FORT FREDERICA

We went to Fort Frederica this weekend. It isn't a well-known fort like South Carolina's Fort Sumter where the Civil War started or Maryland's Fort McHenry that inspired the Star Spangled Banner or the Castillo de San Marcos in St. Augustine FL where Spain held sway. In fact, it was a small fort built to keep the Spanish at bay, and I guess it did.

All that's left of a settlement where a thousand people once lived are the ruins of the barracks and the powder magazine. Eugenia Price wrote several books about St. Simons and the fort. While I've read a few, they aren't quite to my style. But a lot of people enjoy them. And anything that makes history come alive has to be good.

Here's the powder magazine. The tiny circle in front was the well. See the cannons pointed down the river to engage enemy ships? I don't think they were ever fired. The Battle of Bloody Marsh took place when the Spanish marched up from the south end of the island. The fort is a very peaceful place to walk unless the park rangers are entertaining with reenactments or classes about colonial living or such. Their dream is to one day build replicas of the houses.

SPIDER

Okay, the spider beneath my bedroom window has moved. I had high hopes that the rain drove him away or the lizard ate him. Alas, no such luck.

Now he has a magnificent new structure spanning from the building corner to a tree, over four feet in length and maybe just as wide.

And there he sits in the middle, waiting to be fed, giving me the evil eye whenever I go down the stairs.

Where are those pesky squirrels when you need them?

LOCAL PAPER

Time for another update from the local paper's police blotter.

A woman told police she went to pick up a friend. Another woman ran out of the mobile home and slapped her in the face, then ran back inside. The woman inside denied ever running out.

In another instance, a woman called police to report her boyfriend knocked her down and bit her on the stomach. He left -- with her cellphone -- before police arrived. Woman displayed bite marks on her stomach but said she didn't want to press charges; she only called police because her father made her.

No arrests in either incident.

Between figuring out who's lying and inspecting bite marks on stomachs, our police force is kept busy, isn't it?

THE TARTAN SELL

Read my first Lovejoy mystery this week: THE TARTAN SELL.  By Jonathan Gash, the title caught my eye and I picked it up, read a few pages, and immediately got hooked.

I really enjoyed it. Lovejoy is a dealer in antiques (legal and illegal) whose method of deciding the provenance of a piece goes beyond certification. He has a nose for the real antiques.

He seems to have a knack for getting out of one scrape and into another, and, for some reason that mystified me, he also seems to have a way with the ladies, married or not. His moral code may be a little twisty but he does have some ethics. A lovable scamp is what he came across as in this book.

I intend to read some more. I hope they're all as good as this one.

TOURISTS

On our usual walk down to the Village, we found tourists out and about.

We sat down on the pier to enjoy the breeze and, with the tide out, a beach view. As we watched, several people got down over the rocks put out to discourage swimmers. It took a while for them to get down, but once down, they conferred with others already on the beach. Then three started climbing back up the rocks and disappeared for a few minutes. When they came back, I got my camera out.

As you can see, the last one is still making a careful way down. However, if you look, there are steps not very many yards up the beach. In the same amount of time, they could have walked up and made a much less hazardous descent. And swam with less fear of rip currents.

Maybe they liked the challenge. Or maybe they didn't notice the steps and the NO SWIMMING sign.

BACK TO SPIDERS

A friend's been telling the photographer to come shoot the wolf spider in her yard. He's gotten huge and there's also another one he might get to pose.

So he finally goes up with tripod and camera and lenses. And a lizard ate both spiders the day before.

I sympathized. Hee hee hee!

DRIFTWOOD BEACH AGAIN

Took some California friends over to Jekyll today and showed them Driftwood Beach. They loved it.

We got there when the tide was coming in, which makes it kind of tricky because if you aren't careful you have to climb over and/or under the old trees to get back. But we made it.

This is one of the old fallen trees silvered with oceanwater.

This is Elaine taking a picture of a fallen tree.

And this is Elaine in one of the old trees, about to be marooned by the tide!