New Orleans

Beautiful day here  I got my  times all mixed up and woke up my cousin an hour earlier than we had agreed however they were very  nice about it. We took Jezebel the Staffie for a walk but she was not keen it is amazing how a Staffie who does not want to go for a walk can dig her heels in.

Breakfast with Tim and Laura in a nice cafe. Laura then dropped us of for a mornings wandering in the french Quarter of New Orleans, the French seem to have a fair bit of influence  here but I am told in fact it was mainly the Spanish influence which prevailed.

Saw  couple of rather nice clocks in an antique shop there was a very attractive Vullimay  mantle clock with some very nice water - silk  pattern   engine turning on the silver dial. We also went in to a hotel which has a bar where the seats revolve around the bar which is pretty confusing.

In the hotel lobby there was a huge carved long case clock must have been nine foot tall, will try and find out something about it today.

Coffee in a very nice place which served what if you were in Spain would be churros but here are called something else, in Spain  you would have it with chocolate  but here we had it with coffee. Surprisingly we easily found and empty table in the cafe which was full , it was not until we both started to melt that we realised  that our table was the only one which did not have a working fan, and by golly did we need a fan. We then visited Carols's gallery  and looked at the artwork

It was staggeringly hot, we saw a Mississippi steam boat  moving down the river. Managed to get a couple of clock books in a second hand book shop in the french quarter.

Saw a few galleries  with some good work and  lots of very nice  houses the iron work around the balconies and the porches was very intricate I wonder where it came from.

Came back to Tim's place, for a break from the heat which had become to be very sultry,  and there was huge thunderstorm which cleared the air a bit. Tim tells me that there rain fall here is twice what falls i manchester, and with the amount that flee in a very shirt time I can believe it.

In the evening we went out to a restaurant and had a very nice fish related meal then on to a old house  or mansion called The Coloumns where there were a duo of very good  musician playing  it was a very nice end to a very nice day.