Tour Diary -38 – Save a turtle….see what you get!! – Can we ban the word ‘like’ from our children’s vocabulary? – TV sabotage – Myrtle Beachpeoplewatching – and the Joneses get conned by airlines – again!!

Tour Diary -38 – Save a turtle….see what you get!! – Can we ban the word ‘like’ from our children’s vocabulary? – TV sabotage – Myrtle Beachpeoplewatching – and the Joneses get conned by airlines – again!!

Poor Steve. 

I have the long-distance eyes of a hawk but the short distance eyes of a myopic Lemur, one who is wearing very dark glasses.

I am always on the look-out for critters.. (see how acclimatized I am to the American vernacular)  both in amongst the trees but also on the road. 

I can see them a mile away.

I suddenly yelled to Steve.. ‘Stop, Stop, Stop.’ As he screeched to a halt he could then see the big Terrapin crossing the road.  I had thought it was a critter, which had already been hit by a car and was on its back struggling.  Saint Francis jumped out, picked it up by the sides of its shell and moved towards the grass with it.  As he did so, the turtle, obviously distressed at suddenly finding itself flying, starting frantically waving its little legs and then ‘peed’ backwards all over Steve’s legs and his sandals.  Steve carried on and placed it carefully on the grass verge so I thought maybe he had not seen the stream of water and maybe it hadn’t actually gone over him but between his legs.  But as he turned back to the car.. growling and muttering to himself with a face like thunder instead of a face which said… “What a clever little boy I am!” .. I thought.. ”Oh no. He got the full deluge” 

A car slowly going past gave us a thumbs up for saving the little critter and I think Steve would have loved to have growled, but instead gave a very lopsided smile to the car occupants, which did not reach his eyes AT ALL! and then got back our car to find me total hysterical with laughter.  He loves those Sandals and he likes to get respect and thanks from the animals for his rescuing, not get peed on.  I still keep chuckling and Steve has just said.. “Imagine if you were that turtle, minding your own business and then out of no-where you are abducted up into the air, by ‘Beings’ unseen and you are so frightened that you pee yourself and then when you come to.. and look around you are in a completely different place with some missing time… Huh… now he knows what it is like for me!!. Serves him right for p…..g all over me”  Still on this thread obviously, as he continued… “Yes, then imagine that you reach your mates or your wife and tell her the story and she just laughs and says what have you been eating with your lettuce leaves?!” I had to leave the room as I still couldn’t stop laughing and he was so unimpressed with my lack of understanding of the incredible slight to his dignity.

He can now see the funny side, but I just hope that when his sandals dry out, that there is no remnant of smell or stain or I will never hear the last of it. 

He tried to rescue a huge bug yesterday, which was in no danger at all just minding its own business on a wall, but as Steve tried to pick it up it flew away with its huge wingspan and Steve nearly fell over backwards.  I think his foray into the world of animals and insects borne out of years of living with me and my obsession with all living creatures… is still very tenuous.

He was very impressed with me spotting my most favourite insect of all time on a bench on a veranda of one of the spectacular houses.  It was a lime green Preying Mantis.. I adore them and this one was only about a half inch long… Imagine how small the little bugs have to be that it catches in its pincers!  When they pounce they are just so incredibly fast….

And if you believe in previous lives.. for example that we have had lives - lived as an insect (as the Buddhists do)…always decide to come here as a female Mantis as the males become dinner once they have performed their conjugal duties.  My young brother adored them and kept a few as pets but it was so hard to find live insects for them in Lower Edmonton!!  I remember with such fondness his attempts to feed it.  He bought a box of maggots at the fish shop and put them in the wardrobe to hatch, but forgot about them.  Only the incredible loud buzzing alerted him to the fact that dozens of huge massive Bluebottles were clamouring to get out of the box, having hatched.  Yukk!!  He put them in with the Mantis who must have thought it was Christmas and had its head swimming with all these flies buzzing around it…  They were soon gone…

I just went to have a haircut at the Salon that  Mary goes to and had a wonderful half hour immersed in the incredibly strong accent of the South Carolinas.  I really liked it there and not just because my stylist  told me I had wonderful skin and amazingly beautiful haaaeeeerrrr.. a bit alarming for me though, as I wondered about the veracity of her eyesight! ( I didn’t want to come out with a Mohican)  Everyone in the hairdressers knew each other and the topics of conversations were for all to share in not just between each Stylist and her client.  Consequently I am now aware that last night on the programme ‘Americas Got Talent’ one of the Contestants was a male pole dancer complete with ‘Booty’ shorts on.. (I too had to ask for an explanation, for English readers I will leave it to your imagination) ..an incredibly tight spandex body strip which was about 2 “ wide all over and a pair of really high stilettos.  Apparently this amazing vision that I had conjured up in my imagination was totally correct because the Stylist then proceeded to give us a demonstration of how he had moved on that pole.  All I can say is that she could have auditioned as well and would certainly stand a chance of going through, which is what the panel did for this young would-be sex performer…they put him through. 

Stilettos and booty….  Only in America…

My Stylist then said to me..”mizzmurray izz secha dull iznnn she?”  I’m afraid I had to ask her to repeat it 3 times before I finally got it and I think our Sat Nav sisters who live in our GPS have real competition now.

(Translation Miss Mary is such a doll isn’t she?)

More titles on billboards.

These two I have no idea what they are for:-

Money Man Pawn

In the first I can only surmise that you can pawn things for money and maybe if desperate, either buy a man or put yours in until you can afford to redeem him?

I dig the ………..(Picture of  a pigs face)

Could be food, a restaurant or anything really – not explained.  Could just be for people like Steve and I who love little Piggly Wigglys..

Crabby Jacks

Seafood restaurant whose title so put me off I would never go in there.

And

Bottoms up – A Gentleman’s club

I think they utilised a young Einstein to come up with a name for that one up..

There are some things that really disturb me as I go around America.  The most prominent is the appalling misuse of the word “like” by the young generation.  In one attempt to say a sentence the other day, one young girl used “like” 28 times.  I couldn’t bear the fact that I was counting but once I started I couldn’t stop.

It drives us crazy and often we have to move seats or just move train carriages in NYC as it is so grating on the nerves.  They have no idea at all that they are putting in this word every third word or so.  I so hope that this style of talking does not catch on in a huge way in England.  We already have our own terrible distortion of language which is an amalgam of Gangland speak and Indian idiom, which often makes it hard to understand the young.

Her sentence went like this…”it was like…well I.. like.. was thinking.. like.. if she could like.. see.. like what I …like ..was .. like.. going to .. like.. have to do … like… if.. like.. she wanted .. me …like.. to ….

O.M.G!  I just want to take around a tape recorder and make them have to listen to themselves, but I doubt if they would be aware of what they are doing as every single one is doing it to each other.  In England we seem to have gone in and thankfully out again, of the awful Australian way of speaking where every sentence is treated as a question? Do you know what I mean???? 

I also think that not many T.V presenters now use the phrase.. er…or ermmm.. to make a space to think in… although this was so popular as well, many years ago. 

My thought is (there I go thinking again) that as everything is so fast paced now and the TV programmes especially, change the image every few seconds for young viewers and for older viewers only 4–5 minutes of a programme runs before 4 minutes of incredibly loud and fast-paced adverts then bombard the viewer.  Perhaps this is causing an inability to be able to continue a thread of thought and consequently the young have to use ‘like’ every second or so, in order to be able to get through a sentence?  What do you think?. 

I don’t think they are able to hold onto a continual energy thread of conversation.  It’s such a shame….  TV, as already stated, is just beyond me now and I won’t watch anything in America unless it’s the Turner Classic Movies, with no adverts.

However in every single public place you go in every wall is covered with TV’s.  In every Hotel lobby and dining hall, bar.. shop and even in the MacDonald’s now it is TV  TV  TV..

In the bar of one restaurant we were in, there were 8 plasma screen TV’s screens on the wall all showing different programmes.

I feel it is an insidious ploy to stop people from talking with each other and make conversations and so consequently, like me, work out how to save the world.  On top of the TV screen/abuse is also the feeling that you cannot eat anywhere now without both TV’s plus…. Music/abuse.  At the last airport we were in, spending a jolly little day there…  as we had a cup of coffee, the bar was lined with 3 TV’s all tuned to different programmes.. However, Muzac was also  blaring out overall throughout the airport and then the coffee bar had its own separate music.  So just to try to have a quiet drink meant we were bombarded by 5 separate media outpourings!.. 

Why is it not considered O.K. if we just sit in the place with no external noise?

Is the gentle buzz of good conversations not possible any more?  

Who decided that we all need to be bombarded in this way? 

In Linville Falls we went outside to eat as it was so noisy inside we couldn’t hear each other talk, but when we got outside the music was blasting out on speakers out there too.  Again we could not hear each other.  It took 3 of us, 5 separate attempts to finally get them to turn the music down so that we could eventually hear each other.

In Charleston we went into a very genteel bar with a lovely waitress with very laid-back energy.  She had on the plasma screen TV but it was tuned to the old movies and she had the subtitles on with the sound off.  So I did not notice it when we first went in.  She could still watch it if necessary and it did not interfere with us.  So is the purpose of these TV’s to keep the waiting staff happy and not bored?  It is a real mystery and it is so obvious when you only visit every couple of years or so, the degeneration which keeps happening.. Language and leisure space..  It’s time to fight back…

I think this is one of those things where we have to keep saying.. “I want to be here in your bar, restaurant, shop or whatever it is.. but I can only stay if you allow me the opportunity to talk with my companions and not have to shout over a TV set, which no-one appears to be watching or this loud music.  Can you turn it off or shall I leave?”

 I am very sad to report that my two most favourite eating places in England – one an Indian Restaurant that I have been going to for 20 years and the other one a fabulous Home-Cooking restaurant have both now succumbed to this fashion.  The Indian restaurant upgraded its décor recently and to our despair put a huge plasma screen  TV up and now bombards its customers with Bollywood movies!!.  I am the only person I know  - probably in the Universe - who is not Indian but who loooovvveeesss Bollywood. I love, love, love them.  So vibrant, happy, colourful, artistic but incredibly fast and furious.  Not the kind of thing you want to be catching out of the corner of your eye as you eat your wonderful Chicken Tikka Masala.  The other restaurant insists on playing very loud Tamala Motown and past Pop hits at a very high decibel.  Who can sit still and talk when Martha Reeves is asking you to Dance in the Streets with her?

Again we ask if they can turn it down but are told no or told they will and nothing happens…

I would hate to give up going to these restaurants but I long ago gave up going shopping in Oxford Street in London as the music was always so incredibly loud so I would stagger out of the shops with my eardrums at bursting point and no idea whatsoever of what I had gone in to look at!

On the plus side we have discovered that if Steve flings some ‘energy’ at the T.V screen it goes blank!!  YEESSSS!!  He did it 6 times in a row yesterday so I think that if he refines this skill we should be able to go out and not be bothered by TV’s.  He is obviously using his amazing Reiki energy, which he always utilised before, when our Media system at home plays up or a film won’t play properly.  He just waves his hand over it or points at it and it works again but this is a new aspect to it, making TV screen go blank or turn off…

Talk about natural Yin and Yang. 

I walk in or near things and the electrics break down, he walks in and waves his hand and they start up again.  I have to say I would rather have his power than mine unless I want to take up a new career as a saboteur behind enemy lines…

So I’m sad to see/hear the language mangling and sad to see/hear the destruction of the “night out space” We popped on down to the beach today to walk and had the radio on for the first time, usually we listen to a CD and the same thing happens on the radio show.  One track and then we timed it and it was 4 – 5 minutes of frantic shouting adverts.  This would mean probably only about 6 or 7 tracks playing in an hour.  However, when we turned the volume back up after 5 minutes to hear the track we both said.. “Are they playing the same tune each time?”  Every track sounded the same!  What is going on?!!

Anyway we had a lovely walk along the incredible Myrtle Beach, which is over 30 miles long I’m told and did some people watching.  A lovely young man with long hair and a surfboard under his arm was striding along with an incredible gait.  He was slender but he was walking how people do when they are enormously overweight.  We watched in delight and he kept it up all along the beach but every now and again he kicked up his heels and clicked them together!!  Wonderful, he was obviously in such a happy space.  He was gone for about 15 minutes and then we saw him coming back.. still swinging ‘his Booty’ and clicking his heels  - I just love the entertainment on the beach.  We usually stay actually on Myrtle Beach in the lovely Mary’s Condo but it was rented out this time.  It was from this Condo that Steve saw the UFO’s out of the window and had to ask them to repeat their experience as I had missed it.. (It’s in the book)

It was also from here that he ran down to try to catch up with the dolphins swimming by.  I don’t know what gave me more pleasure, watching dolphins going past our balcony or see Steve frantically waving at them to wait for him to catch up.  (Only if you can swim as fast as us Big-Boy!)

We also love to watch the surf-kiters who do the most amazing acrobats and somersaults in the air.  I am always a bit apprehensive that they will take off with the wind and not come back down to sea…

But the hot weather is relentless and as I still have great difficulty dealing with it, so we are cutting our time short here and moving on up to the North East and the last part of this tour.  We still have 5 weeks to go and at least 5 more talks to do, but I shall be very sad to have to leave and go home….

Next Stop Boston and New Hampshire and the highlight of the tour.. Rhode Island and ‘The Gathering’ and NYC ..…

Our suitcases are still doing their own thing.  This time it is making us pay the same price as our own plane tickets for every one of them.  I think it is because Steve kept ‘dissing’ mine and she is getting revenge..

The airline is charging us for every bag we put on and then surcharge for over 40lbs.  We have packed them and weighed them at the normal 50 lb weight and we are transporting 2 boxes of books also.  I cannot tell you the unusual words, which emanated from the bedroom last night as Steve dealt with the on-line case booking.  He should have read the small print on the luggage spec. first, instead of being impressed with cheap fares.  A dear lesson learned.  Avoid Spirit Airlines like the plague.  Everyone should avoid them and write to them telling them why, as I intend to do and say what crooks they are, then they will have to look again at their policies.

So $600.00 to just go up the coast!!  Wow…  At least we can go direct and not spend the interim in Texas or some other place to catch the next flight.  I hope my little suitcase appreciates how much I value her as I am continuing on with her.  Patched up and all.  She is looking pretty wild and wonderful as we found some amazing duct tape to patch her up with. 

Steve wanted to throw her away, but I know he was hoping he could do so with all my clothes in it to save some weight.  But we held out the two of us.. suitcase and me  ....oh and my clothes too…

Lots of love

Annie

xx

    

Tour Diary 37 – Charleston – Sweetgrass basket-makers highway – Ghosts in a boat – and I melt in 100 degree + temperatures….

Tour Diary 37 – Charleston – Sweetgrass basket-makers highway – Ghosts in a boat – and I melt in 100 degree + temperatures….

What a great name for a Highway -  'Sweetgrass Basket Makers Highway'. 

Only in America. 

And Charleston..what an incredible city! 

Sooooo beautiful and so steeped in history.  Also the most haunted city in the whole of the USA.  Not surprising given that the slave trade was very prominent here and also this is where the first shots were fired in the Civil war of North against the South.  Charleston has lived through hurricanes, tornados, earthquakes, fires – both deliberate and malicious and accidental and wars, wars, wars…

We only gave ourselves 4 days in Charleston but I think even a two-week stay would not begin to touch the surface of this multi-faceted little place, with no fast food outlets.. no Starbucks either, but that was a small price to pay.  Everything was unique and very unusual.  The gigantic houses are just divine… think Gone with the Wind and you will get the picture.  In fact it was Charleston, which was burned as Scarlett and Rhett escaped the city, taking Melanie to safety.  Sherman burned the city and many other cities once he had conquered the devastated peoples.. People who were starving and demoralised from years of war, conflict and deprivation. Why you would need to punish them further by destroying their beautiful homes is beyond my comprehension.  But then the action of men in wars has always been beyond my comprehension.

We had to choose carefully what gems we would look at and explore with such a limited time and also because the temperature had risen unusually, to over 100 degrees which for me makes it impossible to stay outside for long.  We love to walk cities and the first day we tried that, but it was just too unbearable. So the next day we took the car and being the wonderfully civilized and courteous city that it is, parking is free on most streets and often for up to 2 hours at a time – plenty of time to view one of the gorgeous houses.  We went for the first one because it has a wonderful spiral staircase, the only one of its kind in the country and totally magnificent… breathtaking …as was the house itself.  We saw 3 houses in all. The first was one that had not been restored by the Charleston restoration society. They wanted people to be able to see the old slave quarters and stables complete with rotting carriages… But it enabled you to get a sense of how life must have been for them all.  What I wondered was how on earth did they survive without air-conditioning.  My friend Mary informs me that until air-conditioning was invented not many people wanted to live down ‘South’.  The advent of the cold air machines changed the face of the Southern States and dense population began. The next two houses we viewed were restored to former glory. In the ensuing 200 years since they were built they had been through various guises as Family homes, girls schools, convents, rented accommodations with up to 10 people living in just one of the rooms, and then during World War 2 – a  base for servicemen to await their shipping-out orders for Europe.  I could just picture all these young men.. some of whom might have ended up on my Dads ship on Omaha beach in Normandy just to be mown down inside the Landing craft, without ever having set foot on foreign soil.  My Dad had spent the 6 weeks before the Normandy landings in South Devon with all the American troops in preparation for the battle and the English sailors and the Americans and Canadians became quite fond of each other. There were poignant pictures of all the soldiers billeted within the house….

I have had so many images of past lives… not just my own but also others whilst in this city and maybe that is because of this energy of history, which so steeps every aspect throughout.

One visit we made was to the original Slave Mart Market.  A small building which in fact had no artifacts (thank goodness) apart from a few shackles and whips.

We were quite hostilely met on the door by two black receptionist women and as always Steve tries to engage everyone and said.. “It is almost impossible to imagine how this could happen isn’t it?”  The woman barely answered and I thought perhaps she was thinking that Steve was making light of such a terrible time in history.  However, when we stood side by side to read one of the boards, I realized that one of the images on his famous Mambo shirt was of a black face with three eyes.  Two normal eyes and one in the third eye area.  I was horrified as I never taken real notice  before but the image looked like the same face that used to be on my beloved ‘Golliwog’ rag doll, which I had had as a child.  I made him cover the image up with a scarf over his shoulder and just hoped it wasn’t this she was reacting to.  How inappropriate of us.

Then I got to thinking about past lives and the fact that I have always had such a very strong pull to this era and this area. 

I was an avid reader of all books about the South, especially the works of Frank Yerby and Kyle Onstott. I think I should have taken the opportunity to explore a possible life with my teacher Betty who was able to see all my past lives and discuss them with me, but only if I remembered them in part for myself.  It would have been good to know what role I had at that time.  Slave or not?  My sense was slave….

So if we accept that we have past lives,  for arguments sake, then no-one knows that they were a slave all through their many lifetimes.  In the past the black people could well have been the white slave owners.. and the slave owners… could have at another time been the black slaves.

What a nonsense it is therefore to harbour a grudge against each other’s background, religion, or cultural differences.

If only this concept was accepted and understood and people did not hold on to ‘physical’ ancestry, but tuned into ‘spiritual’ ancestry… wars and conflict would just become absurd.  I would think we would choose different lives and experiences to have each time.  What would be the point of keep doing the same thing, same creed, same religion  over and over again?… That is just a nonsense.

It is why I have never understood the life/lives of the Dalai Lama..

I was very mindful of how difficult it would be for someone who is determined to hate another for past atrocities to get their head around the idea that they might have been in the past.. the one who carried out those past atrocities…

Some of the facts at the Slave Mart just astounded me.  At one point Black Slaves outnumbered the white population by 100,000 to one.  I then got to thinking.. (no groaning there) that we have not moved much further ahead because millions and millions of us have our lives governed by just a small conglomerate of money men, who set up wars and financial crisis’s to enlarge their already humungous coffers.  How can so many still be governed by so few?

The slaves did try to rebel.. silently if not actually.  They would scupper food, work slow.. break tools.. feign illness.. small stands made to try to retain their own sense of themselves… When they did escape they were so severely beaten or killed to serve as a message to others.  But even on the slave ships bringing them over, we are told that they sometimes were able to take over the ship. A gave a big inward cheer at that particular board as I read it.

There was a table of the value of the slave to the owners and in a way I was pleased to see that at this stage of my life I would have been deemed ‘pretty worthless’ and women of our age could have been picked up for a pittance.  However, at age 15 upwards I would have been worth a small fortune.  $50,000 in today’s money. 

The saddest thing I felt, aside from how families were just routinely torn apart with Slaves sold without thought of the grief their family members… was that once a slave had bought his own freedom he would often then take up trading in slavery! I just could not get my head around that one.

The slaves had their own community lives when not working and dance and music was their saviour until the Slave owners realized that their drumming contained information sent out to inform each other of current events and ways to riot and to try to escape.  So their musical instruments were confiscated which led to their magnificent singing voices and a form of drumming with their hands.

They bought their own superstitions with them and one group called the Gullahs are famous in their own right in the Charleston area and featured in our Ghost tour of the river which we took last night, a fantastic end to our trip.

The tour started at 9 p.m. just after sunset and I was at the front of the boat looking over the water rushing past us..  A balmy night with a fantastic story-teller narrating the Ghost histories.  She had over 9 generations of Charleston ancestors who had lived in the city and her mother and grandmother had both been a narrator of Stories of the river, ghosts  and the town.

One story featured a lovely young man who appears to young women and after a minute he gauges to see if his appearance might frighten them.. if not.. he lays down on the bed with them and puts his arm under their heads and cuddles them.  Aaaahhhh!!  However the sister of the person in question woke up and saw him lying on the bed and screamed, so he got up and gently bowed and disappeared.  The ghost is thought to be that of a young man, who was madly in love with his beau since childhood and had a dear best friend.  All 3 grew up together and spent every minute of their childhood together.  The young mans father however, insisted that he went away to University much to the boys chagrin.. When he graduated he returned to a huge party in the families 5 story house… (classed as a skyscraper in Charleston!)  There was no sign of his friend or of his beloved.  Finally someone told him that they were now an item and could not face him.

He obviously could not face it either, as he went up to the fifth floor of the house and threw himself down into the partying  throng and to his death.  This, I thought, was a warning to all parents everywhere to listen to your children when they tell you they REEEALLLY do not want to go somewhere.

Another ghost appeared to a man in his room as just a bloodied torso.  The man was an engineer and so not fazed but instead put out his hand to the torso and was shocked to find that he could actually feel the body and the coarse texture of its coat.  I would like to think that I could do that but somehow doubt it.  However if I could, this would be my next action…

He shook his partner awake to share the experience!

She screamed the place down which had the effect of moving the ghost forward to the bed.. over both their bodies and tried to press them down through the mattress with great malevolence.  Now that is scary…

The thinking on this Ghost is that this was one of the Confederate soldiers who were told, once the city was obviously going to fall to Sherman, to destroy all the ammunition.

Some bright spark (no pun intended) thought it would be a good idea to stack everything up and plug the barrel of the huge cannon with explosives and set fire to it all.  They obviously did not read the instruction on the firework which says ..’Light up and stand well back’ as the explosion was so colossal that even to this day a 500lb piece of metal is still buried in the attic space of a house over 500 yards away. 

(The owners open up the house once a year for people to come and view it)

Unfortunately the bits of ammunition and metal and guns, which flew through the air were accompanied by the bits of bodies of the poor young lads who were set the task.

The last one I will share is of Lavinia.  The beautiful serial killer.  She would board and lodge men in her home and quiz them as to their background to see if anyone would miss them if they were killed.  If she deemed not, her hubbie would dispose of the bodies, once she had poisoned them, by coming up and tipping up the bed and the body would fall through the floor down into a pit which they had constructed under that room in the basement of the house.  Shades of Sweeney Todd here, but they did not chop them up and put them in pies, just left them there to rot.  I can’t imagine it was the most sublime smelling B & B.

Like many serial killers they were caught because one lucky man did not succumb to the poison and escaped to tell the tale.

Both the couple were hanged.. the husband totally repentant saying his beautiful wife made him do it.. but the wife ..not.  She defied to the end and as she was about to be hung, having had to be dragged kicking and screaming to the rope she called out ‘’If any of you have a message for the Devil, give it to me now as I am about to meet him”  There’s true defiance for you.

Our guide who was obviously an ardent Ghost researcher found that in her own geneology a great great grandparent had been one of the  jurors who found Lavinia guilty.

This lovely Guide also has had many career hats and one was a Firefighter like her Dad.

They were called out to a Gullah settlement on one of the Islands to help with a very old woman who had taken ill.  It was an incredibly hot day and evening and when they got to the house there were over 50 silent family members sitting quietly outside on the porch.  When they went into the room there were 3 oil fires blazing and the room was unbearably hot and stifling.  Grandma was under 15 blankets, which they had to peel off to apply the defibrilators.  The girl kept trying to say to Dad  “She is sooooooo dead” but Dad kept shushing her to be quiet.  They put the body in the truck and told everyone that they were going to take Grandma to the hospital.  Where she was pronounced dead on arrival.

The father explained that the Gullah are terrified of the person dying in the house as they then know that the spirit will haunt them.  Allowing the body to cool would mean that they would have to admit that the person was dead, so they kept the body hot until they could get it out of the house!!  The Father was well versed in the Gullah customs and complied by pretending that Grandma was still alive until he could get remove her.

We thanked the guide for such a wonderful tour and she immediately asked as they all do where we were from and was delighted to tell us that she had lived for a while in Hyde Park and one of her most favourite Ghost tours of all time was the Jack the Ripper tour of the old East End.  I love the East End and so I am also delighted by the Huguenot history of this city as it is reflected in and around the East  End with the lovely 3 story houses that are all still shuttered.  These gorgeous  little houses  are some of my most favourite buildings in London and now would cost an absolute fortune to buy but they have had a checked past and at one time were extremely neglected and derelict.

The Charleston Houses, which border the Battery area/tip of Charleston are just exquisite.  Charleston is a peninsula and is so similar in construction as NYC but without the skyscrapers or frantic energy.  Everything here is laid back, slow and extremely genteel still.

The waterfront houses were for the extraordinarily rich Charlestonians but were not used all year round.  I think most of them escaped the ferocious heat in the summer by going for their ‘Grand Tours of Europe’ or to their homes by the sea up North.  A bit like we do really … popping up to Skegness, or Blackpool… or popping over from Dover to Calais on the ferry!

Steve adored the city and once again we spoke with young people whose backgrounds so surprise us.  I suppose when someone is your waiter in England we tend to think that is their career choice and do not see it as a stop gap.  

I am learning that the person who is serving us could well be a rocket scientist or film maker in the case of Tyson in Austin..

At our meal the other evening, it started off so well because as I sat down and could see the ocean a Dolphin swam by… Magic..

The young lad admired as they all do, Steve’s Mambo shirt, he actually made reference to the third eye on the image I spoke about before, so I immediately knew he was more than just a young lad and something would transpire here. He asked us where we were from and then I asked him if he was studying to be a Wine waiter as he seemed so knowledgeable about wines and wanted to share that knowledge with us, but no… although he had worked in the restaurant for 5 years and was indeed very keen to learn all about wines, he had just graduated with an M.A in Economics.  So I asked him what he wanted to do with his degree and he looked at me a bit sheepishly and said quite tentatively….  ‘Well you probably do not know but there is a small group of men.. Financiers.. called the New World Order?’  I said that yes indeed I knew a huge amount of information about the New World Order and the way it is run.  He looked delighted and said that it was his intention to somehow penetrate it from the inside and endeavour to expose the practices and try to make a difference by changing the system.  We wished him well and I felt a great upliftment in my energy as I left  thinking that these youngsters are actually so on the ball.  After our meeting with Tyson and hearing how he is making the Zeitgiest movies and yet still doing waiting tables, I am beginning to look at all waiting staff with a different eye.

Our waitress last night was extremely gorgeous in a way that was so familiar to me and she kept really staring at me when I spoke.  When she bought up our drinks she finally asked where we were from and when we said London she exclaimed that we were near neighbours as she was from Ireland.  I then realized that she looked very much like the singer Enya!  I asked her what she was doing in Charleston and she said she had just got an MA in Hotel management and was filling in with a stint in Charleston until she went out to manage a Hotel in  Saudi Arabia or Bahrain.

4 hard years of training in Hospitality management and taking time out to wait in a Wine Bar for the summer.. amazing..

Finally our receptionist at the last House we went to visit.. a really young looking lad who looked about 15 years of age.  When we chatted he had just finished his M.A in History and this was why he was working as a guide/receptionist in a Charleston House as he so loved the history.  However, he was just about to start training for a ‘serious’ job as a Nurse.  I said “do you not think your History is serious?”

(I wondered what his parents thought about financing a 4 year degree to be told that the child was going to do an about-face and take up another career?).. but when I tactfully tried to explore this, he told me that as a Veteran of the Afghan war.. 2 years in combat!!!… his University fees were somewhat supported by the government.  This is apparently a huge inducer to get the young men into the war zone.. how despicable is that!?….  We will give you an education if you are prepared to go be cannon fodder for us for a while first.  If you survive we will pay for your education.

An education should be the right of every child as they are our future…they should not have to risk their lives to get one provided for them…

Get off your soap box Annie…

He then went on to talk about how his wife felt about it.. How could he be married, an ex marine and a Historian.. he looked about 12!!!

We spoke of all the places he has already visited in Europe and London and those still to see on his 'bucket list' and I walked away again shaking my head thinking.. these youngsters are so incredibly hard working and so diverse and also so ambitious.  Where are we going wrong in England?

Lots of love

Annie

TOUR DIARY 36 –The Blue Ridge mountains – The Road Runner goes crazy with a flashlight – (no, just the Brown Mountain lights!) – Linville Falls, labyrinths and YES another restroom story….

TOUR DIARY 36 –The Blue Ridge mountains – The Road Runner goes crazy with a flashlight – (no, just the Brown Mountain lights!) – Linville Falls, labyrinths and YES another restroom story….

We left Charlottesville and another great talk given by Steve in a wonderful church environment.  Although I am totally anti ..organized-religions I am always so drawn to the wonderful energy to be found inside our churches and Cathedrals.  A great many of them are built over Ley Lines so perhaps it is these that  I am drawn to.  Once again so many people came up to us after the talk to say how much hearing Steve’s words had inspired them or made them think deeply about how they could make a difference in the world generally, although one strange old lady was only obsessed with pinching his cheeks and telling him what wonderful dimples he has… It takes all kinds and I am amazed at the patience I see Steve exhibit with all the strange questions, statements and weird behaviours people come up with.

We then headed out for our Motel in the Blue Ridge Mountains, which are in the Northwest of North Carolina or is it South… I am becoming very disorientated…

These are spectacularly beautiful forests and they derive their name from the fact that oxygen given off by the trees (aren’t we so lucky that trees breathe in Carbon Dioxide and breathe out Oxygen)  from our human point of view this has to be Natures best ever plan!  So the Oxygen appears to have a blue haze due to the ingredients in it coming off the pine trees.  This haze hangs in the middle of the ravines.

To go to see the Brown Mountain lights, which are seen from one side of the ravine across the other it was a pretty difficult route up off the highway.  We were told that the road was in really good condition.. all I can say to that is I would have hated to see it when it was not taken care of.  I shared a car with my friend Gary who is a celebrated teacher, winning National best teacher of the year awards many times over, so I had a good narrator of the history.  I love to get with the people who know all about their neck of the woods as they are usually so enthusiastic in relating all the little stories about the area.  Apparently as long ago as  5,000 years or more before, the ridge path was walked by the Native Americans who viewed the Mountains as very sacred.  The ridge itself is very narrow in effect and so when the settlers followed in their covered wagons,  the route they could see the Indians had taken, it was a pretty risky venture They could easily have pitched sideways into the ravines and I bet the road was a lot more rugged than it was on our Saturday night venture.  I tried to imagine the Native Americans hunting and walking through the trees and as always the wildlife was once prodigious and is now sadly very sparse.  Bears are hardly ever seen any more and I believe all the wolves have gone and the Eagles.  But I have been talking with people about the monitored re-release back into the wild of both these creatures.  Apparently the wolves are doing quite well, but the Eagles did not make it.  But the experiment continues so that is good.

We arrived at sunset and were given a mini talk by our host of both Steve’s talk and for our expedition, into the tales of the mountain lights.  Our Host Don has been 55 times to watch the lights and is obviously fascinated by them.

The reasoning behind their appearance ranges from ‘Spirits of Ancestors’ which is the Native American take on them and is why they do not live in these regions only visit to hunt…  ‘UFO’s coming out of the mountain is another one…  ‘Earth lights’ is the most popular theory. 

Mine is that the Road Runner is on a mad spree with a BIIIIIIGGGG flashlight running up and down the mountain.  My theory was crushed when one of the lights went way up in the air and moved across sideways for quite a while…. 3 times in a row.  Even the Road Runner when he ran out of mountain top to run across and would hover there for a heart-breaking second or two could not have held up in the air that long, so that was my theory out the window. 

Back to the drawing board for me then.

The unfortunate thing was that so many people had turned up for the tour as they were combining it with Steve’s talk the next afternoon and would then make their way home straight afterwards.  I was amazed at the distances people had traveled to get there. So it was vastly oversubscribed….

(The next evening when Don took the tour up there again there were only about 6 people, we should have gone then instead). 

As it was there was an ‘overlook’ which gave a complete advantage viewpoint but only about 15 people could get on to it, so the rest of us had to just find a perch of some sort and try to see from there.  This was with an obstructed viewpoint of trees etc.  Steve was petrified as I was perched by the side of the overlook but was standing on a rock outcrop, which had a very, very long drop if I walked forward by about 3 foot. 

O.K. in the light, but very dodgy in the dark.

I chose this spot because I was very ‘drawn’ to a single spot on the opposite mountainside across the way about half way down and I just ‘knew’ that the source of the energy was coming from this place….

I leaned back against the overlook, Steve hung onto me for dear life and we waited.  Not for long.  Very quickly a bright light appeared towards the top of the mountain opposite.  Not where I imagined it would emerge as I was convinced that ‘my spot’ was where it would all come from.  Then there were lights appearing in the base of the ravine one a red one, which most people assumed was someone down there with a little fire going.  However, over the course of the visit, this red light would go out, get much bigger or move a distance or two and was also joined by a couple of other lights too.  We were told that some of the lights previously seen were as big as houses.

One stayed put for the duration of the visit and some moved about, but I had hoped for a much more dramatic display…  At least we saw them.  I believe they are to do with the earth’s energy shifting around….

The next day the hostess of the Motel - a lovely psychic and sensitive lady showed me a book about the Brown Mountains and other sacred and ‘energetic’ sites.  When I got to the page about the Brown Mountain lights the Author had stated that there is a vortex of energy going anticlockwise, which is pulled in above the ridge …passes through the mountain and emerges clockwise and goes up into the air… EXACTLY  where I focused the night before.  Luckily I had said to her whilst we stood on the ridge.. ‘This is where I feel it is all emanating from’.  Hence she gave me the book to look at…

Great stuff.

We also got to see another Cave system at Linville caverns and some spectacular waterfalls.  But for me the Mountains themselves were the stars…

On a short journey out we found a museum for weaving, which was fascinating.  Such incredible skills and patience the women had.  At one point the house burned down which was a disaster as the old looms were lost as well as the buildings.   But they got the children of the area to go out and collect stones and from these stones they rebuilt the house.  Some great old pictures to show this story…

When we came outside we could see at the side of the house was built a labyrinth garden and herb garden with a beautiful little stream.  On a bridge across the stream was a series of sculptures of a family crossing which was delightful.  But I was more taken with the labyrinth.  Since my friend Candace and Tom have decided to build one on their land I am seeing them everywhere.  In a church I went into there were pictures on two walls, of labyrinths and it seems like they have come into the public consciousness along with the concept of Portals of Energies and Vortexes.

What does it all mean?!!!

I’m sure we will soon all find out, hopefully it will all be for the good.

Lots of love

Annie

I’m writing this now from Charleston, where Steve and I are taking a well deserved little rest.  Unfortunately it is 105 degrees and I don’t think I have ever been anywhere so hot.  We love to just get out and walk cities and Charleston is very like Manhattan in shape and accessibility but just two minutes on the sidewalk and you literally start melting.. We realize that we have to do it by car which is a great shame, but otherwise we will end up hanging out in our room or staying submerged in the pool and we could do that anywhere…

Anyway here is a little gem to finish up on….

Charleston

I was almost giving up on a new restroom story when I went into the loos at the Charleston Museum.  To my delight there was a display cabinet in there with chamber pots in it.  That will do nicely I thought, but there was more to come.  On the back of the toilet door was a poster with ‘Toilet trivia’ on it so I had something to read whilst I tinkled.  I thought I’d better be quick as I had said …as I always do to Steve… “Shan’t be a mo”.  However, I thought if this is on the back of my door I wonder if there is any more on the other doors… Aaarrrrggghhh!!  5 doors and 5 different posters all to do with Toilet trivia!.  Thank goodness I am a really fast reader.

Steve, as always, was so patient, just inwardly groaned when he saw my face grinning as I came out 10 minutes later… He had found the original Charleston submarine, which he was filming so he had been occupied.  This was a submarine, which destroyed by means of a battering ram.  Haven’t we come a long way since then?  .. Anyway…

These are the gems  I gleaned….

Toilet is French and translates as shaving cloth – I can see no connection there!

Perforated toilet paper was invented in 1880

Toilets used to be made of wood and were hard to clean until some bright spark decided to make them in metal.

The original design of the hinged lid was an original design, which is still in use today.

In the old days ‘toilet paper’ could have been newspapers, old catalogues, letters (you were not happy to receive I would imagine!!), leaves, rags, corn husks (I promise you, this is true!), and flat stones…

The city fathers of Charleston got fed up with having to clear blocked drains, so they told people to stop putting down their toilets…

Dead Rats, cats and dogs… parrots, chicken carcasses, rags… pots and broken shards of cooking vessels, hamsters, bricks…

I was very disappointed it didn’t say dead bodies….

Obviously the children of Charleston were not that attached to their pets.  Straight down the loo for those deceased companions…Not like present day bereavements with day long ceremonies of burial for them, with all the family involved.. flowers.. little grave heads being made and many songs being sung by all as Mum performs the dead-rites for said parrot, cat, dog or hamster… oh, and bucketful of tears with no amount of reassuring that they will get over it, being believed. 

Mums that is not the kids…

After all this wonderful trivia, the chamber pots palled by comparison, although there was one there that was huge and I had to try to steady my mind as it wanted to try to envisage the bottom which fitted the pot…..

Lots of love

Annie

Tour Diary 35 – 11.6.11 The Monroe experience...Midges,Et's and Daphne wins the day

 Tour Diary 35 –11.6.11 -  The Monroe experience...

It was a very long drive to Monroe and Michael is being such a heroic driver.  He never complains or seems to need to take breaks, unlike me with my secret quest for the latest restroom venture, borne out of a need to get out of the car every now and again for a ‘potty break’.

We made it in time, arriving shortly before 9.

We had been told we had to be there at that time to make sure we had books for people to take with them when they left Monroe but also to hear Steve give his presentation.  However, we found out that he had already spoken on the Wednesday night and people were departing.

Anne came out to greet me, gave me a big hug and said that she had had a wonderful time, that Steve had missed me sooooooo much and thathe had made the week for everyone.  He had been on top form and had everyone in stitches the entire week, so much so that after just one day one of the people in the group asked him if he was a stand-up comedian!  The Facilitators also told the participants  at the end that although the group might believe that they always said every group was especially good, in fact in their experience this wasthe best group they had ever had, and it was being called the ‘Monroe and/Steve Jones Experience’

After Steve and I hugged and caught up with each other, so many people came up to me to hug me also and say.. ”Ah Annie, at last how wonderful to meet you”

I’m not sure if I am ever going to get used to this fame, generated by my husband talking about me all the time in such glowing terms.

So here are some of his gems which people said made their day;

The Ice breaker exercises began with a ball being thrown to each person who then had to say their names.  When the ball landed to Steve he said “Daphne” so apparently that’s what they called him all week.

Then one woman said that it had taken her 7 long years to finally find her way to Monroe, to which Steve quipped.. “You needed to get a better map!”

Another day at head count the Facilitators said “Who is missing?” to which he replied “Annie”.. They just groaned and said “Steve it is only a few more days”

They had to interview each other in partnerships and the idea was that you quiz the person all about himself or herself and then explain to the group who they are.

Steve asked his partner why she wore glasses and then let her go  on to talk all about herself in great detail.  Steve pretended to take notes.  When it came to tell the class all about her Steve said in a very serious voice that she had come from a planet far ..far away.  The people from her planet sent her here to help us all.  She had arrived with special powers, which were taken away from her so that she could learn her life’s lessons better.  But the first thing ‘her people’ had done was to take away her perfect eyesight which was why she was wearing glasses.  The woman’s jaw was on the floor and it was quiet for a while then someone started to giggle nervously and then the whole room erupted apparently.  That’s when they asked if he was a comedian for a living.

On the final day they were using a ‘talking stick,’ which was in fact the same ball.  Once you had the ball you had to say how the week had been for you, no-one else was allowed to talk or interrupt.  So the ball was thrown to ‘Daphne’ who said “Let me just get this straight, if I have this ball no-one else is allowed to talk … is that right?”  The Facilitators said that indeed it was, so he ran off upstairs with the ball.  After a little while he heard a little voice from the room say..”Do you think he is coming back”… to which Daphne roared…”I’ve got the ball ...no speaking”

The Director of the Institute had said that wanted to meet me. I had no idea why.

Also there had been such a very strange synchronicity between himself and Steve.

On the first day at Monroe, the Director, Paul came and sat with the new students, and in fact sat down next to Steve. The first thing he said was that he had taken some stuff from the centre to his office next door and one of the things he had picked up was a book.  He said that he was taken by the amazing art work on the cover of this book and started to read it. He was not able to put it down until he was 9/10’s of the way through and he couldn’t wait to finish it as it was so brilliant… as he described the content..

Steve said.. ”I think you are talking about my book”

Paul’s jaw dropped and he said.. ”Are you Steve Jones?”

Steve replied that he was and that he had written the book and the experiences were his.

It then became apparent that this was a copy of Steve’s book which Michael had taken and left  at Monroe the last time he had visited, a month or so before.

Paul said that on reading the book, he had been wracking his brains thinking how on earth could they get this amazing man to Monroe and could they possibly get him to somehow come and give a talk.

He asked Steve to pop in and see him the next day in his office and he said that it was ridiculous to  believe that Steve being there was just some kind of a co-incidence and that he would want to work somehow, in some way, with Steve - through Monroe.  Steve said he was open to anything Paul might suggest so for now they are both waiting to see what the Universe might come up with.

Steve’s scholarship for Monroe took quite a while to come through and it actually wasn’t given until his book finally went to print, in fact almost immediately the book went to print.

So as Paul was speaking, Steve said that suddenly Paul’s eyes kind of glazed over and he looked different and then he said “We had to read the book before we could finally get you here”

Well, given that Paul had said he had not yet finished the book and given that he looked completely different, I immediately picked up that Bob Monroe himself was speaking through Paul. Sounds odd, but Bob Monroe could do some pretty amazing things when alive... When Steve told the Facilitators what had happened in the office with Paul and what had been said, they both nodded their heads to each other and smiled as if to say this kind of thing was a common occurrence. 

It will be interesting to see what Paul and Steve come up with.

Michael says that The Monroe Institute could be looking to try to find some way to combine all the esoteric data of the institute, it’s spiritual processes and exercises,  with the awareness of the ET presence and what it all means for all of us.

On the Wednesday night Steve gave his presentation. It was so well received and he did not have notes so he did it all from his memory and he said it went brilliantly.  So this was why people wanted to meet me and to tell me how much his story had affected them all, both in the presentation but also in being able to spend time with him whilst at Monroe.  Almost everyone bought a copy of the book and one lovely man said he so wanted to support the work that Steve is doing as he felt it is so important, that he gave him $50.00 for the book instead of $20.00.

AS for the Monroe Experience itself, Steve certainly did not enjoy the confinement of the booth, which is the main working area for the Monroe participants.  Two people share the same room but within that room space there are 2 enclosed wooden/box/spaces which you get in and then velcro shut closed the aperture, put on earphones and listen to the Hemi-Sync tapes with the music or instruction to facilitate the out-of-body experiences.  This is the area also where you sleep. 

I wouldn’t be able to do the programme as I get claustophobic… This little space would be my worst nightmare.

Although Steve tried hard to do the exercises nothing particular happened for him and I think this is because Steve has such incredible experiences of a 3 dimensional nature that trying to attain some fleeting meeting up with nebulous Spirit Guides or Angels or whatever, would be silly for Steve.  This was proved when Steve’s usual Grey ET lady appeared at the end of his bed during the week and said that yes this was the case…. His experiences are so much more concrete and real, with ETs appearing in our house or behind his car, or on the end of the bed…. Trying to somehow attain a fragile glimpse or a word or two from incorporate  Ethereal Beings is like going back to basics for him.

Steve shared with the group what his experience had been but he made very light of it… however, I would have liked to know what the Facilitators made of it and hope that it was after his presentation so that they realised ET's turning up  is a normal thing for Steve…

Steve’s room mate had a great fright one day when he came into the room and Steve happened to be crouching down on the floor of their shared cupboard space looking for his trainers.

All Chris saw was the back of a Being - clothed in black - with a shaved head which was about 3 foot tall.  He nearly had a heart attack until Steve turned round and laughed when he saw his face….

Lucky he didn’t pull back the curtain when Steve was chatting with his ET friend then!!  Although what a fantastic experience it would have been for all the inmates if the ET could have agreed to speak with all of them.  It would have been disclosure at last!!

I asked Steve is he had walked the labyrinth in the grounds which are next to a rose quartz crystal over 8 foot tall.  But sadly, there was a plague of midges, which made it impossible to enjoy walking around outside.  Steve said that when he went out for an early morning walk and tried to record it to show me that he had indeed got up early, he had to stop as the midges got into his mouth, eyes and ears. The good thing about that he said was that he didn’t need any protein for breakfast as he had already eaten!

I think ultimately Steves perception of Monroe was that he went there to make some very important connections, as nearly every person they met was quite an exceptional character.  I look forward to him pursuing these friendships in the future.

One very unusual man who is in fact the Monroe technician for  I.T.  He has had experiences all his life but also extreme Metaphysical strangeness.   When Steve got to the part in his story of the experience at Rhode Island at the dinner table when the room slowed down or Steve was ‘speeded up’ he said Charles jumped up and down in the air so excitedly and said “yes, yes, yes that’s what I’m talking about, that’s what happens to me”  Charles told Steve after that whereas in Steves experience this happened without Steve having any kind of control over that situation, Charles can in fact do it at will and it is seen to happen by other people, even though they cannot work out what they have seen.

It was time to leave and make out way to The Blue Ridge Mountains for a visit to the Brown mountain lights and another talk in a church…

Lots of love

Annie