What Went Wrong?

I've got to say that I don't have a great deal of experience buying houses. I bought my last home in 1982. This will be the fourth time in my life that I've purchased a place to live. Is it any wonder things didn't go quite right?

We were so enamored of the floor plan on the house we wanted to buy. It had a courtyard and a casita, or guest house that included a large bedroom, a walk-in closet and a full bathroom. The main part of the house had a master suite with his and hers closets plus an additional bedroom and bathroom.

We looked at three homes with the identical floor plan. One had what was once a water feature in the courtyard. This would require a bit of work to either restore it to its previous grandeur or more likely rip it out and replace it with a normal flower bed. Otherwise the courtyard, which was screened in was wonderful. They had upgraded the bedrooms to hardwood floors and they had upgraded the kitchen counters and back-splash even though I didn't like the back-splash. They also had a built-in work area in the room we would have used as our office. The drawback is that we share an office and this one only had one work area, not two. The Florida room was small and the whole house needed painting.

On house number two - same floor plan- although this one was reversed. The courtyard wasn't screened in but the double-size Florida room made up for that. This one had an "office" built in to the family room. Very nice, but I don't really need two offices. And the surface of the "desk" didn't match the Corian on the kitchen counters. The countertops had been upgraded from laminate to Corian but there was no backsplash at all. I would have wanted all new lighting fixtures, and I didn't like any of the wallpaper at all. (I know there are people who are going through my house as I write this saying "That wallpaper is hideous! It has to go!) But at least I'm offering a cash redecorating allowance - these folks were offering nothing. It backed up to the golf course - not close enough for me to tell whether it was a tee box or a green. Tee boxes are good - greens not so much. Anyway, it was very close to one of the gate houses and we found the location noisy.

Then came the house we made the offer on. Compared to the other two, this one needed nothing but paint. Or so we thought. I absolutely loved the tile. I could see that the color wouldn't necessarily appeal to everyone, but I loved it. The bedrooms had already been upgraded to wood floors and at first look, we thought all it needed was paint and to upgrade the laminate counter tops and tile the floor in the Florida room. And that is what the offer was based on.

But then comes our second look. Now we realize that "OMG, I couldn't ask a guest to use that bathroom. The tub needs to come out and be replaced." If the tub is coming out, the tile surrounding it has to come out. If the tile is coming out, you might as well replace the vanity. And if you're taking the vanity out, you might as well replace the toilet. Voila - a gutted bathroom. So now that I'd given that a closer look, we took a closer look at the other two bathrooms. Turns out the master bathroom needed more than a paint job, as well. But we were still in.

Then comes the inspection report. The water heater was several years past it's prime. The roof had bits that were incorrectly installed and was losing granularity. Gutters were messed up. There were patches to the screens in the courtyard. The laminated kitchen counter was de-laminating. We knew the oven didn't heat up to temperature but we didn't know that the microwave had been improperly installed. We knew that we'd have to install pull out drawers in the cabinets, but for a house that no one was living in, every cabinet seemed stuffed to the gills. I was concerned that all of that stuff would be mine to move.

And we were told that in Florida, if something is functional on the day of the inspection that you can't ask for a repair. In Texas you can ask for whatever you want. Nobody has to give it to you, but nobody stops you from asking. So we couldn't ask for a new roof, or a new water heater, or any number of things. We asked for the sellers to repair the things that were not considered "cosmetic".  It probably amounted to less than $2K of work. But in the end, we had to consider that we'd be paying for all of that stuff, cosmetic or not. And we concluded that we were not going to pay top dollar for a house that needed over $50K in work and upgrades.

And none of this was helped by the fact that we didn't feel the sellers and their agent were acting in good faith. In addition to the ring doorbell, there were cameras set up throughout the house. They tracked you and I can only assume that they recorded our every movement and word spoken while in that house. (At one point, Mark unplugged it.- That summoned the neighbors.) Plus, they always waited until the eleventh hour to respond. I can tell you that if my agent called me to tell me I had an offer on my house, I would not be waiting til the end of my allowable response time. Seriously, you have three options. Accept, Reject, or Counter. Decide what you want to do and move on. These people waited until the last minute. Which in retrospect was a good thing. If they'd been faster, I might have ended up buying the money pit.

The Way We Did it in Dallas

In Dallas (and surrounds) when you go to a nail salon and want services on your hands and your feet, you are seated in one of the spa chairs and one person is assigned to do your toes while another person tends to your hands. You are offered an array of pedicure choices that begin with a basic pedicure with 10 or 12 minutes of foot massage all the way up to 20 minutes of massage with hot stones and a detoxifying charcoal masque.

I'm going to miss that. Seriously, I am. I noticed when I went to get my nails done in St. Pete back around Christmas time that they didn't do it the way I was accustomed to having it done. First they do your toes and then you have to move out of the comfy spa chair over to a manicure table. It took all afternoon. Clearly women in Florida have lots more time to get their nails done than women in Dallas.

For my first Kissimmee trip to the nail salon, I wanted to avoid an all day excursion. I enjoy getting a pedicure. It's relaxing. Getting my hands done - not so much. Too much machinery. (Nothing with a motor is used on your feet.) Call me "high maintenance" but I like to look my best and that means well-manicured hands and feet but I didn't want to spend the better part of the day there.

When making the appointment, I specifically asked if my hands and feet could be done at the same time. The young lady who answered the phone handed me over to the young man who owned the salon. And while I don't want to be politically incorrect, in typical Vietnamese fashion, he assured me that it could and would be done, knowing full well that it would not be done.

They also have different names for things in Florida - the powder that I know as "Next Gen" is called "SNS". How would I ever know to ask for that?  But aside from the fact that you get your feet done first and then go sit in an uncomfortable seat while they do your hands, there aren't so many choices on the pedicure. Not a hot stone in sight. No masques, no bags of wax, no aromatics in the water. Although the lotion was a bit nicer than the oils that many of the Dallas area salons use.

I also noticed that the techniques are somewhat different. There were two salons that I frequented in Texas and both of them had similar processes. And everyone in a particular salon would do things in exactly the same order. This was just different. The end result looks much the same, but the folks in Florida don't seem to be as "neat" about it. But as long as they're not slopping it on my clothes we'll get along just fine.

Now, since the Florida pedicure had no stones, and if there was any massage at all, I must have blinked and missed it, I expected it to be a bit cheaper than in Dallas. (In the Dallas area, the price of the pedicure goes up in proportion to the massage time.) But it wasn't. It was just a tad more. I just may have to check out a few more places but a friend told me the one I went to was one of the nicest ones (it did have a lovely interior) and not any more expensive than the others. This will take some getting used to.

The 4 O'Clock Rain

We'd intended to start this next chapter in our lives on Wednesday - the day after my tournament. But some meetings came up so we pushed that to Thursday. But some meetings came up so we pushed it to Friday. Then we thought there would just be too much to do so we pushed it to Saturday. We wanted to be loaded up and wheels turning by 10 am on Saturday morning.

We were only an hour behind so it was fine. Our plan was to go as far as Jackson, Mississippi the first day and we executed that plan perfectly. That was really as far as we planned. The next day it looked like we could either stop at Pensacola or push on to Tallahassee. Since rain (serious, torrential rain) was imminent, we stopped near Pensacola. The thunderstorm actually started before we could get the RV hooked up. Thankfully, it was short-lived.

The next day we went on to Tallahassee and once again, just about the time we pulled the RV into the site, the thunderstorm and rain cranked up. Once again, we waited it out in the truck and then got everything set up once the rain subsided. Well, almost everything. The kitchen slide-out wouldn't budge. We checked the circuit breakers, the fuses and pored over the owner's manual.  Apparently if you're willing to crawl around under the RV there is some type of manual crank that will override the motor and extend the slide out. But the warning on that was that you could actually over-extend it and send it completely off the rails. Well, that just seemed like a bad idea. We decided to live without our kitchen for one night and we went out.

The next day when we arrived at our "final" destination - the place we'll call home for the next month - wouldn't you know that before we could get parked and hooked up, there was yet another torrential rain. I thought that maybe when we stopped moving, the daily rain would stop - but no such luck. The RV service guy found the problem with our kitchen - a loose wire, so it's once again fully functional and we can devote our time and effort to looking at houses.

The hope was that we could buy the new house with the proceeds from the previous house - but that hasn't sold yet and we don't want to put our lives on hold indefinitely (we're far too old for that), so when we find the right house at the right price, we're just going to buy it and get on with it.

Wish us luck!

An Emotional Time

A week ago today I played in the Hurricane Creek Member Guest Tournament for the last time - at least as a member. That was my last hurrah. I resigned my membership after 36 years of being a member. I'd seen so many others come and go - it was my intention to outlast them all. I'd stubbornly held on to that membership even though I probably didn't play more than six times last year and the tournament was probably only the second or third time I'd played this year. But it was time to let it go. Past time really.

I also closed down my post office box. I'd had the PO Box for 36 years. Who would think that closing a post office box would make you nostalgic? I also closed down my safe deposit box. Took everything out and put it in a fire box for safekeeping - except for the stuff that went straight into the trash. I looked at some of the stuff in there and wondered why anyone ever thought it should go in a safe deposit box. But then it is possible that no one had actually looked in that box since 1988.

And it's not just me. Mark is feeling it, too. We've put a lot of ourselves into our house. My diva closet, our over-the-top laundry room. Our flower garden and patio. I know that not everyone appreciates the wallpaper - I get that wallpaper is "out" now. But it goes in my house. It just looks right - at least to me. I replaced it last year. (I knew it needed replacing sooner, but it took me six years to find the colors and pattern I'd be happy with because we had no intention of leaving.)

But the most difficult thing by far this week was saying good-bye to our neighbors, Willie and Arleatha. You see, Willie officiated at our wedding and Arleatha sang. We were married in our back yard in 2006. (Another reason it's hard to leave that house.) They were already living in their house when I moved into mine back in January of 1983. And while I can't say we were close, as in at each other's houses all the time, it was good just knowing you had a neighbor you could count on.

But it's time for us to move on to a new chapter in our lives. One where Mark feels better. A chapter where we can both focus a bit more on ourselves - our health and well-being. We'll be looking for a house that's a bit lower maintenance. We'll most likely join a new golf club - one that we can drive a golf cart to rather than taking 30 minutes in a car. And I really hope we have nice neighbors.

An Interesting Day - or Maybe Not

May 20th. We were headed for home. We got to the airport in Manchester in time to turn in the car and pay for our extra bag and have a leisurely breakfast before boarding our flight to Atlanta.

The flight was uneventful and we landed in Atlanta. That's where it got interesting. 

You have to clear customs at your first point of entry. This means we needed to go through customs/border control, collect our bags and then put them on the transfer conveyor. No problem. 

And since we were sitting at the back of the plane, I thought our bags should already be off-loaded and waiting. 

We were on the escalator heading down to customs when I noticed that no one was moving at the bottom. People had exited the escalator and just stopped. We had no place to get off. Seriously. We wouldn't be able to get off the escalator without being thrown into someone. We were about two steps from the bottom and the inevitable crash when someone who had access to the emergency stop button noticed the problem and slammed on the brakes. Let me just say that it's a miracle we weren't thrown into the crowd when that happened. 

Just as the escalator stopped someone came through the crowd advising us that travelers with US passports were free to go through. We snaked our way through the crowd and got into line.

These days you need to put your passport into a machine that makes a "ticket" with your picture on it. In Dallas, you come through, print out your "ticket" and go through to the official at the desk.

That's apparently not how it works in Atlanta. Before we could go to the machine we had to show our passports to a woman who then let us pass to the machine. After we printed our "tickets" we had to get in another line. We had to show our passport and our "ticket" to another woman who assigned us to a line where we would show our passport and ticket to the customs official at the desk. So that was a total of three people who had to look at it before we could collect our bags compared to one person in Dallas. Given that TSA is a federal agency, you would think that the procedures would be the same everywhere. The only other place we've come through recently is New York and I just don't remember. It must have been like Dallas, or I probably would have remembered.

We picked up our three bags and took them to the transfer conveyor. They were all of them on a trolley together and we delivered them to the young man who was supposed to put them on the conveyor belt to make their way to our connecting flight to Dallas.

Then we headed to the train which is the primary reason I hate the Atlanta airport. You really do need two or more hours to connect in Atlanta, and we had that much time, so it was no problem.

We were still trying to make sense of what had happened on the escalator. As many years and as many places as we've traveled I have never seen anything like that. Not even in Rome, which can be a bit chaotic. There were also people in the airport with military weapons - something that is common in Europe but not so common in the US. We thought maybe they were on some type of high alert, but no one at the airport seemed to be able to confirm that. So we just chalked it up as interesting.

Then we arrived in Dallas. We'd already been through customs so all we had to do was pick up our bags and pick up our car.

Long story short - the bag that we paid over $100 extra to bring with us was not there. When it became obvious that no more bags were coming out, I went to the baggage claim office and was told that it would arrive the following morning at 8:30 and be delivered to my house by 2:00 pm. I wasn't the only person missing a bag. But I'm grateful that it was on the "home" end of the trip. I was informed that it was Delta's policy to reimburse travelers for bags that had been paid for. I was told to contact them about it, which I did the following day. But of course they told me that they couldn't reimburse me for it because I'd paid Virgin Atlantic for the bag, not Delta. Never mind that Virgin Atlantic delivered the bag safely to Atlanta and then Delta misplaced it. As far as Delta was concerned it had nothing to do with them. But being a squeaky wheel, I did manage to get them to give me a $100 travel voucher - even though the idea of traveling with Delta doesn't really inspire me. But back to the sort of interesting day.

We went outside to wait for the Park and Fly shuttle. He just flew by. Didn't stop, didn't even slow down. I thought maybe we were at the wrong place so I phoned them. They told me where I needed to be. "That's where I am! Your guy just blew through here without even slowing down!) She phoned him and told him to come back to get us.

And of course, we had no idea what we'd done with the parking ticket. We told her we'd come in on the 30th of April and thankfully she didn't question that. (It was roughly three weeks.) I never did figure out what we'd done with that. (Dry cleaning tickets disappear in much the same way.)

And the interesting part of the day ended there. We were home. Sort of. But most of our stuff was packed up and sitting in storage but the house hadn't sold yet. And now we were going to have to figure out what to do next.

Interesting. Maybe not. While proof reading this post, I've decided that there really wasn't much interesting about it. The incident at the Atlanta airport was very curious, but probably not interesting. But I'm too tired to rewrite it. 

Volunteers

While I may limit the number of historic homes, cathedrals and museums I visit on a particular trip, I find I have an unlimited capacity for gardens.

So we decided to visit Holkham Hall Gardens. (We skipped touring the house and just went to the gardens.)

I'm sure the house would have been impressive. It was built in the 18th century for the 1st Earl of Leicester. It now belongs to the 8th Earl of Leicester. So it's been in the same family for hundreds of years.

To be truthful, I thought the gardens at Middlethorpe Hall (where we stayed in York) were nicer than the gardens at Holkham Hall. Several of the garden structures were in a shocking state of disrepair. I understand that the cost of maintaining a property of that size and scope must be monumental. And I understand the desire to hang on to your ancestral home even though I have no first hand experience of it.

But I did think it was a bit much that this family charges admission for people to come in and ooh and aah at their home and visit their gardens and they still can't afford to maintain the property properly and apparently are receiving public funds to make restorations.

We did notice that the vegetable garden was fairly extensive and we thought that perhaps they were selling the produce to local restaurants. What we found out just made my little American jaw drop.

We learned that in it's heyday, (Downton Abbey fans will know when this was) about 60 people were employed to work in the gardens which produced all the food consumed by the Lord of the Manor, family and guests. Now (as in 2019) the gardens are tended by roughly 15 volunteers. (Did you get that? Volunteers.)

But is the produce sold to local restaurants or even to local grocers? No. The food produced is consumed by the Lord of the Manor, family and guests. Just like it was back in the day. But now instead of paying the workers - they are volunteers!

And silly me, I thought the feudal system ended in 1660.

But here are some photos of the gardens. (I tried to keep the things that were in a state of disrepair out of the photos. Because they aren't pretty. And gardens should be pretty.)

And just for comparison - here are some photos of the gardens at Middlethorpe Hall. Tell me what you think.

Fine Dining

The discussion started while we were at Middlethorpe Hall and rhubarb appeared on the dessert menu one evening. There were two in our group who just had to have the rhubarb. They were truly excited by the prospect.

This was the same night that Mark looked at the fine dining menu and decided he'd rather have bangers and mash. (We discovered that the chef prepares bangers and mash for Prince Andrew whenever he's in town so Mark felt as though he got the royal treatment.)

But back to the rhubarb. It was quite elegant, although it seemed that there were things on the plate that were difficult to identify. And that's when Linda (who is not known to mince her words) said, "Well, I only wanted a bowl of rhubarb with some custard." And Mike seemed to agree with her.

You're just not going to get a bowl of rhubarb with some custard in a fine dining establishment. You will get a piece of sponge cake sprinkled with a bit of diced rhubarb and some other dainties that are made with rhubarb but will keep you guessing as to their true identity.

Don't get me wrong. I consider myself something of a "foodie" and I enjoy fine dining. But every now and again, I'll read the menu and think "that was sounding pretty good until I got to the quail egg." But I also enjoy comfort food. (Well, who doesn't?)

I think many chefs are more interested in being seen as creative than they are in producing a top quality meal. I get it. It's a lot of pressure. I think it may have become so prevalent in Britain because British food has been labeled as stodgy, unimaginative, and bland. (Think fish and chips, bangers and mash, steak and ale pie.- Traditional British comfort food. Nothing wrong with it at all. - Just a different taste from Italian, Thai, or Indian.) And let's face it, sometimes you prefer comfort food to fine dining. But quite often the comfort food is "imaginatively" converted into a fine dining dish. Okay, so maybe not fish and chips, but let's look at roast chicken.

The fine dining version of roast chicken has the chicken cut into pieces, served with an unusual grilled vegetable (say endive), a mousse of some kind (say sweet potato or pea), and some type of exotic mushroom.

The pub Sunday lunch version leaves the breast whole or cuts it into slices. It's served with mashed or roasted potatoes, carrots, and cabbage or broccoli or peas. There will be a Yorkshire pudding, a stuffing ball or two and the whole lot of it will be smothered in gravy.

Nothing wrong with either one of these!

When we visited New York we went to an "Indian-inspired" restaurant. I wanted a familiar dish but there were none. Because it was "inspired". (Inspired may be code for "fine dining". -  Which might mean that we only want to serve food in unexpected (imaginative and creative) combinations. Sorry, I wasn't impressed.

I'm speaking only for myself. I'm old enough to know what I like and what I don't like. I do not feel any pressure to eat anything I know I don't like. I reject some foods because I don't like the sound of it - the idea of it - or the texture I imagine it will have. I barely tolerate chicken eggs. Do not try to impress me with a quail egg or a duck egg. Also, I don't want to eat anything with a head on it. That includes shrimp (prawns) and fish.

I also consider myself a reasonably good cook. But it's dependent on my ability to read and follow a recipe. Sometimes I might embellish the recipe and other times I'll follow it to the letter. (I routinely double the amount of garlic in any recipe. I NEVER increase the amount of green curry paste.) Sometimes I watch "Chopped" on the food network and I am sure that if presented with a box of mystery ingredients, I could not produce a palatable dish in 30 minutes. Especially when some of the ingredients are not available in the real world - like "ranch dressing soda".

And with that, I'll just stop