Robby Mook, Annapolis, MD

I am visiting with my friend Robby Mook who works here in Annapolis. We have visited both Washington DC and Baltimore to give me, as Robby says, a "real American experience". We went to a baseball game and ate hotdogs last night - it was amazing. I was impressed with the beauty and the condition of the pitch and the stadium, it all looked very new (the Baltimore Orioles are a relatively new team so that makes sense); the turf was well manicured and the building clean and tidy, except for the piles of discarded peanut shells and hot dog containers. The Orioles are a member of the American League so they play with a designated pitcher, meaning he never has to bat, wheras pitchers in the National League (including teams The Mets and The Dodgers) all have to take a turn batting. During the World Series the top team from both leagues play each other in a series of games to determine the overall winner. Sides take turns to host the games and when the game is played at a National League stadium the pitchers bat, at an American League stadium they don't. I guess Robby's ruse actually worked. Taking me to a game has got me thinking more about baseball, at least I know it's not simply rounders.

Washington DC is incredible. Citizens there protest "No taxation without representation", because the District is controlled by the Federal Government and has no State Legislature. The original DC was a 10 mile square diamond created in 1790, but the South Western area of Alexandria was retroceded to Virginia in 1846 because the District had no need of land South of the Potomac River. This location is steeped in American history and Nationalist pride. Walking the streets we certainly passed hundreds of political analysts, lobbyists and civil servants, along with thousands of tourists enjoying a beautiful Easter weekend. On Sunday we walked across Capitol Hill to see the Supreme Court, the Library of Congress and, ofcourse, the Capitol. Robby suggested that the Supreme Court looks like the Parthenon might have during its younger days, it is indeed a marvellous building. We also visited a number of bars where we met with friends of Robby from the Dean Campaign of 2003/4. A fun bunch of people, and wow, can they ever dance.


Annapolis could be a European fishing village, if it wasn't for the US Naval Academy and the State Legislature here. The narrow streets and brick-built boutique shops are straight out of a postcard from your Somerset holiday, but the midshipmen with their immaculate uniforms and perfect posture are definitely not. There is great coffee here too, and I think it's the best place I have yet visited on the American continent (OK, it's only the sixth place in total, it has to be said). We're driving to DC next, so I can take the train back to Boston.

Passing Manhattan on the train was unreal, breathtaking. I was glad I was in a train, hiding from a great city of giants who might eat me, with their iron bridges like drawbridges leading to their stony castles in the sky. I can't wait to go there!

Paradise Washed

It's still raining. Raining, raining, raining. That means it's been raining for weeks. Six weeks of downpour, which makes it a record, 30 inches of rain in a month with a 3 inch average. The streets have puddled and the lawns are lakes. Every pair of trousers I own is wet. I can't remember what the sun looks like. No-one likes to admit that this can happen in Hawaii, but when conditions over the Pacific Ocean are correct, it can rain and rain and rain. It could theoretically rain forever, and at the moment, it's possible to imagine. Thunderclaps roll between us and the mountains, lightning flashes circle us like Gods, or visitors from another planet.

In the first two weeks of the deluge there were flash floods on Kaua'i killing eighteen people. Apparently a private landowner had altered state-owned dams on his land, causing fatal breaches to occur. Apparently the state had not inspected the dams in the hundred years since their construction. In this situation it is tempting to blame the disaster on God or a freak of nature, but local prosecutors are circling in search of a scapegoat, and I expect there will be charges brought before the rain stops. Elsewhere the cascading water from the mountains has dislodged boulders causing damage from landslides and falling rocks. We can see the erosion of the island's mountain chain, which has carved such impressive shapes in the past, happening before us every day.

More recently there have been breaches in the Honolulu sewerage system, reportedly causing tens of millions of gallons of untreated sewer water to spew into the Ala Wai Canal and drain into the ocean near to where we live. Local beaches aren't officially closed, but warning signs indicate a health risk, and anyone reading the local newspaper will be scared of putting even a foot into the water. Ominously the rain keeps falling, seeming to intensify just when you think it can't drum any harder. Talk of an extended ban on swimming, for up to several months, has already started.

Beaches on the windward side of the island are also contaminated by runoff from overflowing sewers. When we visited lovely Kailua during a brief break in the downpour, people were swimming and splashing even though the water was a murky brown colour. Only when I went to the bank did anyone remotely official tell me not to swim. I couldn't help thinking that the people in the ocean should have spoken to Heather at the Bank of Hawaii: "You haven't been swimming?" she asked me as I presented a cheque, a sensible question seeing as I was wearing just trunks and a T-Shirt. "It's disgusting", she said, "Lifeguards aren't permitted to place signs and the Department of Health has been slow to react. It's really gross" she added. I thanked her and left. Really gross is about right, I thought, thank God I didn't risk it.

The rain has brought sharks in to shore to feed. These murky waters full of nutrients and feeding fish are a paradise for predatory sharks such as tigers, black tip reef and hammerheads. A Canadian surfer was bitten last week as she paddled out on the North Shore. She escaped with her limbs intact, but the story spread like wildfire, a brassy Californian woman stopped us in Starbucks to relate the whole tale and did the same to the next people in the queue. It's a bit like nature has started taking over, the rain a messenger of Mother Earth.

I have brought all our shoes in from the normally sunny lanai and we have stocked up on soup. My first wintry weather in over twelve months is actually coming as something of a relief and the pouring soothes me. It is a happy accompaniment to the Beatles on the radio and to our coffee mornings reading and writing. We've bought raincoats and Ellen is working from home. So long as the floods don't reach us and I'm kept away from the shark infested waters by health warnings, I'll be happy. It's not the surfing beach life I was looking forward to, but this deluge in paradise is perfectly fitting. I can't imagine it stopping for a while yet.