Just Take Your Time

Buying gas when you are towing a camper presents more challenges than if you are in a car. In a car you just have to be aware of which side the tank is on. With a camper you also need to be aware of the headroom and you need to be able to swing around a bit wider so you don't catch anything on a gas pump.

Mark likes to buy gas when the tank is registering half full. We stop for gas a lot. Which is okay because it gives us plenty of opportunities to get out and stretch. The problem is that once you choose a lane, you are committed. It's just not that easy to back up and get in line for a different pump when there's a camper behind you.

Often when you're making your pump/lane selection you're not able to see what is going on until you're committed. By the time we could see that no one was actually pumping gas into that truck, it was too late. We assumed that the driver had gone into the store and would come out and move any minute. The polite thing to do is pump your gas and then pull into one of the parking spaces and then go in. But not everyone is polite.

After what seemed like an eternity, but was actually about five minutes, two women came out of the store and got in the truck. They looked at us but made no effort to move. Perhaps neither of them could drive. After another five or more minutes, an old lady and a young girl came out of the store and also got into this truck. Still no driver.

We waited and hoped that the driver was not the young lady who'd been sitting on the curb chain-smoking for the past 15 minutes. Then we spotted a young man headed for the truck. He'd been next door at McDonald's. But alas, he wasn't the driver either - he got in on the passenger side.

Finely a surly looking guy came out of the store. Could this be the driver? Yes!! After 20 minutes, we were finally going to get some gas. But instead of getting into the driver's seat and driving away, he STARTED pumping gas. I was stunned. And I was watching him closely because if looks could kill, that man would have dropped dead. While I was glaring at him, I noticed that he seemed to have a bit of trouble getting the pump into the right spot. When another young man came out of the store a few minutes later with a six pack of beer, I think I figured out the reason. Still couldn't believe he had actually pulled up to the gas pump and then he and his family all "went shopping".

Unbelievable! I'm sure that word came out of my mouth more than once.  He may have been telepathic, or maybe he could read lips because after he finally moved, he parked where he should have been parked while he and his crew went shopping. Then he got out and started walking toward us. I never took my eyes off him. However, Mark refused to acknowledge him at all. I think he wanted to fight but maybe thought better of it. Getting arrested for starting a fight is probably a good way to go to jail (if you're lucky or deported if you're not.)

But even when you're not dealing with the mentally challenged, getting gas in Florida isn't easy. We pulled off the Interstate and drove into a brand new 7-Eleven. I guessed it was new because the signs out front said "Now Open". We chose a line with only one car in it. And when we were committed to that lane I noticed that while there was a woman sitting in the driver's seat, no one appeared to be pumping gas. I just couldn't believe that everyone in Florida is so rude that they park in front of the pump no matter what. I went inside to use the ladies room. There was a big line inside, which is a bit unusual, but since I wasn't buying anything inside I didn't worry too much. After we found out what was going on, I suspect they were all lined up to complain.

When I returned to the car, we were still waiting for our turn. Finally a young man came out and attempted to pump the gas. I was watching the numbers turn. Slowly. I watched it for a minute or two and he only had a bit over a dollar's worth of gas. I'd noticed when I went inside that there was 55 cents pumped already so I decided to investigate.

"Hi. Is this pump working right?"

"No. It is not. It's just taken two minutes to pump a dollar's worth of gas. I'm about to give up."

"Hmmm. Good to know. I think maybe we should try someplace else."

"If you want gas tonight, that's a good idea."

Once the people in the next lane had moved we were able to get around them and get out. There were some one-way street issues and by the time we got gas and made it back to the Interstate, we'd added about 40 minutes to our journey. And in the words of a very wise woman - "ain't nobody got time for that!"

A Black Hole

Mark has never been crazy about carrying his wallet in his back pocket. But he did it anyway. At least until he lost weight. Now he says it hurts. No doubt it does. He has very little padding and he probably has six months worth of receipts in his wallet. Something is making it fat and he doesn't carry much cash. That leaves receipts and credit cards. Not to mention an iPhone 6 and car keys that have to fit in somewhere.

He thought the solution was to carry his stuff around in a "man bag". He has a very good one that he's had for as long as I've known him. It's been in the closet because it "didn't have enough pockets". He bought another one with more and deeper pockets. While we were in London he struggled with that bag because he could never figure out which pocket his phone was in until he'd missed the call. (Welcome to my world!) So while we were in London, we found a market where they were selling bags. He found one with fewer pockets that weren't quite so deep. It was more of a small briefcase than a man bag. But even though it struck me as a bit on the big side, he seemed happy with it and after transferring all of his "stuff" into the new one he gave his old one to the young man in the booth to dispose of.  (I'd be willing to bet he turned around and sold it to someone else.)

He seemed happy enough with this new bag. Then last Saturday morning while I was on the stationary bike, panic set it. His wallet was not in his bag. He had checked it three times. That was my cue to get off the bike and help him look. He showed me how he'd looked into each compartment of the bag and then run his hand inside. Nothing. I did the same. Nothing.

I called the restaurant where we'd eaten the night before to see if someone had turned in a wallet. I couldn't believe that we could have walked away from the table and left a wallet sitting on it. But I suppose it's happened with phones, why not a wallet? Alas, no one there had seen a wallet.

The only thing left to do? Cancel the credit/debit cards and get a new driver's license. Guess who gets the bulk of that job? And if he could figure out a way for me to get his driver's license for him, I'd have been doing that, too.

Did I mention how fat that wallet was? Probably because there were about a dozen credit cards in it. Business cards. Personal cards. Debit. Credit. Mastercard. Visa. American Express. Home Depot. Macy's. You name it, it was in there.

Lucky for me I keep a list of all the cards along with the last four digits of the account numbers just because the mail carrier we have here is a bit unreliable. That way if I don't get the bill I can phone them and get a copy sent so I don't incur any late fees or interest charges. The list sure came in handy when I needed to cancel the cards.

But I should have checked the safe drawer because often when we travel, we don't take all of them with us. There were at least three I cancelled unnecessarily. And what I found is that once you cancel them, you can't uncancel them. You just have to wait for the new ones to arrive. Only one card qualified for free overnight delivery. If I'd paid to have the others overnighted it would have cost a small fortune. Fortunately not all of our accounts are joint so I was left with about three cards that I could still use. He had none. I guess he wasn't going to go anywhere without me.

Right after I'd cancelled those dozen cards, which was the safe thing to do because even if we got everything back, someone could have written the numbers down and could have a really good time shopping online. We also decided to sign him up for Lifelock. There's just too much information in your wallet that could be really useful to an identity theif. I phoned them up and while they were trying to up-sell me, Mark came into the room waving his wallet. I would accuse him of not looking very closely except I'd have to accuse myself of the same thing and that's just not possible. That mini briefcase definitely has a black hole in it. Things go in and you are truly fortunate if they come back out. As a consequence, the mini briefcase has been reassigned to the closet and  the old man bag has resumed it's duties.

So far so good.

What Was He Looking At?

In the past we've stayed at some pretty quaint awful places. I've written about them. You can go back through my archives and find most of them. But after the last fiasco, we decided that we'd only stay in places that have good TripAdvisor ratings. Mark assured me this place had a good TripAdvisor rating.

We really didn't want to stay in a hotel this time. The primary reason is that you don't have as much control over what you eat when you stay at a hotel. You end up eating a mammoth cooked breakfast. And it's the same stuff every day. (Okay, I might eat yogurt and granola almost every day but at least I switch it up with the flavors. You can't do that with bacon and eggs!)  Even though there's more choice for lunch and dinner, the food almost certainly has too much fat and too many calories. 

Also, the primary purpose of this trip was to attend a funeral. We wanted to have a bit more room so we could go through the boxes of Mark's dad's memorabilia.

A caravan seemed like the ideal solution. It would give us a bit more room and we'd have a kitchen where we could prepare our own meals. Mark found a place in St. Osyth Beach Holiday Park. The Holiday Park concept may be uniquely British.  It's similar to a campground except all of the units are static - they don't move. It's really not the same as a mobile home park in the US because most US mobile home parks require skirting, decking, and a certain degree of landscaping. Some of these units have those features, but most do not.

This particular park featured an indoor pool, restaurant, bar, and nightly entertainment. It sort of reminded me of a cruise ship. The "entertainers" wore a number of hats. In addition to singing and dancing, they also conducted trivia quizzes and called out the numbers for Bingo. We wandered over to play trivia a couple of times. The food was the typical pizza, burger, and fries - not really on our diet. Besides the place was heaving with kids because it was a school holiday week. On the plus side, we could step out the door and see the seawall. The beach is just the other side of the seawall. However, it was October and we had no desire to put our toes in the sand. It was a short (3.1 mile walk to Clacton Pier. The negative was that most of that walk was through Jaywick - a topic I discussed a few days ago.

But let's get back to the unit we rented. It was absolutely the worst. If we hadn't paid in advance and been trying to deal with a death in the family, we wouldn't have stayed.

We had to pay extra for bed linens. Towels weren't available at any price. Fortunately, my mother-in-law was kind enough to loan us some towels.

The carpet was 50 shades of gray. Looks like its original color may have been beige. Keep your shoes on! The fabric on the sofa cushions was several shades darker than the same fabric on the base. There was obviously a moisture problem. There were small plastic bowls of salt positioned at the tops of the curtain rods throughout the unit. The bathroom had carpeting in it which I believe retains some of that unwanted moisture. When you stepped out of the shower, you stepped onto a small throw rug that was perpetually cold and damp. The floor beneath it was spongy and gave you the sensation that the next time you stepped on it, you could end up going through the floor. The shower was a bit moldy. You just tried not to touch anything. Fortunately, neither of us has a mold allergy.

There was stuff junk stashed on top of the kitchen cabinets. There were plenty of dishes, but no more than two matching ones. We only had one tea towel so we had to leave the dishes to dry in the rack. The mirror covering the inspection panel also showed signs of moisture damage.

I wanted to run the vacuum cleaner. I found one in the closet but it was being held together by duct tape so I decided against using it. When you plugged in the tea kettle, as you do in England, it would throw the breaker. Mark had to go outside to reset it. One time when he went out to do this, I was in the shower. That's when he noticed that the water from the shower was emptying out onto the concrete pad. It was not going down any pipe. At least this problem didn't extend to the black water.

The bedroom was small. (The two we didn't use were even smaller.) The neighbors were typically up yelling at each other well past midnight. While the oven worked, the broiler did not.

The decor, if you can call it that, appeared to be late 20th century garage sale. The TV did not work at all, which wasn't surprising since it looked like a 1980s model. Big huge thing - not a flat screen.

And it wasn't what I'd call cheap. We could have stayed in a modern hotel for less. I'm not sure what's up with TripAdvisor. I tried to find the reviews for this place so I could see what Mark was looking at when he booked it, but I couldn't find it. In the future, I want to see how many reviews the reviewer has actually written. I suspect the stellar reviews on this place were written by the owners relatives.

Check it out:

50 Shades of Gray

Bowl of salt on the top of the curtain rail

"Stuff" on top of the kitchen cabinets

Dirty filter

Inside the shower

The bottom of a mirror between the dining and living areas

A Day at the Tower of London

All the times I'd been to London and I'd never actually gone into the Tower of London. I had walked all around it, but never gone inside. As towers go, it just isn't that tall. It's dwarfed by the modern buildings surrounding it. But the crown jewels are inside. And the Tower figures heavily in many of the historical novels I'm so fond of. Oddly enough, Mark had never been inside it, either. It was time.

The Thames has been diverted away from the tower and the moat is no longer filled with water but as you can see, there's still a bit of water by the Traitor's Gate.

The Tower was not just a prison. It was also used by monarchs as a fortress and safe haven during troubled times. This is the chapel attached to the king's bedchamber.

 I was surprised to learn that the beefeaters are all former military who served with distinction and that they, along with their families, live inside the Tower. You can see some of the residences in the background of this photo.

The Tower Green is where some of the more famous prisoners, like Ann Boleyn were beheaded. As I understand it, it was an honor to be executed inside the confines of the Tower. The common criminals were executed somewhere outside the city. There is a memorial there with the names of all those who were executed on the Tower Green. Interestingly, Henry the VIII was responsible for almost all of those executions.

The crown jewels. We didn't see them. This is why. Very long line with a wait time to match.  Besides, it gives us a reason to go back.

Lots of history. And like Windsor Castle, it's in really good condition to be as old as it is.

Not to mention the really great view from the wall.

A good visit!

Fighting Back

Nearly everyday we walked along the seafront from St. Osyth Beach to Clacton Pier. It's just over three miles and it takes you through Jaywick. It seems that Jaywick has gained some notoriety having recently been featured targeted on a reality show that exposes benefits (welfare) fraud.

It also seems that Jaywick is the poorest, most deprived areas in the UK. And some Jaywick residents have taken exception to this. There was a home made banner flying over one of the central streets - "Proud Jaywick Fights Back". At least they spelled it correctly, unlike the sign posted by the local council warning that only "athorised" parking was allowed.

I'm not clear on how Jaywick is fighting back. I'm going to suggest a plan of attack. Start by cleaning up. As you walk from St. Osyth to Clacton, if you look to your right you see the sea.

If you look to the left, you see a street like this one.

But you can only walk an average of 20 steps between dog poop on the pavement, so you are better off to keep your head down. If the proud people of Jaywick think that people won't notice the sad condition of the houses because they are forced to keep their heads down to avoid stepping in the poop (or the broken bottles, broken plastic, broken pottery, abandoned toys, empty snack bags, styrofoam food containers and dumped ashtrays) they are mistaken. It just paints an unflattering picture. And to be truthful, I was always relieved when we got to the golf course without incident. Jaywick is not a place where you feel safe. We would only walk through there in the daytime.

I have sympathy for the homeowners who do take pride in their properties - who have glass instead of plywood in their windows and doors as well as neatly kept gardens. People who don't just throw their broken "stuff" out the door and leave it. Those other folks, whose numbers are way too high, are pulling property values down.

My mother always said that being poor was not an excuse to be dirty. My experience tells me otherwise, but I still like to think Mom was right. Jaywick! Clean it up!

A Visit to Windsor Castle

Even though we'd stayed in Windsor several times before flying home, we'd never managed to get there in time to tour the castle. So this trip we took a day to go to Windsor for the sole purpose of visiting the castle.

If you want to see how the other half lives - (well maybe not the other half - maybe the 1% or maybe not even that many) this is the place. Even more opulent than the Vatican if you can believe it. I could live there. Most definitely. Great house. It's claim to fame is that it's been a "royal residence" since the time of Henry I - over 900 years.

Amazing that it looks so good since it's so old. The ceilings that were burned in the 1992 fire have been restored to their original look and much of the art work escaped damage. Over the years it's been upgraded with all the modern conveniences and while the decor is a bit over the top for my personal taste, it fits the size and purpose of the rooms. If they were going for "impressive grandeur" they certainly achieved it.

Since there were notices advising that photography within the castle was not permitted and I didn't fancy being carted off to the Tower of London, these photos have been pulled from the web but a good representation of what we saw. Except, of course, for the aerial view.  

When I'm 64

If you've recently turned 65 you know what I'm talking about. If you haven't, just wait! You are in for a treat. You are about to become one of the most popular people on the planet.

The mail and phone calls started about 6 months prior to when I'd be turning 65. On average, I get five pieces of mail each week related to Medicare. I get even more phone calls. And now that I'm only a month away from my Medicare effective date, they are turning up in my Facebook news feed. They are wearing me down. They are wearing me out.

Caller: I know you've been getting a lot of mail about Medicare. It's probably all very confusing to you.
Me: Not really. I throw it all away.

Then there was the young man who was putting serious pressure on me to buy the supplement he was selling. I said I needed time to do a bit more due diligence. I said I wanted to check with some of my friends who'd read all that stuff instead of throwing it away to see what they'd chosen and why they'd chosen it.

"Did you consult with your friends before you bought your car insurance?"

"It's not the same thing," I said.

"Okay then, did you consult your friend before you bought the health insurance you have now?"

I didn't but so what if I did? I am free to ask a Ouija board if that's what I want to do. Bottom line, that remark didn't go down well with me at all. "In essence, you have just questioned my judgement. I'll tell you this, when you get to be 64, you don't especially like your judgement questioned, particularly by someone half your age. This conversation is over."

Bottom line is that I first got Marketplace healthcare with assistance from some clown who called claiming he could make the process run more smoothly. Totally and completely bungled it. I ended up having to be rescued by an agent that I'd used before and whom I trusted and who has helped me with my healthcare insurance needs ever since. I'll go to his office when I need help. I don't want or need any more help from clowns on the phone. 

Of course, not all of them are phone clowns. Some of them insist that they must come by to "meet you" and "explain" all the "new" benefits of Medicare. Some days I'm so beaten down by these people that I end up making appointments. (I really hate to be rude to people on the phone.) So this morning I ended up giving the guy who only wanted 15 minutes of my time nearly an hour. I still don't know what Plan N is. But I do know that I'd have to make 40 trips to a specialist on the plan I signed up for to break even on his plan. Not likely. Guess I'm just going to have to get rude.