Started off in Burlington in a thunderstorm that had gone on most of the night, streets running with water, and drove 300 miles south-east down to Hyannis, where we are tonight. En route, we saw evidence of what the weather men are telling us, that New England is now in the grip of an unseasonal heatwave with temperatures up to about 85 degrees:it was certainly in the 70s when we stopped at lunchtime.However, as we got closer to Cape Cod, the evidence dwindle...

Another day, another motel - this time our first Holiday Inn, at Burlington Vermont. A pretty good day, despite the serious setback of discovering that our intended highlight of the day, the Shelburne Museum, was in fact closed for another five weeks, which is a bit long to wait. Anyway, we started according to plan driving to Ben & Jerry's for the factory tour, which was OK if you like a) looking at empty factories (maybe not) and b) eating lots of ice c...

A lot of sitting in the car today - a fairly long run north west to St Johnsbury, up in the northern part of Vermont. Didn't start like that, though.At 9 this morning, while Chloe enjoyed a bit of a lie-in, I was one of the first through the doors at L.L. Bean's flagship store in Freeport, Maine, and quickly spent $140 on trousers and a jumper that would probably have cost 50% more by mail order from the UK. Encouraged by this good business, a particularly ...

Granny Pat always gave me a hard time about the diary entry which I wrote as an 11-year-old, which said something like:"Got up, had breakfast, caught 23 bus to school. Double maths.Grandpa died.Shepherds pie for lunch," so I'd better not make the same mistake on a day which was entirely overshadowed by the death of Judy's mother. Of course every death is a loss, but in fact we'd all lost Olive, or rather she'd lost us, some time ago. All the same, I...

Hard to choose a picture for today. I found this tortoise (followed a short distance behind by a rather dissolute-looking hare) in the square a hundred yards or so from the hotel, and it seemed to say something about my rather measured rate of progress resulting from the aftermath of my cold - still very breathless and tortoise-like when presented with hills, stairs etc. All the same, I've done pretty well today in this likeable and civilised city.Headed off ...