Abington, Gloucester and Greyson

We arrived in Massachusetts late on a Thursday. Greyson was very excited to see us but we were just part of the environment by the next morning.

For entertainment, Andy took us to Abington, an adjacent municipality in the South Shore suburbs to see the giant Christmas Place, stocked with everything merry that you can possibly imagine. They have a complex miniature village in the window. A giant nutcracker greets you at the door.

Around it at floor level is a skating pond with a few animatronic elves.

Lots of densely stocked shelves. Easy to leave a small, mostly black camera for a long exposure without being noticed.

Went to eat at Yaz's Table, an Egyptian restaurant that specializes in brunch. We had to wait outside for a table but it was 72 degrees and sunny. Pretty weird on November 4th, but it made the wait pleasant.

It was lovely and the Egyptian-themed food was interesting but they followed one of my least favorite fads. I can't fathom why anyone thinks it's cool to drink out of a container that you can screw a canning lid on. Is this some southern country thing? Ick.

Andy needed new strings so we stopped at Matt's Music, featuring a wide selection of high-end guitars.

Andy was cooking tonight so to Billy's Liquors to get the perfect wine pairing. 

I went to see if they had any interesting materials to make cameras out of.

Back across the shared city limits in Weymouth, a walk with Greyson was the first priority.

Most of the local Halloween decorating was gone except for this rather elaborate tableau.

This fall's tourist destination was the Hammond Castle Museum between Manchester by the Sea and Gloucester, built just under a century ago by a prolific inventor of electronic gear in the early days of radio and television. He wanted it to look like a medieval castle. 

As you come down these stairs to approach the gate, there is a nicely typeset bullet list of items which are not permitted on the grounds which included selfie-sticks and tripods. Well, it's a very small tripod. No harm, no foul, right? 

The building is a pastiche that includes design elements and actual parts of buildings from the Roman Empire through the early Rennaissance.

It was built intentionally to exhibit his European architectural collection, such as the facades from several eras in the courtyard with i-beams supporting the glass roof.

The library, full of leather bound books and archaic musical instruments. Hammond was a bit eccentric. Several of the descriptions of details of the rooms mentioned he was an inveterate practical joker. He designed the ceiling with special acoustics so he could hear whispered conversations from across the room.

It's rare to see a historic house with the kitchen restored. Hammond couldn't stop inventing things. Seeing his kitchen staff struggling to clean pots and pans, he invented this griddle which covered the cooking surface with aluminum foil they could just discard.

A pantry protected by an original medieval gargoyle.

It's located right on the Atlantic shoreline.

There are several manicured terraces overlooking the sea.

Visible to the south are "the rocks and the hard sea-sand" of the reef of Norman's Woe from Longfellow's The Wreck of the Hesperous. I'd never read it before. Kinda gruesome.

We went into Gloucester for a traditional sea coast lunch. Just about everyone else in eastern Massachusetts was also taking advantage of the unseasonable warm November weather. It's hard to make a place jam-packed with SUVs look quaint.

Andy and Kristin belong to a Run Club. They run together Sunday morning. Kristin went and Andy brought us later to the gathering after they'd finished.

The club is sponsored by Barrel House Z, one of two microbreweries in Weymouth, one door away from each other.

Another long walk with Greyson. Isn't he a good boy!

Relaxing under the gazebo. It turned out to be worth it to pack my shorts and sandals.

A good dog in the back yard.

Discussing how to deal with overwintering the winter wheat.

Our splurge night out at posh Grill 151 "right in Weymouth!"  Kristin and I attended Catholic elementary and high schools. We all thought the four gentlemen at the next table were priests.

Davio's Northern Italian Steakhouse just happened to be right next to our gate at Logan. Notably we had cloth napkins everywhere we went.

All our flights both ways were in these two-by-two, single aisle Embraer 190s. Much more comfortable than a 737 or A320.

Little Guinness has a .17mm hand-drilled pinhole 24mm from a 24x36mm frame. The film is Kodak Gold 200. The tripods are the pocketable Pro-Master table-top and the easy to pack KF Concept KF-25.