Sunday 28th February 2010 - A Day of Rest

          I seem to have settled into Sunday being 'Roman Emperor' day.  It is, as a Roman Emperor himself might say, a forteriori, a 'Roman Emperor' day today, because this inexpensive Tallahassee motel has provided (as standard, I hasten to add) a faux-marble whirlpool bath.  After I have read a couple of chapters, sweated myself clean, and anointed those bits in need of anointing, I take a look at the day (this is the view out of the front door of my room, Live Oaks draped with Spanish Moss)

[n1121]

          I drive downtown for a look about, but, as usual, I can't really find downtown, so I take a stroll in the local park.  The local park, as well as the usual quota of sweating girls, is full of dog-walkers.  Rather to my surprise, a very high proportion of the dogs are 'toy' sized: must be a local fashion.  Perhaps they are being walked for geriatric snowbirds.

          I find a heron, posing in a pond, trying to look like a 1960s table lamp

[n1117]

(that's not the blue water of the Caribbean: I forgot to switch the white balance back to 'daylight', and, of course, the heron had no patience for amateurs)

Then I repair to a local hostelry for a leisurely lunch.  The Canadians are beating the USA at hockey.  They're not too fussed here, they don't really understand hockey.  Someone told me they used to have a minor hockey league down here, but it failed: they probably couldn't afford the ice.

 

          Later that night, I tout my story round the bar.  "Awesome", says one man, "awesome".  Then he apologises for his vocabulary: "I've got two teenage kids", he says, by way of explanation.