Mocking birds at breakfast

Blethering from Birmingham, Alabama - the blethers winter tour 07? Where to start? For a start, with no photos - a lack of the necessary software makes me realise yet again why I use a Mac. Ah well. I wonder if John from Denmark, whom we met in the snazzy President's Club in Newark Airport, is reading this - because he told me all normal people use PCs. (You can see the kind of converations I end up in).

From Ruth and Ed's historic house (it has a plaque to testify to its status) we can hear the romantic hooting of the trains - I feel as if I'm in a Tennessee Willliams play or something. The road is strangely rural - broad, curving up a hill, lots of trees and shrubs. It is cold - colder than we've had it at home - but sunny and still and very dry. This morning at breakfast I saw an American robin - sort of starling-sized with a black head and a startlingly red front - and two mocking birds - mocking birds! And last night I ate one of the best meals of my life (grilled grouper from the Gulf of Mexico) and went to the ballet in town.

Right now we're organising to meet up with Lou from the Yahoo group I post on, and soon we'll be off for a visit to Ruth's church. It's all a mix of the familiar and the strange - people we know so well in a setting that is at once completely new and movie-familiar. My accent sticks out like a sore thumb, but I'm resisting the awful temptation to be a fake American.

So, enough already. I'll take the pix and post them all when I return - I may even drive anyone who reads this on RSS to drink by illustrating existing posts. But for now, 'bye, y'all - have a nice day!