Tuesday, 8 September 2015

Shelter Island – Day 3

Today has been super hot and humid, it feels as though we are building for a thunderstorm. First of all apologies for the quality of yesterday’s blog, I think that it was twofold; I started too late and was feeling the effect of jet lag. Shelter Island is now much quieter, the houses around us have been shuttered and the owners have returned to the city. It is easy to park and when we caught the ferry this morning there was no queue.

Shelter Island is an atypical version of small town America. It is not ethnically diverse and the median income must be quite high. I have been reading the Shelter Island Reporter, which is the sort of paper that might feature on Have I got News for You. Lead story, the third plane crash of the summer at the local airstrip, all involving pilots over the age of eighty, well nobody was able to say that they were not experienced. What I could not understand was that the latest crash involved a two-seater plane and the pilot was criticised for taking a passenger, surely that is what the second seat is for!!! Other than that the crime page was revealing, there was the case of the fisherman taking clams out of season, children under the age of 12 not wearing lifejackets on the water, you get the picture. The political issue was the quality of the water in the local pond, somebody had taken a bottle to the council meeting and challenged the councillors to drink it. Political theatre the paper screamed, while it remained unclear whether the water was drunk or merely put to the lips. I suppose that is similar to inhale or not inhale.

When we went out for dinner yesterday we had to wait at the bar and had a shocking conversation, by European standards. There was the inevitable picture of Donald Trump on the TV, the guy next to us then eulogised him saying and I quote “at least you know when he is blowing smoke up your ass”. To us this is an anathema, Donald Trump makes David Cameron seem a principled hardworking politician. How on earth is he a serious candidate, while I suppose we said that about Ronald Reagan and look what happened there. I shall leave it to our friends Karin and Rob to explain that to us, and why by 2020 we might see Prime Minister Corbyn meeting President Sanders.


For lighter relief here is a photo taken from the North Ferry this afternoon.


1 comment:

  1. The view looks lovely - I am in great anticipation for our weekend with you both! However, I must warn you that you might be disappointed if you are looking for discussion about Trump, at least from me. Once I heard his misogynistic remarks, very early on, I stopped listening. I hope to do my part on Bernie, my main man, of course.

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