January

I just had a long weekend and I still didn't get to write a post. It's not for want of trying but I seem to have writers block on anything more than trivial, and I'm struggling with trivial. Over the last six weeks I have been doing lots of walking and lots of work, and in between time quite a lot of netflix. Which doesn't make for the most scintillating blog!  Worse still I have mental pictures not digital photos - fail!

Part One - a lot of walking

The hill I walk up to get to Church...

I've been walking around the local area in about a six mile radius. Some of this has been on the Burke Gilman Trail which I've mentioned before. Some has been along the streets. This is always a challenge because I have to use Google Street View to find streets with sidewalks! My longest walk on the Burke Gilman has been to Lake Forest Park. That is six and  a half miles there and six and a half miles back. I always go a little insane walking long distances on the Burke Gilman. The track is about 10ft wide, mostly flat, and lined with either trees or houses. You can't go more than a few minutes without meeting a fellow walker, jogger, or cyclist. Traffic stays on the right and they call out 'on your left' as they over take, or simply whiz past if they are coming in the opposite direction. It's always interesting to see the houses or vegetation but after a few miles I always feel like I am on a treadmill.

A typical street intersection with 'round-about'

My other favourite walk at the moment is the five mile trip 'through the houses' to the North Gate Mall (5 miles away). Yes, all my walks do end in either a mall or a tea shop. It's nice to have a destination. The only problem with walking across the city is the hills. You reach the top of one, start going down and then have to climb another one. But the houses are fun to look at, mostly clad and painted different colours, all different shapes and sizes. Most have well kept yards (gardens) and some have special 'rain gardens' to provide a soak away for the rain that comes out of the gutters. With all the lakes around Seattleites seem to be very conscious of water pollution and how they can do their bit to prevent flooding. Finally, I have to say, I've really been enjoying twilight here in Seattle because many houses keep fairy lights (usually white) up well into the spring to provide some brightness for the dark winter days. Hurray for fairy lights!

The mountains can be seen from most of the hill tops

White fairy lights provide some brightness to long winter nights. 

Part Two - Sleeping Beauty and the Sea Hawks
The first Sunday of February was Super Bowl Sunday and the Seattle Sea Hawks had made it to the game against the Denver something or others. So naturally me and my landlady went off to the ballet! This time it was Sleeping Beauty. I'm not so familiar with the music of sleeping beauty compared with the Nutcracker. From the untrained eye the choreography of Sleeping Beauty was harder than the Nutcracker which made it more of a spectacle. There were definitely more leaps from the ladies and the gentlemen and a lot more 'standing on your toes till your feet are broken beyond repair' action from the principle. It's a curious similarity between ballet and american football that professionals in both areas put there long term health at serious risk for the possibility of a few glory years, and people queue up to watch them do this. We think we are so much better than the Roman Empire watching Gladiator matches, then again the gladiators were slaves...

We returned home in time to watch Bruno Mars and the Red Hot Chilli Peppers perform the half time show for the super bowl game. Then I retreated downstairs and low and behold with no support from me the Sea Hawks won! This is the 48th Superbowl so all things being equal almost every state should have won once, but never the less everyone was justifiably excited. Wednesday there was a parade through Downtown Seattle. I could have popped out from work but decided to let the fans celebrate in peace. The parade was midday but the buses were still super full. A ridiculous number of fans were trying to get on the 8am buses which are usually "can't physically jam another person in" packed anyway. They really needed to consider extra transport, but that would be far too sensible. I get on at the start of the route so at least I get a seat. Sea Hawks colours are navy blue and green, one presumes they have never heard the rhyme 'blue and green must never be seen'. So the city has been a wash with blue and green flags, hats, sweaters, jackets... my favourite of all is the 'Sea Hawk' hat, which given that there is no such creature as a Sea Hawk looks like a composite bird of prey.

Sea Hawk fever has died down now. The Seattle Methodist churches had a friendly competition with the Denver Methodist churches to bring in food for the food banks. They thrashed us in this competition bringing in three or four times as much food as us, then again their are probably less attendants in Seattle where people are notoriously non-religious. So now hopefully I will always know the answer to the pub quiz questions who won the 48th Superbowl and in which year did the Seattle Seahawks win the Superbowl etc. Also who is the twelfth man on an American Football team? - yes, indeed, the fans.

Part Three - SAM

As I've previously mentioned the first Thursday of the month is free museum day in Seattle. It's surprising how many of them I've not been here for in the last six months. This time I went to Seattle Art Museum. Which is only 8 blocks from my work (or half a mile if you don't speak 'block'). They have a total mix of stuff, some modern art installations (cars with rods of florescent lighting bursting out of them), some photography (one women's study of her family that live in one of the poorer and polluted areas in Pennsylvania), some native american headresses, some Japanese kimonos. They also have work by Robert Davidson, a contemporary take on native american artwork; For example he uses similar motifs to more ancient artworks but in primary colours. I always forget how much I love wondering around art museums, especially when they are free.

Well I'll call it quits for now and start uploading pictures of Skagit Bay, more on that later...