• Tag Archives Hilton Head

  • Green Stars and Irish Wolfhounds

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Beltane     Waning Flower Moon

    Another gray morning, but the temperatures will head up today.  Low 70’s by this afternoon and high 70’s tomorrow.  That will change the look and feel of Hilton Head Island.  A lot. Sunshine, of which we have had none since I got here on Sunday morning, will also alter the appearance of the gray Atlantic.

    Kate and I had supper last night charlie’s etoile verte.  The setting was French provincial and the food lived up to the French gastronomic standards.

    We talked again over dinner about Irish Wolfhounds.  They present us with a delicate dilemma.  We loved them, each one of them, with an intensity that made them members of our family.  I don’t know how to describe the difference between our feelings for them and for the whippets, whom we also love, but the difference is qualitative.  Each of their deaths felt and feels like a family member died.

    These big dogs occupy a space in our lives commensurate with their size.  We have had 8.  Their short life span, often as little as 5 years and in a couple of instances even less than that, makes loving them an exercise in sweet torture.

    We would love to have more Wolfhounds, but I can’t imagine another Wolfhound death.  Too, the size of the Wolfhounds, Tor weighed 200 pounds, creates a problem.  Moving them when they are sick is difficult.  As we age, it becomes more and more difficult.  So, at least for now, we have decided against any more of these animals we love.  A hard place.


    📂This entry was posted in Family Travel 📎and tagged

  • Gettin’ Ready

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Beltane                         Full Flower Moon

    As I move into the week before a trip, I begin going over my check lists, things to take, things to stop, buy fewer groceries, get all necessary work around the house done.   On my to take list are wheeled luggage (for those long trips from the first class lounge to the train), netbook, deet, camera, Kindle and my passport.  Yes, clothes, too.

    On the to do list is gathering necessary passwords and usernames in one place, stop the mail, stop the newspaper, get all the baby plants in their new beds, check the bees one more time, finish moving the day lillies.

    There is, at least for me, the inevitably of forgetting some task, some essential item.  Over the years I have become familiar with my habits, the kind of things I tend to forget or misplace, so I tend not to lose or forget my wallet, glasses, tickets, camera and Dopp kit.  Maybe this will be the trip where everything gets done and nothing forgotten.  No thing left behind.  Hey, could be an educational program, too.

    Today in specific I’ll move all the indoor plants outside, work some more on the day lillies and set my baby plants outside for 5 hours.  Gotta groceries, too, and cook dinner.  Then, there’s workout.  Ready. Set.


    📂This entry was posted in Travel 📎and tagged

  • Leaving on A Slow Train

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Beltane                         Full Flower Moon

    A week from tonight I will be asleep or almost so on an outbound train from Chicago to Washington, D.C.  After several hours during the day on Saturday in D.C., the train for Savannah leaves Union Station, arriving around 6:30 a.m. the next day.  Slow travel seems to fit with the life I’ve come to lead, one that waits on the natural rhythms for flowers and vegetables, fruit and honey.

    Travel became a family insignia, we should have trains, planes and ships, buses and taxis on our family crest, the Ellis family crest that is.  We are a peripatetic group.  Mark travels regularly around Southeast Asia, frequenting Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam while basing himself in Thailand.

    Mary will travel sometime this year to Athens from Singapore where she will present the results of her Ph.D. work.  She gets to England now and again in addition to returning to the US.  She will not, however, be able to come this year because the Singapore Government has banned official travel to the US due to the H1N1 flu.  Her travel is official because the university for which she works pays for her ticket and the university is an arm of the government.


    📂This entry was posted in Family Travel 📎and tagged