More goodbyes

Friday 16th we went for our last visit to Silverspot movies.  We have made lots of memories there of movies and dinners on our own and with visitors.  I remember how astounding it was when it was first built with its very nice restuarant and all the food and drinks that can be served actually in the theatre itself.  We haven't found anywhere yet to beat the comfort of their huge leather armchairs and good views of the screen.

The movie of choice was The Martian.  I thought it was great good fun.  Like its sister Downtosh it has now become know to us as Spacetosh.  Absolutely total factual rubbish but just great entertainment.  Thought Mat Damon was excellent.  There was a quirky flaw though in the shape of Sean Bean.  He had a small and totally superfluous role in the movie and did it just about as badly as anyone could.  What was that about?  The part itself felt shoe-horned in after the script was finished and the character added not a jot to the narrative.  Jobs for boys?  Investor using their pull? .... No idea but I am sure there is a story there.  Probably more interesting than the story in the Martian but no where near as tense or amusing or entertaining.  Well done tosh makers everywhere.

Having breakfast the next day and watching Woody, the woodpecker, doing its imitation of the cartoon I also realised how lucky we have been to have such great views front and back for all these years.  When we are eating in the kitchen we can watch the birds and squirrels and butterflies all doing their stuff.  

Later in the day, as the sun goes down, is usually the time I hit the settee with feet up and watch everything get touched with gold.  If I am lucky I also get to see the fish and turtles in the lake and occasionally herons and ibis visiting.  Indeed, on one memorable occasion, we even saw an otter!  Can't claim such views in my Bury home.  Certainly something to be missed.

Farewell...

We have spent this month leaving by inches and conciously saying goodbye to routines and places.  Thise who know me will not be surprised that many of my farewells were to particular eateries; acouple of which you've already seen.  I am building a web album for our leaving 257 so you can see more there.

Today I did my last trip to the beach.  Ken will go again but its a tick for me:

Our lovely car will also be gone soon of course.  The realtor has bought it and it will be left in the garage until the place sells or he needs it, which ever comes first.  He has a couple of visitors soonwho would  need to hire a car and buying this costs less.  Plus, obviously he has equity in it too.  Win win.

We have a new section of shops added to our local mall and we discovered a new eating experience. So this time "Hello" rather than goodbye.  Moes South West Grill.  Imagine subway but with mexican items.  They claim 'no hormones, steroids, preservative, trans fat or MSG.  Yiu choose the 'container'..taco, tortilla, ear muff, bowl and then choose what you want in it.

This is Ken's in a bowl.

Mine is decidedly less photegenic .... The giant nappy is actually a burrito holding just what I wanted.  It was great. As I said you can wander through the web album if you are wondering what places like Carabas, Bone Fish, Mel's Diner and others have been serving me for fifteen years. 

Handy tip for packing - just like the burrito, you need to roll

Just when you thought it was safe

Well that was the shortest break in Christendom

Missing my machine already, I have now decided I need to get to grips with my iPad once and for all. I use it just fine but I have always been too lazy to find out half of what it can do..... What a waste....this is the beginning of a fine romance between it and me.  Lovely little gizmo.  So, in celebration here I am again.  Feel rather silly after the dramatic farewell.

So...today.....the realtor and photographer arrived to do their thing.  It is becoming real for sure.  We can now relax and go back to living like normal people and smudge the glass table to our heart's content.  After this I will try and add more photos to the Leaving 257 album and post the link here if I can figure out how that works via ios.  Failing that it is in a recent post.

We just went out to eat......it iwas six pm and still ninety degrees....

It was our farewell to a cheap and cheerful favourite for my last crabs legs at a price we can afford.

It is one of those eat until you fall over type buffets that Florida is full of.  This one is Chinese food and over 200 dishes.  They include oysters, mussels, frogs legs, blue crabss and crayfish besides the wonderful snow crab legs.  Along with sushi and a hibachi grill where they cook to order, so it isn't the usual chinese buffet that we find in the UK.

I worked my way through my usual sushi and then crabs legs and fruit.  Ken does the full on buffet thing right through to the ice cream.  Plus a chinese beer and chinese tea and all for $34 (£22) for the two of us.

My very constrained plate of crabs legs

See I could have had loads more

You need crackers for the claws but the legs you just snap in half and take out the crab meat.  Delicious but the claw meat is even better.  

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Post script:  we gave my laptop away.  Ken wiped it and installed windows ten and stuck a notice up in the clubhouse.  A very nice lady rang and came and picked it up.  She was overjoyed.  I was immediately rewarded as she entered with two parcels off our landing (postie just leaves packages outside the door over here).  They were for my minis and one was a lovely surprise.  See, sometimes, what goes round comes round.

Catch up later

As of today I am reduced to just using my iPad until we get back to the UK.  My desk top over here is about to be killed and scrapped by Ken.  Clearly it could wait some more days but we have such a long list of  'can't do until the last minute chores' I want to take out as much as I can as soon as I can.

We have decided to abandon pretty much everything other than clothes and personal items.  The condo will stay as it is.  This means we are spending most of each day trying to find people to give things to.  I am reluctant to leave the purchaser loads of good stuff to sell, or worse, bin!  Three bikes, vacuum, desks, linen etc etc etc looking for a home.

I am updating this now on my iPad and I assume it will work fine but it isn't my machine of choice for typing, so I'll be in touch again when we get home some time after 25th October.

Stuff and sentiment

As Clavering (now) purports to be an occasional diary piece rather than a monthly blog I suppose I should start to record our leaving of the colonies. 

We are about three weeks (plus) into our seven week (plus) stay here and we are well into the throes of making all the arrangements we need to leave.

So far we have seen two realtors and we signed with one at the weekend.  Two days before they came we spotted a leak in our lanai ceiling, suggesting a leak in the roof!!  We have also seen a roofer who says he will submit his quote to our Master Association (so no cost to us as the insurance for buildings is in our fees) and, once approved, he will get to the job as soon as he can.  This may well be after we depart!

quite a bit of water damage around it covering a good part of the ceiling

At that point we decided we had no choice but to change our flights home (at huge cost and to what date?) so we could follow through the roofer's work and then the subsequent repair and repaint of the ceiling (also huge cost to us).  Oh happy day!

As it turned out the realtor will oversee it all at no extra charge.  We still have to pay the 'decorator' part of course.  Try that in the UK.  So our leaving date remains at 25th October.

Ray the Mover came this morning and suggested we use a 'pack and ship' company instead as that would be cheaper.  that was a kind thing to do after spending time here working up a quote.  He said he was a 'Rotarian' and that was their mantra.  

Ken rang  two pack-and-ships and both arranged to come out and quote today (!).  Boy, will I miss the service over here.  One packer has been and is talking about $1,000 (probably more as it goes by weight) for about 400 cubic feet of 'stuff'.  We are selling turnkey so all we are thinking of taking it is the cherry pickings of the contents of cupboards and drawers.

This is where sentiment v. hard cash comes in.  Absolutely nothing we are shipping is of any value and I doubt very much that their total value is anything like $1,000.  Right now I think the more sensible option is to pack four cases with as much as we can and abandon the rest.  Indeed if we bought two more cases ($100) and paid for those on the flight ($100) plus cab home ($100) for us and six large cases we are still quids in!

chair from mom,mom's plate, card from family, bottle opener from France, flowers from my son

To do this means leaving things like a tea set that I will probably never use but love, gifts from various people over the years including a miniature chair from my mom - all of which have no display area in the UK.  I also have endless 'favourite' pots, dishes, gadgets.  I have a ton of bedlinen and towels that I am 'attached' to but don't need and don't really have storage space for in the UK and, again, I could buy something very like if I wanted to for less than shipping them home.

Another argument from me is that we have lived half our lives without them for ten years so they can hardly be vital to our existence. They are a bit like stuff you keep in the loft and never use but it is comforting to know its there.  No I don't do that - hard-hearted Hannah!

A huge part of my soul is so against 'stuff' so I can genuinely walk away from most of it, but I can't quite squish that little sentimental me who finds excuses to keep this and that.

One way or another, ship or take, it is all systems go.  The realtors will be showing the place after we leave so we don't have the inconvenience of clearing off when they bring people round.  We don't have to come back for the closing as all that can all be done from the UK by email.

As yet it is still hard to believe that the 25th October will be the last time we are in 257 Robin Hood Circle.  Ten years is a very long time to be in one place for me!  We got this apartment and our current UK house around the same time, so will this mean a move at home too?

Meanwhile I am taking sentimental photos just in case we leave the stuff.: Leaving 257  ...  loads more to come

Weekend in Atlanta

 We have just had a great couple of days in Atlanta (Georgia).  The Atlanta Miniature Society were holding their 36th Annual Show and Sale and I thought it might be different to see a 'club' show rather than the usual 'commercial' one.

Originally we decided to do a road trip there and back as we don't get to see anywhere much, other than Florida when we come here.  We did a lot of map studying and decided it was a pretty uninteresting journey; especially if we hared up the I-75 and it would take us two days with no real stops on the way.  Our next inspiration was flying.

With the benefit of Air Miles and $11.20 we could fly there easily from Fort Myers.  Indeed Fort Myers is the usual transit airport for us on our trips here.  We have flown Manchester/Atlanta/Fort Myers more times than I can count.  So off we toddled on Friday 18th for the 12.12pm flight; arriving an hour and a half later in Atlanta.

I spent many words recently bemoaning our Thompson flight here from the UK - let me say how vastly different our Delta experience was.  I had a middle seat in three as we booked just a couple of days before flying and the flight was full.  I asked if I could be changed to an aisle seat at check-in and luckily there was just one (now) remaining and for the princely sum of $15 I was switched.  This is the second time Delta in the States has done this for me without an ounce of fuss. Indeed in the UK, on more than one occasion, we have booked seats months ahead to get the ones we want and then found at check-in that we have been moved to allow a 'family group to sit together'.  Infuriating.

We got pre-check boarding cards which fast tracked us through security and gave us a green card allowing us to keep our shoes on (!).  We were only needed at the gate half an hour before the flight, indeed fifteen minutes will do.  Polite queues making for easy  boarding, a reasonable plane with free wi-fi.  the trip itself is like a bus ride with drinks - off the plane and into an airport we already like.

Atlanta is a very well arranged airport, easy to negotiate.  It is generally busy as it is a main hub but it is doable and there is an every-three-minute shuttle between concourses.  This time we were actually leaving the airport rather than being in transit.  That seemed very strange.  We caught a different kind of shuttle.

To pick up the rental car you get the Sky Train.  It is almost literally that, being elevated, it strides its way across road after road and building and trees.  It is really impressive and in five minutes you are at the rental car centre.  Here, because Ken had booked on line,  we just walked through and picked up a car - no check-in, no queues, nothing.

From there to a lovely hotel - Wyndham Galleria - and in plenty of time for the Preview at 6.15pm - with desserts!

The show itself was a delight starting with a huge room filled with people's work, presumably from the club itself.   I toured that and was able to get in the rooms when the show was being set up, so I managed to take a lot of photos before the opening.  This meant I could have a very 'deep south' dinner with Ken in the hotel before going off to do more schmoozing and photographing and a little purchasing.

Ken's slow-cooked beef ribs, southern mac and cheese and collard greens

My creole shrimp with bacon (!) over cheddar grits - not a veg in sight

Saturday began with breakfast in the hotel following which I went off to do a quick flit round the show.  The quick flit lasted about two hours.

We decided our tourist trip in Atlanta would be the Botanical Gardens.  this took us through a small section of what looks like a very nice city.

small part of the Atlanta skyline

It was an absolutely glorious visit,  beginning with a delicious meal in the 'Cafe at Lintons' - not a cafe as we would know it Jim.  It was very chic and the food and staff matched it perfectly but the prices were just fine.

Gorgeous plate of smoked trout on a cornmeal blini with horseradish etc

My smoked trout was just beautiful and from the starter section of the menu.  I added in a side of fruit which was described as Fuji apple with muscadine and scuppernong.  You know me - if there is a creature I have never heard of on offer I have to eat it.  Turns out that muscadine  is a black grape (already guessed) and a scuppernong is its almost bronze sister.  They are both indigenous Southern grapes and can withstand high temperatures.

They were decidedly different in texture and in taste.  Not unpleasant but (I thought) not entirely grape-like.

Scuppernongs and all under our belts and we were off to tackle the botanical gardens.

It is just the most magical place.  Beautiful landscaping and wonderful and fascinating plants.  When do we see Okra and Millet in our veggie gardens?

Right now there is a 'Light in the Garden' show and I so wish we had the energy to have gone back for that in the evening: it must be overwhelmingly beautiful.

A British artist called Bruce Munro has set up all kinds of fibre optic pieces but I think his simplest is maybe his best..... his Forest of Light.  He has dotted lights through acres of woodland which apparently are all different colours of light.

We saw this and other things from a forty-feet high walkway in the trees

Having said that was good - how about twenty (!) luminous water towers and then this little gem.

a different coloured light in every bottle!

This is made up of empty plastic soda (pop) bottles.

There are masses of seats in every nook and cranny and each one more interesting than the next.  How wonderful to be able to rest and enjoy the surroundings every few yards.

There is a Chihuly glass piece in the entrance hall and a spectacular fountain (see my album) using one of his pieces.

As if all this wasn't enough we then visited the just spectacular orchid house.  Please look at my album - the flowers were glorious but the photos can't capture the experience.  Simply magical.

Saving the best 'til last..........if you ever change planes in Atlanta and have hours to kill - escape the airport and go and see this if you see nothing else.

she is just astonishing, completely covered in plants, even her skin

The serenity by that pool it is palpable.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The link for the photo album for the trip:  Atlanta, 18-20 Sep 2015

If you want to read about the miniature show: Dollshouse Trips and Shows

If you want to see what I bought:  Dalton House

Sharing a couple of photos

I recently compiled a list of favourite things amongst which was geckos.......

This little chap sat outside on the window sill of Cracker Barrel on Sunday and watched me eat my Homestyle chicken.

sunday lunch!

I also mentioned rain that everyone said thank you for rather than complained about.  they need a ton of it in the summer to get them through the long dry winter.  It also prevents fire.  Pine trees (very combustible) are indigenous to this area and drop a ton of needles making a wonderful vehicle for fires when it is dry.  At this time of year you can almost set your watch by the rain.  Around three to four pretty much every afternoon this moves in:

yesterday at Publix grocery store

We keep forgetting this and keep going out in the afternoon - yup, got caught twice so far and tropical rain is something to behold.  I love it; we often get the full works of thunder and lightening and biblical downpours - so dramatic to watch and to feel.

The first storm we ever experienced we watched neck high in an outdoor pool beside the sea!  Wonderful watching multiple lightening strikes dance across the waves.  How we survived that one I have no idea but it does explain why we were the only people in the pool.  They joy of being English - phlegmatic (aka stupid?).

 Daily summertime showers are a fact of life in Florida but should not be taken for granted.  Florida ranks number one in the number of deaths due to lightning, 94% of which occur between late May and end of September.  An average of 100 people are killed in the U.S. each year (10-13 in Florida) and almost 600 injured (30 in Florida).  Lightning kills more people in the U.S. than hurricanes and tornados combined.

It seems most deaths occur in the home and most of those are people on the phone:  "Hi, It's me, we have a huge thunderstooooorr....."