Scotland beat England in a thrilling rugby mach, and Ireland beat Wales – a good start to the Rugby season which I had forgotten all about. We are rather removed from the rugby scene here in far away Seattle. I had forgotten how passionately we followed the rugby matches not so long ago. What reminded me of the rugby scene was a knitting blog friend in Edinburgh who’ was knitting a sweater for her grandson to wear to the match. (The value of blogging!)

One of our sons, James, and his wife Susan are visiting their daughter Ashley (our oldest granddaughter) at Washington State over in Pullman Washington. From Seattle, Pullman is about a 5 hour drive over the Cascades and eastward. I would love to visit also – I have yet to explore most of Washington State. Our travels so far have been in the areas between the Cascades and the Pacific Ocean.

Communication with family members on the East Coast tells me of cold temperatures and snow and sleet in Connecticut and Maine.

So I enjoyed just hunkering down and reading a book with a convoluted and rather contrived plot and numerous grammatical errors which should have been caught by the proof reader.

No news from the son in. Singapore. He is probably ls lounging in luxury by the pool!

I feel the need of a big world map that I can look at on the wall in front of me as I compose my blog posts.

A short wile ago I posted about the Harriet Tubman jigsaw puzzle that was missing 8 pieces. The missing pieces have not been found. But I have some information about Harriet Tubman. Here at Ida Culver Broadview there is an Information Sheet called This Day in History. The Sheet for February 1 had the headline “Harriet Tubman becomes the first African American woman to appear on a U.S. postage stamp” To quote further – “antislavery crusader and Civil War veteran Harriet Tubman becomes the first African woman to appear on a U.S. postage stamp, the first in the Post Office’s Black Heritage Series. Tubman’s appearance on stamps was emblematic both of the progress made in recognizing African Americans’ contributions to American history and of the ongoing effort to put abolitionists on equal footing with slaveowners in the nation’s historical canon.” .

One of my sons has moved from London to Singapore. That is a part of the world that I

have read about but I am not sure exactly where it is. Failing to have a world map posted on the wall in front of me I have to resort to the big G (Google) and find my way around the world. I still like to have PAPER maps – old fashioned I know. Atlases and the Oxford English Dictionary.

I am reminded of the time years ago back in the late 1950’s when I was studying for my Master’s degree in Geography at Northwestern University. Passing a final oral exam was one of the requirements of the course. I came before the board which consisted of 3 professors who posed the questions. If memory serves me right – they were all seated and I was standing. All was going well until they asked me about the geography of Java. Java had not been part of my course where I had specialized in urban geography and geomorphology. Far flung from Java! Nevertheless, I vaguely knew where Java was (probably from my stamp collecting days and just general reading) – so I fudged through with an acceptable answer and passed the exam.

Back to Singapore – there is a 19 hour time difference between my location in Seattle and my son in Singapore so the window for phone calls is very narrow – either early in the morning or late at night.

One good thing is that I now I have a new focus for my postcard collecting. Singapore here I come – February 6th is the next meeting of my Postcard Club.

I think it was a Kestrel which was perched on a limb in my garden this morning. He stayed and stayed looking all around. I watched him for ages, he wasn’t going to leave. Finally I went off to do something else and when I returned 5 minutes later my Kestrel was gone and lots of smaller birds were back. Pictures to follow.