The storm visible up 3rd Ave from the terrace
The New York Stock Exchange- perhaps they are expecting Guy Fawkes on 4th July
Well the plan of doing the garden was a good one, and we did start with the best of intentions, buying four sacks of 'Miracle Gro' potting compost from the hardware store down the street and carrying it home like a pair of pack horses - one bag each in a rucksack and manhandling the other like a slippery drama queen. when we returned Mrs Blue jay was warbling away eating a banana in her new bowl, but with the temperature in the 80's, I figured it was best to wait until later when it would be cooler to start planting and re-potting.
So Amanda and I set off for the southern edge of the island, to return some items to 'Century 21', a large discount department store, where I would suggest Marines could be trained in urban warfare, especially at this time as there was a sale on. Geez it was scary. I asked the security guard - the one with the alarmingly blue contact lenses - not even old 'Blue Eye's' himself had them that colour - where we should go with returns, which turned out to be the 3rd floor. Once on the third floor we could see nothing but a sea of shoppers and you could barely make your way through the hundreds of rails of clothes. I asked another member of staff and she said something unintelligible to my northern ears, but Amanda interpreted and it was to the back and then right, apparently.
The deed was done in a relatively short time and soon we were out of the Guerrilla warfare training camp, and on our way to Battery Park to see if we could find the farmers market. We gave up after several viewings of the 'not for tourists' guide to New York, two attempted sales pitches of Michael Jackson RIP T-Shirts, and several attempts to sell us fake goods of many sorts. Our final view of the guide hastened us to one of the back streets of the financial district near Wall St and soon we found our way to 'Sophies Cuban Restaurant'. Iced tea was followed by Tamales, Cuban beef stew with fried plantains and rice and a Cuban sandwich which had more meet in than the Bay of Pigs, all for the princely sum of $24. Replete we stumbled upon a small market and purchased some plants. White Gazanias, pink Bizzie Lizzies, and Cosmos, to fill any gaps there might be later in the garden.
While walking back to the bus stop, we noticed a lot of policemen and probably representatives of other agencies - nudge nudge, wink wink say no more, but they were wearing ear pieces in the close proximity of the American Stock Exchange building, which was wearing the most outrageously large flag, and underneath a row of more stars and stripes, and one solitary Chinese flag. I commented that they must have used the Union Jack to its full potential and were now moving onto bigger fish. Amanda said I should be careful they might come over and lift me - yeah well I doubt I was much of a threat with a dozen bedding plants.
When we arrived home later we noticed a rather dark and threatening sky gathering, and in the time it took us to enter the building and get to the 19th floor, the rain began, along with the thunder and the lightening, so gardening was cancelled. Three hours later and it's still raining and gardening is still cancelled.
unfortunately tomorrow is my last full day - sniff sniff - so if the weather is bad tomorrow I'm just going to get on with it regardless - so fingers crossed the weather is better at the end than it was in the beginning.
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