Thank you so much to everyone who got in touch after my brush with Savannah Vice yesterday. I’m really grateful for all the kind words of support and care. You get used to doing everything on your own after a while on a long bike tour, and to know that people are rooting for you is such a good feeling. So THANKS! Bxx

I loved the Isetta Inn Guest House from the moment I arrived, and my little room was perfect, with its own rooftop porch in the shade. Inside there was central a/c.

Sadly my room wasn’t free for an extra night but luckily they own another house nearby, called The Glass House, and I got myself a room there. So after a lazy breakfast with a film projector in an empty house…

…and then a bit of ukulele ‘practise’ (no such thing, as you know) on the house uke, which was already in tune, @Jane Lodge! Good sign…

…I checked out and took my bags over to drop at the new place. Not before getting a photo of their globe, just to get some perspective…

As I let myself out I met Lisa (hope I got that right!) and we talked for a while in the shade about how great the houses were and the owner Jonathan’s ethos for running his business. Crucially, he deliberately keeps prices low to cater for more traveller’s needs, despite the splendour of the surroundings. If anyone ever makes it to this part of the world, please do yourselves a favour and just book a room here. You will not regret it. Unique.

The Glass House was a little way east, across the train tracks, but just as stunning as the first, and also completely quiet and cool, in fact a genuine oasis on another hot day. I explored the house a little, all three floors, played their uke of course, and had a cup of black earl grey tea in one of the lounges.

After a call home to show Susie the place I hopped back on the bike. Two buildings stopped me dead in my tracks, so they get included here.

Despite getting stuck at the railroad crossing as a long, slow train passed by, in a few more minutes I was back at Clary’s, my favourite Savannah workspace – and this time I chose to sit at the counter where I could watch the cafe at work. 2nd breakfast was fried chicken salad on toasted rye, which came with pickles and fries. There’s no such thing as just a ‘sandwich’ around these parts. Everything is always a meal. Which is fine by me. Why isn’t rye toast more common in UK cafes?

I finished my food a sat back to drink coffee and watch other people’s lives for a while. Older customers walking with supports came in for their lunch, to be greeted like old friends, with comments about how hot it was outside and a gentle hand to guide them to their favourite table. A guy called Joe arrived, young guy, cool dude, loose taupe shorts and a grey polo, and all the staff called out ‘Hey Joe!’, and ‘Joe, where you bin?’ as he came in, and then he just breezed through to the back of the restaurant near the kitchen. One of the senior waitresses was writing something at a table and looked up as he approached. ‘Oh Joe, oh Joe’, she said, and Joe just stood there waiting and looking at her. ‘Oh Joe, you are just going to kill me!’ ‘Oh yeah? Why, wassappened?’ He was at least as cool as Officer Johnson yesterday, and he and the waitress went over to the large electronic till display where they talked quietly together as they stared at the screen. He got out his iphone and began taking photographs of the screen, and reassured her that this, whatever it was, was fixable. Despite her obvious immense experience as a waitress (she was bossing the whole cafe yesterday when I was here) she looked about ready to cry with relief, gratitude and happiness, and my mind went back to yesterday, and my own dilemma. Helping someone out of a situation that has just got beyond them can be an act of great kindness.

I then rode my lightweight bike (plus bike lock) in to explore the city a little more. My plan to visit the Mercer Museum, scene of the murder from Midnight In The Garden, was abandoned last night. I spoke to people who said it’s a pain, very limited, they rush you through, no photos (why???), no questions until the end, expensive, won’t let you look round the garden itself because the next tour is coming in – so I decided to visit another spot instead.

The Telfair Academy Art Museum was down towards the Waterfront, where I was given a guest pass by the kind woman at the desk who couldn’t get my card to work. The collection is available online I think, but here are some highlights, with a stress on the coincidence of paintings from my route as happened in the Crombie House gallery in Nova Scotia! So, it’s gallery time (cue Vision On music, which should play whilst you have a look if you click it!)

As I was about to leave, two people carrying violin cases came in and dumped them ‘backstage’, so I waited and had a chat. They were a baroque orchestra about to rehearse for a short concert of Purcell in the gallery that evening, the opera Dido and Aeneas. How could I resist? The same musicians under a different name had just been rehearsing Don Giovanni for four hours, which would have been about 3 hours more than I could have stayed awake for. Dido was perfect. So …it was at 6.30pm, giving me time to eat afterwards, so I took the plunge and booked the last ticket. Why am I thinking of Anne of Green Gables, gentle readers? Minstrels at the ready…(the pun struck me late, just before posting this. I must be losing my edge)

OPERA NEWS: Great art seen through the distorting lens of an endurance bicycle journey throws up some interesting effects. When the chorus sang: Haste haste to town, this open field no shelter from the storm can yield, I thought to myself, ‘You’re damn right it can’t. Get to town pronto and stop mucking about.’

The opera was a total pleasure, despite the boomy acoustic. I’ve played it many times with both the English Chamber Orchestra and the Guildhall Strings, and was surprised at how even the recits felt like a recent memory. Just listening to such great, and such familiar music was an unbridled joy. The great and good of Savannah were there, togged up in their sponsor’s-finest. Like the time I went to the theatre on Prince Edward Island, it was only the familiarity that disturbed me! I spoke to two of the quartet afterwards, Ricardo, whom I’d chatted with earlier, and Leah, the cellist. She told me she had never played a baroque opera before, and had almost no continuo (the harpsichord/cello combo that plays in the recitatives and also some arias of baroque opera) experience either. She sounded like a seasoned pro at it to me. Amazing. In fact, Dido and Aeneas, the programme told me, had never been performed in Savannah before. And no opera had been performed, to their knowledge, in the round there before either. What a night of firsts. I’m so glad I went – it was a very memorable night.

And when I came out, I discovered that as they’d promised, the squad car I saw parked right by where I locked my bike to the museum railings had stayed there for the whole opera. What a service. But seriously, what a great city this is.

STATE SONGS TIME! I gave this a lot of thought. There are so many to chose from, and I bet you’re humming your own choice right now, before I’ve even mentioned a single song. In the end it was a toss-up between so many but I went with the one I like most! It’s a pop song I’ve loved since I first heard it. I was at the Guildhall School of Music at the time, studying violin and listening almost exclusively to great violinists of the past and present, nothing but wall-to-wall concertos and recital albums. Then in 1981 or 82 I heard Randy Crawford singing Rainy Night in Georgia, and I took a break. WHAT a voice, effortless, beautiful, soulful. She had everything. I bought an album and fell just as much, if not more, for the ballad Someday I’ll Fly Away (which actually had a great little violin ‘hook’ running throughout the song). When I hear Rainy Night now that I’m actually here, I picture the view I had yesterday evening down one of the long, wide, tree-lined, moss-hung streets so typical of this great city, but instead of the heat, I see the steaming rain:

SUBSCRIBE-DRIVE! Yesterday was an eventful one, as you know, but also a significant milestone of 40 days on the road. I was going to post this bit then, but the day’s events overtook me. I wanted to ask if anyone who doesn’t already subscribe to this blog, would consider clicking on that ‘subscribe’ button to receive updates by email? It really helps me with stats and visibility on WordPress when my numbers go up, meaning it gets promoted more! You have literally nothing to lose except a tiny bit of time – you can unsubscribe easily at any time. Not that anyone would need to do that, natch. Bx

UPDATE: I finally met some other guests. I was beginning to think that I might be imagining this entire stay in Savannah, the events have been so outlandish. Wassim and Waleed arrived from New Jersey and Atlanta, both Molecular Biologists, and we talked about their jobs and their trip to see the Kennedy Centre in Florida, which is on my route. They’re off in the morning too. Then I talked about our two sons’ experience of their university education, and how great it is to begin a PhD and discover the change in status you are accorded at any university, as I think Sam has found up at York. You even get special pass cards and access to the kitchen. All the really important stuff. They were great guys and I really enjoyed meeting them both.