WE RAN ON THE BEACH WITH KENNEDY FLAIR - 175 MILES

Started the day by doing some laundry. Overnight the Boston Water company had repaired the leak and normal service was resumed. I needed to do two loads and a nice woman had got there first. She had six children, although some were grown up, and I think she had a few spare ones with her as well. It turned out her husband worked for DELL - I hope it paid well with all those mouths to feed. She told me he’d been in the navy during the 70's and that she had followed him round the world. That’s love for you. It also means that if you follow a bloke on a ship, the chances are they go from one trouble spot to another. From what she told me she was in Barcelona when General Franco died. Then it was onto Greece for The Coup when the army took over. Later she arrived in Lisbon for the ‘Carnation Revolution’. It was a great treat to talk to her as we did her smalls. Despite 6, or was it 8 children - I guess it is easy to forget when you have so many, her smalls were considerably smaller than mine. Being a Brit I tried not to stare.

Valet guy managed to locate my car from somewhere in Boston and I set off for Cape Cod. It took so little time to get there and was so crowded, that I carried on and found a turning for "Martha's Vineyard", an island and playground for the rich. There’s a ferry that demands ID before you’re allowed to board. That irked me slightly and made me think of Jersey with its regulation of incomers, so I decided against it and headed for Providence.

Two mega expensive hotels in town so I did my usual trick of heading to the outskirts where I found West Greenwich. This was more my style. I booked into a cheap motel and headed for a bar.

There were only a couple of people in the bar – a callow youth who was slowly and shovelling ‘chicken tenders’ down himself. Turns out he was the son of the owner and the bar staff were quizzing him about stuff. He airily said at one point. "My Mom y'know is like really old. She's 52 and seen that movie ‘The Bucket List’. Now she keeps saying she wants to do all this stuff before she dies...." I kept listening. "I don't have a list but I'd like a big bike y'know......and a Tommy Gun like the Gangsters used". The chap to my left piped up: “You can get them new. I've got a dozen guns. Ain't got one like that. All legal but if the Police want to come a-callin’…”. He’d slowly been filling himself up with pretty much anything that was going.

When the full sign went up, he staggered out. Next thing I heard was the sound of a motorcycle starting up. In the approaching dusk this bloke slowly weaved his way out of the parking lot. Helmet on? No he just wore the Bandana.

Then a number of women in sports outfits (skirts, shorts numbered shirts), burst in and ordered food and drinks. They were just back from softball practice. Not quite a Norman Rockwell painting but it was on the way. Life in a small town..eh?