Three Months This Time

This time we are house sitting in Cardross, Scotland...in a house between Dumbarton and Helensburgh about 45 minutes West (and a bit North) of Glasgow, on the River Clyde... and we get to stay here until the end of November (having arrived on 30 August). The folks who own the house are also retired and have taken their compact motorhome to Italy.

Bruce Court, Cardross

1 Bruce Court, Tiny Fiat 500

Rear Yard of 1 Bruce Court

Our trip began on August 22^nd, with legs from Asheville to Charlotte to Philadelphia to Glasgow. We were planning a week in Edinburgh at the Fringe Festival before going to our assignment. But since it will take four auto rentals to get us to the end of November (it has to do with the 30-day insurance limit VISA insists on), we had planned to start in Glasgow.

We did not make it to Glasgow from Philadelphia. The airline's story was that some passengers complained that crew members on our incoming aircraft were under the influence of something and under FAA rules the complaint had to be checked out. So no aircraft to fly us to Glasgow. Instead, US Air offered to send us to Edinburgh, through Dublin, and it would only take 7 or 8 hours longer instead of waiting until the next evening to leave Philly. Since we were bound for Edinburgh anyway it sounded OK, but it caused significant changes in car and hotel plans. And, our bags did not get to Edinburgh for 3 days (but, for the first time ever we had clean socks in a carry on :-)). So, after our first month here, on the 26^th of Sept, we drove back to Edinburgh (about two hours) to turn in the first car – a lovely mustard yellow Fiat 500 – then took a train and a bus to Glasgow airport to pick up our white Ford so we could get back on track with car reservations. Whew!

Though our start in Edinburgh was a bit uneven, we had a great time wandering the streets and finding interesting performances to see – 12 pieces in 4 days/nights – largely drama and dance, though there was one odd, fun piece of mostly flamenco music but featuring a man (apparently of Indian descent) who performed what we took to be classical Indian dances usually performed by women. And, the piece was named for a traditional Sufi repetitive meditation! It's what makes this “fringe” so great – over 3,000 performances in 3 weeks and you never too sure about what you are signing up to see next!

A couple of dance pieces finished with repetitive Capoeira (martial arts) type moves, accompanied by very loud music. Several others were pretty hard to make sense of, but we enjoyed others very much. David's favorite was a fairly serious play about relationships, involving a somewhat androgynous person who decided he is now a man, a woman who is suffering through a painful split from her spouse, and an artist who is supported by her brother and who has not left her flat in 2 years. It was wonderful, but Susan missed a lot because she had her hood up - really cold air was blowing right on her head.

The other really super piece was a one man show put on by Pat Kinervane. This one was called Underneath, and you can read about him and his works online. Suffice it to say that he is a strong, older Irish actor playing a dead woman is this case. The piece was memorable.

Edinburgh goes a bit crazy during the three weeks of the fringe – and there are other festivals going on at the same time. A great deal of the busiest part of the city is totally taken over, as you can see from this picture showing a park near the University that has been fitted out with temporary fake grass and four performance spaces. The last time we were here (a few years ago) we saw a play in several tiny bespoke buildings in the Botanic Garden – this time the strangest place was in a movable storage container.

George Square Edinburgh, next to the University

Fringe Festival Posters, George Square

One of many food carts outside George Square

Cardross is a tiny town – a golf course, a pub, an ancient church and a ruin – pretty typical. We are in a fairly new house in a neighborhood built about 10 years ago on farm land. The bus is at the corner and the train just down the hill. We are out and about a good deal as Susan's lists of things we “MUST” see and do is very, very long. For starters, Glasgow is a fairly short drive and we just love that city...it is filled with very different “hoods”. One of the oldest is where the “Barras” (barrows) market is now – one of the coolest is the West End, near the University, and the world-class Kelvingrove Museum. Another one of the oldest is around St. Mungo's Cathedral, Necropolis and Museum and the one that feels like Tribeca is called Merchant City. It would be easy to live here and the real estate is not too expensive either. There is a good deal of theater, many museums, music (it's known as “Music City”), and other special event venues that seem to be busy continuously....and it is second only to London for shopping – especially high end along the many “pedestrian-only” streets. One day, we saw a sign in a window announcing a lecture/slide presentation by Andy Scott, creator of the “Kelpies” being held in the only church that Charles Rennie Mackintosh actually saw built. It was a terrific evening for a local benefit and we would encourage you to check out these amazing sculptures at http://www.thekelpies.co.uk/ and the church at http://mackintoshchurch.com/

A view of Merchant City, Glasgow

A view of the Barras market in Glasgow - it made us nostalgic for our volunteer job at the CarePartners Estate Sale

Another scene from the Barras market

We just love abbeys, castles, cathedrals, and palaces...mostly those in ruin...and the older the better. We are doing day-trips so far but are planning a couple of over-nights to get to some further away places. One of our favorite areas is Kilmartin Glen and Museum – a very large area with over 300 ancient things to wonder at...cup and ring carvings, cairns with and without burials, stone circles, and on and on. Before we left Asheville we made a reservation for a tour and lunch in their lovely cafe – it was the last tour of the season so we got up early and made the long drive (because of all the lochs you have to drive up and around – there are few direct roads here in the West). Although we have visited this area several times, it was a stunning and informative day to say the least.

Nether Largie South, Kilmartin Glenn

Standing Stone, Kilmartin Glen

Stone Circle, Kilmarten Glen

So, enough for now...we'll try to get this posted with some pics and will write more sooner or later, promise.

Oh, one last thing.  Susan did a video when we first got to the Barras market.  Here it is:

Toward the end a man calls out, "cigarettes, tobacco, viagra", and we later learned that it is all contraband.  A few seconds later he notices Susan's camera and says" what's this all about?"  She stops and when he hears her accent he decides she's not an undercover agent, reporter or whatever.  Ends up calling her "Darlin" after quite the conversation!!

Summer 2014 - South London

What a wonderful 2014 summer – eating from a garden that we didn’t even plant, taking the train into Central London in about ½ hour, a huge park off the back yard that Henry VIII rode thru to visit Ann Boleyn, concerts, pubs, food, new friends, and an excursion to, into and around a crop circle – a real one!!

Rear of S. London House

We were offered the opportunity to house sit in a small “close” of homes in a very pleasant small town in South London. Our responsibilities were tending to the fantastic vegetable/herb/flower gardens, and lawn – and keeping the house in good condition and clean, and collecting the mail and reporting on it and other local news via email. Tough job, but someone had to do it!

Gardens

 

Neighborhood Fox

We flew to Heathrow a week before we were to meet the owners and drove out to Cornwall - down to St. Ives then Penzance and around Land’s End . . .

Church Steeples St. Ives, Cornwall

Bus negotiating Streets of St. Ives, Cornwall

Polperro Harbour, Cornwall

 . . . Then back up to the Exeter area. We knew we'd be getting into crop circle territory then, so we had searched the web for a current one and found a possibility. Our information was that it was near the ancient hill fort of Badbury Rings (seems most of them are near ancient mysterious sites), but until we asked in the parking lot there we had no idea how to find it. It was within a mile, marked only with a little arrow on the back of a road sign. We drove into a small parking area, and paid a modest entry fee (for losses to the farmer and some donated to the local church) to the farmer’s niece who was sitting in a van at the entrance to the huge barley field. So, google Badbury Rings Crop Circle to read more if you’re interested, but this is what we found – it was huge (it was harvested later that week – lucky us!)!!

Crop Circle near Badbury Rings (at top)

Entry to Crop Circle

Crop Circle from Ground

Having 6 weeks in one place was great – gave us an opportunity to explore nearby sites such as Oxford, Darwin’s house, Elthan Palace, Winchester and it’s outrageously beautiful cathedral, Dover with it’s bronze age boat, Roman House and WWII hospital caves under the castle and cliffs, Avebury and its accessible stone circle which we love more than Stonehenge, Devizes (with its crop circle museum), and much of London that we hadn’t explored before. We got really familiar with the bus routes and rode them lots, we walked the canal that passes right thru the northern part of the city and goes thru Camden Town with it’s fab international food court, spent time in the Jewish Museum, the Jewel Tower next to Westminster Abbey, Westminster Cathedral, the Serpentine Gallery, Freemasons Museum, the original British Tate, Sloan Square Church noontime concerts, Albert Hall, Saatchie Gallery, Borough Market, Southwark Cathedral, Pace Gallery in the Royal Academy of Art, we explored the fantastic RR stations in different parts of the city (arrived at them from different stations in and around So. London), were awed by the huge and peaceful pro-Palestinian demonstration (and the police without any guns!!!) that we happened into on our way to a concert in St. Martin’s-in-the-Field church and on and on and on..

Winchester Cathedral Interior

Winchester Cathedral Crypt

Winchester Cathedral Tomb

London is so so wonderful – it was a fantastic summer. We thank the owners of the lovely house and garden for allowing us this opportunity!

Seems it takes us longer and longer to post our news....

This post starts with Thanksgiving 2013 in Asheville, NC – our home town.  We were delighted with our role as ‘organizers’ of the Thanksgiving dinner that 50 people enjoyed in our Unitarian Congregation.  We are planning on doing it again in 2014….after so many Thanksgivings with lots of folks in our house, this was a ‘no-brainer’ for us and was great fun.

The day after, we left – in our new little and environmentally friendly KIA Rio - for our next house-sitting assignment in Portland, OR and after a night of venue hopping in Nashville, we headed west.  On the way we had a good visit with David’s brother and wife in Lincoln, Nebraska (they drove up from their home in Manhattan, Kansas - the Little Apple).  After Lincoln and an overnight in Cheyenne, we planned the next stop in Western Wyoming, but a scary run-in with a huge snow storm ended with an unplanned stay in Rawlins instead.  So, our visit with son John & his wife Sutton in Salt Lake City was shortened by a day.  From SLC we crossed southern Idaho into Oregon, made it thru another big snow storm in the Pendleton area and finally arrived in Portland – this is one HUGE country where the weather is, indeed, at times, as big as the country itself.

Lisa and Paul, owners of the house we were going to care for are delightful folks with a wonderful story of their own and live in a lovely renovated home in a great ‘hood in Portland.  

 They were off to Asia while we really took advantage of being in that great town:  had Christmas dinner with an old friend, attended many performances of music both before and after Christmas (this was a 200 strong tuba concert),

attended lectures at the University, saw plays. Enjoyed a visit with Kendra & Jim Golden who were passing thru in the motorhome we had shared with them for several years.  We met friends-of-friends and had several great lunches and dinners with them and with other couples who we met thru other connections.  Had a visit from son John who just happened to have an appointment in PDX while we were there, took walks marveling at the lovely Portland gardens – even in the mostly mild winter - and enjoyed being within walking distance of Whole Foods and the big in-town mall (with a skating rink where little kids had lessons that we became addicted to watching).

Time flew by and before we knew it Lisa and Paul returned and we were off to explore the exciting and wonderous Route 1 down along the CA coast – we loved it in years past but it had been a long time since we had done that drive.  We stopped in Eugene for dinner with a friend and a fun impromptu concert in a consignment shop; we stopped in Mendocino for a eagerly anticipated visit with our friend Shirley Frerick who lives in a gorgeous spot on magical land…while there we had a great visit with the folks at the Ford House Visitor Center on the headlands where we volunteered as docents for a summer a few years ago.  We had lunch at Nepenthes at Big Sur, stayed in San Luis Obispo, stopped in Venice Beach and went on to Borrego Springs for another visit with the Goldens. Then on to Tucson.

Except for Susan’s nasty cold/virus that just wouldn’t quit we had an exceptional time in Tucson!  We were treated to a get together by the IONS Tucson group, had lunch and dinner nearly every day with some of the wonderful friends we had made during the 7 years we lived there.  It was a really wonderful visit and so so good to see these really special folks.  On our way back to Asheville – 3 ½ months after we left – we did that endless drive thru Texas (but the presence of wind turbines gave us great joy) as did the spring flowers (like the dogwoods in Vicksburg) – the earth’s coming alive is so exciting, although winter and spring seem to fight it out during March and early April - here in Asheville the greening is breathtaking.

Now that we’ve been back awhile, David has been working on rebuilding the “purple” room downstairs that had to be dismantled because of the failed waterproofing on one wall (see the 'big dig' a prior post) – so, the framing, insulation, sheetrock and tiling are about done, and then with the taping and painting done we will have yet another room that we’re not sure what we will do with…

we’ve installed an outdoor shower and just love, love, love showering under the stars or in the sunshine.  We are open for guests after August 13th and hope you will consider a visit…..we are off tomorrow morning (1 July) to the UK to do another house sit...with a week in Cornwall and Devon first....crop circles here we come.  We'll try and report sooner about this new adventure....bye for now.

Many hugs, S&D

A visit to Washington, DC.

We promised to add to our last post on this Blog but never did it…our apologies.  Very briefly, we spent a wonderful week in London last March after house sitting in Coltishall for 6 weeks (but still haven’t made it to Belgium), then returned home to Asheville and continued to work on our house and yard.  We are especially interested in getting the water to flow AWAY from the house, which obviously hadn’t been a priority for the people who have lived here in the past.

And, here’s a report on some more recent activities . . .

Susan subscribes to 2 house sitting sites:  MindMyHouse.com and Housecarers.com and gets emails from them every day.  Because of allergies we don’t even look at the house sitting situations that require pet care so our options are much reduced.  But every now and then…..

On August 27^th we left Asheville for Washington, DC…and another house sitting gig.  A really neat woman who owns a condo in Falls Church, VA – a short walk from the DC metro – left for a hiking trip in  Ireland and Spain and we moved in to care for her home.  We were there until Sept 30 when we returned to Asheville for a couple of weeks. 

We thought being so close to Washington would give us a really good opportunity to get to know the city and nearby, something we never did in all our years in NJ and NY.  And it did and we had a blast especially in the city – we were on the go most every day.  The most amazing thing about this city (among many) are the Smithsonian museums – they are all free, open every day except Christmas and are filled to the rafters.  Their collections are surprisingly well presented.  And we are very impressed with the employees – all knowledgeable, kind and pleasant. We were not back a week when they all closed down as did much of DC – our niece tells us that restaurants are offering discounts to federal employees and are charging congress people extra!

The Washington Monument is still being repaired from the earthquake damage.

Here’s a list of some of the things we managed to do…..all of which we would highly recommend if you get to visit for a time –

• Lunch at the beautiful Kennedy Center on the Potomac, dinner too and several performances both free and not…including a tribute to Ella Fitzgerald, a dance performance by Teshigawaro and his Japanese dance troupe Kaaras AND the Gospel Awards where Congressman John Lewis was honored – he is the last living person who spoke at the 1963 march on Washington – he captured our hearts with his brief remarks.
• Smithsonian Castle – surprisingly there is not much in this building but a good place for snacks, to rest your feet and to people watch – everyone comes into this building it seems.  Susan thinks they are missing a huge opportunity as the gift shop here is not very exciting, but some of the other shops in the other museums are wonderful.
• Renwick Museum – a great collection especially a wonderful sculpture of a clock that looks covered in fabric but is all wood!
• Museum of American History – including a great exhibit on the 50^th anniversary of the march on Washington and an interesting special exhibit of the gowns First Ladies have worn to Inauguration Balls … how many of these past presidents have you lived through?
• Natural History Museum – saw a 3D iMax film of butterflies that just blew us away…also a super interesting exhibit on the human Genome – and took another quick look at the Hope Diamond.
• Toured the Capitol and the fantastic Thomas Jefferson building at the Library of Congress and walked in the Eastern Market/Capitol Hill ‘hood.
• Went to the Phillips Collection, to KramerBooks in the Dupont Circle area, and to the street festival in the Adams - Morgan ‘hood.
• Went out on Rt. 66, to one of several wine trails in Virginia, and tasted at 4 delightful wineries.
• Sackler Gallery and the Freer Gallery both have wonderful collections.
• The Udvar-Hazy Air & Space Museum in Chantilly, VA – a sister museum to the one on the Mall.  The one in DC has a super 3D iMax of the Hubble telescope and its pictures of deep space – try and find a place to see this, it’s just breathtaking.  It also has the front end of a DC-7 – the plane Susan flew between NYC and Flint Michigan when she was working in the retail business – here’s a photo of the inside where she and her associates used to work on the 5+ hour, hugely noisy flight that shook the fillings out of your teeth - she doesn’t remember taking a typewriter, but they did carry heavy “unit control” books.     
  
  
  
  
• Spent a day at Mount Vernon (George’s house) – and ‘Old Town’ Alexandria which is a quaint shopping, restaurant, gallery place…they have converted a torpedo factory into an artist space for working and selling – a great idea and a very fun place.
• Saw a visiting Jamaican Boys Choir and small orchestra on the plaza at the African Art Museum – the exhibits here are just beautiful.
• Saw a day of performances at the American Indian Museum and loved the unusual building and the exhibits –the café with many yummy choices of food from the Americas is pretty special.
  
• Couldn’t get enough of the Hirschhorn – and its sculpture garden…love that place!
• Had brunch in Georgetown, walked the streets and watched the kids play in the fountain at water’s edge; drove under the amazing Chinatown Archway.
• Couldn’t miss the Smithsonian zoo and the pandas!
• Spent a day in Annapolis and took a trolley tour.
• Went to the new Arena Stage building and saw “The Velocity of Autumn” with our niece then had a fantastic dinner at a nuevo Indian restaurant – Rasika.
• Walked around the monuments that fill the Potomac Park/ Tidal Basin area – monuments to ML King, Abe, FDR, Jefferson and the amazing and very moving Korean War Memorial.
• National Gallery, both the East and West Galleries – The Ballets Russes film and exhibit are really amazing and if this comes to any area near you GO!!!  There are other exhibits that are out of sight as well, but the Ballets Russes takes the cake.
  

When we weren’t running off to the next “attraction” we managed –

• Dinner with niece Patricia, a real mover and shaker in DC, and her beau Andrew, at Estadio, we had fabulous tapas and a stunning bottle of wine from an Italian winery owned by a friend of theirs.
• More meals – a couple of brunches and tea – with niece Patty at some of her other great favorites.
• Even did some cooking and shopping (especially at Costco since there is not one in Asheville).

We spent the last few days poking around some more (we still have a pretty long ‘to do’ list – a month is just not enough time!!), sweeping the large terrace, dusting and running the vacuum around the house before packing up and driving back to Asheville.  We’ll only be at home for a couple of weeks – we’re going to drive up to Connecticut for David’s 55^th high school reunion.  It is fun for Susan, too, as she was only 2 years behind him and knows most of the folks pretty well.  On this trip we’ll stop in Raleigh to see Kendra & Jim Golden, go up to Cape Cod to say hello for a couple of days to Bev and Bruce Nightingale, stop for a night at Susan’s brother’s in CT, spend a couple of nights with Payson & Chris in NYC and enjoy seeing a bunch of folks at a reunion of sorts at the Ridgewood Unitarian Society.  Then home - until the next adventure ….

Hoping you are all well and happy and are enjoying the crispiness in the air that greets the morning sun with a feeling of anticipation, a new season has begun.  Harvest days are ending, winter is drawing near, yet in between is surely the most special time of (fill in the blank)....