Molly's Holi 2010

[Molly Mockford]

Picasa Web Albums:

Day 9
Day 10
Day 11

[steveg]

Picasa Web Albums:

Day 9
Day 10
Day 11

I recognise the inscription on the memorial in the Day 11 pictures as one taken from a letter written by Abraham Lincoln to a mother who lost 5 sons in the American civil war.......(also made famous in the film "Saving Private Ryan")

"Executive Mansion,
Washington, Nov. 21, 1864.

Dear Madam,

I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how weak and fruitless must be any word of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save. I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.

Yours, very sincerely and respectfully,

A. Lincoln"

Though it turned out later that Mrs Bixby (the mother) had in fact lost only 2 sons in the war and of the other 3 one had been dishonourably discharged and worse, Mrs Bixby herself was a Confederate sympathiser and destroyed the letter, which was later believed to have actually been penned by Lincoln's secretary. Nonetheless, the words themselves bear repeating and still hold true for any wartime loss.

[Molly Mockford]

Friday 12th March 2010

My hotel room was very comfortable, and I slept well, waking at 6:30.  I packed, took my bag out to the car, checked e-mail on the lobby WiFi, put the laptop in the car too and went in to breakfast.  Breakfast was strangely meagre:  a plate of rather old-looking papaya slices, a tray of small Danish pastries, a tray of thick-sliced factory bread and another of what looked like muffins (British ones, not the US cake-style ones).  There was a strange and menacing machine which I took to be a toaster.  I carefully inserted two slices of bread deep into its red-hot maw, and waited.  A minute or two later, it spat them out from another orifice, not even beige-coloured.  I figured out that it worked on some kind of conveyor-belt system, and I had pushed them too far in;  so I tried again.  This time they came out rather darker than I like (I prefer my toast golden), and – strangely – stone cold!  Nevertheless, I buttered and ate them, together with a couple of slices of papaya.  Everything – plates, cutlery etc. - was disposable;  the plates were weirdly divided into three sections, which made it pretty hard to butter the toast, which didn't fit into any of them.  My recycling soul rebelled at throwing away perfectly good plastic cutlery, so I wiped it clean and popped it into my bag.

As I was about to leave the lobby, I saw a basket of hibiscus flowers, with a notice saying to help oneself.  A very old Japanese lady, whom I had seen earlier slowly pushing a cleaning cart, and smiled at, came up to me and encouraged me to take one.  She said most of them were from her garden, but the best of all – a huge yellow one with a red centre, just like the ones I put on Mickey's web site – she said she had "stolen" from the garden.  I took that one, and she explained that it would last one full day without water, and then would close at night and not open again.

At that moment, she glanced at a car drawing up outside, and exclaimed, "It's Uncle Billy!"  I should explain that the hotel is called Uncle Billy's! Hotel, and the shop next to it is Uncle Billy's General Store, and the restaurant ... well, you get the general idea.  Knowing that there is also an Uncle Billy's Hotel in Kona, I had assumed it was a chain, with a schmaltzy name to pretend fake-intimacy.  But in fact here was the man himself;  the Japanese lady told me that he had started this hotel all by himself, and had built up the business.  As he emerged from the car and walked, very slowly and rather bent, into the hotel, he reminded me a bit of Young Mr Grace in "Are You Being Served?" - he must have been in his nineties, but with very bright eyes.  The Japanese lady introduced us, telling him that I hadn't believed he was real;  he smiled, and held out his hand for me to shake.  I took it gently:  it looked very arthritic. 

I have no evidence whatsoever to go on, but I rather wonder whether the Japanese lady was one of Uncle Billy's original employees when he set up the hotel, and so she now has a very light job-for-life there.  Who knows – there could even have been a romance between them!

Then I left, and started on my tourist visits.  I began with the Macadamia Nut Factory, which was rather a disappointment.  There was nothing about the trees, or their cultivation, or the nuts being the hardest known to man, or anything like that.  There were three or four notices as I drove the three miles through their orchards, saying things like "Macadamia Nuts are Lo-Carb" – which doesn't interest me in the least.  At the Visitor Centre, there were signs for a "self-guided tour";  one walked along looking through windows at the employees sorting and grading the nuts and then dipping them in chocolate.  At each window there was a choice of languages, and a TV which would presumably have given us an account of what was happening;  but none of them worked.  However, the shop was well-stocked, and I bought a few items.

A bus driver with whom I fell into conversation strongly recommended that I visit the Big Island Cookie Company, opposite the airport, so I did.  Their Visitor Centre was superb:  masses of free tasting samples, and large clear windows showing the employees sorting and dipping their cookies in chocolate, or mixing up by hand a huge bowl of chocolate and chopped macadamia nuts.  I took photos, and they didn't mind.  Again, I bought items on offer.

That's enough nosh for one day.  I headed for the Rainbow Falls, the first of a number of waterfalls around this part of the island.  There were no rainbows, because there was no sun (but it only rained lightly).  I have a feeling that there was a better viewpoint than the one I found, but I couldn't locate it.  On along the same road, I found the Boiling Pits – turns in the river where the water can swirl violently.  It wasn't particularly violent today, but it was impressive.  The view from the official viewing platform was rather obscured by greenery, so I attempted the non-official path down to the rocks.  This was rather dodgy, since my hiking shoes and my hiking pole were both in the car.  Eventually I made it to the bottom, took a couple of photos, and then tackled the climb back up – which was much easier than the descent, since I could use hands as well as feet.

From there I retraced my path and took the coastal road, stopping at various viewpoints.  At one, which overlooked a bay, there was a large shrine of artificial flowers and fresh fruit attached to a wire fence;  there was nothing to say why, but it was beautifully done.  Continuing along the scenic drive, I saw a mongoose!  At first glance I thought "squirrel", but of course there aren't any (despite all these nuts!);  neither are there any snakes, but the mongooses were introduced in order to eat rats in the sugar-cane plantations.  And, as so often with introduced species, having no natural predators, they thrived.  However, I later saw another one as road-kill, so I guess they do have one predator:  the motor-car.

The next waterfall, Akaka Falls, was – sadly – another disappointment.  I trekked down a great many concrete steps, to find that the path – declared at the top to be a circuit past two separate waterfalls – had been closed.  Even on full zoom, my only glimpse of the falls was far too far away to be impressive.  I slogged back up the steps, warning those descending of what awaited them.  I reckoned I would take the other end of the circuit, and see how far I could get that way.  But three workmen were closing it off!  They said I should return to where the first bit was closed and climb over it;  I had no intention of doing all those steps again (there must have been a hundred).  However, in the village nearby, there were some absolutely wonderful store-fronts!  I took loads of photos.  And, suddenly, a car pulled up behind where I had parked mine ... and it was my car from yesterday!  I wondered whether to tell the people who had hired it, but decided against it.

I realised that I had spent hours not all that far from Hilo, and I had a lot of mileage to cover to get to Kona, where tonight's hotel is.  So I avoided the temptation of some of the lookouts, and even of stalls offering shave ice, and undertook the long drive across grassy uplands.  To start with these were grazed by cows, sheep and a few horses, but as the road rose and the grass became more tussocky the land was unused.  It also got colder;  by 2500 feet the temperature was down 15 degrees to 64F.  Then, as the road started to descend, the land on either side was piled high with black clinker and cinder – very different from the solid sheets of lava I saw yesterday.  The ciders stretched for miles to either side – right down to the sea.  I guess they must have been spewed from Mauna Kea, even though it was quite a long way away.  And fairly recently;  only some clumps of grass, and some very young trees, had got a hold in this new "soil".  All the trees must have been less than 20 years old, maybe even less than that.

Eventually I arrived at the west side of the island.  I headed for the airport, to check out where I have to take the car tomorrow, and also identified the nearest gas station where I could fill up the tank before returning it.  Then I drove back into Kona, and located my hotel – the Royal Kona Hotel.  It is rather flash!  My room is a suite:  a bedroom, a lounge and a bathroom, and two separate balconies, one overlooking the sea.

I'm not sure it was entirely a good idea to opt for Kona on a two-day trip.  Once I got here, there really wasn't time to see anything on this side of the island;  most of the day was taken up by getting here.  And since most of the sight-seeing I did was in the vicinity of Hilo, I could have stayed there for two nights, and returned from the airport there.  However, this hotel is quite an experience!  The restaurant is fairly expensive but will not doubt fit its quality to the price;  there is a beach-type bar which appears to claim to have invented the Mai Tai cocktail (it also seems to do cocktails only, I doubt if I could have got a glass of white wine there, though I didn't try).  It also does food, but I think the restaurant will be better.

At least I have WiFi in my room.  At $10 for 24 hours, it's a bit more expensive than last night, but it's very much more convenient.  Now that I've type up this far (fuelled by a glass or two of water with ice from the dispenser only a step or two away from my door) I shall shower and change, and investigate the bar before heading for the restaurant.  I booked a table for 7pm, which is late in Hawaiian terms, but I have eaten so much in the way of nibbles while driving that I need the time to build up an appetite!

After a shower, and a change of clothes, I headed down to the Beachcomber Bar where, despite the very strong emphasis on cocktails, I was able to get a glass of a rather decent New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, with which I conducted – very quietly – my Friday ritual.  The bar was filled with noisy, happy people, shrieking in delight when the waves crashed onto the rocks below;  but I felt nevertheless very much at peace.  I drank my ritual toasts, and relaxed happily.  The barman increased my happiness by telling me that, although I had already been given one coupon for 20% off food and drink, I could get more from the front desk – so that I could use another in the restaurant, having already used the first one on the bar bill.

People are lovely in Hawai'i.  It is a wonderful place.  The people are universally warm and welcoming,  and I reckon I have absolutely no option but to come back – even if Mickey and Connie were to refuse point-blank to invite me!!  (Which I hope they won't...)

Anyway, I had two glasses of the NZ Sauvignon, and then headed for the restaurant.  I certainly felt the need of food, because the glasses had been free-hand, generous ones.  My table in the restaurant was maybe 20 yards from the pounding surf which was smashing itself against the rocks below, splashing high in the air, deep blue post-sunset waves shattering themselves into whiteness.  I wished I'd brought my camcorder down!  I guess that Big Island doesn't have the sort of coral reef that Oahu does – or, at least, not on the western shore.  Those waves arrived full force;  there is no lagoon whatsoever.

I studied the menu with pleasure and appetite.  I was on the verge of ordering when my phone rang – Mickey and Connie, wishing me Shabbat Shalom.  There's something funny about this phone:  I seem to end up with more missed calls than times I've been away from it.  Checking the missed calls list showed two from Mickey this evening;  and yet the only time I was out of hearing was ten minutes in the shower.  Hell, it's only a $35 phone, after all!

So, after a delightful chat with the two of them, (via loudspeaker phone), it was time to order dinner.  It began with a big complimentary slice of pineapple, and fresh rosemary bread (with a garlicky spread which I didn't touch).  My main course was "Catch of the Day", which was Hebi, a spearfish, and quite delicious.  Because I told the waiter about my problems with digesting garlic fibre, he ensured that the kitchen sent out both the sauces in bowls on the side, to minimise the risk of my ingesting the stuff (he had previously checked with the kitchen, and *all* the entrees had pounded garlic in them in one way or another).

As I ate, the tide kept pounding in (although not rising more than a foot – it doesn't, around here).  It is only on Big Island that I have had the old familiar joy of salt spray on my lips;  in Oahu the coral reef means that the waves rarely hammer on the beach, whereas I guess that Big Island – being very young – has no serious coral reef to speak of.

OK, I know you all want to know about dessert.  Well, there was really only one choice I could possibly make:  Lava Torte, a chocolate fondant which takes 15 minutes preparation time (which gave me time for another glass of wine).  I asked for it with a scoop of chocolate ice-cream;  they gave me two.  There were two ports on the wine list, one of them rather good;  but there was no cheese at all on offer, so there was no point in port.  Instead, I tried a liqueur I haven't had before:  Godiva (which is a Belgian brand of chocolate).  My instructions as to total absence of ice didn't quite materialise – by the third mouthful the liqueur was thin and watery – so I tried again.  I gave full and detailed instructions on how to chill the glass, throw away the ice, dry the glass, and pour in the neat liqueur.  We conducted this scientific experiment on Kahlua, a liqueur I could identify while in a coma.  And, to do them justice, they got it very nearly right.  (The glass wasn't cold enough, but the liqueur was unsullied.)

Oh yes, wildlife.  There was a magnificent fat shiny beetle went scuttling along the top of the tiled wall between me and the sea.  I asked my waiter.  A cockroach, he said.  I couldn't believe it.  But yes, what they have here is apparently Madagascan cockroaches, not the small skinny ones I saw in New York apartments and - in huge numbers – in the Bronx Zoo.  This one was *pretty*!

Took lots of photos today, but because of my recalcitrant laptop I can't download them until tomorrow when I can do it via Mickey's Mac.

[Molly Mockford]

Saturday 13th March 2010

Well, I paid the penalty last night for the garlic I ingested at dinner.  The waiter particularly warned me about the polenta which accompanied the fish, but it was so very good that I ate every scrap regardless.  So at 1:30 I woke suddenly with a mouthful of stomach acid, and there followed an unpleasant 20 minutes during which I feared that I would lose the entire dinner.  Eventually, drinking and gargling masses of water settled my stomach's bitter complaints enough for me to get back to sleep.

The alarm went off at 5am;  I washed, packed, checked out (no breakfast, that didn't start until 6:30) and left for the airport.  But I wasn't allowed to turn left onto the major road to the airport!  So I thought to myself:  "What would Mickey do?" and the answer which presented itself to me as "an illegal U-turn".  I didn't do it right there on the main road, I took a left turn and U-turned in that road, which enabled me to turn right and drive towards the airport.  There was a tiny fingernail-clipping crescent of a new moon, and it was a beautiful drive.  I filled up the tank at the nearest gas station to the airport, and returned the car to Hertz, who refunded me for the tankful of fuel I was charged for when I picked up the previous one - nobody bothered about the quarter-tank I used on the first day.  I have to say that I found Hertz really good to deal with, and would certainly use them again.

Kona Airport is small and rather sweetly amateur.  It reminded me a bit of Guernsey Airport.  After checking in my bag, I then had to carry it to Security and had it over, before doing the regular security bit nearby.  Once through Security, I filled up my empty water bottle from a nice cold drinking fountain, and settled down with my book to wait for the flight to be boarded.

Everything was on time.  I collected my bag, and phoned Mickey, who came and collected me.  Then we went for a walk through Chinatown;  Mickey says it isn't what it was, but I found it colourful and exciting, and the food markets were phenomenal.  From there to Waiola Shave Ice again – where we had not one but two cups of shave ice each!  I got hooked on Li Hing Mui seeds – not actually seeds, but a dried plum, with the stone still in, with a quite phenomenally complex combination of flavours.  So off we went to a Crack Seed shop – yes, I know it sounds like a drug establishment!  But it was packed with large glass jars full of all kinds of dried fruit.  I bought li hing mui, same as I had had in the shave ice, and wet lemon;  Mickey has crystallised ginger and sour plums which I liked almost better than the li hing mui!!

Then it was a matter of back to the house, where I quickly unpacked and roughly sorted my stuff, and ate some cheese and pickles (as though I hadn't had enough to eat already!).  We then drove off to collect Connie from in town, and we all went to a matinee of "Hair".  Early in my stay we had passed the theatre which was advertising it, and I mentioned I had never seen it;  so Connie promptly booked tickets!  The company was an amateur one but it was a very high-quality production, and I certainly got the feeling that the young cast had learned a lot about what it was like to be young in 1968, the downsides as well as the hippie peace-and-love side.

Next, we picked up Benny (the acquaculturalist I encountered in Mickey's office the other day) and we all went off for a Thai meal, which I thoroughly enjoyed.  I know nothing about Thai food, and I never know what to order, so I left it entirely up to Connie.  We had plenty of time to relish the meal, because after that we were going to the cinema, and had a lot of time in hand.  The film was part of the Jewish Film Festival and was called "The Little Traitor", starring Alfred Molina as a British sergeant in the occupying force in Palestine just before the Balfour Declaration, who befriended a small Jewish boy who was fiercely anti-British.  It was a very enjoyable film, both moving and funny, and I strongly recommend it to anyone who gets the chance to see it.

After which we dropped Benny off, and returned home, where we wound down with an hour or so's quiet talk, not going to bed until after midnight.  A very full day, and a thoroughly enjoyable one!  I really did enjoy my trip to Big Island, but I also missed Mickey and Connie, and it is good to be back with them again, even though time is rapidly running down.

[Molly Mockford]

Sunday 14th March 2010

Today was a day of highs and lows, ups and downs, swings and roundabouts.  It started well, with my first dip in the outdoor hot tub - I don't know why this didn't happen before, but it was great when it did.  You wouldn't think that in Hawai'i one would need to soak in hot water, but early in the morning, and after sunset, it does get cold;  my tub introduction was in the morning.  It's actually the first wetting that my swimsuit has had!  (OK, some people don't bother with swimsuits in a hot tub, but that's up to them.)  The tub is big enough for eight, but this was just Mickey and me and so there was plenty of room;  and the water was deep enough that I couldn't keep from floating!  A wonderfully relaxing experience, and my joints and muscles felt really loose afterwards.  Mickey swears by it for his arthritis.  The idea is not to wash in the tub, but to shower first;  and I showered afterwards too, a quick cold shower to wash off the sweat from the heat!

After breakfast Mickey and I went to the office, where I downloaded 126 photos from my camera onto my memory stick.  (The process didn't go smoothly;  it started by claiming there were only 31, but I found the missing ones eventually.)  Mickey was interviewed by a local reporter about his latest paper which has rather hit the headlines since the CBS web site picked up on it http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/03/10/tech/main6286110.shtml.  The reporter did not appear to have done any prior research at all, and arrived full of preconceptions, so heaven knows what the article will be like.  The paper is a daily one, so we'll see the article tomorrow.

What with that, and a visit from one of his students, Mickey didn't get as much work done as he had wanted to.  We left the office a bit earlier than intended, because there was a TV programme which both he and Connie very much wanted to record, and Connie rang to say that the video recorder was not co-operating.  When we got home, indeed it wasn't.  The programme was broadcast at 2pm, 5pm and 8pm;  and we spent most of its 2pm slot trying to get it to record on either videotape or DVD, in any of a variety of machines, from either of two televisions.  Not one set-up would work, and it was difficult to see what on earth the common factor might be.  At one point paranoia led me to wonder whether the channel was broadcasting some kind of deliberate signal which prevented the programme from being recorded!  Mickey and Connie rang up various people to see whether they could record it, but the people were either out or not in a position to record.

During all of this, I tried to copy my photos from my memory stick onto my laptop.  The laptop refused to read  it:  "Insert disk into drive E:".  And Mickey's Mac wouldn't recognise it at all;  it should automatically see it, and create a desktop icon called Untitled or something like that, but it simply ignored it.  It looks as though the stick may be damaged, and I fear that all my Big Island photos may be lost forever.  My only hope is the Mac in Mickey's office via which I downloaded the photos and copied them to the memory stick;  it was the last machine to read the stick, so it might just be prepared to do it again;  and, even if not, the photos should all still be in the Trash folder, if I can get at it before it gets emptied.  But there was nothing I could do about it today.

The plan for the afternoon was to attend a huge parade in Waikiki, with cultural groups from many countries from Inuits to Samoans to Australian Aborigines, and a great many Chinese, Japanese and Koreans.  One group *not* featured was Hawaiians!  I think there's more of a backstory to that than I know.  They wanted me to see the parade, and Mickey always loves to photograph that kind of thing;  so Connie drove us there and dropped us, and returned to the house to try and sort out recording for the 5pm transmission.

The parade was superb, very enjoyable indeed, and the vast majority of the people in the crowd were cheerful and happy and friendly, although one or two were inclined to step forward to take photos without even checking behind them to see whose photos they were blocking.  I mostly used my camcorder, which has a very powerful zoom and I could often get past intrusive figures at the end of the shot;  but Mickey's camera, despite being a very good one, was sat on its tripod and when people stood in front of it, it could not see through them.  Nevertheless, he got some very good shots, and I hope my film was OK (I won't be able to download it until I get home, as my laptop won't run the relevant software).

The parade lasted for nearly four hours;  we were there from 4pm to 8pm, and after the sun set it actually started to get quite cold.  Connie fetched us in the car, and we went to a local diner called Zippy, whose food was excellent.  I had a mushroom burger (I expected a meat-substitute made from mushrooms, but it was a regular burger, undoubtedly home-made, piled high with fried mushrooms, and was delicious).  The place also offers a wonderful range of cakes and pastries, and Connie bought some lemon meringue pie and some wonderful light and tasty chocolate cake, which we brought back to eat at home.

Connie had arranged with one of their lodgers to record the programme;  he appeared with a videotape in his hand, recounted immense difficulties he had had in recording it (it had started, then paused itself, and I think changed channel) but he hoped that some at least of the programme was there.  This is all very mysterious indeed!  Another of the lodgers had lent Connie a DVD of a British comedy film I'd never heard of ("Death at a Funeral") which took a while to get going but was quite amusing once it built up speed, and lifted our spirits.

After which it was bedtime.  Except that Mickey has decided to return to his office;  he really wants to get more work done on his current paper, to get it sent off for his co-authors to respond to his comments, and I think he won't be comfortable until it is complete.  And tomorrow we have a very full day...  But that will be another episode!

[Howard]

I fear that all my Big Island photos may be lost forever

Don't despair just yet:  I might just have some photo recovery software which *might* work.

[Molly Mockford]

Monday 15th March 2010

Woke in good time, and just as I was about to shower I heard Mickey calling me – so it was a very hasty shower, and than I joined him in the outdoor hot tub, which is a gloriously sybaritic experience.  The mornings can be a little bit chilly, and I am always reminded of Japanese Macaque monkeys sitting in their hot pools while the snow accumulates on their shoulders and heads!

After breakfast we went to the office where – whew! – I was able to retrieve my "lost" photos from the Trash folder on the machine I'd used to download them from the camera.  Mickey's morning was not so good;  he spent it all on trying to get an answer from Hewlett-Packard support (about his new printer which isn't working right);  they seem just as ghastly and unhelpful in the US as they are here, and I was amazed he didn't end up shouting after having been cut off for the umpteenth time;  I would have done, even though I know it's not the fault of the individual I'm speaking to.

Mid-morning, we headed home again, and then the three of us headed to the Polynesian Cultural Center, about an hour's drive away.  It is an all-day event, and the tickets are actually valid for three days, because it's impossible to see everything in one!  There are various "villages", consisting of typical traditional huts for each culture, which offer cultural presentations from half-a-dozen countries:  Tonga, Samoa, Aotearoa (New Zealand), Fiji, Tahiti and Hawai'i itself, plus villages without presentations for other islands such as the Marquesas and Rapa Nui (Easter Island).  We saw all or part of the presentations from Tonga, Samoa (a very comic one!), the Maoris and Fiji.

First, though, the visit started with a massive buffet lunch (which was very good) and drinks.  Because the whole thing is organized and run by Mormons (who are very strong in Hawai'i) there is no tea, coffee or booze;  but somehow they manage to allow chocolate, even though it contains caffeine.  The staff at the Center are all Mormons, mostly students at the Brigham Young University, who work in exchange for free fees (which is a really good deal for them).

As well as the villages, there are some huge canoes on display (which we didn't have time to study properly), which include the Iosepi http://www.polynesia.com/iosepa/iosepa-voyaging-canoe.html which is a regularly sea-going canoe, built and navigated entirely on traditional lines.  Associated with it was a presentation on Polynesian navigation, and whether Hawai'i was settled from Tahita or from Central America (other theories include South America and Bora Bora).

Then there was a canoe pageant on an artificial lake;  each of the six main villages produced a flat-topped canoe, punted in the shallow lake, with half-a-dozen or so traditional dancers, each group in different bright colours.  The rain started to pour down with incredible determination;  but Hawaiian rain is very different from British rain, and it wasn't cold or dreich at all, and once it stopped everybody was dry again inside 15 minutes.  The area is known to be a rainy one, so everyone had raincoats;  but nobody uses umbrellas except to keep the sun off!

At 5:30 or so was the luau, another huge buffet, but this time including traditionally cooked pig (done in a hole in the ground, although we didn't see it taken out) and a diet staple called poi, which is a sort of paste made from the taro root.  It is the subject of a lot of jokes for being unpleasant to eat, but I really liked it.  It is purple-gray in colour (the bread rolls were the same colour, having poi in them;  and the buffet included purple sweet potatoes, so purple was well represented!) and is referred to as two-finger poi or three-finger poi, depending on how glutinous it is (and therefore how much can be lifted by hand).  I think it gets thicker – and possibly stronger in flavour – with age.  This must have been a fresh batch, because as far as I could tell it was only one-finger poi!

After the buffet came the show.  I must confess I wasn't that bothered about seeing it;  but I was wrong!  It was called "Ha – the Breath of Life" and it followed the life of one man from birth to fatherhood, each section of his life being presented by one of the six islands who had done cultural presentations.  Much chanting, singing, drumming and dancing including mock-battles and hula;  the hula varies from island to island (Hawaiian hula is slow, languorous and gently erotic, whereas Tahitian hula is fast, hip-wiggling and frankly seductive).  I enjoyed it immensely;  in fact, I enjoyed the whole day immensely!

We then drove back home, and Mickey took me out onto the roof-deck again to see the ethereally beautiful lights of Honolulu one last time (and the stars, so bright in the unpolluted night sky).  We then watched Jay Leno on the Tonight show.  I've become addicted to Jay Leno (sample:  "Have you heard Toyota's new slogan?  There's no stopping us now!") and I think I'm going to have to listen to each night's monologue on his web site on a daily basis.  After that I finished my packing (apart from the majority of Mickey's papers, which will be shipped separately because there are so many of them and they weigh a lot);  helped Mickey with a very unclear e-mail giving instructions for his participation in an Australian on-line forum after a relevant news video;  and went to bed … where I hardly slept at all.

[Molly Mockford]

Tuesday 16th March 2010

I had set my alarm for 4:30, but I didn't sleep much at all (I kept raising my head from the pillow to see, once again, the lights of Waikiki through the sliding door to the garden, which is at the foot of my bed) and when I heard Connie moving about at 4:15 I got up.  It was too early for me to eat more than pineapple for breakfast, but Connie persuaded me to assemble a final salmon-and-Philadelphia bagel to take with me, and at 5:15 we set off for the airport.

Some holidays simply fly by, especially when one is really enjoying them.  This one didn't do that, because there was so much that was new to discover, so much to do.  Every day was different and every day was gloriously enjoyable.  I can no longer remember exactly what I expected or hoped for before my arrival, before meeting Mickey and Connie in the flesh for the first time – because what I was given was so very much more!  For some days the fact of my next visit has been taken as a given;  only the dates will remain to be arranged.  What wonderful, kind, generous, lunatic people they are!  I am going to miss them dreadfully.  I travelled 8,000 miles to spend half-a-month with a man whom I knew only from e-mail and phone calls, over a period of no more than six months, and his wife whom I didn't know at all but who took me totally on trust – and it was a resounding success.  The love and warmth and acceptance which they showed me was beyond anything I could possibly have hoped for.  As Mickey has said so often, we have known each other for years:  we just didn't know each other's names.

And Connie was absolutely right about the bagel;  I ate half of it while waiting to board the plane, and the other half once on board (the flight from Honolulu to Los Angeles does not offer food, although one can buy very expensive "snacks" on board.  Fortunately, it does provide free soft drinks.  We took off on time at 7:25, and by craning my neck I could see Diamondhead, that ever-reliable landmark, and the high-rise buildings of Waikiki;  from there, I could trace the streets which constitute St Louis Heights, and felt a bit tearful to be leaving.    (In fact, I was regularly attacked by edge-of-tears, and even slipping over the edge, throughout that flight as I thought about what a wonderful, happy time it had been.)  I was in the window seat of a set of three, with nobody else in the other two;  the plane was far from full.  The flight was much faster than the equivalent flight out, because of a strong tailwind, and landed a full hour before it was due to do so!

I had been told my checked bag would make its own way onto the connecting flight, and I wouldn't see it again until Heathrow (where, to my surprise, it was indeed reunited with me).  I found that I was still inside the Security area, and didn't have to go through again.  This meant I could buy duty-frees (including liquid) without causing the sort of ructions there were on the trip out.  The downside was that there wasn't much to do in that small area of the airport;  I mooched around various fast-food outlets and low-brow bookshops, bought my duty-frees, filled up my water-bottle at a drinking fountain, and settled down near the flight gate with my book and a box of nine chocolate-covered macadamia nuts.  At least, I am sure there were nine in it.  But, ten minutes later, there were none at all.  It's most mysterious.  Diet?  What diet??  Mind you, if I continue to consume as little booze as I have in the last couple of weeks, I should be able to eat all kinds of goodies.

As I sat there waiting, I heard them call final boarding for the flight to Honolulu which I caught 17 days before.  I want to catch it again!

My own flight took off a little late, just as the line of evening crossed Los Angeles.  It was a very short evening, since the darkness was travelling west and I was travelling east;  and I thought about the extraordinarily extended blood-red sunset which I saw in the other direction, and realised that this was how it had to be paid for.  7pm Los Angeles time equalled 4pm Hawai'i time and 2am GMT.  About the last feature I could see in natural light was snow-capped mountains which we crossed before flying over the Mojave Desert.  By 7:30 I could identify Las Vegas – but by its lights alone;  it was very brightly lit.  (But not a patch on Honolulu!)  We are racing to meet the night.

At 8pm, food arrived.  Chicken or lasagne:  chose the latter.  Salad (fairly fresh), roll and butter, crackers and cheese spread, and a chocolate chip "blondie" – like a brownie but not brown.  Not bad, considering.  Beside, I was hungry – despite the bagel and the chocolate-covered macadamias I'd had.  At 8:25, the Honolulu GPS beacon dropped off the edge of the flight-path display   The islands themselves are still just visible on the map – but not for long.

I tried to sleep, but could only doze briefly.  It is around 36 hours since I last actually slept.  9:15 on the plane is 6:15 in Honolulu, and night will be drawing in;  the lights of Waikiki will be bright and beautiful.  I changed my watch to GMT, in an effort to look forward rather than back.  I think we're over Canada by now.

The flight path was considerably to the south of the one going out.  Then, I was able to marvel at the beauty of Greenland;  today, it wasn't even in sight (although it was starting to get light by then).  Although it was gone 8am local time, the stewardess insisted that I keep the window shutter closed.  An hour later, though, we were served breakfast (croissant, yoghurt and orange juice) and allowed to open the shutters.  We arrived in the UK via Ireland and Liverpool (rather than the Western Isles, as on the flight out) and landed at 12:15 GMT (although we then sat on the runway for quite a while until they were ready for us).  The display says that the temperature outside is 12C, 53F – quite a change from Hawai'i!  But it wasn't the warmth of the weather that matters – it was the warmth of the welcome that I was given, the warmth of the friendship that is now shared not only with Mickey but also with Connie.  The whole experience was a huge gamble – and one which paid off far more handsomely than I could ever have hoped!

I have several day's worth of photos still to upload;  I'll post links once they are ready.

[Windsong]

You had a delightful holiday that I am sure you will always remember!  What memories you have made!  May they be ever joyful to you!  And welcome home!  

[Molly Mockford]

You had a delightful holiday that I am sure you will always remember!  What memories you have made!  May they be ever joyful to you!  And welcome home!  

Thank you, Paula - what a very kind thing to say!

[Howard]

A truly wonderful account of your holiday/vacation, Molly!  Thank you so much for your trouble in posting for us and for sharing! 

[Molly Mockford]

It was a magical holiday.  It could have gone terribly, horribly wrong;  but it didn't, it went gloriously right!  Now, if I could only find out how to sleep through the night on UK time...

Today I've brought all the photos up to date, creating albums for the last few days, and adding some of Mickey's photos to my own (there will be a lot more of his to come, but only when he gets a round tuit).  I have made all the albums public rather than unlisted, so you can see the lot at http://picasaweb.google.com/molly.mockford.