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And so, here we are back in beautiful downtown Byfield having spent an exceedingly excellent week with Dad and Mom/Grandpa and Grandma at the Finishing School in Hanover along with brief visits to Hartford for Rob’s senior recital, Lake George for a night at the Peter Pan, the annual anniversary dinner at Hemingway’s and a great barbeque at Steph and Hope’s. A splendid break and now it’s back to the grind tomorrow.

When I left you last I was at Lake George enjoying Sandy and Pam’s hospitality. And splendid hospitality it was, as usual. Sandy barbequed chicken breasts stuffed with pesto, cream cheese and three other cheeses which was outstanding. We discussed the intricacies of excavating a suitable and sufficiently dimensioned pouch for the stuffing and I am quietly confident that I can repeat the experience when the opportunity next arises.

Not wanting me to feel in the least bit homesick, they kindly provided three rugby matches from that weekend’s Heineken Cup competition between the best European clubs. We watched the first half of one on Saturday evening and then finished our viewing on Sunday afternoon. It was excellent to be able to watch the matches with a suitably qualified referee and Sandy provided much illumination and expertise; we also essentially agreed on the success or otherwise of the various rule changes which have been in experimentation for the past couple of years. It seems that the international federation which governs rugby around the world largely agrees with our conclusions – some of the rule changes are excellent and some are just plain stupid.

Late Sunday afternoon we set off in convoy to Hemingway’s in Killington, Vermont for Dad and Mom’s anniversary dinner. Steph, Hope and Greg conveyed Mom and Dad from Hanover and once again the meal exceeded all our expectations – the guy is good! Everyone’s meal was more or less to their satisfaction and the desserts were simply outstanding. Mom decided she would not have a dessert so they quickly whipped up something appropriately Easter-themed just for the heck of it.

Regrettably, both Pam and Hope refused (vigorously, I might add) to have their photograph taken with the group (understandable, in many ways). Feeling suitable sated but not in the least bit bloated, we drove back to Hanover having said good-bye to Sandy and Pam as they made their way back to Huletts.

On Monday evening we made our way up to Steph and Hope’s for some barbequed steak which Steph prepared to perfection. While there we got to play with the newest member of the family, Rowdy Sir Humpsalot (to give him his full Kennel Club name), who particularly enjoyed demonstrating a party trick of running around the kitchen floor with an empty feed bag over his head.

Following Steph’s excellent feast, I slept like a log on Monday night – having finally succeeded in getting my body clock adjusted to the East Coast time zone, it was clearly time to leave for home.

The journey home was fine. Mom and Dad drove me to the Hanover Inn to catch the Dartmouth Coach to Logan which pulled in approximately ten seconds after we did. The in-coach entertainment was of the usual high standard I have come to expect on this outing – Singing in the Rain. Now, I have to confess I have never watched the whole film before. Naturally, I have seen some clips, particularly the famous routine of Gene Kelly singing in the rain but I have to confess, I found Morecombe and Wise’s version preferable. You can catch it on YouTube here. Still, the film did serve to help the three hour drive to the airport pass somewhat more quickly than it might have done without any form of distraction.

I checked in, was assigned the seat I had requested this time and the flight boarded and departed on time. The only small inconvenience on this flight was my travelling companion in seat 40A, a short yet rather rotund middle-aged Scottish woman who needed to use the facilities about four times in the first thirty minutes of the flight. I did think that this was going to be a somewhat disjointed flight but she did settle down after that and the rest of the flight, apart from the usual lousy food, mind-numbing boredom and abysmal entertainment, was fine. (The “entertainment” provided was Four Christmases which, in spite of having a collection of Oscar winners, i.e. Reese Witherspoon, Robert Duvall, Sissy Spacek, Jon Voight and Mary Steenburgen, was one of the worst films I have ever watched [most] of the way through. I guess it’s true what they say about Christmas turkeys, because this certainly was one. These guys clearly did this film only to earn enough cash to pay their taxes, I would guess). Fortunately, Sandy and Pam had provided a selection of their DVDs which I had transferred on to my iPod so I was able to provide my own superior entertainment the rest of the time.

We landed on time in spite of circling over southern England for about half an hour and the lovely and delightful Ms Playchute was waiting patiently to ferry me home. The next few days were spent walking around in a daze, struggling to get over the jet lag which seemingly gets more and more difficult the older I get – what’s that all about?

So, everything was fine until Thursday afternoon when, for some reason, our broadband decided to disappear. The girls had experienced a brief outage during my absence but re-booting the router had seemed to do the trick. However, the outage which started on Thursday was intractable and, after an hour or more on the technical support line, no resolution seemed in sight. A call was duly raised with BT who provide the line to the house and, as of Friday morning, we were still waiting. It’s amazing how “dependent” we (i.e., me) have become; it’s like being deprived of one’s right arm, I reckon. The good news is that I was only without my right arm until about 1.00 on Friday afternoon when I received a call from the technical support guys to try it again – BT said they had fixed it and indeed they had. I must give a “thumbs up” to the Zen technical support guys (who provide our broadband) – they were first rate. BT, on the other hand, gets a “thumbs down” mainly because (a) they said they had fixed it at 8.30 am and they hadn’t and (b) they even told the Zen guys that they had visited the house and had ascertained that I was using an incorrect username and password. Bizarre since no one had visited at all. Hey ho! Back on line so all is well with the world again.

Ms Playchute has been very busy in the garden and has the raised vegetable beds prepared and/or planted. The lawns have been mowed and we’re off on a longish walk this afternoon, provided the weather stays fine, to bring the Easter break to a fitting conclusion.

Much love to you all,

Greg

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With Tax Day (in the US) recently passed, this one might be appropriate)

I have a visitor staying with us for the weekend: He's from the Netherlands. As a way to loosen things up and get the conversation flowing, I noted that we have something in common: we both have red, white, and blue flags.

"Yes!" he said. "Our flag symbolizes our taxes."

"Um... huh?" I stammered. I mean yeah, it's almost April 15 here, but the flag symbolizes taxes?

"Yes," he said. "We get red in the face when we talk about them, white in our knuckles when we get our tax bill, and we're blue after we pay them."

"Ah," I said, immediately grasping the concept. "That's the same with us -- only we see stars, too."

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A task force consisting of a DEA agent, an ATF and an FBI agent arrive at a ranch in western Nebraska.

The agents tell the rancher, "We need to inspect your ranch for illegal drugs."

"Help yourself," the old rancher says, "but don't go in that field over there."

The DEA agent practically explodes. He whips out has badge, sticks it in the rancher's face. "Mister, we have the authority of the Federal Government behind us," he sneers, "and we'll go anywhere we feel like going. Got it?!"

"Yes, sir," the rancher says.

"Good," the agent says. "Now you can go about your chores while we go about ours."

A few minutes later, the old rancher hears screams and looks up to see the agents in the field he warned them about. All three are running for their lives -- close behind is his biggest, meanest bull. With every step the bull is gaining ground on the agents. They are clearly terrified.

The old rancher immediately throws down his tools, runs to the fence and yells at the top of his lungs...

"Your badges! Show him your badges!"

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A blonde lady motorist was about two hours from San Diego when she was flagged down by a man whose truck had broken down.

The man walked up to the car and asked, "Are you going to San Diego?"

"Sure," answered the blonde, "do you need a lift?"

"Not for me. I'll be spending the next three hours fixing my truck. My problem is I've got two chimpanzees in the back which have to be taken to the San Diego Zoo. They're a bit stressed already so I don't want to keep them on the road all day. Could you possibly take them to the zoo for me? I'll give you $100 for your trouble."

"I'd be happy to," said the blonde.

So the two chimpanzees were ushered into the back seat of the blonde's car and carefully strapped into their seat belts, and off they went.

Five hours later, the truck driver was driving through the heart of San Diego when suddenly he was horrified to see the blonde walking down the street and holding hands with the two chimps, much to the amusement of a big crowd.

With a screech of brakes he pulled off the road and ran over to the blonde.

What the heck are you doing here?" he demanded, "I gave you $100 to take these chimpanzees to the zoo."

"Yes, I know you did," said the blonde," but we had money left over, so now we're going to Sea World."

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