Photo upload, fingers xx'd

I am now in LAX in their reLAX lounge, for the next five hours at a cost of $35 but it is so nice and peaceful and they have snacks etc. I have my seat allocations for the flight to Sydney and Cairns and, I do believe I can see my plane from the broad picture windows of the lounge - and it's the new double-decker one! THAT is going to be an adventure.

I shall now make a final attempt to upload those photos from the last post.

Old Red
Reunion Tower












Union Station
I took another photo of the Reunion Tower from my hotel room (out of the cleanest part of it anyway) but haven't downloaded it from my camera yet.

Now it's sit back and relax time, get myself a cup of coffee and move away from these very distracting windows (always did like watching planes take off and land) so I can do some work on the ms that has been having a lazy time in my bag for the last month.

Once my 5 hrs is up in here I'll go find something for dinner - they have an extensive food court in the terminal - and get ready to board the last but one (but longest at just shy of 15 hours) plane of this trip.

Next time I go to the UK - it's There and Back Again! Hmm, sounds like a good title for a book.

They do things big in Texas...

I ordered lunch through Room Service yesterday. A Salmon BLT with seasonal veggies. This is what I got. I had to put my mobile phone next to the plate so you could get an idea of the SIZE of this thing. Believe it or not there's a bread roll under that slab of salmon, the giant tomatoes and the lettuce leaf. The only veg I recognised was a zucchini, so I ate all of those bits, and some red onion. There were two packets each of mayo AND mustard.

No wonder America has such an obesity problem!

This morning while having brekkie the sun was coming up on a beautiful old building in the next block, so I ducked out to take some photos. I really couldn't be in Dallas and not take some photos to prove I'd been here.

We have: The Old Red Courthouse (fondly known as Old Red) which is now a museum; The Reunion Tower and the Hyatt Regency Hotel. Unfortunately all the other landmark buildings were to the east and the sun was blasting down the street, so these are all I got.

Okay, having problems uploading so I'll upload them later, probably when I'm back in Oz.

Time to get packed up for the final time. Phew!

Bye Dallas!

Catching up and catching breath...

Hi all,

I'm in Dallas, TX now. It's incredibly flat country and sprawls out as much if not more than Sydney or Melbourne.

I've decided to be a total slug this afternoon. I think the last few days in Philadelphia have filled my historical/tourist quota to the brim, plus I only have a very small window of opportunity to give my hubby a phone call and the peace and quiet of a hotel room is the best place.

Philadelphia - beautiful city, in spite of the bad rep it has regarding crime etc. After totally relaxing with my friends from Langhorne I transferred to Ardmore, a lovely leafy suburb somewhere to the south-west-ish (I'd have to look it up on a map to confirm the precise location) of the city.

My friend Grace met me at 30th St Station, which I remembered from 18 years ago when hubby and I were there, phoning our Langhorne friends to let them know we'd missed our train and would be on the next one. I recognised the public phones as I walked from the suburban part of the station to the main part to wait for Grace.

When she picked me up we went on a driving tour of the city for a while and then headed for her lovely house - 60 years old, built of stone and solid as a rock (pun intended). The next day after a leisurely breakfast cooked by her hubby Jeff, we went off to the oldest zoo in America which is celebrating its 150th birthday this year. It has a hot air balloon (tethered) that takes people on short rides, and a great collection of animals, including a mob of typically lazy red kangaroos (well, it was a very hot day), a couple of echidnas and some bearded pigs. Why they were called bearded pigs when the "beard" is on the top of their snout I shall probably never know! The other (reddish) photo is of the Yin/Yang Aardvarks - sound asleep in their glass-roofed den.

Sunday was Moody Blues day - Grace and I spent most of the day looking at movies, photos and just talking Moody Blues.

Yesterday we did the total tourist bit - we drove into the city and went on a Duck ride (the WW2 DUKW type of duck) around the city and along the Delaware River - on the river. We saw a 160-yr old tugboat that is still working, and the oldest residential street in America - a very narrow lane but beautifully restored.

Then we got very historical - the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall. Such a change from 18 years ago. The bell has been moved into a new pavilion and you can't get close to it - a far cry from the photo taken of us beside it under nothing more than a pergola out in the open. We even had to have our handbags searched before we went into the building. There is a good display of the bell's history before you get to where the bell is now hanging.

Independence Hall was just as I remembered it from before, apart from the security (again!) and being on a guided tour - the guide was brilliant and brought the history of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution to vivid life. Turns out, the Declaration of Independence wasn't actually signed on July 4. It was read out to the public on July 8th (and none of the powers-that-be who did sign it were there as they didn't know what the public's reaction would be) and finally completely signed some time in August.

Plenty of references were made to the National Treasure movie, which brought a smile to everyone's face. Also, the guide mentioned that the only State not present at the signing was Rhode Island, and asked if anyone was there in the group from RI - three people put their hands up and the guide's response was "You made it! Finally!" The whole group burst out laughing.

After the tour we went into the Curtis building to see a magnificent mural made entirely of glass. Then it was time to head for home - we were exhausted. We had dinner out and had ourselves some ColdStone icecream - I can't recall who it is that has started doing the same thing in Cairns, but I will be chasing it up because it is a brilliant concept. I liked the cup sizes - Like it, Love it, Gotta Have It. I had french vanilla icecream with Butterfinger chopped and mixed inside and it was incredibly yummy!

This morning it was up with the birds and off to the airport for the last leg home. I very sensibly organised a pickup by shuttle bus to the hotel and return to the airport tomorrow morning - only cost me $38 all up. Some of the transport companies were asking $40 one way!

Time to relax; I seem to have found a tv channel that's showing all my old faves - Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie and I think the next one is The Cosby Show!

Fun in the USA

Well, they let me in the country - suckers! It was an interesting flight - stuck in the middle seat of 5 around the middle of the plane and wishing I had forked out the additional 350 GBP to upgrade! The food was okay if a bit greasy and lots of cheese. I could have upgraded - I didn't spend anywhere near as much money as I thought I would so I could have afforded it. If I get the opportunity again and it's not horrendously expensive, I'll do it - the upgraded seats were much nicer and roomier.

For reasons known only to my travel booker, this flight went from London to Philadelphia VIA CHICAGO! That's where I had to go through immigration and customs - yep, had to claim my baggage and then recheck it for the next bit of the flight - which was on a much smaller plane and I was in literally the last seat, right next to the toilet which didn't have a light - but at least I was by the window, even though my boarding pass had me in the aisle seat! A young guy turned up just as I was getting settled and he said he was in the aisle seat, so I swapped quite happily.

I had a reasonable view if I sat up straight and twisted round a bit - and saw a landscape when we were around a half hour away from Philadelphia that I am convinced was the inspiration for the Shiver Barrens in Glenda Larke's awesome Mirage Makers trilogy. For mile after mile there were these tree-clad ridges that went for miles and in between were flat valleys with fields and towns and then another ridge and another valley, almost ad infinitum. Eventually the ridges ran out - I shall have a look on Google Earth to see if I can locate them.

Then I got to Philadelphia, and had a major blonde moment by not recognising the friend who was there to pick me up! I walked right by him - his t-shirt should have given me the clue but he didn't look tall enough. Obviously my memory of him from 18 years ago is VERY faulty!

I retrieved my baggage and waited, and waited, until I spotted my other friend who was going away on holiday today, so she came out to the airport to say hi and have a beer - she was the one who approached this t-shirt clad man after we'd been waiting around for quite a while and found out he was my ride!

Much embarrassment!

We had our beer (well, Sue had the beer and the food, Bob and I had tea) and chatted for a while then we went our separate ways. It was really weird to be sitting on the left side of the car and not be driving! No way will I do any driving over here - too scary this time around.

This morning, when I finally surfaced (I'd been up from 3.3oam UK time and when I went to bed it was around 3.30AM UK time again!) we went and did some grocery shopping and I was gobsmacked to see, in the fish market, TILAPIA for sale.

Now, for those of you not in Qld, or even in Australia, Tilapia is regarded as a pest fish and it is illegal to catch it. I cannot understand why the state govt is not encouraging people to go catch and eat it as by all accounts (and the website that came up on Google for tilapia recipes) it is a nice fish. If enough people catch it surely their effect on the native fish will be reduced? Or am I being incredibly naive to think the state govt is capable of thinking intelligently?

Yep, naive!

This may be my last post for a couple of days as I don't know what network facilities my other friend has, the one I'm going to stay with from tomorrow until next Tuesday when I fly to Dallas, so don't panic. I have definitely made sure that the hotel in Dallas has free wifi!

Stay safe everyone!

You want *how much* to post one box???

Okay, so my baggage will be heavier than anticipated. I packed up all the books and souvenirs and booklets and brochures etc into three boxes, wrapped them beautifully, addressed and stuck customs labels on them then we took them to the local post office.

And brought all three back again! Just the first box, the lightest of the three, was going to cost 55GBP to send by ordinary mail. Not airmail, not express mail, just plain old ordinary sea mail which would take a couple of months to arrive.

Luckily my sister has a small suitcase she can give me, or I shall see if it will all fit into my carryon bag which I will check rather than take on board because it will be quite heavy. Umm, on second thoughts, maybe not. I don't have a spare padlock for it! Hopefully Sue has a padlock for the case (crosses fingers).

Here is the Uffington photo I promised. Not very visible, I know, but it is there, left of centre just below the brow of the hill. We drove closer and walked up to see it, plus Dragon Hill which is just visible below and to the left of the horse. The photo of me was taken by a woman who saw me walking up from checking on the horse - a small part of it can be seen just below my right hand - and Dragon Hill is to my right. I didn't walk down to that because it was very steep both down and up!

The crop circle search was fruitless, sad to say. There had been a circle spotted in that area, a very simplistic one which both Sue and I are positive is man-made. I have emailed one of the crop circle websites to let them know what we think of that one and that there was another one in the area which nobody seems to have noticed (!) - I shall report on results if any are forthcoming.

Unfortunately the party on Sunday ended on a very sour note - my eldest nephew's pushbike was stolen during the evening. He had it double-locked and reasonably out of sight, but some enterprising low-life picked it up and walked off with it.

Now to go pack my suitcase(s) and have a relatively early night as we have to get up at 3am tomorrow to make sure we get to Heathrow.

See you in the USA!

Winding down...

... in preparation for the next bit of my travels!

Friday was Depart Wales day, and we made it to Swindon in good time to meet eldest sister (actually we were quite early and sat in the car for an hour!) only to discover that she had suffered a senior moment and missed her train! We had persuaded the station people to let us on the platform (they don't do platform tickets any more) so we could meet her, and we had some hilarious conversations about missing sisters, and when she did finally arrive an hour late we gave them the double thumbs-up.

Then we totally confused her by heading off to find the very last white horse - in Oxfordshire - which is actually THE oldest of all the white horses, at Uffington. It's a very abstract horse but well worth the visit.

Then the anti-navigation demon took over again and we took a very scenic route to Newbury and to the motel we were booked into for the night. I blame it on the other two nattering away and not focussing on where we were going, me seeing a sign that said Newbury and turning right about a mile or so earlier than I was supposed to. Ah well, it was scenic!

The motel left a lot to be desired - we'd asked for a family room for 3 adults - only enough towels for two, no towel rail in the bathroom even though there was a very polite sign cautioning us that the towel rail may become quite hot (!), no power outlets in the bathroom other than for a man's shaver, the service in the restaurant next door was abysmally slow (a table next to us remained uncleared the entire time we were in there and they weren't exactly wildly busy) - needless to say we didn't leave a tip. We went to the next door Maccas for brekkie the next day.

Then it was off to see my cousins on Dad's side of the family - and I finally got to meet most of their kids and partners that I hadn't met the last time around (which was most of them!). We got there around 12 ish, and left at 6.30! A nice easy drive back to Letchworth and even with stopping off at a supermarket to pick up milk and a paper, we were back by 8pm.

Then it was all on yesterday for the other side of the family - all my nieces and nephews and their assorted kids and partners who I had never met, plus my sister's fiance's family - hordes of kids and a magician and food - and the cleaning up afterwards. However, the one shining light amongst all of that was when Sue and I went to the supermarket to get the last minute things and I spotted bottles from my favourite winery on the shelf. Yep, I bought a bottle and drank half of it last night. Brown Bros - you rock! I did have a good look through the shelves for Cienna but it wasn't there. However I'm sure it can be found in a dedicated wine store rather than a supermarket.

This morning I packed up all the stuff I'm mailing back - three boxes in all! Not huge, not madly heavy, but it will make the trip to America much lighter.

And spent half the morning dodging raindrops with my washing - we'd have a nice fine spell and then down it would come - luckily I still have tomorrow to deal with it if it doesn't dry overnight on the rack in the middle of the loungeroom *g*

The UK part of my trip has been wonderful. I have carefully avoided places I already know - the closest we have been to my old home is the top of the hill on the way back to Sue's after dropping eldest sis off on Saturday evening. I did glance down the hill but had no desire to ask Sue to turn right instead of left - I'd much rather remember the place as I last saw it.

Everyone has asked me if I've noticed much change - but I haven't, simply because of not revisiting familiar places.

However, next trip... Sue has said we must book ourselves into a place in Wiltshire and dedicate a week to crop circle hunting! She's pretty certain that on one of the crop circle websites is mention of the one we saw - she picked that up when I was looking through the Wiltshire Street Map she'd bought and noticed the name of the farm near where we saw the circle, so I shall go investigate and report back, fingers xx'd with photo.

Time for dinner (and Neighbours!)

I'll post the photo of the Uffington white horse tomorrow, and the results of my crop circle search.

Dr Who fangirl mode... commence

What a day!

We got thoroughly lost in Cardiff but with some excellent navigation from me (yeah, I know I'm supremely modest *g*) we found our way to where we wanted to be, only to find that the Cardiff Food & Wine Festival was in the process of being set up - right where I wanted to stand on THE Paving Stone!

DRABBIT!

However, we did the Dr Who Up Close & Personal exhibit after drinking the weakest and un-foamiest capuccino's we'd ever had. Seriously, not a drop of foam on either cup! Plus we thought the waitress looked and seemed rather like Pheobe out of Friends, and they didn't seem to have a till!

Once we'd cleaned out the Dr Who store (yet more for the package to be mailed home!) we wandered over to the Roald Dahl Plass where the water tower is, to find it blocked off and decorated with strawberries (the theme of the festival apparently). Still, I was able to get photos of the tower and the Milennium Centre and then we walked down to the water's edge and down to the lower walkway.

I was convinced that the wooden door in the wall at the end of the boardwalk was the entry into the Hub - Sue wasn't. Until three young girls, all wearing the Dr Who exhibition wristbands walked up beside us in even more fangirl mode than me and started taking photos of the door.

We wandered around some more, found the Cardiff visitor centre which is inside the fuselage of some kind of plane (not sure what type of plane exactly) and found some more souvenirs to buy.

Then we headed back to the caravan park where we are now watching Day Four of Children of Earth - Torchwood.

July 10 - Dr Who day

The visit with my cousin turned into a most of the day event, so we didn't do the waterfall that day, but did it yesterday. Mind you, we did leave my cousin's place with enough leftovers from lunch to provide our dinner last night!

Aberdulais Falls are gorgeous. It's a narrow river that screams down from the Black Mountains (at full flow 1 million litres a minute) and just before it joins the River Neath (where there's a ruined abbey - see photo) it has been harnessed for (now) electricity but in the past there have been several industries using the force of the water - including copper manufacturing in 1584 to the last being tin-plating.

Most of the tinworks are in ruins but the National Trust is working to restore as much as they can - my sister who saw the Falls back in April said there has been quite a bit done in that short a time.

There is a massive water wheel there now, which is kicked off with a burst of electricity but once it gets going the water itself keeps it moving. It is the largest currently used in Europe to generate electricity which makes Aberdulais Falls self-sufficient.

Unfortunately when the main road was constructed and then widened the bulk of the village was destroyed, but they are looking after what's left with a great deal of care.

After lunch we headed further up into the Black Mountains to a cave system known as Dan-y-Ogof. These were discovered in 1912 by a pair of brothers and while the show caves are quite enough for the ordinary folk to see, the whole system is massive with lots for the dedicated and professional spelunker to enjoy. There is even one cave, the Cathedral Cave, where weddings are held. Mind you, the bride would want to wear something waterproof. Aside from the myriad drips from the walls there are a pair of waterfalls that you have to walk between and depending on how high the river is depends on how wet you get walking through. Each fall lands on either side of the walkway, but they splash!

At the end, where there's a lovely little arch with (fake) flowers set up for the ceremony, we found a large sign advising that the cave system continued from this point for another 1.5 miles but was strictly only for professional cavers - it did look somewhat rockier - all the pathways through this cave and the other show cave were concreted.

We returned through the waterfalls and emerged into the dinosaur park that surrounds the caves.

The main show cave, which I didn't take any photos in because it wasn't as well lit, and lights were continually coming up and going down to suit the narration that was going on, was quite deep and extensive. We got to one part where a path led off down to the left with a big No Entry sign on it, and on the opposite wall a Way In sign with arrow pointing ahead deeper into the cave. We followed the Way In sign and found ourselves going down steep stairs and round and up and down again and I began to think I was in an Adventure game - the maze of twisty little passages had nothing on this! Eventually, of course, the path led round to where the No Entry sign was and we wandered back on out.

There is a third show cave but as the sign warned it was accessed by a long steep flight of steps and was quite long and low, we gave that one a miss. Sue had seen it before and wasn't particularly impressed with it anyway. As it was, we nearly missed out on a cuppa because the coffee shop was closing as we walked up to the door, but as all we wanted was a cup of tea and they hadn't cleaned out the machine yet and if we were quick... we got our cuppas!

We tootled back down to the M4 and back to the caravan park - noticing for the umpteenth time an area that looks like trolls had been bouncing up and down on their beds and hit the roof of their caves - all these weird lumps in the ground, on both sides of the motorway. We looked on the map and there is a ruined castle in that area but nothing to indicate why all the lumpy bits. We definitely prefer our troll theory!

Today is Dr Who Day. Torchwood last night had us gripping the edge of our seats. Sue is now perusing the map to work out where would be the best place to park, because, of course, the Ashes is in town too! Go the Aussies!

July 7 - Welcome to Wales

I am now in a country I have never visited before - and boy was it windy driving over the Severn Bridge! Took all my concentration to keep in the traffic lane - and then they charged us for entering the country!

Sue and I shared the driving from Helston to Trecco Bay (in Porthcawl) - a total of 240 miles and we did it in around 5 hours - not bad really considering the atrocious weather most of the way. Dartmoor was very dark & brooding with a massive raincloud over it. Luckily we went around to the north of the moor so we missed the worst of it.

Although it seemed as though the weather was playing games with us. We went to Glendurgan gardens just below Falmouth and walked all the way down to Helford Passage and up again, had a cuppa and as we were walking to the car down came the rain. The same happened when we took my friends, who had very kindly put us up in their caravan, out to lunch - it started raining as we left the restaurant!

Glendurgan is a fascinating garden with its laurel maze and lots of aussie plants. We also did St Ives, Land's End (by accident as we missed the turnoff to Mousehole), Minack Theatre, bits of Penzanze and saw St Michael's Mount. Blowing a gale, freezing cold (by aussie standards) but brilliantly sunny.

Today we're off to visit yet another cousin and to check out a waterfall my sis reckons would be a perfect swimming hole for a dragon.

Random thoughts on a rainy day

Yesterday sis and I did nothing - except our laundry!

For those of you who don't already know, I drive a Hyundai FX Coupe, silver, all curves and very sporty. So far I have seen one silver, one red, one dark blue and two black, much to my delight.

They also have the Tiburon over here but it's not called that and it has the Hyundai H on the back, not the T like in Oz.

As for driving - British drivers are very polite, not at all like Aussie drivers. While hooning along motorways or major roads, I've noticed that if I was coming up behind someone in the outside (slow) lane but someone was about to overtake me, they would move over into the inside (fast) lane to let me overtake without driving into the back of the car in front. Most times. There was one time I did have to slow up rather fast because the car overtaking me couldn't move over because he was being overtaken too! Also, when in a narrow street and you have to give way to someone, there's always a hand wave to say thanks.

Cornish towns have very narrow streets. On Thursday while driving to Helston we went through Boscastle which a few years ago was badly damaged by a flash flood, but Sue was driving that section. Then when we got to Helston we got our directions muddled and she directed me into the town instead of around. Yikes! Single lane streets, a main street that has little rivers down each side, so be very careful when parking, and a total maze of little twisty streets. We got ourselves thoroughly lost so parked and perused the street map and found we were not too far from our destination, but as Sue admitted later, she would not have liked to be driving to get ourselves out of our pickle and to where we meant to be. Not sure if that was a confidence booster for me or not *g* She did say I looked very calm and in control.

Today we're going to Glendurgan which has a maze.

Last random thought - traction engines go VERY slowly. We got stuck behind one for six miles - took us 45 mins to do that stretch and we were getting closer to it, but then we got to a roundabout and to everyone's delight the engine turned right - you could hear the cheers for miles!

July 2 - King Arthur

Today we travelled from Bude in north Cornwall to my friend's place in Helston, via Tintagel. It was raining, so we didn't go across to the site because the paths were grassy and wet and neither of us fancied getting a broken ankle or worse!

On the walk to the castle we popped into the Old Post Office, a really ancient building with tiny rooms (and must have been occupied by very short people) and I found a lovely little book of stories about the Tintagel Dragon. That will be in the ever-growing parcel that will be mailed home before I leave the UK.








Then we saw some drystone walls - so precisely laid I just had to take a couple of photos.









Then we got to the castle. Not really much to see any more, but that's another tick on the bucket list!

July 1 - churches & steps

There is a place I'd always wanted to see but when I was a child we would always bypass this little town, but this was my chance.









Wells is like Adelaide - full of churches and... a cathedral. This cathedral has a set of steps that have always fascinated me, and I believe have been used in movies. But the rest of the cathedral is also worth the visit. When it was being built the foundations began to sink (shades of the Leaning Tower of Pisa) so they came up with scissor arches to spread the weight.

And these are the steps that have always fascinated me - took a while to get a clear (ie no people) pic, but to actually walk up them was a special moment. They have replaced some of the most worn steps but as you can see at the bottom, they have been well-used.

June 30 - Part 2

In between driving all over the Wiltshire countryside we stopped off at Avebury - the village inside a stone circle - or henge to give it the correct name.

In the background, right from when we saw the first horse at Westbury, all we could hear in the morning was small arms fire, rifle fire and the occasional F1-11 flying over because Salisbury Plain, at the southern side of where we were, is all Ministry of Defence land and they were having exercises or training and generally making a lot of noise. Right until we got to the last horse, near Devizes, in the afternoon they had changed to artillery fire, and on one of the roads there were roadsigns for tank crossings!

Avebury is a lovely little village, and we managed to walk around the entire stone circle, and photographed pretty nearly every stone! My sister, like myself, is an imaginative soul and we were seeing all sorts of different things in the stones, but our two favourite are the beagle and the cat.


There are dozens of other stones, one of which reminded me of a character out of Star Wars and another that looked like an alien in a Dr Who episode.

Like I said, wild imagation!

We actually passed through Avebury a few times - first was immediately after seeing Silbury Hill, which unfortunately they don't allow public access to any more because of erosion, and we missed the sign for the carpark, then again later in the afternoon when we were headed up to the Broadtown and Hackpen white horses and then back through a third time to get to the Roundway horse.

It was on the way between the Westbury horse and Cherhill that we saw our first crop circle - quite by sheer happenstance. I was busily looking out the right side of the car, my sister who was driving caught something out the corner of her eye so we screamed to a halt (literally) in the next layby and walked back and there was a crop circle in a wheat field not 50 yards away from us. If there had been a high point nearby we would have gone there to look down on it but sadly there wasn't. In the photo you can see faint markings where the edge of the circle is.

However, we did see a small plane flying around all afternoon in most of the places we visited, possibly taking photos of the crop circles - of which we caught glimpses of many! We did kick ourselves that we could have seen the one at Alston Barnes if we'd walked across the road from where we'd parked to look at some prehistoric earthworks and up the hill and we would be looking down on it. Still, I'm satisfied that I've seen crop circles now - I can cross that off my bucket list!

Here's Silbury Hill.

June 30 - horses & stones & circles - Part 1

There are 8 horses carved into the chalk hills of Wiltshire - and we saw them all! In order of sighting they are:

Westbury (the oldest one)

Cherhill
Alston Barnes (this one had a crop circle below it - not very visible from where we were standing but if you look at the right hand side of the photo there are some darker markings in the field below the trees - that's the circle)









Pewsey
Marlborough
Broadtown

Hackpen

Roundway









It took us ten hours - but that did include walking all the way around Avebury - see next post!

Catching up...

Apologies for the lack of posts ... it was either a case of getting back to our accommodation very late at night and then hooning off early the next day, or just no connection at all!

So, here are a batch of posts, done by day because there's so much to catch up on.