Give Way to Publix

Okay, I have for you a mishmash blog of roundabout bits and sugared pieces from our Orlando stay.

At present I'm concerned with two things: American road rules and SUPER-markets.

From what Margs and I have observed traffic lights are at best suggestions for drivers, something to treat seriously only if you're in a serious mood. So when the white person (rather than the familiar green) appears, indicating that it is safe to walk, we know now to view this with a good deal of suspicion and some 360 degree head turning.

Occasionally a sign appears: motorists must yield to pedestrians. Fine of $80. To whom, we wonder, does this $80 go to: us or the state? And then I finally stop wondering at the excess of billboards advertising lawyers dealing in accident claims, and I start triple checking when I cross the street.

Another oddity: scooterists don't wear helmets. Neither do cyclists. At all. Not even when competing for road space on the furious highways crisscrossing America's states.

Our accommodation in Orlando, a commonplace motel on the side of one such highway, sits opposite the most magnificent supermarket Margs and I have ever come across. I'm not normally enthused about food chains, but Publix yanked at my heart strings. Aisles of never-before-sampled products, feasts prepared daily in the deli, racks of packaged smoked meats, sugared pastries, fat-filled glazed donuts, chocolates in cartons (CARTONS! which ended in my declaring a chocolate free-week), salads of fruit, egg and sun-dried concoctions, and then there was the cereal aisle. Oh, my. OH, MY.

We did very little in Orlando but eat.

We did pay a visit to Disney's world, but I, suffering a cold, remember very little except the many tiny people in princess outfits. Mostly we sat around our motel, ate, did some more sitting in various locations - Margs discovered a lake and our very own jetty - ate some more and ate.

We're currently on the train heading into Gone with the Wind territory. So if you want to read about what we're up to, it's under M for Mitchell, Margaret. Get ready for some hoop skirts, damn Yankees, more than a few exclamation marks and a flurry of batting lashes.

(Just arrived in rainy Charleston) xox