Nita comes to visit!

I had the pleasure of my girl's company for a week, my company kindly granting my request for conjugal visits while imprisoned in this lab. It was exciting meeting her at the airport, and she took her sweet time getting through customs, having mislaid my address and claiming to have no money on her. US Customs are very officious so she must have charmed her way in, she was very excited to be here.

It was strange having her here as a guest in the apartment, so I had to fetch after her the whole time instead of arguing about who's going to wash the pots. Plus having hardly seen her in 3 months meant we had to get used to each other again as well as show her around this other life I've been living here in the US.

The Sunday after she arrived, we and m'colleague went whale watching with a touring company from Anacortes, about 2 hours drive north of Seattle. It is a good time of year to spot humpback whales but we came across killer whales first, they are not shy creatures, and this took up our time. The whale pods like to hang around at San Juan island (red is where we found them)













Oh look, an eagle!




There was work still to be done here, so while I toiled, Ms Nita explored Redmond, Bellevue and Seattle and then we went on a trip into the enormous countryside. The weather was great to start with at Snoqualmie













We tried to make it to Sunrise to get a good look at Mt Rainer so I could convince mah'aam that it actually existed. By the time we got there, it had wrapped itself up in a huge bank of fog and clouds. Bah!

But it did come out the next day and the only place to view it in a hurry is the Space Needle.








Our chums on Bainbridge Island invited us to a pumpkin party for the Saturday before m'lady had to leave. M'colleague and I had stocked up on tools and practiced on a couple of pumpkins so we went all out and decided to carve a pumpkin inside a pumpkin. We had in mind that if there are all these tools and websites, that these parties are an excuse to compete with your skills, but we were the only ones doing this and it took ages. First of all, we had to go to the pumpkin patch













This is wild corn, very pretty and sadly inedible





And here's what we carved, mine is in the middle and is meant to be a flaming monsters eye behind some trees, and m'colleagues is on the left, a graverobber scene. The one on the right is by Gus, the sarcastic preacher. He provided many good giggles that night.









Here's a whole mess of them. third from the left is Nita's.



I had to drive so it was fun watching everyone stagger to and from the excellent warm cider and rum bowl. We drank this and tea for me around an enormous bonfire, swapping stories of drunken depravity. Despite my best efforts, the preachers story was the grossest, and he wasn't even drunk!


Then the next day, I had to take her to the airport for home, and these next two weeks here are really going to feel long. I've missed family, friends, my house and my girl and I'm getting weary of being here working this hard for this long. I've found a couple of old friends hunting around on the internet that I've not heard from for years which really cheered me up.

M'Colleague and I finally found some drinking buddies, on our last weekend here! Bah, but they will keep for when we come back.