's good, high maintenance but good.  

After that, we go to a little club house to hear a local country musician sing a few songs.  It's mostly for the kids but he's really good and plays some awesome bluegrass riffs on guitar that I have to learn.  He announces he's going to sing Amazing Grace and asks if any kids want to join him.  So S goes running up!  He positions his lyrics so she can read them and gets singing, S standing beside him grinning broadly.  She has never heard the song in her life, doesn't know how it goes, can't read and doesn't sing, but she beams the whole way through.  As do E and I.  Sorry to be such a dad, but gee whiz I felt so proud.

E was very well behaved today.  She didn't watch the weather channel or look at her weather app once.  Just kidding: she was glued to it.  But she was very well behaved.  I hope that by reporting this, it makes her come across well.

American Thumb - Day 13 - Exeter, New Hampshire to Harriman, Tennessee

My wife doesn't laugh at my blog as much as she used to.  The first thing she does each morning is read it.  This morning, all she says is, 'You were very descriptive about Exeter.'  I get the subtext.  I ask her if she liked any of it.  'Yes,' she says.  'But it was 'hm' funny.  Not 'haha' funny.'  She then proceeds to sing the laughter song from Mary Poppins at me.  I'm losing it.  She's also pointed out that my thumb hasn't made the blog in a few days and insinuated that the thumb is the thing people are most interested in hearing about and seeing pictures of.  I said I didn't think people were that interested in my thumb.  She said, 'Exactly.'

So today was a travel day when not a lot happened.  We caught a plane to Nashville and then drove halfway to Dollywood.  We'll finish the journey tomorrow and spend all day in Dollywood so that night's blog will be all about that, but today's will be about other things.  

We had a hotel breakfast today.  The last three days, we didn't have that.  We bought a big box of Cheerios from the supermarket by way of a snack for S on the first day in that hotel.  We then decided we should finish the box and proceeded to eat Cheerios for breakfast every morning we were there.  But due to an absence of crockery, we ate them out out of the paper cups in our room.  Maybe that sounds depressing.  Maybe it was.  Anyway, today's hotel breakfast felt like a right treat.  I took full advantage and have put on 2 stone.

First impressions of Tennessee are that the people are super friendly, the accents are amazing and it's a lot greener than I thought it would be.  I was expecting dust.  But it's hot.  Holiday hot.  And sunny.  Which is great.  E's mood has the atomic weight of a planet when it's raining and is impossible to lift.  So fingers crossed everything stays as it is.

Actually, one interesting thing happened.  Nashville is in the Central time zone.  But we landed and drove east.  We're now at the hotel and six miles west, we crossed back into Eastern Standard Time.  It confused the hell out of the sat nav.  And us.  I have no real idea what time it is right now but it's late and I'm tired.

In heartbreaking news, I left my Brylcreem at the last hotel and now have horribly frizzy hair.  I look forward to spending my time in Nashville looking like Chewbacca.

My wife read the first draft of this and did laugh.  It seems she's happiest when reading off a list of my complaints, grievances and petty sadnesses.  It works for us.  She's complained that she comes across terribly in my blog.  I told her to let me know if anything I've said isn't true.  That shut her up.

American Thumb - Day 12 - North Conway to Exeter, New Hampshire

We have a new favourite channel.  It's called The Weather Channel and, funnily enough, all day long it talks about the weather.  In England, we make fun of ourselves for always talking about the weather.  But here, they have other people do it for them on a channel devoted to it.  It's because this country is vast and there are so many different weathers going on at any one time.  We're keeping an eye on Nashville because we're due to head there tomorrow and for the last couple of days, it's been in some kind of red zone.  They keep showing footage of a tornado and hailstones bigger than baseballs.  It seems to be calming down now so there's no need to watch, but we're addicted.

New Hampshire has had its own extremes in the last few days.  From the rain and fog of a few days ago, I'm sat in our hotel room nursing the sunburn my arms acquired from our morning in the outdoor pool and our afternoon picnic on the beach.  S has a tiny band of pink across her nose and cheeks and of course, I feel terrible about it.  But who could have seen it coming given the weather we've been dealing with.

The sky is clear today and the sun bright.  E has plotted a route through New Hampshire along the tiniest, most scenic roads by using A MAP.   NOT SAT NAV.  This blows my mind because I have become so reliant on sat nav in recent times that I can barely guide myself out of the cul-de-sac we live in.  So I drive and E navigates and it's wonderful fun.  We stop for lunch on the shore of Lake Winnipesaukee, the biggest lake in New Hampshire.  The lake is big enough to contain almost 300 islands.  Anyway, it's massive and in summer it's a total tourist trap.  But today is a Tuesday and even though the weather is perfect, everyone is at school or work.  We have the place to ourselves.  We eat, we walk, we paddle (freezing), we take lots of photos.  Then we carry on with our scenic drive, S enjoying a well deserved afternoon nap in the back.

Tonight, we're in Exeter, New Hampshire.  It's about an hour away from the airport in Boston where we're flying from tomorrow afternoon, so we chose it both for its convenient location and for the fact that John Irving (the writer I mentioned in yesterday's post) was born and grew up here.  After we checked into our hotel, we took a walk into town.  I expected John Irving gift shops and guided tours and blue plaques everywhere (John sat on this bench.  John had coffee here a couple of times) but there's none of that.  There are a lot of book shops and I figure they're the best place to ask about any Irving information and I catch an antique book dealer as he's packing up his stuff in front of his shop.  He tells me he knew John Irving grew up on Pine Street but that's it.  Then he tells me that he bought some books from Irving's father a few years ago.  They were leatherbound volumes of Johnson and Pepys and the like.  'Doesn't John want them?' the bookseller asked.  'He says they make him sneeze,' said Irving's father.  I don't know what to do with that so I do an awkward laugh because I think that' sweat the bookseller wants from me.  It's a weird little anecdote but I've included it because it's all I've learned about one of my heroes while visiting his home town.

I leave E and S in a restaurant - where S is gleefully finishing a bowl of ice cream - and go to find Pine Street.  The bookseller has led me to believe that it's just a couple of hundred metres away.  I'm walking fast so I can get back to E and S but I am wearing long sleeves because I am ashamed of my pink arms and I'm getting sweaty.  Pine Street is far.  By the time I get to it, I can't be bothered going down it.  I wouldn't know which house would have been John's and this place wouldn't have made a fuss of it so I would have no way of knowing.  I stand on the corner and look down it.  It looks alright.  I take a pretty poor photo.  And then I head back.  As I walk, I get a call from E.  She and S are heading back to the hotel.  Fair enough - there's only so many ways you can entertain a two year old when you're stood on the street, waiting for her dad to finish messing around looking down roads people he likes used to live on.  I quicken my pace and catch up to them, sweaty, but happy.  The sky is darker now and I'm ready for bed.

By the way, if you're interested in John Irving, I recommend him very highly.  Exeter is mentioned in a good few of his books but I can't remember which.  They're long-ish books (long for me anyway) but they always drag you in straight away - not like thrillers, but by sort of chatting to you.  Anyway, check out my favourites which are:

The Cider House Rules

Last Night in Twisted River

The World According to Garp

A Prayer For Owen Meany

American Thumb - Day 11 - North Conway, New Hampshire part 2

America has made me chipper.  I talk to people here.  I even talk to a weird guy with a clipboard in North Conway who wants to sell me a time share in the mountains.  Normally, I avoid anybody in the street who's looking for attention, but for some reason I not only talk to him, I'm nice to him.  In a busy hotel lift, an old guy dressed up to the nines, wearing a medal and on his way to some posh dinner asks me what I did to my thumb.  I tell him I sliced the top off it while chopping vegetables.  'What ya do that for?' he asks.  'I was really really cross,' I say and everyone in the lift laughs.  Admittedly, it's not terribly funny and maybe it's the horrendously English turn of phrase that has them giggling.  But that's all it seems to take: a glimpse of a sense of humour and people are happy, even if the sense of humour in question isn't a very good one.  When I've cleared my plate and a waiter asks me how the meal was, I tell him it was awful and we both laugh.  E rolls her eyes and with probable cause.  I don't imagine I'll be venturing into the world of standup any time soon, but I can hold down a conversation in America and walk away smiling and being smiled at.

The reason I've heard of New Hampshire and the reason I've wanted to visit for so long is John Irving.  John Irving is one of my favourite writers and most of his stories are based, in part, in and around New Hampshire.  He wrote The Hotel New Hampshire, so it is a buzz in itself to be staying in a hotel in New Hampshire.   He writes about the natural beauty of the place and I've always wanted to see if the images he conjures in my head are how they really are.  Yesterday, I got to grips with a damp, misty New Hampshire, which covers a good deal of what he writes about.  Today I was hoping to see the dry, sunny New Hampshire.  He also writes about bears a lot and I'm hoping to see them too.

The weather today is about as sunny as it could be, a glorious contrast to yesterday.  After a long morning lounging and playing in the pool, we head off to Jackson, a tiny, almost Alpine town nestled among the mountains and after lunch, head into the woods.  We find Jackson Falls, a series of waterfalls that cascade down the mountainside across a rocky riverbed.  The river is lined with pine and cypress trees and the mountains loom behind everything, the snow capped Mount Washington the largest among them.  There's nothing I can say to convey the beauty of it all, so here are a couple of pictures.  

Then we drove and wandered and drove and wandered and took photos some more.  We took some of the same photos we took yesterday, so we can compare and contrast the sunny weather with the apocalyptic weather.  The only disappointment with today's excursion is that I expect to see bears tumbling out of the woods, moose lumbering across every road, raccoons stealing things and beavers working hard in every waterway.  I don't even think I saw a bird.  I content myself with the idea that the bears have eaten everything else and have gone into food comas.

While in the pool this morning, we meet a couple from Massachusetts whose four year old daughter is splashing around with S.  The kid and her mum have red hair like E so they hit it off straight away.    The dad, Matt, and I join in too.  We talk about our kids and we seem to be raising them in a really similar way.  Among the other things we agree on, we're also nonplussed about sport, worried about Trump and think there's a bit too much processed food in America (Matt grows his own vegetables).  The best part is that Matt shows me where he cut the top off his thumb a few years ago.  He caught it in a fan belt and it took four months to grow back.  That seals the deal and we decide we should become Facebook friends.

I'm not just chipper in America, I can even make friends.  Get me.

Matt, if you're reading this, hi!

American Thumb - Day 10 - North Conway, New Hampshire

On the way through the Maine, the mist making everything look like Sleepy Hollow, I told E that this was where Stephen King was from and you could see where he got some of his inspiration.  As we rocked up to the hotel, its breadth, its hundreds of windows, its mountain setting and the long corridors reminded us both of The Overlook Hotel from The Shining, but we decided not to talk about that any further because, well, it's creepy.  Anyway, The Shining is on TV right now.  And for some reason, we're watching it.  I've bolted the door.  It's probably not a strong enough door to withstand an axe but fingers crossed it won't come to that.

The state motto of New Hampshire is 'Live free or die' which is by far the best of all state mottos.  It Sounds like a threat but it can't possibly be one because the weather is preventing most New Hampshire folk from living free today.  We're all living a little bit restrained, a little bit confined.  There is wind and a bit of rain and the peaks of the mountains that surround us are hidden by cloud.  I have a feeling this is exactly how New Hampshire is meant to look, because it's absolutely beautiful.  But it doesn't mean I want to go out in it.

That said, we visit a local village and end up driving through the wilderness along slick roads that wind through the mountains.  We stop in a roadside car park in the middle of nowhere.  Quite why there's a car park there, I don't know.  But it's beside a river and we figure it's a good place to take some photos.  E and S stay in the car while I scramble down some rocks to the river bank.  As I hit the bank, I have a very clear vision of disturbing a bear and having it go all Revenant on me.  Instead I disturb a bird and I do a little yelp but survive.  I take a few photos up and down the river and then discover a proper, old, steel railway bridge, the tracks either side of it stretching far into the woods before bending away to invisibility.  I get so arty with E's camera that I end up lying down on the tracks.  I figure I'd hear a train coming.  And nothing comes so I stand by that.  The best photos are on E's camera but here's one from my phone.

After lunch, we head back to North Conway to catch the Conway Historic Railway.  They run short trips on old fashioned trains, a bit like the Haworth Railway we have near us in Yorkshire.  The sweet thing is, 'moms' ride free today as it's Mother's Day.  Total score and I try to shoehorn it into being a Mother's Day gift to E.  Even though the rain has got heavier and the mountains still misty, it's a glorious trip.  The train whistle blows and the bell rings exactly like an old American train should.  It trundles along surrounded by this spectacular scenery but every now and again trundles through an ugly stretch, a part of the woods where some kids have clearly been drinking round a fire and left all their empties or where some derelict shack has collapsed.  It's a relief to know that it's not all beauty.

One fun thing E and I learned today is that blue Jolly Ranchers turn your tongue blue.  It's fun until you have to deny to your two year old that you've been eating sweets and to her credit, she doesn't believe you.

A couple of people have asked if S realised she left her lion at the diner yesterday.  Yes, she did realise.  She mentioned it yesterday and today.  She knew exactly where she left it.  She was a little disappointed but we told her Jeremy, our waiter, will be playing with it and she seemed happy enough with that.  She's a stoic kid and has moved on.

There are models and statues of bears everywhere in New Hampshire and S has plucked up the courage to cuddle or pose with all of them.  Except one.  He's seven foot tall, cuddly and he stands in front of the lift in the hotel, so every time we step out of it, he's there looming over us.  S has made peace with the seven foot moose and the five foot beaver that flank him, but he is still her nemesis.  Today she tiptoed over to him and was about to shake his paw but came running back at the last second, going, 'Nonononono!' and demanding a hug.  Maybe tomorrow.

E and S go for a swim and rather than go through the indignity of wading through the water and doing nothing, I go to check out some of the shops in the retail park next to the hotel.  True to my strict dress sense, I buy a couple of pairs of jeans and a few tshirts.  I quite like shopping, but I don't think I'm very good at it.  I have doubts about everything I buy.  Just now, I was thinking about one of the tshirts I bought so I went and tried it on.  It's a little baggier than I'd like.  I'm hoping it will shrink in the wash as, again, true to my dress sense, the clothes I be tend to be of the quality that shrink in the wash.  Or maybe I'll have to eat more and fill it.

We dine on a Walmart bought picnic in our room.  We're tired from over a week of holidaying and travelling and today has been the kind of slow, quiet day we needed.  It's only just gone 9 here.  E and S are already asleep.  And hopefully I will be soon, provided I can erase the image of Jack Nicholson's psychotic face from my mind.

American Thumb - Day 9 - Camden, Maine to North Conway, New Hampshire

I'm alive!  We removed the old dressing on my thumb last night.  E stood beside me for moral support and to catch me if I fainted.  It was gruesome but I held it together.  I've been wondering how my thumb was planning to replace its lid and it was good to see what it's been up to this last week or so.  It looks like the tip of a new, tiny thumb is growing in the wound.  I imagine it will stop at some point and dome over like a thumb should be.  But it's possible that this new, tiny thumb will keep growing until it emerges from my original thumb the way a branch does from a tree trunk.  I'll keep you posted.

We start the day with breakfast of home made granola and home made muffins (it's that kind of a hotel) followed by a swim.  Or rather, E and S swim while I awkwardly and uselessly chaperone them, my thumb in the air like I'm hitchhiking to dry land. 

In the antique shop next the the hotel, we meet Claude and Debbie who run the shop.  They're lovely.  S is crying because we've told her off for attacking thousands of dollars worth of antiques so Claude comes over and gives her a choice of one of the porcelain animals he has in stock.  She chooses a lion and is immediately calmed.  I buy an old Maine number plate and a tin mug with a lobster on it.  All Maine people have these.  I ask Claude if he has any jobs going.  He laughs.  I'm just not getting through to these people.

Maine is misty this morning and I'd love to say it's dampened my enthusiasm for the place but it hasn't. The forests that were lush and inviting yesterday are tranquil and intriguing today.  Claude and Debbie told us about the wealth of writers and other artists they know in Maine.  It's easy to see how these surroundings would attract and inspire people.  

E has plotted a route to our next stop which takes us through inland Maine and avoids major freeways and interstates.  The route takes us away from the sheen of the seaside and into a densely forested world of logging communities, lakes and increasingly rolling hills that smells incessantly of pine. I am in love. I want to be a lumberjack and seeing stacks of trees being treated and dealt with in those yards makes me whimper again.  Though I'd take any job in Maine, lumberjack would be my number one choice.

After a hearty lunch at a proper diner called The Governor's in Lewiston (our server Jeremy being a total dude), S falls asleep in the back of the car and we plough on.  After a while, we realise S left the lion she got from Claude.  With a mild tug of the heart strings, we keep going.  She's asleep.  I hope she forgets about it.  Along the way, we stop to take photos here and there.  E takes a picture of a fleet of school buses at a depot on a hilltop, lifeless on this Saturday afternoon, save for old glory flapping flapping in the breeze. I stop at a fishing lake and attempt to get a bit arty with E's good camera.  We stop for a little while in a town called Naples.  The road into town brings you round a corner where an enormous lake opens up from the treelined highway and stretches to the mountainous horizon. Though far inland, town itself is colourful and pretty like those seaside towns.  Awestruck, E and I don't talk for a little while. 

A similar thing happens as we drive through North Conway, New Hampshire where our hotel is, about an inch over the Maine state border (as the map shows it). These roads are like corridors and the tees close you in.  If you don't like trees, it must be very claustrophobic.  But I love trees.  Every now and then, the walls of the corridor break away to reveal a mighty lake.  The suddenness of these sights is part of what makes them so striking. But as we go through North Conway, the trees give way to not only reveal an incredible lake but an enormous mountain that had previously been hidden. The effect is quite literally breathtaking and the mountain so huge and so on top of us that I feel almost nervous.  Again, E and I don't speak for a little while. When we do, it's with the stilted dialogue of the shell shocked. 

'See that mountain?' 

'Yeah.' 

'Wow.' 

'Yeah.' 

The lobby of our hotel is bedecked with models and wood carvings of bears and moose.  Antler chandeliers hang above us and there's a roaring fire beside baggy leather chairs in a wood panelled, wood decorated reading room.  It's funny, but wonderful.  Wood, bears and moose seem to be all the rage in New Hampshire.  I think I'm going to like it here.  

It's Mother's Day here tomorrow.  People keep wishing E a happy Mother's Day and I realise I should really do something to celebrate.  I would like to broadcast the fact that we've already had our Mother's Day and I did a standup job of celebrating it.  But the expectation is there.  Not from E though.  I tried to sneak a card in Walmart and she told me not to.  Maybe I'll buy her a bar of chocolate or something.

American Thumb - Day 8 - Boston, Massachusetts to Camden, Maine

The terrible thing about Maine - and by terrible, I mean heartbreakingly, spirit-crushingly terrible - is that we don't live here.  As we drive through a town called York along the coast south of Portland, I declare that I want to live here.  Right here.  In fact, I have never visited a place that I have wanted to live in more.  The sky is cloudless, it is tshirt warm.  Every house is picture perfect, clapperboard reds, whites, greys and blues threaded through with this gently winding road that we're driving along.  The grass is lush and rolls away from the road to where the Atlantic crashes against the black rocks and sweeps in across the white beach.  We stop so E can take some photos and I get out to adjust S's car seat.  The smell of freshly cut grass is in the air.  Damn you York in Maine!  If only you had smelled of old fishing nets or burnt hair the spell you had cast on me would have been broken.  Instead, the careful gardener who plods through the public garden throws this king of smells in my face and I am hooked.

From there we drive on to a town called Ogunquit which E picked out of the Lonely Planet guide as we drove (side note: I love the mix of Anglo and Native American place names in this part of the world).  There's a bakery there which sounds like the perfect spot for lunch.  We drive into town and it is charming.  The parades of shops line up around a junction where four little roads converge.  We turn down one and park up at the beach.  S is barefooted but so excited to be out of the car and see sand that she heads straight for the beach and takes off like a greyhound who's been let off its lead and there is glee in her face as she tears towards the ocean, then tears back with joyful fear and wonder.  We roll up our trousers and wade in.  It's freezing but bracing.  We find Bread and Roses, the bakery E has read up on, and it doesn't disappoint.  We eat our lunch on the beach and get back in the car and head off.

I'm driving a Jeep by the way.  At the garage in Boston, the guy gives me an upgrade, possibly because I'm wearing my newly acquire Red Sox hat in which I look pretty awesome.  So I opt for a Jeep.  I can't give this one an ironic name like The Hog or The Road Warrior because, well, it is exactly those things.  So we shall call it Bing, after the annoying cartoon bunny S keeps talking about in her sleep.  Anyway, it's pretty exciting driving old Bing.  E feels gangsta.

The inn we're staying at is called the Country Inn and is in a place called Camden, a destination we chose because, well, we like Camden in London and we had to pick somewhere.  The hotel makes its own soap and has a line in gifts.  It has a pool and a playground for kids.  It also has book and DVD libraries.  At check in, I ask the owner for a job.  She laughs and moves on, oblivious to the genuine pleading in my eyes.  E and S go up to the room.  While I'm getting the bags out of the car, E throws open the doors to our balcony.  'Maine's winning!' she yells.  'Nice room?' I yell back.  She gives me the thumbs up.  Despite being the kind of scumbags who yell to each other out front of a nice hotel, we have ended up in a classy place.  The room is huge, more of a suite.  It's big enough to have two TVs.  The bathroom is big too and stocked up on that home made soap.  It's a perfect fit for the Maine we have already fallen in love with.

We take a trip out and walk around Camden as the sun is setting.  It's beautiful.  A mountain provides the backdrop to the town which centres around a picturesque little harbour.  This noise keeps escaping from me, something between a whimper and a vomit.  It happens every time I see something beautiful, so quite a lot.  Maine is hurting me.  How can anywhere else ever measure up?  What's the point in ever being anywhere else?

We drive to Lobster Pound in Lincolnville, another of E's recommendations where she wants to treat me to lobster.  We've never had it before so we tell the waiter, hoping for some tips.  His name is Dillan and he's top.  He brings the lobsters out and basically tells us to smash them up and eat the white meat.  We go for it and I get what the fuss is about.  It's really tasty and not like anything else I've ever eaten.  Meaty, not fishy, almost sweet sometimes.  S has fish and chips and canes the lot.

One of the downsides of eating lobster is that it's messy.  In my particular case, this means that the dressing on my thumb has acquired a crustacean hum.  I stop at a pharmacy on the way back to the hotel and by the necessary dressings to supplement those the hospital gave me and borrow the scissors from the hotel reception.  Tonight I will change the dressing.  I'm a little bit nervous.  If I don't make it, I want my ashes scattered in Maine.