cruising around

We have been here a week now. Wayne started work on Monday. I’ve been spending the days exploring a fair chunk of eastern Long Island seeking out essential things, like an Asian grocer. It’s been quite warm, and humid, with a few impressive thunderstorms. You can spend the days being serenaded by the icecream truck, which does seemingly endless loops around the neighbourhood. It doesn’t play Greensleeves though, so I haven’t been sent insane (yet). My first victory against the bureaucracy was getting myself a library card without the ‘proper’ ID. A small victory, for sure, but I’ll take it.

One of the challenges here will be trying to not become totally car dependent. There are buses and trains here, but the ‘one an hour or less’ frequency leaves something to be desired. And the over 2 mile walk to the station is not great if you are short of time. There is also not a lot of incentive for people to look for transport alternatives when the roads are huge, the traffic light, and, you do almost need a car to get from one side of the shopping plaza to the other (and binoculars to see what shops are over there!). At the moment we have a rental car, a black New York gangster cruiser style (a Chevy copy of the Chrysler PT cruiser?). Anyway, it impressed the boys hanging out at the local shops. But having just one car means that at the moment I am driving Wayne to work and picking him up again in the afternoon. Very strange situation!

Our aquatic transport (AKA garden ornament).

Our jetty is used by seagulls as a picnic table. They are much larger than Australian seagulls, and they eat crabs, not chips and leftover sandwiches. They don’t eat the shells though, so the jetty becomes littered with crab remains. The other main ‘seabird’ around here (so far) are white swans. A group of about six half grown, but still downy, cygnets came cruising by this morning. Very cute.

Gardening has begun. We are on a half acre block, so I’ve never had so much dirt to dig in. If all goes to plan we should be eating a wide variety of leafy green things, herbs and tomatoes in August. And you can even water gardens here, there are no water restrictions (although perhaps there should be!).