Florida 2002

Sarajevo
2000

Southern France
1999

Romania
1997

Yorks & Northumberland
1997

Ireland
1996

’Gators, Grackles and Great company...  

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Week Two - Miami & Mount Dora

Then it was back to Miami, and our first experience of St Thomas’ Episcopal Church, Coral Gables, where Pam & Ian have worshipped during their time in the States.  It’s the only time we were ever cold!  A large, impressive building, with beautiful stained glass, a massive cross dominating the back wall, a very good choir (which Pam & Ian, of course, belong to), and a friendly, active congregation.  Father Roger Tobin and his wife Jan came to the Akhursts’ for supper a few days later, and we very much enjoyed their company.

The church shares a love of music with St Mary’s, and we were delighted to be able to see a concert given by some of the local music and drama students.  These are budding young professionals, and they well deserve to succeed.  There was a string quartet from Florida International University, the Opera Theatre Ensemble from the New World School of the Arts, and a particularly stunning young pianist – she played Debussy and Chopin in a way that made you suspect that she had an extra pair of hands concealed somewhere. She also played earlier in the programme than planned, as she hadn’t realised that she was double-booked to play in the Pavarotti concert on the other side of town… 

Another “cultural experience” was at the New World School, where we saw the play of The Marriage of Figaro by Beaumarchais, but including some of the Mozart arias for good measure – very well done, and great fun.

Whilst Ian returned to work and Rhodri to school, Pam took us around some of the more local sights.  The Fairchild Tropical Gardens are as stunning as they sound, with turtles and iguanas between the waterfalls and palm trees; Vizcaya is a quite extraordinary stately home in the middle of Miami (created by an eccentric businessman, James Deering, in the early twentieth century) – full of European paintings, tapestries and furniture, it is now often used to host impressive political and social occasions. (“The last time I walked down this path, it had a red carpet on it”, said Pam…)

And then, of course, there was Parrot Jungle.  It’s what it sounds like – a great (big) kids’ paradise of not just parrots (in and out of cages) and their relatives in the minah, toucan and finch families, but also flamingos, peacocks, cranes and assorted apes and monkeys.  Wonderful fun.

Our other visit to American friends took a summoning of courage.  The Americans don’t really do public transport (or walking – there aren’t many sidewalks [pavements] to be found).  So when we considered the possibility of visiting our friends Warner & Lois Brown in Mount Dora, which is northwest of Orlando and about 250 miles from Miami, it meant hiring a car… Selwyn was the brave one, and he drove us all along the “Florida Turnpike” (which actually means a large motorway over there) in our white sporty effort (no gears, either).

Selwyn had met Warner & Lois during one of the Nile cruises on which he used to lecture in the 1980s.  They retired from their Chicago home to Mount Dora some twelve years ago, bought the plot and designed their own charming home, which feels exactly right for them: restful, welcoming and full of good things.  Warner is a poet and an artist in his retirement (having been a teacher in his working life), and a very good one; we were especially pleased and touched when he gave us a copy of his privately-printed, limited-edition, illustrated volume of verse about the birdlife of Lake Dora.

We were also glad to meet Warner’s lovely sister, Char, who was visiting them from Chicago.  She’s a very special lady who, at eighty years old, reminds you of how dignity, intelligence, humour and charm, set on a firm and quiet faith, shows how life is meant to be.  Oh, and she’s been using the Internet and e-mail since long before most of us got that far!

Mount Dora is a charming town, sited on the edge of Lake Dora with yet more wonderful wildlife.  Here we met our first mockingbirds, and were woken by them the following morning; and lots of grackles (shiny blue-black males, very noisy, somewhere between a magpie and a starling in personality); and a blue-tailed skink (a sort of brightly coloured worm).  The private boardwalk in High Point, where Warner and Lois live, is atmospheric, beautiful and quiet; there is also a public boardwalk round the other side of the woods.  Here we saw at fairly close quarters (but not, alas, enough to photograph) the beautiful Red Cardinal – totally vivid scarlet.

We had a wonderful dinner at the Goblin Market restaurant – one of the best menus we’ve seen for ages – and were enchanted by Warner’s readings, back at home, both from his own book and from the winning entries in the recent Mount Dora Festival of Music & Literature.  We took some very special memories away with us.

Our final day in Miami was particularly special.  After church in the morning (a baptism and confirmation service with the Bishop), we went to the Rusty Pelican for brunch: an amazing place on the bay in Miami, with stunning views of the boats in the sunshine, the most fantastic buffet (“eat-all-you-want”) we’d ever seen, a huge ice sculpture of a pelican on the dessert table, and bucks fizz – oh, and a violin-and-squeezebox entertainment (which was certainly rusty)…!  An extraordinary and thrilling way to conclude.

Well, not quite conclude.  That evening, Selwyn got on the flight to Heathrow one day in advance of me – because he had a Synod meeting to attend… there’s devotion to duty!  My last day was worth hanging on for.  Rhodri’s school was holding a Literary Lunch.  The mothers decorate tables in their choice of themes – crockery, flower arrangements, table linen all in keeping – some of the most spectacular table settings I’d ever seen.  My favourite was the Japanese table, with its beautiful black crockery, place settings on leaf skeletons, bamboo centrepiece – which was set in a large glass bowl with real goldfish swimming around in it… Pam, with her friend Bronwen, had created the Falcon’s Nest (in honour of the school sports team), with fudge brownies and hot dogs in a huge nest on a striped blue and yellow pole, and sports shirts on the chairs.  A great fund-raising idea – I might just suggest it to the PCC… 

More special still was the speaker.  Revd Donna Schaper spoke on Sabbath Sense - not just the formal religious meaning, in all faiths, but in the everyday sense of keeping time for ourselves and for God.  I’ve never seen more nods of agreement from an audience.  I bought the little book she’s published on the subject, and have found it very inspiring.

I left Miami’s heat the following evening, arriving in London on a real spring day.  What a wonderful, colourful, stunning cornucopia of sights and sounds and memories.  We can’t thank Pam & Ian enough for their generous hospitality, and for such glorious experiences of a country that we never imagined we’d have the chance to visit.  We just hope that they can enjoy the very different charms of rural Surrey on their return to the UK later this year...