Tuesday, August 23, 2005

... er, Vermont.

We stayed at the spectacular ridgetop house of a friend, wandered the gardens, ate fresh blueberries, and watched the Pikapie playing in the lawn. Fun.

Driving back through Vermont was a frustration and a half. Foolishly we took the scenic route, little realizing that for city people accustomed to freeways, driving anything less than the main freeway is bound to make you rethink not buying a Hummer so you could offroad through people's backyards when the actual road slows down to 20 mph. Vermont, unlike Ireland, has perfectly good roads. But they rate them at speeds New Yorkers use for their driveways. And Vermonters obey the speed limits. Obviously they are mellower than I.

Vermont feels a bit like a made-up state. It is a state full of artisanale cheeses, apples and maple syrup. The giant sucking sound you hear is all the antiques for 500 miles around being Hoovered up by the antique stores of Vermont, which are more plentiful than espresso shacks in Seattle. Ironically, Quebec is known for ... artisanale cheeses, apples and maple syrup. So we did not go on a tasting spree. Vermont seems like an excellent place to live if you are an aging hippie with money. A hundred years ago it was 80% farms and 20% woods (the mountains, basically); now the reverse is true. And the 20% of farms feel to be mostly gentlemen farmers who want to love the soil and get to know each of their cows.

I don't think we're quite fit to live in the country. Give us a nice resort town like East Hampton, where your major worry isn't what to do, it's whether you have time to go to the M's cocktail party before you hit F's dinner party, or whether R will be offended if you only drop in for dessert. A place where you can get some work done.

It's nice to be home... and back to work.

7:00 PM

1 Comments:

Vermont is obviously not a popular topic ;-)

Glad you had fun Alex, even with the speeding drivers causing havoc around you.

cheers
Dave.

By  Grubber, at 2:56 AM  

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