New York Insanity and Shelter Island Calm

After the week in Philadelphia with the Craft Scotland gang I left there on the monday morning with a small group of intrepid Scots on the Greyhound (well it was actually Peter Pan but booked through Greyhound because what else would we use?) and travelled up to New York City. "New York City imagine that", on the journey we "counted the cars on the New Jersey turnpike" and suddenly we were spewed off the bus into the insanity of this mad place. I left my travelling companions and hopped in a taxi - eeeee-zooom-dodge-brake hard-honk-honk-honk-Hannah swearing silently to herself and praying for the journey to not be too long in the back of the dodgem car to meet none other than Mr and Mrs Funky Philbeck (you can blame DF of course Ron).

We had arranged to meet up in the Big Apple that day and to spend a few days there together and the extra special bit was that Paul was flying over that day too to meet us. Here are Ron and Sarah posing on the street.

Familiar looking place don't you think? We didn't go up it, not enough time, too much to see.

Tis a bit like the Gherkin in London though, seems to be at the end of every street but other wise there is so much to see all the time and you know when you are just walking along "in a New York minute, everything can change".

I always feel for potter's partners, and haven't before realised just what Paul has to deal with until Sarah pointed out that I am "even worse than Ron". Don't you find that pots just jump out all over the place to say hello to you? This was one of two big buggers in a window that Ron and I stopped to have our photo taken with - blimey that does sound sad now that I stop and write it down. I can't think where it was but it wasn't while we were "Walking down Madison".

An awful lot of this part of the trip was about food. We ate rather a lot and rather regularly, it was all good though, if just too much of it.

Especially for my friend Janet on Cape Cod! We saw hundreds of the awful things, you'd have been very happy!

We spent a lot of time just "Walking in NY" and looking and being stunned and amazed and flapping a bit at the sheer amount of cars and people and stuff going on. We had a few quiet moments too thank goodness.

We walked across the Brooklyn Bridge to take in the view and to have a wee wonder over the other side of the river.

Paul and me spent a day in the Metropolitan Museum, I have lots of pictures from there, they might get a post all of their very own. Humungous place, very like the V&A in feel and in eclectic mix of all sorts from all over the worls. I was particularly drawn to the case of redwares where Paul left me for a while as he went off to look at another gallery.

Taxis! Flipping heck they are another breed those drivers! I guess you would have to be to survive but crikey! I can live without ever having to do any of that again in my life!

All too soon that bit of the trip was over though and we were saying goodbye to Ron and Sarah again, too sad, I know I've spent time with them twice this year but as with Dan a few days before it wasn't enough. Here's the four of us in the apartment that we stayed in, just before Paul and I headed off to catch another bus for the last bit of our trip when before we knew it we were "Leaving New York". As my friend Phil said when I told him we were just living songs the whole time - thank goodness it wasn't "Christmas Eve in the drunk tank".

And so to a place that feels so far removed from the chaos that is NYC and to few days on Shelter Island, just about 100 miles along the coast. We were heading there to meet up with the lassie on the bike there who you may or may not be able to tell from the picture is Paul's sister. Maz lives on Shelter Island and I've only met her once before rather briefly but Paul has been and stayed with her in the past. We had a bit of calm time. We rode bikes around the island (hecky thump that was kind of hard). For some reason I knew that I had to ride on the opposite side of the road but in knowing that my brain seemed to think that left and right would be the opposite way around too. Eek!

In so many ways it reminded me of being on Cape Cod back in April. The days were bright and sunny but there was a definite chill in the air, especially at night. The landscape is not dissimilar, after all they aren't really that far apart. I waved to Hollis one day but I think he was busy drinking coffee in the coffee shop at the time and missed me.

Fab fences. It's a quiet place at this time of year but I don't think it would be my cup of tea in the summer months, too busy and too hot probably. It was great to spend a bit of time with Maz, her and Paul are so alike it was quite frightening at times. Again too short a time though and before we knew it we were at the airport and awaiting a plane back to Blighty.

Who'd have believed that little Miss likes to stay in her workshop and make pots by herself would be so well travelled this year. I certainly wouldn't. It was fab to see some my lovely lovely friends again and maybe the next time we meet will be over this side of the pond. Who knows...