Election Fever - and a Cook Out

I never really understood how the election system here in the USA worked. I mean I knew that there were primaries but until I actually saw them happening around me, I never really understood. I do now, and New Hampshire, where Liz and I live, has been one of the best places to witness them from. Traditionally NH is the first state to hold primaries, and we were inundated with months of town hall meetings, diner walk-ins and other types of electioneering leading up to the primaries. Although I didn't vote myself (it will be another 22 months before I am eligible to become a citizen) I did go down to witness the voting - back then there were 18 GOP candidates and just the 2 Democrats, both of whom are still in the race.

The only Republican remaining in the race today is the bombastic Trump, who has been called a misogynist, a xenophobe, narcissistic, arrogant, patronizing, a racist and many other justified descriptions. For a collection of the better ones visit this webpage. I cannot understand how anyone can be taken in by this self-opinionated individual. I sometimes feel quite glad that I don't have the vote just yet.

On Saturday the local Food Co-op was one of out ports of call - it was the 7th anniversary of their opening, so there were plenty of free samples being handed out. One of the free offerings was a caricature artist, who did the above drawing for us. Later that afternoon we drove over to Vermont to Jake and Julie's for a cook out. Fortunately we were blessed by having good weather with temperatures in the 70s (that's the low 20s ˚C). At the time of writing it has dropped to just a couple of degrees above freezing - that's NH for you.

It was a fun afternoon - two sets of grandparents and pork chops, hot dogs, hamburgers and all wound up with S'mores around the fire My many friends and relatives on the other side of the Pond will probably have no idea what S'mores are - I didn't, but you can see what they are on this Wikipedia page.