Coming ashore wreaks havoc with sailors' routines. Reading, rowing, sailing, blogging, doing nothing -- all out the window. We have a car, so I can just up and go somewhere when the whim strikes, and there's a washer and dryer, so I can fling in a load of lightly soiled, not-even-salty clothes whenever. And there's company from near and far, and my Dad is by nearly every day, and other family and friends, and work to be done on my sister's house. So if that's not enough to keep us on the run, we decided we needed a place of our own.
Lo and behold, we hunted around and found a cottage in the tiny, venerable community of Lake Annis (yup, heard the jokes, let it go) and after some waffling, we bought it. There's a beautiful wild yard, the lake is a minute away, and there's all kinds of birds, and hurray, we're out of the coastal fog belt. Randy and I looked at a lot of properties, both lots and cottages and houses, and after seeing a lot of awful sad and bad places (a function of our price range), this place looked like we could turn it into "home." Home ashore, anyway.
So that did in what we had for leisure time. The place was built in 1962, and that means panelling, and lots of it. So I've been priming and painting the walls, and will soon be painting the tired tiled floors. The acoustic tiles on the ceiling are staying for a while - at least I don't have to paint ceilings. There will be some challenges - there's a great two-bedroom apt downstairs, but unattended leaks mean that there's mould and damp, so that's first on the list for a major fix. Rip it all out, and next year, when it's dry and clean, we'll renovate and make a great spot for visitors. Upstairs, mostly paint, a kitchen renovation, and then we can unpack boxes and take a look at all the stuff we haven't seen for four years. I wonder if we'll still need or want most of it? Oh, I think so. You can only do so much shedding of stuff, and now I'm haunting Frenchy's for curtains and domestics bits.
Then! back to Nancy Dawson at the beginning of November. We should be more than ready for some warmth, sun and more of that great routine: reading, rowing, sailing, blogging, doing nothing. Blogs will get more regular: Randy doesn't really like me doing anything with a paintbrush on the boat.
See below for photos. Click on them to enlarge or if you don't have your bifocals on. I'm waiting for my new ones to arrive in the mail.
