TRAGIC SHOOTING

Gabrielle Giffords, a fine member of the United States Congress, has been shot in the head. She was marked as in the sights of the Tea Party. Others were shot dead, amongst them a nine year old girl. Sadly the USA's reputation is formed by such tragic incidents - shootings in schools, what ever, rather than by the good works of US NGOs or US AID Projects. Americans sometimes find it difficult (even unimportant) to see themselves through foreign eyes and are angered by criticism. Yet think of the Afghan or Iraqi reading of the shooting in today's Press or watching reports on TV. This is their image of the United States, the nation with troops on their soil to spread Democracy. Imagine their thoughts...

SAD EMPTY HOUSE

Sad empty house. Have been double glazing windows. As for food, Roger Gill came for lunch Wednesday and brought a rabbit and two pheasant. Skinned and plucked Thursday. Roasted the pheasant breasts on a bed of vine tomatoes. Made a game soup with pheasant legs and rabbit and a great stock from the carcases. Meanwhile reading with joy The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa - tender and brilliant.

HAMISH HORNYOLD

Hamish at his new home with his favourite toy. He is reported to be delighted at having made a sound career change. I remain weepy...

HAMISH WISHES TO BECOME A SOPHISTICATE - AND CHASE CATS!

Our cottage feels very empty. Bernadette left today for New York. She will be away a month. I am happy for her. She deserves a break and loves the City. I am jealous of her because she will be seeing my daughter, Anya - and my wondrous grandson, Shane. And I am sad, of course, at her being away for a month and was even a little weepy at the station. B reminded me that I go away for six months or more at a time. True....
However there is a greater sadness because it is final. Josh left first and lives now in Leeds city center. Jed is off cheffing/snow-boarding at a hotel in the French Alps. Now Hamish has left home. He decided time had come for his own career change - that he had enjoyed enough of the country and wished to become more sophisticated. So he has moved to a home in the suburbs closer to London. English suburbanites keep cats. Hamish will have fun!
HAMISH WITH JED

MESSAGES FROM WEB SPACE

Great to get messages from readers, angry, disappointed, complimentary or kind.
Paulcf is disappointed that I wrote little concerning Argentina and Chile. OLD MAN ON A BIKE is the first of a travel trilogy and covers my journey south. Chile was not part of this journey. Chile does feature in the second MS which takes me north from Ushuaia to the USA. The second MS also includes three chapters on Argentina. As to Ming, he has joined a Buddhist monastery where I hope to visit him in the coming winter.
Rants?
I sense that the vastness of the United States distances many citizens from their Government and its actions. Mine is a small country with no space for distance. The nations of Central America are equally small. United States immigration and foreign policy is intrinsic, not only to their history, but in their daily lives. It is a common subject of conversation. The same is true of Mexico.
Bush and Blair may be "old history" to us yet their decisions continue to effect opinions of both the United States and Britain. I encountered this as much on my recent journey round India as in the Americas.
Added to which, I am an obsessive. Riding long hours alone, the same chain of thought becomes my daily companion and is a natural part of my writing. For pure travel I suggest a travel guide. My own preference is FOOTPRINT.
For an overview of the trip, please be patient. You will find it in the second volume.

NATIONALITY UNKNOWN

MESSAGE FROM paulcf@telus.net

Review of your book

Very interesting...I have 20 years to prepare for my SA trip! I too am afraid of all the negativity the press says about SA. I suspect having your white beard and your age benefited you on your trip. I was dismayed with the latter part of your book...little to tell about Chile (and why you didn't travel in Chile except for the very end?) and nothing about what you did afterwards...did you just fly home and sell the bike in Ushuai or what? What about your rider buddy Ming? So much of your book was loaded with Mexico and Central America and so little about Argentina and Chile. Also, the ranting about Bush and Blair served no purpose...it's all ancient history now, out of date and I didn't get your book to hear your rants about them, I wished you had spent more of that time/pages about the TRIP. I wanted to see/read an overview of your trip, etc but nothing at all, very strange indeed.

WHAT BRA SIZE?

TED SIEROCINSKI HAS SMOKED ME OUT. Though not a rabid "Red", I must confess to being something of a Pinko.....
Pics are SUNDAY TIMES COLOUR SUPLEMENT from the Spencer Tunik Instalation at THE BIG CHILL FESTIVAL, 2010

KIND TEXAN

Subject:
blog 1/2/2011 Ted SierocinskiNM 87505 letter

Message:
Hello, Simon

I was born and currently live in TEXAS, USA. My fellow countryman's myopic letter is too often the norm. Of course it's everyone's right to his/her own opinion, but the letter is so typical of folks here in the USA. Yes, we each try to do good (or perhaps the best we can) but we don't do as much "good" here in the USA as we need to. Unfortunately, for the USA, "Peak Oil" will focus our policy even further away from our own borders, since we do not now have sufficient oil to power our consumer oriented post industrial revolution society. Lets hope (pray) that the struggle over oil does not cause further problems for the world and the USA.

All of your books are on my book shelf and I am looking forward to buying your next book.

The point of this letter is "Please" don't judge everyone in the USA by the tone of Ted's letter. Thanks.

Best Wishes
Bill Rose

NEW YORK PRINCESS

Susan Switzer writes:
WOW.....

LONG HAIRED BRIT

Ged Asbery writes:
Good ol' Ted must be more clever than me. I obviously missed the hidden message that "Old Man on a bike" portrayed US citizens as"selfish and disgusting people".

UNOBSERVANT CALIFONIAN

Joe Berk writes:
Odd, I read the book, and I did not take any of Simon's comments as US bashing. Mostly he was reporting what other people said or felt.

IGNORANT GUATEMALAN

Re criticism of OLD MAN ON A BIKE
EUGENIO writes:
As much as I would rather be under the boot of the USA instead of say Hitler's Germany, Russia or Torrquemada's Spain, I like your comments (USA bashing) because I hate the hypocrisy. Spain never pretended to be exporting "democracy" well until now that is, neither did Hitler nor Stalin. It is precisely because USA citizens are supposed to be smarter than that that they should see beyond the USAID signs and go look at the mess they have left here...

IRATE US CITIZEN

Letters from readers mostly fall into two catagories: thanks for enjoyment or anger.
The angry usually come from readers in the US.The following is an example:

Subject:
How I enjoyed your book

Message:
Ted Sierocinski
NM 87505
Simon,
I was looking forward to reading your book as I was traveling from Santa Fe, New Mexico to Guatemala on my Kawasaki KLR 650. I have been in Spanish language school here for almost 4 months. It provided many useful references and your insight into the Latin American indigenous people was informative. I am a US citizen and am about to celebrate my 60th birthday at the end of the year.
Having commuted to work over the years I have accumulated over 300,000 miles on various bikes. I share your enthusiasm for adventure and the experience of the two wheel challenge. The adventure really begins when things go wrong.
What went wrong for me with your book was about by page 266 I finally became nauseated by the bashing of the United States and its role in Latin America. Traveling thru Mexico and Guatemala I encountered many USAID projects with many USA citizens involved volunteering. Many bomberos, doctors and nurses are here! helping the Guatemalan people progress. I know that as a country we are taking our licks as a less than perfect country but never once heard a reference to Spain as they took a
lions share of the wealth form Latin America to Spain and how that Latin American within a feudal system under Spain's domination missed the Industrial Revolution. That was probably the United States fault also. Transferring the wealth out of the country in Korea is subject to the death penalty.
Having said that I am throwing your book in the trash. I can take solace in the fact that although we are a selfish and disgusting people that your wrote this book in English not in German.
Ted Sierocinski

A few family pics, top to bottom:
Bernadette's brother, Michael
My granddaughter, Emily
Emily with mother, Sarah
Emily's brother,Charlie

NEW YEAR

A New Year's resolution: to Blog at least once a week.
What have I been doing?
Loving my wife and enjoying home life in Herefordshire, England;
drooling over my Brit grandchildren and loving their parents;
missing my US grandson and my US daughter and son-in-law;
signing books at the NEC motorcycle show;
preparing new book for publication.

MOUNTAIN COW

I have been Time Travelling while sitting on the bench outside the Mountain Cow cafe. The owner comes out to check my health. I photograph him. What are his feelings toward Pine Plains? He prefers the mountains and given a free choice would live in his home State of Colorado. However his wife has deep roots in Pine Plains...

PINE PLAINS AND COLWALL

Pine Plains in Dutchess County, New York, is much the same size as Colwall in Herefordhsire, though houses are more widely spread and on big lots. Trees shade the streets. Architecture is white clapboard with porches to rock on in summer twilight. A few small buildings rub shoulders on Main Street each side of the sole intersection regulated by traffic lights. The Stissing Bank occupies one corner, the pharmacy another and The Stissing House Tavern and Restaurant a third. The Stissing House is the biggest building in town; it has an upper floor though no rooms to let; the owner/chef is French. The Colwall Park has a French waiter and does have rooms. Both Colwall and Pine Plains are set in a gentle country of small valleys, wooded hills and grass paddocks. In my youth this was dairy country. No longer. Farms are too small to survive in today’s market place.

CHEFS AND PARAGLIDERS - OWLS AND BUZZARDS

My home is a three hundred year old cottage facing across two cricket fields to the orchards and hills of my beloved Herefordshire. The fields are home to Colwall Cricket Club. In summer I walk to the far boundary to sit on an oak-shaded bench and watch paragliders ride the up-draughts above the Malvern Hills. A pair of buzzards often circle amongst the paragliders and a white owl lives in one of the oaks. Colwall is much the same size as Pine Plains in Dutchess County, New York, where the midday Autumn sun warms the bench outside the Mountain Cow Café on Main Street This is a good place to sit. Drivers pull into Peck’s Market car park round on my left. Clients visit the law office and the realtors across the street or drop by the book store - used books, or is that pre-read? A yellow school bus passes followed by a John Deere farm tractor pulling a trailer. A new restaurant opened this weekend, Agriturismo. The chef/owner, Mark Strausman, is a name in New York. The owner’s son (14) hurries by, red-haired and a slight limp.

MEN!

ROAD SIGN IN LYON, FRANCE
I had to put this up!

ONE MORE MAGNIFICENT MORNING

A loosebox door grinds open and steel shod hooves tap concrete. My room is above the stables. I am in bed at my son-in-law’s horse farm in Dutchess County, New York. I have bronchitis. The medic in Pine Plains has prescribed antibiotics for ten days, two pills a day to be taken with meals. I took a pill yesterday with dinner at 7.15. Now I get up and make breakfast so I can take the next. I dress and pad silently down the corridor passed my grandson’s bedroom. He will be three in January and is of uncertain temper when woken unnecessarily. I step over the black cat that sleeps on the stairs. In the kitchen I turn on the coffee machine before going to the bathroom, pee, wash hands, face and the important bits, brush teeth, glue in the dentures. The coffee machine commands me to rinse it, empty the coffee grinds and fill the water tank. The toaster requires six minutes to heat. I slice five mushrooms into an omelette pan and whizz a couple of eggs with chilli flakes, black pepper, garlic powder and a pinch of low salt salt. The toast is almost ready, coffee machine set to STRONG. Pour the eggs into the pan, stir once, fold over and slip onto a plate: low fat fake butter on the toast, low fat milk in the coffee. I tuck yesterday’s New York Times under my arm, follow the dog outdoors and set my breakfast on the table by the barbecue. Four cats weave between my legs. Pigeons bask in early morning sunshine on the barn roof. Mares race each other up the hill paddock towards the woods. Maples are in full Fall splendour of lipstick pink through to scarlet. Oaks and hickory prefer gold. Tea Party Candidates for Senate prefer gibberish. Old Brits run on cardiac medication...