Low humidity so we went for a walk in 2 local nature reserves. No adult gators at Ollie's pond this time but we saw a gaggle of babies-
You'll have to take my word for it: there are 3 in this pic, bloomin' zoom!
Water lilies
Ibis
Saturday, March 28, 2015
Friday, March 27, 2015
"Historic" Englewood......
....is just down the road from here. I.e. About 30 miles away. Historic here is mis-used as per all the towns in S W Florida claiming to be old- they just aren't! As in most others we've been to, the downtown area of hostoric Englewood comprises a few blocks of buildings, some of which are pre WW2. It does have a street of individually owned shops - one owned by a woman from Birmingham- where the goods are interesting, eccentric and a nice change from the chains which dominate most shopping here.
We were lucky to choose a Thursday when the town hosts a very impressive farmers' market with local produce and products. Then we had a tapas ( or tarpars as it's pronounced here) lunch which was pretty authentically Spanish.
We were lucky to choose a Thursday when the town hosts a very impressive farmers' market with local produce and products. Then we had a tapas ( or tarpars as it's pronounced here) lunch which was pretty authentically Spanish.
Massive radishes
Massive radishes
Only in America
Paella
I think I'
Monday, March 16, 2015
Gators
Not sure if this video will run but it's on YouTube.....apparently it really is unusually large.
Thursday, March 12, 2015
Chillin' with the Clarks
To Provincetown, Fort Myers to spend the night with Dot and Barry. Their condo has had new sidings on the exterior and been painted so is looking very smart.
Dot has been voted on to the 7 member board which represents the 400 homes, most of which are empty for the summer months. Now she has influence, but also, of course, lots of hassle with complaints. The community has very strict rules covering everything from what you can leave in your open-front garage to in depth scrutinies of all potential owners and tenants. It is a very clean and tidy community with 24 hour guard on the gate.
Barry has settled in to the local petrol-head crowd, has bought and sold a Harley and now has bought Dot an old MGC which he needed to rebuild. This joins their Chevvy Camarro which he delights in taking to local meets, cruisings and shows. He has also joined a club for enthusiasts of English sports cars who meet weekly at a member's house where he has a full workshop with pit, hoists etc etc in his backyard.
We had an excellent supper at the Shrimp Shack. I chose-shrimps. Actually they would have been prawns at least in Europe. Bob said his scallops were delish and we had our first hush-puppies, thrown in free. For those similarly ignorant, they are a Southern speciality- dry fried balls of corn meal and ? I must Google them as our waitress did not know!
Breakfast was enlivened by ibises, a blue heron and a red squirrel playing a few feet away from the lanai.
Dot has been voted on to the 7 member board which represents the 400 homes, most of which are empty for the summer months. Now she has influence, but also, of course, lots of hassle with complaints. The community has very strict rules covering everything from what you can leave in your open-front garage to in depth scrutinies of all potential owners and tenants. It is a very clean and tidy community with 24 hour guard on the gate.
Barry has settled in to the local petrol-head crowd, has bought and sold a Harley and now has bought Dot an old MGC which he needed to rebuild. This joins their Chevvy Camarro which he delights in taking to local meets, cruisings and shows. He has also joined a club for enthusiasts of English sports cars who meet weekly at a member's house where he has a full workshop with pit, hoists etc etc in his backyard.
We had an excellent supper at the Shrimp Shack. I chose-shrimps. Actually they would have been prawns at least in Europe. Bob said his scallops were delish and we had our first hush-puppies, thrown in free. For those similarly ignorant, they are a Southern speciality- dry fried balls of corn meal and ? I must Google them as our waitress did not know!
Breakfast was enlivened by ibises, a blue heron and a red squirrel playing a few feet away from the lanai.
After a walk along the newly refurbished river front in downtown FM we said goodbye and headed back to P.C.
Monday, March 9, 2015
Equilibrium restored
After a stressful 48 hours contacting our neighbours in Spain- to ask them to feed cat if necessary- and complicated communications with Mind My House and various sitters, past and potential, an email from home brought a reprieve. The sitters have cancelled their ferry booking for Thursday and would even like to stay til May as Mike is responding well to steroids. If/when we find new sitters they will assess how he is.
We should hear tomorrow if the only viable replacement can do it. He's a young Kiwi just ending 4 month it in France. He has a car. This is now essential as we've realised we locked our car papers in a safe in Spain and we have the key with us!!
We're certainly learning some important lessons re. vetting sitters and leaving things in Spain accessible in case of unexpected events.
So, it's back to the lotus eating: cruising around, listening to Bob FM ( what else?) with adult rock. i.e. Hits of the 70's to noughties. A lovely little incident today in Win Dixies when the elderly gent in the queue behind us offered his store card to be swiped for our bill thus saving us $13!
Today is a "starve" day so lunch has been carrot and orange lollies, 60 cals. Sound horrible? They are actually very nice.
Wednesday we're off south to Fort Myers to visit Dot and Barry in their winter quarters, just an hour south.
We should hear tomorrow if the only viable replacement can do it. He's a young Kiwi just ending 4 month it in France. He has a car. This is now essential as we've realised we locked our car papers in a safe in Spain and we have the key with us!!
We're certainly learning some important lessons re. vetting sitters and leaving things in Spain accessible in case of unexpected events.
So, it's back to the lotus eating: cruising around, listening to Bob FM ( what else?) with adult rock. i.e. Hits of the 70's to noughties. A lovely little incident today in Win Dixies when the elderly gent in the queue behind us offered his store card to be swiped for our bill thus saving us $13!
Today is a "starve" day so lunch has been carrot and orange lollies, 60 cals. Sound horrible? They are actually very nice.
Wednesday we're off south to Fort Myers to visit Dot and Barry in their winter quarters, just an hour south.
Saturday, March 7, 2015
Best laid plans....
...it had to happen sometime but we're pretty annoyed....
Email this a.m. informing us that our sitters have to leave as, due to his previously undisclosed emphysema, the man cannot breath at our altitude. I chose them, from amongst several potential sitters, for their experience on lots of sits. I feel the headline of my posting on the house-sitters web page "Costa Blanca Mts" should have given them a clue that we are not at sea level! I also think she should be prepared to stay on til we find replacements. The summer sitters, who have just pulled out, offered to fulfil their obligation with the wife sitting whilst her husband returns to the States as his mum is injured. We have said no as we've plenty of time to find replacements.
Have spent the day contacting the web page and anyone I can think of to step into the breach....not surprisingly, no luck so far.
Rant over....I'm sure I will fond someone although the logistics of car- use could be tricky. We're very lucky that our neighbour Margaret has said she will feed the cat between sitters.......watch this space!
Email this a.m. informing us that our sitters have to leave as, due to his previously undisclosed emphysema, the man cannot breath at our altitude. I chose them, from amongst several potential sitters, for their experience on lots of sits. I feel the headline of my posting on the house-sitters web page "Costa Blanca Mts" should have given them a clue that we are not at sea level! I also think she should be prepared to stay on til we find replacements. The summer sitters, who have just pulled out, offered to fulfil their obligation with the wife sitting whilst her husband returns to the States as his mum is injured. We have said no as we've plenty of time to find replacements.
Have spent the day contacting the web page and anyone I can think of to step into the breach....not surprisingly, no luck so far.
Rant over....I'm sure I will fond someone although the logistics of car- use could be tricky. We're very lucky that our neighbour Margaret has said she will feed the cat between sitters.......watch this space!
Friday, March 6, 2015
Settling in
The title says it all......life enjoying the heat and the pool has been virtually incident free.....nothing to blog about!
The highlight of the week so far has been our snowbird neighbour casting his newly- bought fishing line into the lake for our 'gator to swallow the bobble(float to us) in under 30 secs! Hope it hasn't done him any harm.
We've been out and about a bit. Yesterday we drove over to Boca Grande, the island which so reminds us of Bermuda. It has the same rich sheen- there is even an entrance toll to keep out the hoi-polloi. The vegetation tropical with hibisus, bouganvillea, crotons, palms etc etc but nothing grows unmanicured. The beaches are similarly perfect, no sand flies to annoy sunbathers, and the houses are almost all attractive, some with features common in Bda like lift- up shutters and Adirondack chairs. Why, there's even a small department store reminiscent of Trimminghams (RIP) - although without the cedar panneling of course. It's full of "resort wear" at crazy prices.
We've used the pool every day but under the full moon and stars it's really magical.
Having problems uploading pix....why do things which were simple before become unreliable when hard/software is upgraded? Will add if am able
The highlight of the week so far has been our snowbird neighbour casting his newly- bought fishing line into the lake for our 'gator to swallow the bobble(float to us) in under 30 secs! Hope it hasn't done him any harm.
We've been out and about a bit. Yesterday we drove over to Boca Grande, the island which so reminds us of Bermuda. It has the same rich sheen- there is even an entrance toll to keep out the hoi-polloi. The vegetation tropical with hibisus, bouganvillea, crotons, palms etc etc but nothing grows unmanicured. The beaches are similarly perfect, no sand flies to annoy sunbathers, and the houses are almost all attractive, some with features common in Bda like lift- up shutters and Adirondack chairs. Why, there's even a small department store reminiscent of Trimminghams (RIP) - although without the cedar panneling of course. It's full of "resort wear" at crazy prices.
We've used the pool every day but under the full moon and stars it's really magical.
Monday, March 2, 2015
Familiarity helps when jet-lagged
The Alamo guy dangled the usual carrots to persuade us to upgrade from "the smallest car on the planet" ( obviously he's never seen a Smart car or a "sin carnet" in Spain). We insisted that a Fiat 500 would be fine. On arriving at the parking lot we could choose between 3 cars: 2 500's and........a Nissan Note! Result! So we're driving an up to date version of our own Spanish car.
The journey to Port Charlotte was easy. We swapped from our original plan of Interstate all the way when we hit heavy traffic and road works near Disney World, striking off cross country down the " back roads". There was still some traffic at first but that petered out as we hit the rural stretch between Winterhaven and Punta Gorda. Almost 100 miles in ranching country whith big herds of Herefords, Aberdeen Angus and mixed cattle with occasional long horns. The settlements are small with many shacks, often failing to meet "ramshackle" status. Presumably these are the homes of the local Hispanic farm labourers. Nearing the West Coast these are replaced by vast RV camps. Some are luxurious with golf courses but others feature park homes, rather like Nissen huts, crammed closely together. These are the winter quarters for cash-strapped snow birds.
Our villa on the lake is just as we remembered it. We were welcomed by our "Go -to -guy" Steve followed shortly by the resident gator swimming slowly by. We felt instantly at home!
Day one has dawned -at 4.30 for me -with thick fog over the lake but the sun is already breaking through.
The journey to Port Charlotte was easy. We swapped from our original plan of Interstate all the way when we hit heavy traffic and road works near Disney World, striking off cross country down the " back roads". There was still some traffic at first but that petered out as we hit the rural stretch between Winterhaven and Punta Gorda. Almost 100 miles in ranching country whith big herds of Herefords, Aberdeen Angus and mixed cattle with occasional long horns. The settlements are small with many shacks, often failing to meet "ramshackle" status. Presumably these are the homes of the local Hispanic farm labourers. Nearing the West Coast these are replaced by vast RV camps. Some are luxurious with golf courses but others feature park homes, rather like Nissen huts, crammed closely together. These are the winter quarters for cash-strapped snow birds.
Our villa on the lake is just as we remembered it. We were welcomed by our "Go -to -guy" Steve followed shortly by the resident gator swimming slowly by. We felt instantly at home!
Day one has dawned -at 4.30 for me -with thick fog over the lake but the sun is already breaking through.
Sunday, March 1, 2015
En camino
This time we've left Jasmina with experienced, but new to us, sitters, Myra and Mike. They seem delighted to be staying in a place with few quirks. Hearing about freezing villas, water pumps which keep jamming and need a trip outside to fix etc along with terminally ill cats, aggressive dogs and the like, our place must seem a doddle!
First flight via Monarch on time, no problem with Premier Inn at North Terminal Gatwick and, shortly after, Barb and Derek arrived. We spent a great couple of hours catching up with them. It was so thoughtful of them to travel out from their London home to meet us.
Having checked in with our hold baggage on Friday evening it was a stressfree trip on the mono-rail back to South Terminal Saturday morning. The airport was heaving. The Virgin Atlantic flight similarly rammed. In fact the steward confirmed that the longhaul flights are always 10% overbooked. It's cheaper for airlines to pay compensation than fly light.
Departure was delayed to "off load extra freight" as we were so full. This was explained by the lady captain who later had to warn us of a further delay as a buggy had been lost in the hold!! That's a first for us!
The 9+ hours flight was uneventful although some diversion was on hand as Bob's young neighbour seemed to be suffering from a Tourettes type syndrome. In addition to multiple tics he asked the stewardesses for 2 glasses of water, one flat one fizzy, at least a dozen times during the flight. We were a little alarmed when he asked for a double whiskey at one point but it did not seem to affect him.
Our seats were upstairs with extra legroom and you could have thrown a cocktail party in the space we enjoyed between us and the Premium Economy section. I watched "Boyhood" about which the only point of interest seemed to be that it was filmed over several years so the characters actually aged. At times it felt like real time- almost 3 hours of nothing much happening. Still, it passed the time as did "Gone Girl" which I found hard to judge,having read the book, as I knew the twists in the tale.
Orlando was really gloomy as we landed. Immigration took about 45 mins as our landing coincided with other transatlantic flights but we finally emerged into the terminal with our bags. We descended to Ground Transportation B. Bob managed to find a phone hidden away but FREE for local calls and our hotel shuttle was "on its way". We had to go back up 3 floors, traverse the whole terminal, go down to GT A and then waited....a further call finally produced a bus 45 mins after the first call. Once we got to the hotel things were fine but it was 3.15am Spanish time so we were ready for bed.
First flight via Monarch on time, no problem with Premier Inn at North Terminal Gatwick and, shortly after, Barb and Derek arrived. We spent a great couple of hours catching up with them. It was so thoughtful of them to travel out from their London home to meet us.
Having checked in with our hold baggage on Friday evening it was a stressfree trip on the mono-rail back to South Terminal Saturday morning. The airport was heaving. The Virgin Atlantic flight similarly rammed. In fact the steward confirmed that the longhaul flights are always 10% overbooked. It's cheaper for airlines to pay compensation than fly light.
Departure was delayed to "off load extra freight" as we were so full. This was explained by the lady captain who later had to warn us of a further delay as a buggy had been lost in the hold!! That's a first for us!
The 9+ hours flight was uneventful although some diversion was on hand as Bob's young neighbour seemed to be suffering from a Tourettes type syndrome. In addition to multiple tics he asked the stewardesses for 2 glasses of water, one flat one fizzy, at least a dozen times during the flight. We were a little alarmed when he asked for a double whiskey at one point but it did not seem to affect him.
Our seats were upstairs with extra legroom and you could have thrown a cocktail party in the space we enjoyed between us and the Premium Economy section. I watched "Boyhood" about which the only point of interest seemed to be that it was filmed over several years so the characters actually aged. At times it felt like real time- almost 3 hours of nothing much happening. Still, it passed the time as did "Gone Girl" which I found hard to judge,having read the book, as I knew the twists in the tale.
Orlando was really gloomy as we landed. Immigration took about 45 mins as our landing coincided with other transatlantic flights but we finally emerged into the terminal with our bags. We descended to Ground Transportation B. Bob managed to find a phone hidden away but FREE for local calls and our hotel shuttle was "on its way". We had to go back up 3 floors, traverse the whole terminal, go down to GT A and then waited....a further call finally produced a bus 45 mins after the first call. Once we got to the hotel things were fine but it was 3.15am Spanish time so we were ready for bed.
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