Category: America

SFTF:  Another short sojourn in the Carolinas

This year has seen a distinct change in our travelling habits as we haven’t once stepped off continental North America. I nearly said continental USA but that would have been to ignore the wonderful week back in April when we set foot in my old stamping ground of Ontario, Canada.

North America is a vast continent, shared by two of the largest countries in the world by area, offering such an endlessly diverse mix of plains, mountains, forests, prairies, coastlines, weather, nature, ethnic groups, cultures, cities, towns and villages, that it must surely be an easy task to find the ideal place to lay down new roots that will satisfy the aspirations, needs, desires and longings of two not too dissimilar people who are held together by a strong bond of love and a determination to live out the autumn of their lives in peaceful harmony. Well life is never quite that simple, for as well as the aspirations and needs and so forth that we bring into the search for the perfect piece of ground to start the planting process, tagging along behind us are our preconceived notions of what is ideal, acceptable, bearable or untenable, based on the quite varied lessons that life has presented to each of us in the past.

Those who have followed earlier episodes of this blog will know Celine and I have travelled far and wide over the last few years and more than once have been sorely tempted to buy our “ideal” home in the sun, by the sea or in some beautiful corner of a foreign land. Much closer to home, and just a few short weeks after taking up residence in the “promised land” – a.k.a. Southern California, I was filled with excitement at the idea of moving up-country and buying a house in Big Bear Lake, a small town nestling in the woods high up in the San Bernardino Mountains, enthusiasm that only waned nearly a year later when we visited again on Labour Day weekend and, being a rags and sticks fan, I was appalled by the mass of noisy jet skis and power boats churning up the placid waters of the eponymous lake . . .!!

Back in April we made a fleeting visit to Asheville, NC, and being quite taken with that small city, our most recent travels took us there once again for a closer look. It being another community whose charms arise from its location among mountains and midst a vast sea of deciduous forests, it seemed appropriate that we should re-visit when those woodland charms were approaching the end of their multi-coloured autumnal glory and the renowned fresh mountain weather might be starting to show its less desirable side, that of cool winds, grey cloudy skies and that phenomena we miss so much in Southern California, a good dollop of rain every few days. And we were right on the mark, except for the several days of glorious warm sunshine, and the autumn colours, for which the Appalachian Mountains are renowned, had kindly delayed their magnificence, the result of an unusually dry summer, a phenomena with which we Californians are all too familiar.

We had found accommodation for our two-week stay through HomeExchange.com, though were unsuccessful in finding a simultaneous reciprocal exchange with someone who fancied leaving the relative peace of Asheville for the hustle and bustle of the West Coast, “No surprise!” according to our hostess. The house was in the Haw Creek subdivision, a ten-minute drive west of the city centre. Our first morning we breakfasted watching jays and cardinals flitting among the branches of the beautiful trees outside the kitchen window, and the squirrels doing what would prove to be their daily balancing act as, nut in hand, they pranced from picket to picket along the garden fence. Through a gap in the trees we had a view of the nearby mountains, and with the warm sunshine radiating out of clear blue skies, it seemed like we had arrived in paradise, certainly as far as this country loving boy was concerned.

Typical view from within Asheville city boundaries – this one taken a hundred yards from our HomeExchange abode.

Not completely forgetting why we were there, we eventually managed to drag ourselves away from nature’s spectacle and drove into the city to delve deeper into its offerings than we had six months previously. But getting a real feel for a place in just two weeks is a challenge at the best of times, and when seriously contemplating the idea of moving one’s life there, lock, stock and barrel, the task feels impossible. We did our homework before we arrived and having sought out the services of a knowledgeable local realtor, to whom we had given some ideas of what we thought we were looking for, we had spent many happy hours perusing a long list of wonderful looking properties which we had boiled down to a baker’s dozen to view during our stay. This in itself was a fairly hugger-mugger process, as we had only a sketchy idea of the neighbourhoods around the city and very little feel for their relative desirability.

However, we had a free day before our viewing schedule started and so we began our visit by doing the tourist thing, exploring the River Arts District where one can wonder in and out of galleries, chat to the working artists and of course expand one’s own collection of art as the mood takes one. It also turned out to be a great way to meet locals and to quiz them about their experiences of living in and around the city; no point in asking them why they chose Asheville, as it really is an artist’s mecca. In the late afternoon we happened upon a delightful small farmer’s market located next to the All Souls Pizza Parlour car park, and enjoyed chatting to various artisans, again many of whom had moved to Asheville in the last ten years or so and were totally captivated by the place.

The next afternoon we met up with our friendly realtor, Laurie Reese, viewed six houses of which at least four were totally damp squibs, another was “OK” and only one actually grabbed us. Actually the last house we were due to visit was so awful from the outside, and so obviously different from the MLS description, that we didn’t even get out of the car; it did however, leave us close to the village of Biltmore and we took the opportunity to partake of afternoon tea at the seemingly historic Grand Bohemian Hotel, the interior of which looks like a late Victorian hunting lodge, only to discover it is very much a twenty-first century construction.

The city of Asheville nestles in a valley, surrounded by thickly wooded hills with views of distant mountains in every direction. The city centre is quite compact and very walkable, but we had difficulty finding any suitable homes for sale in the few residential districts within the perimeter created by Highway 240 and the French Broad River. From the list of “possibles” that Laurie had provided us, I had upgraded to “favourite” status one gracious older home in the “desirable” Kenilworth district, which was a real disappointment, and another lesson learned about interpreting MLS descriptions. The house would have been very elegant when it was built in the 1920’s and the trees surrounding it would have been much smaller allowing far more light into what had become a very dark home. The “garage” might indeed have been accessible, or even usable, once upon a time, and the “delightful architectural details of the interior” were probably very up-market in its era. But, sadly, the sinking south corner and its associated structural cracks, and the cramped old-fashioned kitchen, convinced us that a top-priced fixer-upper was not what we were looking for. In our previous short visit to the city we had discovered the very attractive, but we presumed rather expensive, Montford Historic District, just north of the highway but still nominally walkable to the city centre, and so we were quite excited when, on our second day of viewing, Laurie found a very reasonably priced three storey home literally a couple of blocks away from our two favourite stores, Trader Joe’s and that other one whose name has now become tarnished by having become part the burgeoning Amazon empire. And what a disappointment that was, demonstrating once more the dangers of judging a book by its cover.

We soon realised we needed to look slightly farther afield and that’s where things started to become complicated. How far away from the centre were we prepared to consider living? Our hopes of being able to walk into the city centre had been somewhat dashed and we both started to accept the idea that a five or ten minute drive, such as we were by then doing regularly from our temporary residence in Haw Creek district, had to be one of the conditions of living in Asheville. Laurie showed us some amazing houses that were positively ideal but, alas, never quite perfect. The beautifully maintained house on Skyview Court, built precariously on the side of an extremely steep wooded mountainside and having the most fantastically gorgeous views from its three balconies, from sunrise to sunset, would have been ideal for the two of us thirty years ago when we could still bound around like a couple of gazelles, and my Canadian chain-saw wielding skills were at their prime. But the threat of our advancing years, mine in particular, and the hair-raising descent just to get into the basement workshop, or to fetch a load of wood for the lounge stove, made it a complete non-starter. Such a shame as I could really imagine us sitting on the balcony, each with a glass of wine to hand, watching the red-tailed hawks circling below us, as we swapped stories of our beautiful life together while the sun slowly disappears down behind the tall pines to our right.

Anyway, dreams aside, the practicalities of life in Asheville are what we came to consider, part of which could include domiciling ourselves in one of the outlying small towns we had begun to hear so much about. Weaverville is one such town about ten miles due north along highway 26, a pleasant fifteen to twenty-minute drive from the city centre, through rolling green countryside. With a population of around four thousand, this compact little town is really more of a homely village and has all the characteristics of same with the usual mix of realtors, banks, cafes, a pizza parlour and an Italian restaurant. It is very walkable, most of the streets have sidewalks, a small lake with a fountain greets you as you enter the town along Merrimon Avenue, the famous Well-Bred Bakery and Café is there to satisfy the inner man and the ‘everything-for-the-apiarist’ store, Honey and the Hive, is waiting to sweeten everyone’s lives. It has all the essentials, even a small shopping centre on the outskirts with one of the chain supermarkets – sadly not one of the two I mentioned earlier – and from our few short experiences there, is replete with friendly residents. And we even found an absolutely perfect house, well within our budget, five minutes’ walk from the town centre, a delightful garden, views across the valley, a sunny south-facing aspect, and in a very presentable neighbourhood; for some reason the owner, who was also the realtor, wanted to sell so that he and his wife could move into one of the posher districts of North Asheville to be closer to town, which of course seemed nonsense to me, though I know Celine was slightly sympathetic to the idea!  All in all, to me the little town looked like an ideal place to plant one’s roots . . . or was it?

Perhaps a comparison with another apparently popular little town was called for. And thus, one rather damp, rainy day, we drove to Black Mountain 16 miles north-east of Asheville along Highway 40. Very different from Weaverville, Black Mountain with twice the population appeared to be decidedly more touristically inclined with its many eclectic shops, seemingly busier in spite of the wet weather, and with less of a “village” feel about it. It had a fair selection of eateries, many of which were closed by mid-afternoon, so we ended up eating simple wholesome fare at Trailhead Restaurant, a hangout for the locals judging from our noisy fellow diners. We did a bit of gift shopping and then took a short drive around the residential areas, but overall the town left us less than impressed and I believe all three of us – we had Celine’s brother Darius staying with us for a few days – decided  Weaverville was probably the nicer of the two.

Although house-hunting was a major reason for our visit, there was far more that we needed to learn about life in and around Asheville. We checked the countryside by taking a few trips out of the city and a short test drive along the famed Blue Ridge Parkway. For our first sortie we headed in the direction of Knoxville, Tennessee, to meet old friends for lunch. The drive was initially viewless for it does indeed rain at least a couple of days a week, bringing mist down low over the hills, and the choice of eatery was somewhat unusual, being a Russian-American roadside café called Grill 73 just off the highway of the same number, somewhere outside the town of Newport. However, the food turned out to be delicious, the company was good, and we had our first experience of driving through the Great Smoky Mountains.

Our next excursion was more focused on the surrounding countryside as we set out to drive the I-441, the one highway that goes right through the middle of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park from Cherokee to Gatlinburg. We stopped for a coffee and pee break at the Oconaluftee River Visitor Centre and then heading northwest we soon saw our first caribou resting in the woods across the river. This was when I learnt that Park Rangers are much more than good-looking gals and guys in Smoky-the-Bear hats, as I got severely reprimanded for foolishly trying to get closer for the perfect photo; perhaps the signs saying “Keep off the field when caribou are present” should have given me a clue! From there onwards the road went steadily uphill, winding more and more, and offering us some wonderful lookouts with glorious views across miles of autumnal colours as the 130+ different species of trees, for which the region gets its reputation as the most bio-diverse part of the country, fluttered their red, yellow and scarlet leaves for all to admire. Our objective was Clingman’s Dome, at an elevation of 6,643 feet, the highest mountain in the Smokies and the highest point along the Appalachian Trail (read Bill Bryson’s  “A Walk in the Woods” to learn more). Luckily it is very auto-accessible, although the parking is so limited it must be chaotic in the height of the tourist season, and once parked near the Information Centre we had an easy half-mile paved trail to take us up the final 300ft to the summit and its 45ft high observation tower from where one has a magnificent 3600 panoramic view of the surrounding mountains. It was while we were atop that tower that I began to have fears that living in Asheville or that general area, one could possibly become punch drunk with the sight of not much else than trees. A slightly scary thought to one who professes to love the idea of living in the countryside and has just started to become acquainted with the natural beauty of western North Carolina.

House-hunting is a lot easier than hunting for good pictures of the prolific local wildlife; this caribou was relatively obliging but the Park Rangers weren’t so happy!

To complete the day’s experience, we finished the drive through the Smokies finally passing through, but with no wish to stop, the singularly unattractive city of Gatlinburg, an awful concoction of the worst, most grossly touristic parts of Niagara Falls in Canada, Las Vegas, Blackpool in England and Disneyland, plus every other tourist mecca the sane savvy educated tourist tries to avoid, before eventually finding ourselves all alone on the most untravelled road imaginable. Highway 32, the link between Highway 321 and the I-40, is hardly even a two lane road for most of its length as it twists and turns its way through a myriad of lonely forested hills and valleys, the undisturbed fallen leaves carpeting the tarmac, and making me for once begin to doubt the veracity of Google’s direction finding capabilities, especially as dusk was fast approaching and memories of the 1972 film “Deliverance” started to flash through my brain accompanied by the sound of duelling banjos! But what a wonderful drive it was, ending at the Walters Hydro-Electric Plant on the pigeon River as we crossed the border back into North Carolina, joined the I-40 and drove home on normal roads once more.

On our penultimate day, we drove south-east along highway 26 to the Tryon Equestrian Centre, to satisfy brother Darius’ abiding passion for horses. We were lucky enough to visit on a day when trials for an upcoming major event were taking place, so we did see some impressive horsemanship, but otherwise the venue was fairly dead, so we soon headed back up the road to Hendersonville, another town that some people compare favourably with Asheville. Their implication is that it is perhaps a little more refined, but the town-wide power-cut that greeted us did nothing to confirm that view, the dead traffic signals causing us one rather alarming near-incident. Powerless, practically all the shops, cafés and restaurants had closed for the day, all the more unfortunate as the town was preparing itself for its annual Halloween Parade that evening. One brave lady working the afternoon shift in the Black Bear Café bucked the trend and was kept extremely busy as we and everyone else in town sought out her coffees and croissants.

A chance conversation at Tryon had elicited the advice that we really should visit Dupont State Forest whilst we were in the area of Hendersonville, and as the weather was so obliging, sunny and cool, we went back into the countryside to see Hooker Falls and Triple Falls. The 10-15 ft drop of the former is not that impressive to the casual observer but is evidently a favourite testing ground for the bravado of local kayakers and we watched a half dozen brave souls as they projected their little polyethylene craft over the edge  of the cascade, bobbing up from the maelstrom of foaming water a few seconds later. The Triple Falls however were a wholly different visual spectacle. A brisk ten minute walk up from the car-park took us to a lookout where we had a dramatic view through a break in the trees across the valley to a series of three successive cascades thundering down the rocky hillside towards us and being forced to take a sharp right turn as it reached the river below; there’s certainly no lack of water in these hills!

Triple Falls in Dupont State Forest

Another town said to be popular with retirees moving into this region, and conveniently located on our road home, is Brevard where we did our usual quick drive around and walk through as the sun started to disappear behind the surrounding hills. Less than an hour’s drive from Asheville the countryside around Brevard was less densely wooded and the airy feeling of rolling horse-country was in some ways a welcome change from the never-ending pageant of autumn colours with which we had, by then, become familiar. Unfortunately, the town itself appeared a little too much on the tranquil side, bringing on fears of early, rocking-chair induced senility, something that Asheville could never be accused of doing.

Back in our cosy Home-Exchange dwelling once more, we contemplated all the other things we had done to make our two weeks stay so entertaining: an evening of culture when we watched the Russian Ballet performing Swan Lake, delicious eats at just a sampling of the city’s eclectic mix of fine restaurants including Spanish style tapas at “Curate”, “Rhubarb” where we ate outside while enjoying the antics of a trio of hill-billy musicians playing tin-can double bass, spoons and banjo on the sidewalk, and slightly more refined dining at “Chestnut”, plenty of enjoyable walks along city streets window-shopping and admiring the many Art Deco buildings, seeing black bears, red foxes and grey wolves up close in the West NC Nature Centre, taking afternoon tea at the Grand Bohemian Hotel in Biltmore village, and seeing a wild black bear wandering peacefully through someone’s garden on the slopes of Mt Patton. And we didn’t sample any of the breweries, visited only a fraction of the many art galleries, and completely failed to find time for any of the museums or one of the many concerts on offer.

Even so late in the season, it was easy to imagine that with so much to offer, Asheville becomes very busy during peak holiday periods and so it is also understandable why so many locals complained about the traffic, parking difficulties and so forth, “compared to how it used to be”. But to someone coming from the frenetic lifestyle of Southern California the traffic was hardly noticeable, apart from the evening rush hour when there would be a few more than the usual half dozen cars waiting with you at red traffic lights and road rage was totally absent. It is a city in which the slower pace of life and the laid-back atmosphere contribute to quickly making one feel comfortable and at home. But do we still want to live there? That is a moot question, for much as we enjoyed Asheville’s many qualities, we are still unsure whether we will also enjoy its cool winters and, even more fundamental, we still need to convince ourselves that a major deracination is what our lives really need.

After a couple of weeks, I was sorry when the time came to leave Asheville behind us, but we had planned to extend our trip down into South Carolina, to visit my son Tom and his family who relocated there six months previously, and sample the delights that Charleston had to offer. This time we used the services of HomeAway.com to find ourselves a cosy little single storey duplex in Mt.Pleasant as our base for the week. About mid-way between Tom’s new home and the centre of Charleston we were well placed to both enjoy the family and get a brief taste of life in that land of reputedly hot humid summers, mosquitoes and hurricanes. November was of course the wrong time of year to experience any of those hazards, so we were able to enjoy ourselves unthreatened. Charleston is a compact city full of elegant old homes from its Colonial days and we enjoyed our peregrinations through its narrow streets, mostly on foot, but once ably supplemented by a ride in a horse-drawn carriage with a very erudite driver who delighted us with his intimate tales of the lives of the homes and owners alike. We took a few trips out of the city, to a couple of plantations, to Seabrook Island, and one day we drove down to Savannah GA, another fascinating old Colonial city. With reminders at every turn of either the ignominious defeat my British countrymen took in the War of Independence or the part the locals played in the American Civil War, history abounds everywhere. These attractions together with Charleston’s large protected harbour, and the sailing opportunities that offers, the miles of beautiful clean beaches and a cost of living considerably lower than they had left behind in SoCal, it was easy to see why Tom and his family decided to make their move. But the surrounding countryside is flat and low-lying, wetlands abound as many rivers wind their way through the swampland, making a complete contrast with where we had spent the previous fortnight. Add the three aforementioned negative threats to a peaceful life into the account and I still know which of the two I personally prefer.

A swampy lake in the grounds of Magnolia Plantation beside the Ashley River; we were surprised to learn that rice rice was this plantation’s main crop in the eighteenth century.

Undeterred by our continued indecision, Celine and I always enjoy our travels and are off again in a few months, this time for a prolonged journey to Poland, to meet family and friends and for me to experience more of Celine’s homeland. Perhaps upon our return we will ruminate further about the uprooting idea. Who knows, we might probe into the possibility of buying a second home in Poland, or even consider moving there! After all the world is our oyster and we are both still young enough to wield a sword to open it! (Thanks to Mr Shakespeare  and his “Merry Wives of Windsor”.)

SFTF – Maybe we could stay in California? Part 1: Ojai Okay?

Part one – Ojai Okay?

 The main source of my dissatisfaction with living where we do in Long Beach, California is the close proximity of Los Angeles and all that entails, never-ending urbanisation, high traffic volumes, too many people and no real countryside out of sight and sound of all the aforementioned. There are, however, pluses about life in this state, the weather being the first to come to mind and also the one that is probably foremost in Celine’s mind when we start to discuss our nest-building options. We have other reasons for not wanting to leave here in too much of a hurry, mostly centred around family, some of whom are a delight to be with as they grow up far too fast, others who we just like to be around and one who needs our ongoing support as he fights a vicious tumour. And finally one does kind of get used to the place one has become familiar with over the years.

The question, therefore, is “Can we overcome my dissatisfaction without also losing out on the pluses?” and so last week we decided to look around in our own backyard and drove a hundred miles north of here to Ojai (pronounced OH-hy), a small town on the edge of the Los Padres National Forest. The derivation of the name is variously said to be either from an indigenous word meaning nest,rather appropriate for two people who have spent the last six or seven years searching for a new place to do just that, or it may be from the Chumash word “Awha’y” meaning moonwhich also has good vibes for Celine’s name in Greek is Selene, who was the goddess of the moon. Whichever way you look at it there has to be some reason why this place came up on our radar and sceptic though I am, I’m quite happy to read the runes if what they say suits my way of thinking!

Once we got clear of the oilfields just north of Ventura, the drive along Highway 33 into Ojai Valley gave all the right vibes as we got closer to the mountains, the road changed from a dual carriageway to a single lane, the vista became greener and with less hectic traffic your scribe became calmer. We stopped for gas in Oak View, an appropriate name as we were soon to discover that Ojai Valley is so green because of all the California Oak trees which seem to abound there and soon after, the road turned eastwards as we joined Highway 150 in Mira Monte, where we noticed a large mobile-home park, which turns out to be one of four such estates in that town. There’s no doubt that on initial face value mobile homes provide an economic alternative for those, such as ourselves indeed, who cannot always afford a house in our ideal location, but I also have to wonder if they are such a wise investment when one is living at the mercy of whoever owns the land upon which that home is “parked”. I have to admit my negative feelings arise from tales I heard about such communities back in Britain, where unscrupulous landowners were quite ruthless towards their residents, and as a result many parks became quite unpleasant places to live; I think that perhaps I need to do some further research on that type of home ownership here in California, as I do begin to wonder if it could be a solution to our quandary.

Anyway, just a few miles further and we found ourselves in the middle of Ojai and as is our wont, once again we took ourselves on a little orientation tour around the town. The main street had some handsome older buildings including what we discovered later was the old Post Office Tower, a long arcade reminiscent of some we had enjoyed in Bologna during our recent trip to Italy and across the road a tree-filled public park. Traffic was light, street parking was free for a couple of hours, the views of surrounding mountains were delightful and the general atmosphere was relaxing and stress-free, a definite positive after life in the Los Angeles basin. We turned off north into the main residential neighbourhood and criss-crossed back and forth, past many attractive homes but started to wonder if we may have been a bit out of our financial depth – this was mainly after we picked up a For Sale description sheet outside one very fine old house surrounded by a large garden of mature trees that was well over $1m, somewhat similar to prices in our up-market corner of Long Beach. Nevertheless we were starting to feel pretty good about the place, a sense that was further reinforced as we drove across to the other side of the town, in and around Soule Park, a large green space beside the river good for picnics and walking the dog –  one of which we don’t actually have at the moment – through one or two other smaller neighborhoods and eventually finding ourselves at Persimmon Hill, a very exclusive estate of large elegant homes, prime horse property and beautiful views across Ojai Valley.

Returning to the main street, East Ojai Avenue, we parked in a shady corner of Westridge Midtown Market IGA’s car park to pick up some groceries (and make use of their ‘facilities’) before walking through the town centre, popping into Libbey Park and briefly watching some musicians rehearsing in Libbey Bowl where the Ojai Annual Music Festival was due to open that evening. Apparently there are plenty of things happening in Ojai during the summer including wine and beer festivals and a Lavender Festival which we hope to visit later in the month. Our post-midday tummy rumblings prompted us to drop into the Ojai Café Emporium for – in my case at least – life-saving scones, quiche and coffee none of which were very wonderful although the service was friendly enough. With the “inner man” suitably sated, we set off to find a realtor, finally meeting the very laid back Ron McCrea, the owner of Ojai Valley Real Estate who seemed decidedly underwhelmed by our price range and took great delight in showing us a map of the December 2017 Thomas fire that encircled the town like a giant horse-shoe and resulted in dense smoke covering the town for several days; very encouraging!

Unperturbed we went and looked at four possible* homes for sale (*that is they were within our price range) that we found in one of the local newspapers, all of which further deflated our enthusiasm for the town as a possible future nesting site. Which is a real shame as the town is in a beautiful setting, has a friendly, relaxed ambience – the local shops even seem to recognise the benefits of an afternoon siesta – has lots of chic artsy studios and boutiques reflecting no doubt the prosperity of many of the residents, and even has one – soon to be two if notices are to be believed – charming little theatre, plus the usual necessary, for Celine at least, offerings of yoga and zumba studios, and for me the potential of having a productive little back garden due to the supposedly very fertile soil to be found throughout the valley.

The afternoon was drawing on by the time we had seen as much as we could for the day, and not wishing to face the Los Angeles evening rush-hour traffic, we headed west instead, taking the old 150 road towards Santa Barbara, a lovely drive as the road winds its way around the edge of Lake Casitas, a man-made lake created in 1959, still somewhat lacking its full water complement in spite of recent rains, and around the edge of Los Padres National Forest, a vast untamed area with plenty of hiking trails and, we understand, lots of wildlife. It was nearly dusk as we arrived in downtown Santa Barbara and checked baggageless into the Holiday Inn Express hotel, an older building fairly typical of much of the city’s traditional architecture, before venturing back out to find a healthy supper in The Natural Café, having very little energy left for much else. The next morning we enjoyed strolling up State St before checking out, as unladen as we had arrived, taking to the road again and spending an interesting couple of hours walking around The Old Mission, the only one of the original thirty plus Californian missions built by the Franciscan order that still has an active community of monks living and working there. This was followed by a short detour among the opulent homes in the Eucalyptus Hill neighbourhood, just confirming for ourselves that we certainly could not afford to live in Santa Barabara, before the very agreeable drive along highway 101 taking us back into that great, overly busy, exceedingly overly populated megalopolis that is Los Angeles, and thence slowly home among the throngs of Friday afternoon rush-hour traffic.

Is Ojai okay? Well it is certainly a delightful small country town which ticks a lot of our boxes, but I fear we may be too late to bag ourselves a bargain. So the search continues, perhaps we’ll head south next time, and try our luck a little closer to the Mexican border . . .

SFTF – Closer to home – Canadian memories and discovering North Carolina, Pt.2

Discovering North Carolina

          A week in Ontario reliving some of my past and also doing the tourist thing in Toronto proved to be enough to convince me that great as it is see old friends and revisit old stomping grounds, such journeys back into one’s previous life serve only to accentuate what has been lost and do nothing to satisfy the inner need to make the best of one’s future. So having satisfied that nagging curiosity that comes from always looking back over my shoulder, flying away with Celine to once again discover new lands was an exciting prospect.

Our destination from Toronto Pearson International Airport was Asheville, North Carolina via RDU, the airport shared by the Research Triangle cities of Raleigh and Durham in the Piedmont Region. Bad weather along the east of the country having delayed our flight for thirty-six hours and thick clouds still hiding much of the country beneath us, only clearing as we crossed over to the sunny side of the Allegheny Mountains, then getting our first glimpse of the wonderful green countryside of the Eastern States that is such a welcome contrast to the vast stretches of arid yellow and brown scenery to be seen when approaching the Southern Californian megalopolis we call home, combined to breath new life into both of us and somehow we knew this was going to be a destination with a difference.

The idea of a 240 mile drive after getting up at five in the morning wasn’t a great prospect, my mind still thinking in terms of overcrowded multi-lane freeways, both California and Ontario style, so finding us cruising smoothly along the enjoyably ‘not-too-busy’, two-lane highway that was Interstate 40 proved to be just the relaxing panacea I hadn’t dared to hope for. The temperature was agreeably up in the low eighties, Toronto having been a little on the cool side for us both, and we soon left the busyness of North Carolina’s technical hub to find ourselves out on the open road, driving westwards through a seemingly endless corridor of healthy green trees in their early blush of spring freshness. After an hour or so we turned off the highway to take a look at Winston-Salem, a city that CBS MoneyWatch had listed among the ten best places to retire in the United States[1]. It wasn’t a bad looking place, but being the first town we had visited in that part of the country we had nothing to compare it with. We were getting hungry and eventually finding a large shade-tree to park beneath next to a small park in a fairly gracious part of town, we satisfied the inner man with the sandwiches we had bought in the airport, while we contemplated our first morning in the not-quite-deep south.

From thereon the scenery got better and better as the highway climbed steadily, slowly worming its way into the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains until we passed a sign announcing we had reached the Eastern Continental Divide at something over 2,600 feet above sea level. It was all downhill as we coasted the last few miles past the small towns of Ridgeville and Swannanoa into Asheville where we had to climb once more to our accommodation, a cute little old chalet snuggled away among the treetops near the crest of “Town Mountain”. It was an auspicious start to our introduction to the Carolinas.

We spent the next three days exploring with our eyes open for a possible nest relocation. Our immediate neighborhood comprised a variety of homes perched on both sides of the steep hill, as well as along the ridge where the locals had great views of the town to the west and the rolling tree-clad hills in every other direction. Our chalet was one of those that were clinging to the hillside which rose up directly behind us and dropped precipitously into the woods below us, such that the front half of the building was supported by steel pillars which disappeared into the undergrowth several feet below our little balcony. We quickly came to the conclusion that if we were going to find a property to purchase, the building would need to have all four corners planted firmly on terra firma – and the ‘garden’ would need to be level enough to comfortably push a wheelbarrow up and down. However, one positive benefit of such a location soon became self-evident as we got our day’s exercise carrying a small load of basic groceries back up from the local store only half a mile away but also a long, long way below us. After spending half a day sitting in the car on our drive from Raleigh-Durham, we had an urgent need to stretch our legs and headed downhill soon after our arrival, luckily meeting some friendly locals who pointed us in the right direction for the shops – our inclination would have been to turn left at the next junction which would have doubled the length of our trek, let alone the degree of hill climbing!

An amusing little incident occurred as we were nearing the bottom of the hill. A rather flashy looking gentleman of colour with a full set of bright gold teeth in his mouth, pulled up next to us in his large BMW, rolled down his window and promptly proceeded to chastise me for not walking on the outside of my wife when there was no sidewalk.

“My mother always said that the lady walked on the side of the bush? Weren’t you brought up properly?”

he blustered. Well he was maybe only about forty years younger than me, and I had of course been brought up to do exactly as he was instructing, so naturally I felt somewhat ashamed to have had my temporary aberration so vociferously pointed out to me. But we had to laugh as he drove off and wondered whether all the locals were so obsessed with correct etiquette!

Downtown Asheville was on the other side of the “mountain”. So next morning, after revelling in our surroundings as we ate breakfast serenaded by a chorus of wild birds and bathed in the leaf-filtered sunlight, we abandoned shanks’ pony for the less healthy motorised option. As is our wont, our first visit to any new town is to cruise the streets, getting our bearings and a feel for what the place has to offer. Asheville’s historic centre initially presents itself as being unpretentious, compact, very green, and well endowed with older buildings, many from the Art Deco period. Our car-borne meanderings initially failed to reveal an obvious town centre, or even a main street when, feeling somewhat disappointed after having heard so many good things about the town, we lucked upon the local Whole Foods store where we consoled ourselves European style with coffees and patisseries. Trader Joe’s was also just around the corner which really made it feel familiar territory. It may sound silly to born and bred Americans, but for us relatively new immigrants, after so much recent travel to distant lands where nothing was the same as over’ome, it seemed strange to realise that even though we were once again a couple of thousand miles away from home, this time we wouldn’t have to change our shopping habits.

What we really wanted to see was where freewheeling retirees such as ourselves might live in this interesting town, so armed with some local knowledge of the neighbourhoods from the pastry lady in Whole Foods we decided to explore the up-market Montford area, another historic district. Only five minutes drive from the city centre with a handsome small park (Montford Park) at its heart, this lush green paradise built on gently rolling hills was replete with many beautiful, and rather expensive-looking homes, each one set in an ample garden. We didn’t see any For Sale signs which in itself is a good indication that the residents aren’t looking to decamp, but not very promising to potential house-hunters; still if we ever decide to move to Asheville this would be one of the first areas we would start looking however financially optimistic we might appear. We did our usual thing of driving along every little street and were somewhat surprised to find a contrasting small estate of far less prosperous homes, identical wooden prefabs all standing on steel piles, backing onto the northern end of the area, somewhat resembling the small villages one would find outside the grounds of stately homes in times gone by, built for the staff, gardeners and chauffeurs. And this was also very positive in a way as even if we could just about afford to purchase one of those other fine houses, we have no wish to end up in an elitist, snobbish community with no sense of social equality. Indeed we believe one of the more attractive aspects of Asheville life to be its broad appeal to a wide spectrum of society. In the afternoon we decided to explore downtown Asheville on foot and to discover for ourselves the eclectic mix of artsy stores and boutiques, cafes and restaurants for all tastes, with hardly a single nation-wide store to be seen, that gave the town its reputation for being such a pleasant place to live. As the sun went down we drove down the valley, through the more commercial end of town and past an impressive looking medical complex which could bode well for our approaching old age, to Biltmore Village, originally constructed to accommodate the workers building Mr Vanderbilt’s “Biltmore Estate” in the 1890s. We thought it rather “twee” and bore a strong resemblance to a retirement community, something we aren’t quite ready for just yet!

We had to return along the same route the next day as we wanted to sample another of the sumptuous residences of the fabulously rich American business barons of late Victorian times –  Casa Loma in Toronto having merely whetted our appetite for such architecture. The Vanderbilt who owned Biltmore Estate had done his research well and the end product of his dreams was a fine mish-mash of French Chateaux and English stately homes[2]. The building’s exterior is certainly handsome and it has lots of fine interior woodwork, the octagonal sunken Winter Garden being especially splendid, but some of the rather heavy Portuguese and American furniture detracts from the delicacy of the architecture and gives the house a less refined appearance compared with the European homes that inspired the design. Nevertheless it was a well spent three hours that we took to walk through, and that was without exploring the extensive grounds, omitted on account of heat and general old age fatigue! The icing on the cake however was the five mile drive through the estate to reach the exit, a melange of mixed woodlands, a stream and a river, a couple of small boating lakes, various farm buildings and finally, a field full of Canadian geese.

Still trying to see as much of Asheville and its environs as we could in our lamentably short stay, on our way back from Bilton we took a “short” detour to the little village of Black Mountain, recommended to us by a charming lady in the bookstore where we had stopped to pick up a few cards and gifts, as being a much nicer place to live than Asheville itself. About fifteen miles north east of Asheville, it turned out to be a bit further than we expected and when we got there we were disappointed to find that it wasn’t as attractive as we had been led to believe and, indeed, appeared to be rather high on the “Hicksville” scale. Perhaps it was just the lower cost of housing there that generated the suggestion which was obviously given with good intent. Anyway the next morning being our last, after enjoying another breakfast with the North Carolina sunshine seeping through the curtain of green leaves surrounding us, and being serenaded by the songs of the throng of small birds easily defeating the distant hum of traffic on the freeway in the valley below, we explored a couple more of the local neighbourhoods before heading off towards Charlotte. Lakeview Park and North Asheville in the general area of Beaver Lake are about a ten minute drive from downtown. The houses in the immediate vicinity of the Asheville Country Club were every bit as posh as their address implied but for those of us for whom the close proximity of a golf course is not a pre-requisite for residential desirability, there seemed to be a good choice of potentially liveable properties and in a very pleasant environment. Grace, where we stopped on the road back into town is another quite acceptable small neighborhood that seemed to have a sense of community, and is where we discovered “The Fresh Market”, a store that seemed to live up to its name and where we met with Linda and Josh, two of the staff who couldn’t have been more friendly. If there was only one very positive feeling we took away with us about Asheville, it would have to be the helpful, friendly vibes we sensed from everybody we met during our stay, something that is lacking in so many larger towns and cities.

One last drive through downtown, passing a protest by teachers, parents and pupils against education cuts, a perennial problem in our capitalistic society, and we were on the road again. Having left ourselves just six days to get a feel for North Carolina, we had decided that twenty four hours in Charlotte, the most populous city in the state, should be included in our itinerary. We opted for a more southerly route on highways 26 and 85, taking a slow detour through Hendersonville – nice main street but otherwise uninspiring – and eventually arrived at our luxury boutique hotel, “The Ivey’s Hotel”, on North Tryon Street in the heart of Uptown Charlotte, our little birthday splurge. The city is certainly quite impressive with plenty of very smart new high-rise architecture, clean streets with avenues of mature trees and a nice little park. The city has witnessed a lot of America’s coming-of-age history, and it is now the home to several large multi-national businesses and banks reflecting its status as one of the country’s major financial centres, the logos of Wells Fargo and Bank of America in particular to be seen everywhere. We only had time for a short walkabout in the evening, but the next day we toured around a couple of the city’s more liveable neighbourhoods, starting with up-market Plaza Midwood in the vicinity of the Charlotte Country Club and ending with more economical looking North Davidson (better known locally as “NoDa”). Our conclusion was that if one had to live and work in a large city, you could certainly do a whole lot worse than Charlotte, where it was possible to find very nice properties within a short drive of downtown – or Uptown as it is called in Charlotte. However, all said and done it is still a very large conurbation and certainly not the type of place your scribe would want to live out his retirement.

Thus, with our short vacation nearly coming to an end, we spent our last afternoon driving the more southerly route back to Raleigh-Durham airport avoiding the major freeways and taking NC24 and NC27 through towns with interesting names like Locust and Carthage and cutting across the edge of Uwharrie National Forest. The scenery was a patchwork of rolling hills, small farmsteads among the fields between the many townships, and at the roadside hundreds of churches of all denominations. Everywhere was very green and healthy-looking, the weather was sunny and hot, up to 90degF in some places, and our freeway-free meander gave us a brief but interesting insight into life in the rural Carolinas. We arrived in Raleigh in time to grab a coffee and take a brief walk in what appears to be a fairly modest city compared to Charlotte, before we had to return our rental car and check-in at our overnight airport hotel, in readiness for a crack-of-dawn flight the next day. As we waited for our shuttle bus driver to wake up, our final early morning chat with yet another friendly local, the overnight hotel concierge, provided us with a slightly less rose-tinted view of life in the Carolinas.

“Yeah, I have a gun at home, all my neighbours have guns and some of them even wear them openly when they go shopping for groceries. I hope I never have to use mine.”

and when Celina asked him why he had a gun himself, he simply answered,

“It’s our right!”.

He was in his sixties, an Afro-American who had started out life the hard way on the streets of Brooklyn and seemed completely oblivious to all the bigotry that we hear about in the media. I like to think his optimistic outlook on life was justified but there is always that undercurrent that seems to permeate through society in this country that makes one cautious about making a move such as we would be making if we ever decide that Asheville is the ideal nesting place for us. Not perhaps the best thought to go away with after having found such a delightful corner of the world.

[1]Nancy F Smith (2012-03-08). “The Ten Best Places to retire”. Finance.yahoo.com

[2]George Washington Vanderbilt ll was the youngest son of William Henry Vanderbilt who amassed a huge fortune from steamboats, railroads and other such lucrative enterprises. He commissioned a prominent New York architect, Richard Morris Hunt, who visited, amongst others, the French chateaux Chenonceau and Chambord, and Waddesdon Manor in England. Celine and I visited all three in the last few years which added an extra dimension to our impression of Biltmore. Of  particular interest to me was the use of a load bearing steel framework beneath the stone exterior, a design feature which was a very new innovation when Waddesdon Manor was constructed some ten years earlier.

SFTF – Closer to home – Canadian memories and discovering North Carolina. . . (Pt.1)

Reliving Canada

After all those journeys to Europe and a couple of forays into Central and South America, Celine and I thought we should give this great continent of North America at least a chance to show its mettle. Son Number One recently took the bold step of moving his family from south California to South Carolina and my brother-in-law, always on the lookout for value-for-money housing, kept saying how wonderful the Carolinas appeared to be. Then someone else mentioned how popular the little city of Asheville NC was becoming, what a wonderful climate it had and the natural beauty of the surrounding countryside. Thus with the seed of an idea to travel east well and truly sown, an invitation to an 80thbirthday party in my old hometown of Niagara-on-the-Lake in Ontario gave us just the catalyst we needed to start planning another little jaunt, one week reliving my old memories, and a second week exploring places completely new to both of us.

April beside Lake Ontario was never a guarantee of warm weather and North Carolina was a complete unknown so we packed assuming we might see some snow initially and would perhaps need a little sunblock later on. Climate Change was on our side this time and we were spared that final wintry blast that I remembered of old. Indeed there was sunshine enough to produce a small rainbow in the mist of the Niagara Falls, though small icebergs, remnants of the heavy freeze-up of recent months, were still making the death-defying leap over the edge and a lace of ice and snow decorated the fallen rocks along the gorge below the falls. The city of Niagara Falls continues to grow, with new hotels lining the edge of the escarpment above the never-ending crowds of tourists jostling for position along the railing, each one hoping to catch the perfect selfie to join the millions of other nearly identical pictures on Facebook.

Visiting the past can be painful and I was unsure what emotions I would feel being so close to the house where I had watched my sons grow into manhood, and which still contained so many memories of our past family life together. But when we pulled up outside what had once been my driveway and found no-one at home, we happily wandered around the old estate and admired the changes made since my departure, as I realised that the past is simply a part of what makes me the person I am today and is something I should enjoy without fear. We even had afternoon tea with my old neighbours as if nothing had really changed!

A few days staying in Burlington with old friends also helped to soften the experience and readied us for what was a novelty for me, three days of sightseeing in Toronto. It’s funny how one can live close to a large city for so long only to realise some years later how little one actually knows about the place. My excuse as far as Toronto is concerned is that I was always far too busy trying to make a business work whilst raising a family, looking after a very old house and tending the couple of acres it sat on. But the real truth is I don’t have a great love of cities, full-stop. What I do have however, and share with Celine, is an enjoyment of museums, art galleries and general wandering around new surroundings, and so it was with some surprise that I realised what a nice place Toronto is to do those things. When I lived in Canada people often told me that the city was really a conglomeration of small villages and didn’t seem like a big city at all. Well, times have changed and downtown Toronto most definitely has a big city feel about it, what with the enormous amount of new and very high high-rise building that has taken place in the last few decades. Wanting to be ‘nice and central’ we had found ourselves an AirBnB apartment on the 35thfloor of one of the many ‘little’ skyscrapers that have sprung up, this one being at the junction of Front and John Streets. Living at such a great height was an unusual experience for both of us. The promised wonderful views were fine if you like looking at other tall buildings, though they were indeed rather beautiful when lit up at night; the ‘beautiful lake vista’ however was only visible if you knew exactly where to look and between which buildings it could be sighted; but it was well placed, ten minutes walk from Union Station, five from the Rogers Centre where the Blue Jays were just starting the new baseball season, and even less to the CN Tower from which one does indeed get a superb 360degree vista of the lakeside city. Sadly the Leafs had just got knocked out of the end-of-season playoffs so I didn’t get a chance to stomp and holler my encouragement to that ‘great’ ice-hockey team that we followed with such enthusiasm when the boys were growing up as young Canadians.

Still museums are our thing. To start off our three days as tourists in the city we spent an afternoon enjoying the fine art collection in the Art Gallery of Ontario. I particularly appreciated the works of the Group of Seven, artists who decided that Canada needed its own art to dignify its place in the world; and we both liked the renovated Dundas Street façade designed by Frank Gehry – who went on to design the titanium-clad Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao amongst other great buildings. Our walk back from there took us through Toronto’s China Town, an area still dominated by two storey homes with small front and back gardens, where trees flourished and greenery prevailed, enabling us to understand those past comments about the neighbourliness of Toronto life. We stopped in the “Lucky Moose Food Mart” for one or two basics, enjoyed an extremely delicious vegetarian burger at “Fresh”, and then found “Fresh and Wild”, a well-stocked organic grocery which answered all of Celine’s wildest foodie dreams. And thus suitably fortified and our larder replete, we took a ride up to the top of the CN Tower to enjoy the sunset and the lights of the city coming on as darkness fell.

For whatever reason, the next day we decided to forego another museum visit and take ourselves to Toronto’s largest tourist attraction by visitor numbers, namely the Eaton Centre, now no longer owned and operated by the eponymous department store chain started by Timothy Eaton in the 19thcentury, but by the faceless multi-billion dollar commercial real estate operation Cadillac Fairview Corporation. Well I guess everyone has to go shopping sometime and to do so in a building partly inspired by a galleria in Milan, Italy, is a better way to do it than most. And luckily for us, Lucky Brand had a sale on, and they had some different lines from our local store in Long Beach CA, so our shopping expedition was not wasted.

Our third day in Toronto was meant to be our last and we opted to visit Casa Loma, a Gothic Revival style mansion, or faux castle, constructed for financier Sir Henry Pellatt at the start of the 20thcentury, and which eventually helped in that gentleman’s financial downfall when he found how much tax he owed to the city fathers. Totally pretentious, it is nonetheless a fascinating example of one man showing his feathers off to his fellow citizens and then falling out of the tree, and occupied us gainfully for another few hours on what had turned out to be a rather drizzly cold wet day. Thank goodness for Uber when the weather proves uncooperative; in spite of the heavy traffic we were back downtown in plenty of time to collect our bags from the safe hands of the concierge in the International Hotel and to take the UP train to Lester Pearson Airport for our evening flight to Raleigh-Durham in North Carolina.

But it was not to be . . . Bad weather had totally disrupted flights up and down the east coast, including ours, and we found ourselves spending the night in the fairly decent Hampton Inn and Suites Hotel adjacent to the runway we should have been taking off from, and rebooked on a flight for not the following morning but the day after. So Saturday saw us not making our way to our mountain top retreat in Asheville, but with time on our hands to do one more tourist thing in somewhat cooler and much less greener Toronto. We took the UP train back into town and walked the mile or so up to the Royal Ontario Museum where we spent most of our stay fascinated by The “Royal Arts of Jodhpur”. Mainly a history of the Rathore Dynasty, with lots of Indian art through the centuries, this temporary exhibit gave us a marvellous insight into the privileged life of India’s very rich and powerful, aided and abetted by British colonialism of course. Otherwise the Museum was only so-so, not very well organised and nothing of very much interest to a pair of well-travelled Europeans who have already seen, if not all of it, a lot of it. The ride back to the UP station at the end of the afternoon was a less than wonderful experience as the Uber driver seemed to have more interest in his passengers than in watching the road. Still at least we had the cab to ourselves, instead of sharing it, as we did a couple of days previously, with the rather frightening ‘gentleman’ who smelled of goodness knows what, and caused our very dapper driver to apologise profusely for his presence once he had left; a good reason for us to avoid shared rides in the future.

A final journey with UP to the airport and one more night in the Hampton Hotel and the next morning we were safely on our way, flying above the rather cloudy skies of north-eastern USA to explore another state, of which I will tell more in my next post.

SFTF 2018 – Let’s have just as much fun in 2019, but without the stress!

At every year’s end we are all encouraged to analyse the year gone by and then make resolutions to do things even better in the coming year. Well I think Celine and I would be hard pressed to have a better year in 2019, but I am quite sure we can have just as much fun!!

2018 was decidedly busy for us with a couple of long trips, one ‘down under’ and  the other back ‘across the pond’. There’s no yellow brick road guiding travellers to the Oz we visited, but it is a country with a lot of magic, and being predominantly populated by migrants from the ‘old country’, it is an easy place for Anglo-Saxons – and their English-speaking wives – to find their way and feel at home. Crossing the Atlantic however, is a very different kind of journey and however many times we have both done it, we never cease to be surprised by what we find in dear old continental Europe.

We both enjoy travelling, as much for the adventure of discovering new places as for the enjoyment of returning to old pastures. Or so we thought when we planned our trip to Italy this autumn. “Let’s have a look at those regions of the country we haven’t seen before, for surely they will be every bit as good as the Italy we already know!” Lesson number one: Do not assume, and don’t take the recommendations of others at face value. Lesson number two: There may well be good reasons why one part of a country is so much more popular than another.

Lesson number three is a harder one to swallow. Just because you have enjoyed a country several times before as a tourist, does not automatically justify the corollary “hence it must be a really great place to live”. [If you haven’t already read my previous post “SFTF Italia o Portogallo Pt.5 Decisions, decisions . . .or rather a lack of same!” you may be wondering what leads me to this conclusion.] My migration to Long Beach CA to start a new life with Celine has some relevance to this lesson. My few short visits for various family gatherings prior to taking that step totally failed to educate me about the Californian lifestyle. I followed my heart in making the decision, and have absolutely no regrets in that regard. However, my previous habitats of semi-rural England, lakeside dwelling in Canada, plus a couple of short sojourns in hot dusty Kuwait and tropical Nigeria, in no way prepared me for a life in the seemingly endless megalopolis that surrounds Los Angeles. So I have to admit our recent peregrinations have been prompted by my wish to return to a lifestyle more suited to my ‘needs’ and, happily, Celine has been a more than willing fellow traveller but with slightly different expectations.

Perhaps with the exception of our trip to Australia, which was very much an adventure for its own sake, the journeys we have taken in recent years have all had the underlying goal of finding that perfect place to build our new nest. Unfortunately we have not been as successful as we might have hoped, for a lot of reasons which I do not intend to reiterate here. The result is that we are now having second thoughts about the whole idea of re-establishing ourselves in Europe. Indeed we have resolved to go forego foreign travel for at least the next twelve months and give more consideration to staying in the USA. After all we have family here on both sides of the continent, including especially four delightful grandchildren whose growing pains we enjoy being part of; and its going to be several more years before they will be joining the ranks of young globe-trotters able to visit us in far off places.

So what are we looking for???

Our combined needs and wishes for the perfect nesting site make for a complicated conundrum; collectively they fall into two main categories, location and site features. Location involves geography, climate, the natural environment, access to local shops, markets, cultural pursuits, fitness classes, health facilities, and these days more than ever, local political and social agendas. The features of a site that are relevant to our search are all the usual things, condition, age, size, garden, garage, basement, neighbourhood,  and so forth.

As to the specifics of our particular ideal nest specification, we would love to find a well maintained two/three bedroom home with enough space for a “granny annex” and with a view of nature at its most glorious. This should be within a small garden to keep flowers on the table, fresh veggies in the diet and green fingers out of mischief. And to nurture our creative selves we would need space for a studio for my artistic wife, a garage or workshop for yours truly and of course . . . a study . We want to be  close by a fair-sized town and yet not surrounded by dreary suburbanisation. Weatherwise we are conscious that advancing years and several decades of living in sunny south California have, between them, made the prospect of us accepting a life with temperatures regularly hovering around freezing point insupportable. At the same time we would like to enjoy once more the beauty of changing seasons, but without the need to shovel snow on anything more than a very occasional and rare basis. Geographically we remain undecided whether mountains or the sea are the more desirable background to a contented life; both have their virtues but an unspoiled view of the ocean nearly always incurs an undesirable financial penalty. The potential for hurricanes, severe flooding and uncomfortably high humidity for prolonged periods in the summer are also things we can do without.

The next question is where on earth, or, now we have for the moment taken Europe out of the bucket, at least where on this vast North American continent, can we find such an ideal place? California is fine in many ways but by virtue of its, in my opinion, highly over-rated climate is on the whole over-priced. Moving further north to Oregon or Washington appeals to the nature-lover in me but the prospect of numerous days of wet rainy and/or misty weather holds no charm for Celine. Continuing up the map and returning to my second homeland of Canada, in particular the coastal areas of British Columbia, ‘God’s Country’ to its devotees, is probably a non-starter for much the same reasons, although the prospect of a better national health service, and an increased pension for me, are quite appealing. Large mountain ranges and barren deserts harbour the extremes of weather that both of us wish to avoid so that would seem to eliminate a few more of the Western states; however, Colorado and perhaps some parts of Arizona stay on our must-visit list. The vast section commonly called ‘middle-America’ is a region about which I know almost nothing, apart from the weather that people experience there, and we don’t see many billboards, or read many articles, suggesting that the place we are looking for might be found there.

So we are left with the Eastern seaboard of which I have some brief experience, having lived on that side of the continent for many years and taken vacations with my family to New England and the Outer Banks of North Carolina. I also recently read Bill Bryson’s “A Walk in The Woods” which makes a good case for the Appalachian Mountains, and as I write, my son Tom and his family are considering a move to South Carolina. Keeping well away from Washington DC and New York and all that those two great cities imply in their own fashion, we are left with the pretty countryside of New England – too cold in the winter, Florida, Georgia and perhaps South Carolina – hurricane territory and far too humid in the summer, plus North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky and the Virginias, all of which have some beautiful countryside.

I have no idea what all this is leading to, and even less idea about when and where we will find that idyllic nesting ground. So for the next few months we will plan nothing, keep a careful eye on TrustedHousesitters.com and HomeExchange.com and see what, if anything, turns up trumps. It would also be a good time for me to get back to writing my ‘memoirs’, which was, after all, the original reason I set up this blog site. And then at the back of my mind I still have the feeling that we should go and explore a bit deeper into Portugal, though not the Algarve, and have we really rejected Central America in its entirety!!

Any and all suggestions will be gratefully received and carefully considered. Thanks for reading and I will keep writing. See you again soon!