Arden & June

I just got home after spending my afternoon helping find a night's lodging for a man and his mother who are stranded here in the hamlet I call home. I was behind them when their car broke down, so I stopped, contacted the local mechanic, and set to work ringing colleagues. In the end, I was able to put them up at the historic Napa Valley resort sanitarium.

The experience reminds me of getting off the bus at the wrong stop in Rutherglen when trying to find the home of relations there. When I asked a grandfatherly man to help, he took me to his son's flat, set out some Guinness, and unfolded a map. I was actually quite close, so before continuing on, I stopped to buy some music in the shop that faced the mercat cross. Poor Andy and Nessie - I'm sure they didn't appreciate my youthful enthusiasm, but that album will always take me back to a dark pint with a helpful stranger.

Balloons and Geese

The season has clearly changed here in the Napa Valley. The large hot air balloons which had been filling the morning sky as I drove to work have all gone now. I'm not sure they'd rise well when soaked through with rain.

Instead, I watch the geese on their southward flights. In the evening my family and I hear them settling on the fields beyond the trees. At dawn I see them chasing the gulls from the pitch so they can browse the grubs without competition.

Replacing the throaty roar of the balloon burners, geese serenade me from car park to classroom door.
Perhaps it's only to take all the credit for the fertilisation.