We arose around 7.15 this morning and promptly set out for an hour long walk into the nearby streets which are all fingers with canals pointing out into the Charlotte Harbor. We had seen some vacant properties across the canal we wanted to check out, so we walked around. We had to as we don't have a vehicle...yet.
At the bottom of the next street over..Beale, I think it is...we met a woman who was out walking her old wire haired Jack Russell. We were informed that her dog doesn't like strangers, whereby it promptly came over to us and made itself friendly :) Well, It's a dog, what did you expect?
Norma (her name) lived next door and so we found out all the Goss about the neighborhood and who owns what and why and what they are doing with it and NO, that house is not in foreclosure, it just looks like that.
Lots of homes have their storm shutters up and we believe their owners come down to Sth West Florida after Christmas.
We are parked on a canal in front of homes that are 30 years old (at least). Concrete block, some with pools, many without. This area was wiped out by a Hurricane about 8 yrs ago (more or less) and when you look at it from Google Earth, you can see the vacant lots where the homes used to be situated. Lots have never rebuilt!
The lady across the canal from us will be here in January, Len tells us. Mary is the original owner of this house which she bought from new for $11,000! Can you believe it?
Mary's house is just to the left of the sailboat.
The elderly folks who live in this home have their grandchildren over all the time, apparently, and the kids were here this weekend. The two little boys were fishing off the dock in front of Mary's house. I don't know if they will do that when Mary comes down in January!
On the opposite side of the canal we saw a nice home with an Aussie flag flying from the three flag mast they have in their canal-side home. We will go and knock on the door in the next day or two and introduce ourselves to our cousins across the ditch who have relocated to this neck of the swamp:)
Neighborhoods are always interesting places; First up...we hadn't even finished tying up when the neighbor across the road, Butch, came over with a drink in his hand to see what real estate was pulling up in the canal...(Us!). We were happy to meet him and eventually his wife Roz, who came to see what all the fuss was about. This is Friday afternoon....late!
Butch and Roz left after inviting us to call on them any time we saw their van outside. Nice folks! and generous:)
Saturday...we cleaned the boat...well, that's not quite right. We hosed her off, all over, because we didn't have the time, just then, to take a bucket of suds to her for the rest of the day.
More importantly we had 4 loads of laundry to get dry, and the washer down in the Lazarette takes an hour for each load.
Our Chinese Laundry functions well with a little sun and breeze...not much of the latter, but plenty of the former.
We did get the four loads dry, but left the bedding for today, and that was done in Len and Stephie's laundry.
Dinner on Saturday night.
This being a special occasion for us...(don't ask) Len and Stephie took us to their favorite restaurant which has a live Jazz Band/singer. The food was fantastic...three of us had Duck, which was cooked to our liking, and was perfect...and we shared dessert of Chocolate mousse cake with Ganache.
Len loves to cook and excels in the kitchen....today he told us (around 3pm) that dinner would be at 6pm. Oh my! We were preparing to eat linguine and left over veg for dinner on the boat.
We turned up at the required time, having had a very leisurely day, to find Len was cooking a beef fillet for the four of us. Garlic Bread, Creamed spinach, Italian Roma tomatoes in Olive oil with salt, pepper and basil (fresh), baked potato and peppercorn sauce. WOW! It was cooked to perfection and we ate apple pie and ice-cream to finish, along side a decaf coffee. All excellent. Like I have said...they are wonderful hosts.
Their week will be very busy and we may not see much of them for the next five days. We are very self-sufficient, so that isn't a problem, and we have things to do.
Stephie gave us all the leftovers to bring back to the boat. I guess waz will eat the steak for breakfast with an egg!
We have been for our nightly walk up and down the road, and now waz is sawing wood, and I can hardly see the end of my nose. Time for bed.
I took the duvet off last night and replaced it with a light cover. I didn't sleep well as a result...for some strange reason, so am a little in deficit when it comes to sleep.
That's all for now, folks. More coming up this week when we will have wheels and can go places.
We are looking for jobs too, so that might make some fun reading:)
Ciao for now
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