Quilts.

Not too many tales from during the week for this edition, a ping-pong leader-board is slowly being built up in work but we have yet to install any more recreational facilities.

The parents were over this weekend, so on Thursday they arrived to the apartment for a nosey around. It was actually quite odd seeing them again even after only a month. After a quick tour of the apartment, we did some catching up and had a good ol' cup o' tea. John was about to pass out, so it was early retirement back to Carmel's house.

After work on Friday we made our way into NYC to have dinner with Carmel and Co. Carmel had arranged it for Gary and I to come up to her office before heading down to the restaurant so we could have a look down onto NYC. Unfortunately, I had left my camera behind that day! Never again. The views were mighty impressive. I treated myself to some steak in Jack's as I figured I would make the most of this while I could, it will be another 5 months before I fell the tender touch of a decent steak. After dinner, which was lovely, we sat in our seats, ruining the restaurants throughput as we discussed important issues such as; how to cook vegetables, the price of various supermarket items, the optimum temperature at which to wash ones clothes etc... I believe we also somehow managed to fit in a conversation about the weather. 'Twas spellbinding.

We made the walk home with full stomachs and minds.

Saturday's goal was Amish Country in Pennsylvania, or land of the quilt as it shall henceforth be known. Beginning our voyage at roughly 9 am (thankfully the parents got stuck in traffic!) we headed whest. The drive was long enough to warp the passage of time as we arrived in a land of; Horse-draw buggies, uniform casuals, bonnets and canter-in ATMs (The Amish are willing to accept all major credit cards, as per God's plan).

Excuse some of the lousy pictures, they were taken drive-by style. I didn't fancy the sharp end of a pitchfork.


100 miles to the hay-stack.




Back in our day...


Apparently before TV there was only one past-time and that past-time was quilting. I'm still disappointed that I didn't make a quilt sign collage because you could not imagine how many quilting outlets were in this town. Oh, and the town that we stumbled upon was called Intercourse, now, I could continue for the next 500 words with double entendre after double entendre, but I am sure you can come up with plenty yourselves, we are above that sort of thing here.



Anyway, yes, quilts. After the quilts, there were very few sights to be seen in the town, this is what I managed to salvage though, an Old Man Band. I couldn't quite make it out, but I was pretty sure they were singing a pop-quilt-melody.



It was really interesting to see the Amish community and their dedication but I don't think it's the life for me, not just yet. We drove back to 2007.

After Intercourse, we slept.

Sunday morning was spent walking around Bayonne to show the parents just how I was living my daily life, after which we made our way into Hoboken to continue the "my life" experience. Hoboken was fairly full of life as the bi-annual music/arts/food/stuff festival was on, thankfully we passed just one quilt stall. We ate heartily in Hoboken (I was not going to complain) before returning to Bayonne, a full day in my life covered.



Back in Bayonne, we hoped in the car and made our way to Pavilion shopping center. Why? Quilts, that's why! We made it there with an hour and a half of premium quilt shopping time remaining, of course, this is not nearly enough quilting time, one could easily spend the majority of six months in such a place but due to sanity constraints our time here was limited.

We made our way to Carmel after shopping where we went out to eat again. Another delicious meal, my last for the foreseeable future. My parents drove me home before we parted ways. Thanks for the weekend, it was a great one!

One question remains; why, after all those quilts, am I still sleeping with this pink monstrosity?