Santas take over neighbouthood

It must be near Christmas because houses and lawns all over our neighbourhood have sprouted fairy lights, illuminated deer (in profusion) and other sundry Christmas icons, such as that well know Christmas character, Poo Bear (see left). Houses and bushes are groaning under the weight of fairy lights.

Some people only decorate their shrubs, others only their house eves. Some tend towards the tableau with deer and/or polar bear and/or Santa (with or without his sleigh). Folk with a more refined taste simply pick out a curving path in coloured lights. Others push the boat out and do the lot... its like Franklin Road on acid.

The best one is over the road from us. It is a large inflatable chimney with a Santa who rises periodically from the centre to wave, then disappears down the chimney again.... My photo isn't very good but you get the general idea.

Boris is really wanting us to have some sort of decoration, just to show that we 'believe' in Christmas. I'll have to look out the Christmas decoration box although I greatly fear it is destined to be a very poor showing next to the enthusiastic displays of our neighbours.

Yesterday I was invited on a tour of houses which had been decorated for Christmas - the "Lakeview Ladies Christmas Fellowship of Homes" to be exact. There were three groups of 25 ladies (75 of us in all), and we visited three homes (in rotation), all of them rather grand affairs. There was 'entertainment' at each - carols, a Christmas reading and a luncheon. Each 'homemaker' had gone to enormous trouble to decorate their home for Christmas, very tasteful... not a scrap of tinsel in sight! It was all gilt pine cones, pointsettiers, gold ribbon, candles and sprays of imitation pine. I was feeling quite a failure as a housewife until I overheard some of the ladies commenting they their own homes were far from being as immaculate or as well decorated. Well, that's a relief!

Love Jacqueline

Savannah & Charleston

While everyone else was eating turkey and doing the big family reunion thing we decided to hit the road and go to Savannah (as you do). It's about 5.5hrs drive from Auburn, mostly through woodlands. This is a typical shot of the road.

Savannah is in Georgia, the state to the right of Alabama, and is built on the Savannah River estuary. While the Biblo people inhabited the area as far back as 3500 BC, when the Europeans arrived it was settled by the Yamacraws who lived on the high cliffs overlooking the river plain.

This is a view (not usually seen in the brochures) of the fancy new suspension bridge (Talmadge Memorial Bridge) over the Savannah river. One side is in Georgia, the other in South Carolina.



Savannah is famous for its layout. The town plan was laid out by James Oglethorp in 1733, to a design he had devised before he left England (it reminds one of those cooking shows where they pull a pie out of the oven saying "and here is one I prepared earlier"). Lucky Savannah was flat and could accommodate his plan without the need for modification.

The plan became famous and made Savannah famous. It is based on a grid regularly interspersed with squares, planted with Live Oak (a tree which is now the State tree of Georgia) and festooned with Spanish Moss (which you will know, of course, as Tillandsia, an epiphitic bromeliad). These squares are now mature and exceedingly beautiful.

The architecture is a treat. Before the civil war the town was swimming in money, mostly the riches garnered from cotton plantations and slave labour. Rich and prosperous, antebellum Savannah was quite something. It managed to survive the war due to the fact that Colonel Olmstead surrendered the town when he saw the modern rifled cannons used by the Yankees. He declared "I yield my sword, but I trust I have not disgraced it." Later on General Sherman offered Savannah to President Lincoln as a Christmas present.
The surrounding district still has a number of surviving antebellum mansions - this is one on the way between Savannah and Charleston. Note all the Spanish moss.
Note the palms - there were lots all over the city, even though it is further North than Auburn, the coastal location means it doesn't get the frosts so palms do well.

From Savannah we decided to drive up the coast to Charleston, about 100 miles north, as the two cities are always linked - both are surviving examples of the antebellum South.

It was a lovely drive to Charleston through the productive landscapes of Georgia and South Carolina. We passed cotton fields, pecan groves and peach orchards. This is a cotton field.

Pecan trees surrounding a cotton field (the cotton plants have been harvested and the stalks are showing brown)

Charleston wasn't laid out on a grid but is well endowed with charm (exceedingly quaint in fact). It too is located on a river flood plain, and is close to the sea. It was established in 1670, so it is older than Savannah. Like Savannah it is an important port.



A lane in Charleston.
On the waterfront is a large park and promenade. The pineapple fountain shown here is on the water front. You can see the river estuary in the background.





More cotton fields!

Back in Savannah.

Savannah. Live Oak draped with Spanish Moss.

We booked our Thanksgiving dinner in Savannah in advance of our going as there were very few places open for dinner that night. We chose an historic house called the Pirate's House - a restaurant (originally an inn) which dates from 1753. It sounded good on the web, but, in fact, was an extremely busy 'family restaurant' - there were hundreds of people and even though we'd booked we still had to wait for a table for over an hour (think Valentines with a Johnny Depp impersonator dressed as Keith Richard dressed as Jack Sparrow....). Oh well, the buffet was OK and we got to eat some turkey along with everyone else so you can't say we didn't have a proper Thanksgiving! Love Jacqueline