Hey!
I found all your posts. Had been missing them because they were tucked away.
Anyway thanks for contributing to the discussions. Cassandra - good to hear from you and that Europe is living up to expectations. Nothing like a bit of hagiography ... and Sylvia, thanks for sending the gallery and museum material. Jiayang has received it but I've been too busy to look at it. Will check it out this coming week - I've finished writing the first draft of the associated article, and now need to trim a couple of thousand words out of it.
I've a couple of photos of our house, taken from the road. The place obviously need work!
Anyway, Imogen, there's a nice big spare room, and its in a lovely woodsy, scruffy neighbourhood quite close to town, close to lakes and rivers, close to Atlanta.
By the way Sylvia - the Greek Islands are definitely a must see, but are they a must see this time...?
I'm thinking of starting a more general blog for all-comers so that we don't have to invite others to this one. What do you guys think?
XXxDad

Hi - Jacqueline here
I tried to do my own post earlier but failed, so here I am tucked onto the end of Rod's. It has been really interesting getting to know our new environment - I've seen quite a bit of Auburn and the surrounding area as I've been carted around by the land agent. It is actually really very charming. I though it was also very quiet until the students came back. It was graduation last week and all the parents hit town - masses of very shiny SUVs all over the place. Mind you, they also seem to be the vehicle of choice for students too - that and extra large Utes. I thought the Merc was extravagantly large but I now realise it is rather modest by comparison.

While we only have a very skeleton kit in the apartment I simply couldn't resist all the fresh fruit, especially peaches, so I managed to bottle a few and also whip up a batch of peach chutney - don't have my Digby Law with me, but I did managed to find a simple, one pot, receipe on the net. Tasty. I'm looking forward to seeing what come into season next. One of the advantages of living in the South is all the great produce.

I expressed an interest in finding out more about local food to the real estate agent, and the next day she gave me a book of Southern cooking - one of her own that she never uses as she says she simply can't afford to eat in that way (weight wise). A quick look explained all - most receipes start with "take a pound of cream cheese" or involve deep frying. However, it does make a great read - it even includes the receipe for Elvis' favorite foods - fried peanut butter and bananna sandwich - which I won't share with you here, but let me know if you fancy giving it a go (bearing in mind that Elvis died before his time...) The author is Paula Deen who has made her reputation on serving outragously unhealthy food - she has TV shows and is the South's version of Nigella Lawson (without the grace or taste). She recently caused an uproar with her receipe on TV for a ladies luncheon - deep fried hamburger on a sugar doughnut. She's a real southern girl that one! Still tucked in amongst all the fat and sugar there are a few recipes worth trying I reckon. I'm going to try the one for collard greens tomorrow and I'll make some buttermilk biscuits to go with it.

Bed time now. Boris has football trials tomorrow. We brought all his gear yesterday - hellish expensive but he looks hilarious in it all. I'll take a picture.

Lots of love
Jacqueline