Charlotte Town park, PEI

This is a park in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada. We walked through it from the ship Arcadia in the autumn last year. It was a pleasant walk by the harbour and I was reminded of it, when we walked from Oriana into the recently-landscaped area near the port in Malaga. http://critchleygosouthwesteurope.blogspot.co.uk

Stylish New York

I return briefly to my wonderful trip across the Atlantic to publish one of my pictures of New York. It shows the inside the Chrysler building in New York, taken late September 2012. One of the most extraordinary pieces of interior design I have ever visited.

Transatlantic connections

The tomb of Adam Winthrop, Groton church, Suffolk, UK (above). Below the house the Winthrops built in the 16th century in Barn Street, Lavenham.

Groton in Suffolk is the beginning of the Winthrop trail, which I followed across the Atlantic to Boston. The Winthrop family were fullers. In the production of Lavenham blue cloth, the fullers took the woven cloth and washed and pounded it to compact the weave. The Winthrops of Lavenham lived in Barn Street. They belonged to the Fuller's Guild in the City of London and were able to afford to educated their sons. Adam Winthrop became a successful lawyer and bought the manor of Groton. He married the heiress to the manor of Edwardstone. Adam's son, John, was married four times. Three times in England and the fourth after he took his family and many other families from Boxford and Groton across the Atlantic to the New World. John Winthrop and his fellow puritans emigrated in the Arbella in 1630. They founded a new colony on the east coast of the New World. I found the tomb of John Winthrop in Boston, Massachusetts.

Guns of Quebec were trained on the British

 

Guns of Quebec which were trained on the British...But in this case they are actually trained on a cruise ships. There were six cruise ships in port when we were in Quebec, so those ancients walls and fortifications are a lure rather than a deterrent in the 21st century.

Guns defending the Americas from the British feature in nearly all east coast ports

Guns which were trained on the British are a feature of nearly all the east coast places we visited in America and Canada.

Battery Park, New York is named after the battery of guns which were placed there. This is a picture of the park featuring the remains of a sculpture damaged in the 2001 atrocities.

Perhaps most surprising among the evidence of guns trained on the British is found at Anglophile Boston.

Particularly in "Old Ironside" the US Constitution, we so much enjoyed going over when we crossed the Charles River to Charlestown. The descendants of those independently-minded puritans, who founded Boston and Charlestown, were among the most determined to rid their "New World" of the crippling taxation and political control of their English cousins.

I was uploading a picture of the fort at Halifax complete with a tartan-clad sentry, when the laptop I write this blog on died completely. Unfortunately it contained the picture, but hopefully it can be salvaged from the hard disc. It illustrated yet more defenses against the British on the west coast of America. I also hope to be able to salvage a picture of the guns which were trained on the British at Quebec, that Canadian city which has a flavour of Ancien Regime France, yet its palaces are egalitarian... hotels and railway stations. Quebec has also retained its walls and fortifications. The resulting citadel is very picturesque on the approach from the St Laurence River. Just to complete the blog, here is a picture of the British fort at Halifax...

And here is a picture taken below Chateau Fontenac on the promenade above the defences...

And to finish, a picture of the defences around Quebec seen from the sea at night.

I phone the family from Newport

Picture right, is the spot where I made my mobile phone call... it was so good to hear everyone's voices, sounding so near, yet so far away...

I phoned the family from Newport, Rhode Island. I spoke to my grandsons who were at an art exhibition in Norwich, featuring their grandfather's paintings, with their Mum and Dad. I was outside the Anglican church in Newport, more or less in the very spot where this picture was taken.The church looks as if it had been transported from the City of London to Newport with its Wren/Hawksmoor style of architecture. I remember standing there and thinking how extraordinary it was to be able to talk to the family from so far away from a tiny mobile phone, but also, what an immense pleasure. Inside the church notable features were high sided pews for nursing mothers and wonderful Tiffany windows.

We then went to have coffees and cakes at a little cafe and looked for the 7 for all Mankind jeans for my youngest son in the shops, where the young assistants enjoyed trying to track down a local stockists on their computer. I found out I could have got them in Bloomingdales, but the message failed to come through when I was in there. I've just noticed the name below the window, Cornelius Vanderbilt and I remember how our guide pointed out a Vanderbilt mansion nearby,

New York is like nowhere else on this planet

I've been looking back on my trip to New York. Almost two days of exploring that busy city, but it wasn't enough and I have to go back. Here is a picture of the High Line, which I would recommend to anyone contemplating a visit to the city. The street furniture was amazing. I'm glad one of my friends took the time to photograph one of those ubiquitous fire hydrants.

There are two eloquent bunches of street furniture from the same photographer. It says so much about this city which pulls in cultural tourists from all over America and the world.

Re--Reading Helene Hanff's "Apple of My Eye" has also brought back memories of taking the cable car from Roosevelt Island to visit Bloomingdales.

And look at those blue skies. Weren't we the lucky ones?