My holiday begins...
Right. Yippee! I've arrived in Rockville, a leafy critter-filled place near Washington DC. I've seen a low-slung silvery fox, red-headed cardinal birds, and a family of ground-hogs living in an exclusive excavation under the corner garden shed. In the garden here irises are blooming, and it's show-off time for shrubby Azaleas.
A huge thank you to Jack who did some horticultural 'plumbing' on the Moosey Forums while I was high over the Pacific Ocean. Someone else to do the weeding while I'm on holiday!
Monday 18th May
Today I plan to be slow and moochy, 'in recovery' from 22 hours of flying and airports. There's little of a gardening nature in such places - though walking between Los Angeles terminals I passed patches of flowering Manuka underneath palm trees. Weird! No Cordylines, which is a welcome - subtraction? to the civic planting scheme.
Azalea and Limousine
Staying with Cats and Birds
I'm staying with two Abyssinian house cats and several aviary birds (two macaws, a hawkhead parrot, a lorikeet and a white cockatoo). The bird room is noisy with high-pitched squawks and whistles, and a dozy alto-toned 'hellllooooo' from the cockatoo. 'Ready for bed' is the lorikeet's contribution - after 22 hours of flying I agree!
Moosey at the White House
Much Moosey Twittering...
A Moosey first - the laptop is on holiday with me, which means loads more twittering (not 'Twittering') about everything and nothing. And it will be easy to look up my list of gardens to visit, and perhaps get a little bit geographical. That's for later.
Tuesday 19th May
Today I was a down-town tourist. I took the metro into Washington, walked past the White House (photograph obligatory) then down the National Mall (which is green grass and museums, not shopping!).
I enjoyed the Art Galleries (I saw my very first Rothke and Pollock paintings) and, obviously, the National Botanic Gardens (whose small outdoor gardens are quite recently planted). Roses were blooming! Very nice...
The Mall is lined with famous building (solid, dependable, built around the 1930s) - the Smithsonian, the Museum of the Native American, and so on. And of course there are really famous buildings on near horizons - like the Lincoln Memorial.
Garden Pyramid Sculpture
Garden Sculptures
I met some sculptures - a concrete block pyramid which I liked and a Lichtenstein house which moved in and out of perspective - both were displayed in a rather groovy green garden setting. So I had the tiniest tourist taste of the tiniest tourist slice of American art life.
USA Flags around the Washington Memorial
Tomorrow we go garden visiting in Pennsylvania - we have a 'Chevrolet Something' hire car. Chanticleer (near Philadelphia) is our first garden, and then we'll stay somewhere nearby. The romantic in me would love a farm stay or a bed'n'breakfast. The realist is seeing a motor hotel alongside the freeway!