New Englanders

I have a few relatives round these parts. The principal reason for this is that Auntie Jo (my mum's older sister) emigrated to New York, aged 21, with her new husband Peter. Indeed, the cruise across the Atlantic aboard Queen Mary was the newlyweds' honeymoon. Jo has five children – Mary, Johnny, Liz, Vicky, Alex – 13 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. Despite the distance we see quite a lot of each other. 
Today I'm off to visit Liz, who lives in Providence, Rhode Island. This involves a journey to one of Manhattan's less salubrious destinations, the Port Authority bus terminal. There's no greenery, no art and hardly any natural light here. The sooner I can get on my cheap bus north, the better. 
Liz's husband Jim meets me at the other end. They live in Pawtucket, a suburb of Providence, with their son Graham. Graham has bagged a job at McCoy stadium, the home ground of his local, and favourite, baseball team, the Pawtucket Red Sox. It's the first baseball game I've ever been to and perhaps it's not a good introduction because, for one, the stands are almost empty so there's little atmosphere and, then, the Paw Sox go on to lose the game. 

The next morning Liz drives me to Mattapoisett, Massachusetts, where Auntie Jo lives. It's a lovely day so after lunch we go down to the harbour for a stroll and a look around some of the historic buildings of this seaside town. Jo is responsible for all sorts of things in the town, from the plaques on the oldest houses that feature the name of the original inhabitant to the brick footrests in front of the benches overlooking the harbour. Her daughters Mary and Liz sponsored one of her own, which is what she's looking at here.

Later Jo cooks up a vegetarian storm with a delicious quiche. It's nice to have some downtime and not worry too much about rushing around looking at sights. I'm happy to tag along on trips to the supermarket, and am impressed with a scan-as-you-go gadget that Jo and Robbie, her housemate, use with great panache. 

I'm not so impressed with how hard it is to find a decent coffee. Cafes or delis with espresso machines are rare away from the big cities. It's all jugs of bland tasting filter brew that has been sitting around all morning. We do find a cafe eventually and I savour a latte, though it's still not that strong. In the evening we have a night out at the movies, seeing 42, a new film about baseball player Jackie Robinson, the first African-American to play in the major leagues. It's very all-American and heartwarming but great to see it with Jo and Robbie. 

At the weekend we drive over to Round Pond near Plymouth, which is the Cape Cod retreat of Jim's brother and his wife. It's a charming old wooden house with a shady verandah and its own jetty out onto the pond, where Jo and I have hot drinks, as it's warmer out than in.
Jim arrives and we pull the canoes out from under the house and go for a paddle. You can lose whole chunks of your life floating on this peaceful, serene stretch of water. It should be prescribed as a stress buster.

We light a fire in the fireplace – there is no end of wood from all the trees that came down during Sandy – and Jim gets to work cooking kebabs and boudin on the barbecue outside. 
Jo heads home around 8pm as she has to sing at the Pentecost mass in the morning, but Jim and I stay over. We polish off the jar of vodka he's brought, topping it up with cranberry juice and get stuck into some sea-salt dark chocolate. We have to work out how to turn off the chirping smoke alarm so that I can sleep in the upstairs spare room. Turns out it's the battery. It's a gorgeous soft bed, like something out of The Princess & The Pea. I snuggle under the covers to the sound of tree toads squawking outside.

We have an early start the next day and my head feels heavy (that last vodka…). We drive down to Falmouth on the Cape to meet Liz, Graham and a bunch of adaptive sportspeople to cycle part of the Shining Sea Bikeway, a route that sounds like something dreamt up by a sinister cult. 

Geoff is an adaptive skier based at Loon Mountain and has been coaching Graham in technique on the piste. This is his summer sport of choice. He has a super speedy racing bike that has him practically lying flat along the ground – that's him on the right. Graham gets slung into his bike and we're off. 
It's a scenic path following an old railway line that runs round the back of residential areas, then along the coastline towards Wood Hole, the little port where Martha's Vineyard ferries arrive and depart. There's plenty of patriotism on display along the route, too. 

We go for lunch at Liz's friend Susan's place. There's a few minutes of terror for me when an extremely lively black labrador appears and starts trying to knock everyone over. Regrettably I freeze and can't get out of the car until he's shut away (bad mawling experience as a child). I feel bad but I probably shouldn't. They have some lovely chairs.

Back at Round Pond in the afternoon we set to clearing, raking, mowing and weeding, followed by a chill-out hour on the pond, and my first attempt at paddle boarding.

I have a couple more days with Jo – we walk in the local nature reserve where I spot a garden snake, we sit around in the sunshine chatting, and we solve a few technical issues that crop up, from the telly going on the blink to the electricity flickering on and off. 

It's nice to be by the water and Jo shows me all the little coastal communities, many of which have their own private sea fronts. Jo's place is in the woods so there's no sea view. She does see the occasional bear, though, and wild turkeys often stop by.

While I'm at Jo's we pop over to New Bedford to the Whaling Museum. New Bedford was once a global whaling centre and its museum is outstanding. There are huge skeletons of North Atlantic Right Whales in the lobby, a scale model of a whaling ship,  dozens of cleverly curated collections and some surprising outdoor art, like these ceramic fish on a ledge overlooking the old town.

It does occur to me as I'm driven down the freeway by my 85-year-old aunt that this is all the wrong way round. I'm the youngster, I should be driving, taking care of things. It's not very grown up of me but sometimes it's lovely to be looked after.