A few photos...

We're really pleased with our new dining room suite.  We bought two extra chairs and there is a 24" leaf so can seat 6 as it is and 8-10 with the leaf.  We became quite attached to the hutch that was already here so felt lucky to find something that matched up.  And notice...there are two armchairs!  Only right don't you think?

 Our two authentic mid-century chairs that were already here.  I think I'll have to go in the aqua tones for carpet and walls to build on these.

Dining room suite...looking forward to many meals with good friends.

 Master bedroom.  Lots of storage in the dressers and the huge wall to wall closets on the other side.

 Guest bedroom with the same King size bed as ours....we will be spoiling our guests.

 We'll keep the sofa and recliner for a while.  The TV will go when we come back in Nov....just can't do everything at once!

What a whirl...

Well,  it's been quite something getting everything organized here.  Photos will be coming soon...as requested!  We had our dining room suite delivered tonight...very pleased with it.  Desk and my mobile "art studio" comes tomorrow (Both bought at Angel View Thrift Store and they'll be taking away the old dining suite and three rickety chairs.  We love our King bed so bought another one for the guest room so our guests will be very comfortable.  Salvaging quite a bit and also getting rid of a lot of junk and lots of clean up.  Very helpful to have a dumpster for "Spring cleaning" available for two weeks from the Homeowner's Association.  They really know how to do things down here.

Lots of paper work with changing addresses and making sure all bills are on track to get notified and paid.  Pretty much got it all sorted out.  Got various repairs organized and some done already that the very particular Home Inspector recommended.   Some,  with a safety concern were already done as part of the sale agreement.  You've got to love California for all their safety and checks and balances.

We did have a great lunch at Los Casuelas today and are having some time to relax...good thing because moving from Victoria will be quite a whirl as well.

Celebrating at Wang's in the Desert with our new neighbours

Well,  John,  as you can see we were not celebrating with milk...

Another great meal at Wangs and especially loved the soft shell crab and some special scallops we got. We dined outside and they had the misters going to keep people cool.  Just perfect...I love sitting out on a balmy warm night and being misted!

Lots of work but things are coming together with our new home.

P.S.  Heard it was hailing in Victoria

 Marvin and Jim

 Erna and me

All of us.

SOLD!

Victoria's been good to us but we are thrilled to become Vancouverites again.

Celebration time!

Starting off as a wonderful day...

Sunny blue skies and songbirds singing up a storm this morning.  Had dinner outside last night and sat outside until 10pm looking at the stars...very balmy.

Now off for a swim.  Today will be an extremely good day or a terrible day depending on whether the "subject to's " are taken off our house.

Fingers crossed.

It's a wonderful world....despite the windy welcome

Monday,  we arrived in Palm Springs 20 minutes early because of incredible winds.  Great to arrive early and not so great to have this wind on the ground.  Couldn't jump into the pool...too windy and too much debris.  And very disappointing that our land phone didn't work after being assured by Verizon that it would.

After much frustration and not being able to get it hooked up we cancelled it.  Now we will have a land phone connected to our Time-Warner Cable & Internet and can have a 6 month vacation stop so all better in the end.  But,  my iPHone started doing weird things like going immediately to voice mail (Richard,  your solution worked a bit but still a problem so probably have to visit the Apple Store in El Paseo...we love going to the Elephant Bar for lunch so no real problem!)

Erna and Marvin let us use their Internet and their cell phones so made things so much easier...merci beaucoup!  You are such great neighbours!

Today, we got cable and internet and Thursday will get the phone.  The manager of Canyon Sands is great and let us use her phone to do a number of important things.  We are well taken care of but coming on all the stress and hassle of getting our house up for sale and moving to another apartment...well...it was all a bit much.

But,  a beautiful calm day today and we got lots of stuff we needed including a deluxe king size bed.  It must only be in the United States that you can order a bed in the afternoon and have it set up and delivered by 6pm?  Wow!  And we bought these fabulous Egyptian cotton 1,000 thread count sheets for a fraction of what we'd pay in Canada.  That's something I really appreciate in having our own place...to have stuff that is important to us like great beds and bedding.  Staying in first class hotels no problem,  but we so often travel in short term renal accommodation and things aren't quite as we would like them.  But then,  the south of France and Palms Springs make up for a lot regardless.

Now...we have it all!

Paintings up and a bit more furniture....beginning to look like home

Offer on house!

We got an offer on our house and we have accepted it.  Subject to the usual stuff but should know next Friday for sure.  I think it's the right buyer...single retired woman who also wants to buy some of our furniture.  She'll fit right into our neighbourhood with almost everyone retired.   It was so depressing not to sell the house that year and constant comments like didn't like the floor plan,  needs updating,  too small, etc.  She's sold her home in Fairfield...I think actually someone at the college bought her house.  Small world if that's the case.

Well....fingers crossed!

From Richard:

Haha! What wonderful news! Small world, indeed. Nice to see the right buyer snap it up instead of a greedy bulldozer-wielding developer. 

And so are we....didn't feel great about subjecting the neighbourhood to that mess and noise.

P.S. A colleague of Jim's did buy our buyer's house.

What a wonderful present from a very dear friend!

Just after picking up a depressing email giving feedback from a showing of our house,  Puralator called to deliver this fabulous quilt Kerry made.  What a lift!  Kerry,  it's just gorgeous and now I will feel I am being transported to France every night when I put my head on these pillowcases.

We just love it....thank you so much!  You are a very talented quilter and a dear dear friend.

Got moved in late Monday afternoon...

Our manager, Paul,  and a friend moved us in Monday so Monday was a busy busy day packing up after having some busy busy days getting our house ready for sale.  (BTW,  now "live"today  on Marc Owen-Flood's website...and 6 showings later on today).

We're pretty much settled in and it's great to see that we have lots of space now for stuff we thought we'd never be able to take if we sold our house...like the piano.  I've made a neat studio space in our very large living room.  Our current table looks a little lonely at the moment.  Jim's got his desk, recliner and the single bed in the second bedroom.  There will also be room for the queen size at some point.

Can't really see it in the photos but fabulous views of my freighters and we also get a great view of the planetarium.   Looking forward to getting my paintings up and doing some painting...that will have to be after Palm Springs.

For Alistair

We received the very sad news today that Alan's son,  Alistair,  died this morning.  Our hearts go out to his wife, Jenny,  Alan and Susan and all his friends and family.   We only met Alistair a few times but he was a very special person and touched our lives.  Jim wrote this to Alistair a month or so ago.  

Dear Alistair,

Janice and I were just fondly reminiscing about our few visits with you, and it occurred to me how important a role people you only meet a few times in a lifetime can play when you are all, what the French call, “sympa”so I thought I should tell you. How many times have we met? Three or four, I think, and yet the memories of those meetings turn up surprisingly often and never fail to give us a smile. Our last visit was when we were staying at Chelsea Cloisters in London, and you agreed to break bread and quaff a pint with us at very pleasant pub in Sloan Square, from which we proceeded on foot together to our temporary local near our hotel. We had a great time until near- closing and had to set off to our hotels—a block or two for us and a considerable distance on foot for you.

And how can I forget the hospitality you and Jenny showed us that night in your charming first home in York? You and your mates invited this cricket-innocent colonial to join them in a game of patio cricket. Not realizing that you were only supposed to block the tennis ball, I lashed out with a roundhouse swing and cracked you on the fingers. To this day you probably have hairline fractures, but rather than calling me a clumsy oaf, you smoothly blew on your smarting fingers and promptly dubbed me, “Smooth hands Jim,” a nickname which I am proud to own, even if it’s only an inside joke.

The other time we met was in your current home in York, bigger, and equally full of human warmth. We dined there, met your friends there, and after a delightful visit, got driven home by Alan and Susan, two of the people who mean the most to us. Character runs in the family.

Alistair, you have enriched our lives and will continue to do so. Thank you.

Love,

Jim

Our new digs...

A few photos of our new digs.  A little hard to see what it's all about with the sunlight etc.  But...wonderful wonderful panoramic views everywhere and I really see my freighters.  We just love the space.

A new blog to follow

We reconnected recently with Dick,  an old friend from university days,  and met Susan, his wife.  Susan does really cool stuff with paper...just love it!  Take a look at her blog:

http://passionforpaper-passionforpaper.blogspot.ca

She made these collages from an old calendar.

I may never do housework again...

Quick trip into Victoria to get the house in order for selling.  Jim did an amazing job with everything.  I worked pretty hard too.  And Fern's "magic cloth" was amazing as usual....wow,  what a product!  My messy art studio is now a completely decluttered eating area and Kerry's quilt adds the perfect touch and covers up our rusty bistro table.

Took a break last night and had dinner with Don and Elaine at Uplands.  We hadn't seen Don since Christmas so that was great.

Now back to Vancouver to prepare for our apartment move April 3....

 Jim with the magic cloth...

My transformed studio...should have taken a "before" photo.

Great views from Cloud 9 yesterday

Perhaps the ideal camera for me

This Canon Rebel is being released in April....smaller and lightweight.  Richard did mention some things like this were coming down the pipe.  Perhaps I'll buy one in PS when we're there.

http://www.vancouversun.com/entertainment/Honey+shrunk+camera/8157572/story.html

Fabulous sunset last night...

Taken from our balcony.

And a beautiful soft sunny morning today!

Just a gorgeous day...!

Lunch at Las Margaritas then a drive along Cornwall and Spanish Banks...the mountains and ocean were just wonderful.