Sunday 1 March 2015

January 2015 - say hello to a very new Year

Well flip me... when I came to write up February's doings I discovered that January hadn't happened.  This is a testament to two very busy/distracted months. So - here I am on March 1st patching together January's memories.

New Year's Day and we were off on our regular jaunt for part deux of our winter stay in Naples.

We have taken to flying to Orlando for the last couple of years as it is a direct flight - cutting out the boring flight change en route to Fort Myers and also eliminating the risk of getting stuck somewhere in the Northern USA due to bad weather.  Mind you this can be interesting as we have overnighted in 'hubs' such as Chicago and thereby discovered places we'd like to see.  The downside is that generally you are only equipped to travel from a relatively moderate English  winter to a hot destination so are not kitted out for having your head blown off at sub-zero temperatures in Philly or Chicago etc.  The alternative of flying via Atlanta avoids this but limits choice of cost/airline/dates etc.

So, yet again, we were flying Premium economy back to Orlando and overnighting there.  This time, it turned out to be in a not-great motel.  To add insult to injury or, in this case, injury to insult our room was opposite the lift and next to the laundry!  You can imagine how much sleep I got and how sweet my temperament was for the four hour drive back to my gilded cage the next day.  Nothing like starting off as you mean to go on.

We had a few days to ourselves to do movies (The Imitation Game - good one) and shops and restaurants and get ready for the arrival of my son and his family.  My grand-daughters are four and a year old so it was a challenge to accommodate them all but it worked out OK.  

They were taking a fifteen day vacation but spent the first couple of days in Orlando to go to Disney. 




 By the time they got to us they were ready for some feet up time.  Over the next twelve days Ken and I got to see a whole different aspect of Naples from the now familiar play areas in Cambier Park to a terrific Children's museum. 

Because they had been a couple of times before it was easy for them to get around in their own car so we did some things with them but not everything.  It also gave them a chance to spend some time with one child at a time and a couple of times we had both of the girls so they could get some time on their own.

Golisano Children's Museum was decidedly the best I have ever been in but as it has been a while since I did the one in Halifax there may well be great ones everywhere.  We need to borrow a child so we have an excuse to go back as there was a ton of stuff I want to spend time with.





 We did all the expected stuff like shops and beaches.




We had bought L a bike so she got to ride that around the community and she played tennis with Pop.  She turned out to be a star player hitting four out of five with a full size racquet.  Lots more park and pool and Ken and I took L to see 'Paddington'.  Now that was an odd film - not sure who it was pitched at.

Needless to say, being us, much of our time was spent eating and we finished our break together at what as become the traditional last restaurant before they leave - Buca di Beppo...


Well, that would have been the last photo in this post except we had to take them to Regina's for a final ice cream.  M had no trouble tackling her first one!


We had breakfast with them the next day in Cracker Barrel and they left us for their overnighter in Orlando and trip home.

The day they left our next guests arrived in Orlando.  We had a week to do a Widow Twanky's worth of laundry and restructure the guest room for two adults who arrived on the 31st...... and so January had disappeared.









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