Rotondo West Holiday Home

This is our third year at Rotondo West, Florida after being given information from a friend who stayed here some years and said it was nice. Its very easy to find somewhere to stay in Florida providing you book early enough and I don’t mean weeks I mean a year or more. Each year the SNOWBIRDS as they are referred to come down from the North American States and also Canada to escape the harsh winters. They either fly down and rent a car and stay in similar places to us, or others with a RV ( recreational vehicle) often the size of a huge bus make their way down and park in one of the many RV Sites which are all over Florida, some a really excellent places with swimming pools and restaurants whilst other a bit more out in the sticks often look rundown. Did you know that 1 in 10 of the US population live on what they call Trailer sites, some of which are pretty horrible and its a big sign of poverty in a country which seems to haver it all, but does not.
In our past years of travel in various places in USA we have been appalled in condition some people live and its not unusual to see a couple of really beautiful houses next to run down old houses with the yard filled with old cars, cars which have outlived there day but they could not afford to pay for the return for recycling and so they buy another car every few years and when it dies they just dump it in the yard and get another one.
Anyway back to Rotondo West. This is a huge site of about 35000 acres and it has had a chequered history. The original idea was to be on the East Coast of Florida in the Palm Beach area but although some of the ground was obtained it crashed financially soon after. Then some years later somebody thought the concept was great and purchased some old farmland which was subject to flooding, a bit like the rest of low lying Florida, and started a huge sales campaign in the North of the Country and people started putting down money for their dream home and each month they would get a status report, such as the outer wall are up, or the electrical work has started , the kitchen is being fitted whilst customer were still sending money but actually nothing was being built and it was huge con.

The owners were found out and so another entrepreneur came along and actually started to build houses but of such poor quality that owners started to complain. This last owner was funnelling money to his Gambling Companies in Atlantic City and finally it was again taken over by a new investment company and banks who were also owed loads of money and together with the residents it has become a great place to live. There are still quite a few plots for sale and you can buy a plot and build a three bedroom house with pool for about £ 250K and for £ 350K you could two lots and a huge 8000 sq ft house.
The residents activities are huge from gold, to to tennis from flower arranging to mah-jong, you name it somebody has a course for it. There are currently about 4000 houses with a population of around 9500. One of the original ideas of this site was to have business enterprises in the centre of the site with people living around but after a while and the history of the site this finally never happened. It is also a deed restricted site and so compliance is important, you can park an RV or a boat on the driveway permanently and so an area has been set aside where you can park them away from the housing. Englewood is the local town and Port Charlotte is not that far away and in these two areas everything is available from shopping to restaurants, cinemas, hospitals. Hospitals in this next of the wood advertise their services and if providing A & E services near the hospital on a main road you will see a signboard giving the average waiting time to be seen. The longest I have seen of the many signs is about 18 minutes.
We seem to have a different house each year and this one we are in is the nicest and not overlooked although the swimming pool is a bit to shallow one end but the temperature up and till today has been good but now it looks like the heather has broken and so let hope they can fix it quickly.We have already booked for next year Feb/March 2021 , we could not get this one as already fully booked but the one are renting next year is pretty much just across the road and in the process of construction. It might be ready before we leave here and so we can take a look.
Its a little cooler, yesterday and today and down to about 24 Centigrade yesterday and up to 25 today and then back for the rest of next week to 27/28 C, Unfortunately the pool heater seems to have stopped and so we have asked them to repair as soon as possible.
Time for a coffee!!!!

To put Corona-Virus in a true perspective

This is what 100,000 people look like

This photo is of Kyle Field Stadium in the United States of America. It hold just over 100,000 people which is the total amount of people known to have contracted the Corona –Virus. Within this stadium you will see one smallish section which seats 3000  people, which roughly equates to the same number of people who have died from the Virus. The number of people in the world today is not fully known but in 2017 it was 7.2 billion and expected to be 7.7 billion by the end of 2019 and so looking at pure numbers its a very small amount indeed.
By comparison, whilst not underplaying the risk see following figures.

Road Accidents.
On average their are 50 million people affected by road accidents with 1.35 million deaths
Smoking and drugs
around 20 million people die each year from drugs and smoking
From Cancer
Nearly 10 million people year DIE from cancer apart from the millions who are cancer sufferers.

Again I am not downplaying the subject but highlighting how the press has got it totally wrong. Yesterday their was a photo of a store in UK where all the toilet paper had been taken, what it did not show you was the next day that all the shelves were stocked again. Today whilst shopping in the local PUBLIX Supermarket (very much like Waitrose) there at check out was the National Enquirer Magazine, that pillar of honesty, with the headlines 100 million American with catch the Corona Virus and at least three and half million will die. I would presume they based this  on another set of  USA figures that show that there about 100 known cases of people infected with about 6 deaths so far recorded and most of the deaths were due to people having other challenges. People who smoke or take drugs or have high blood pressure and Diabetes and are over 70 are more likely to than a six year old kid that doesn't smoke or have any other illness. Also please remember the population of the USA is roughly 330 million and so with 14 people dead as of today and perhaps 120 affected. If you are good at percentages you can work it out.
On UK TV just recently they interviewed a woman who had bought enough stocks of food and toilet paper to last out a long war and she had obtained over 150 cans of food plus a lot else and then she had the audacity to blame the Government  for the problem of shortages and price rises. If she was an intelligent woman which clearly she wasn't she did not understand that by overstocking and causing others to do the same, aided by the stupid newspapers and TV Companies, that it would create an artificial shortage which has the effect of raising prices to which she was again blaming on the Government quote ‘Who Cannot be trusted’ , actually the quote should really refer to her.
Creating food shortages is always a worry but who will  be the most affected, perhaps your granny who is in a care home and  even another family member in hospital for an unrelated illness could suffer as food supply has been totally disrupted by these stupid people.

OH Well back to the swimming pool

An interesting but frustrating few days

Well I am not sure if I have mentioned before in this Blog but we are in the process of selling the house and generally downsizing. This is a result of the cancer issues I experienced recently  and now, for the moment, considered free, but you never know. So in discussion with Jennifer we decided that having a really large and car moving forward does not really make sense as neither of us would like to live in the present house which so beautiful but rather large.
In November the fantastic Toyota Land Cruiser was sold and a a much smaller vehicle from Lexus purchased and also its a hybrid so we are joining the partly electric brigade. The thought should just one of us be living in Piplin was to much and the work involved in selling and moving is also tough perhaps when recovering from the loss of a loved one was to difficult to consider and hence the house on the market. Three days before we left the UK we agreed a sale price and matter passed to Solicitors and sometimes no news is good news but suddenly not in case as the buyer has started hesitating for reasons to be fully  established anyway lets wait see what happens over the next few days.
So what do we do when in Florida, we are no good supporters of restaurants as we can as a good a dinner at home as out and at less cost but most importantly for Noel we know exactly what's in it. In our earlier visits to Florida we have been out for dinner and I enjoyed the fried coconut prawns and not knowing that Coconut and deep fried food is not good for me caused me many concerns on the way home in the car, I don't want to repeat that. Similarly Pizza seems to upset me and again after a pizza I really need to look for a loo pretty fast, not a way to enjoy an evening out and so if we do go I choose boring if not repetitive to avoid unnecessary anxiety. Talking about anxiety I read today that in a documentary about Bill Clinton and his relationship with Monica was quote ‘To overcome some of his anxiety’. Not sure Jennifer would fall for that line.
So in addition to not going out much we do shopping, go to the local market and general read, swim , eat with the occasional glass of wine. However this year I remembered that in early 2015 and on a cruise from Southampton via the West Indies and Panama Canal to San Francisco  with some days with not much to do I had started to write a brief history or biography about me and eventually Jennifer as I often think that it would be really nice to discuss with my Mum and Dad and also their parents about their lives and growing up in France and during the war and what it was like having babies during this time, etc etc. And then it occurred to me that perhaps our children and their children might be asking the same question at some stage in the future and so I started writing a biography which |I thought would take not long to do. Upon returning from the cruise I planned to finish it but somehow never got around to it and then in June 2015 the BIG C arrived and I totally forgot it.
Well this year I thought I would start on it again and have finished in a couple of days but somehow as you start writing it all starts to flood back about painting my uncles car to a big accident in France to moving to Hong Kong and suddenly I am to 60 pages and only at 1978 with a lot more to go so this will take some to complete but eventually I hope to pass on to family members to read or use as toilet paper if they have not be restocked the shops  after the Corona Virus outbreak.
The Corona Virus is certainly a worry but in terms of comparing to the amount of people dying from car crashes or drug overdoses and many diseases the amount of deaths and people affected is minimal and yet the Newspapers are in panic mode driving the fear so that shops are emptied of home essentials and  using anything they can get their hand to cover their face although it does not make a blind bit of difference. Having lived in Asia for many years and understand that the locals wear a face mask when they are ill, Ie if they have a cold or fly they ear a mask but you don't wear a mask if you are fit and well and so you can tell who to be near or not.

With the crazy things people are now wearing such as face mask, plastic bags and boxes and anything else they think will work is quite stupid as its generally known that hand washing and not touching your face is the best way forward. Flights are being cancelled by the thousand, shops are being emptied of stock thereby creating an unnecessary shortages, the world has gone mad and supported by the media and social networks.

Lets hope they don't cancel our flight home on the 31 st of March as we will be stuck in the hot sunny weather for a while longer..could be worse though!!!

what a busy day, and it poured with rain

The weather was due to be not so nice today and we had already decided that Wednesday would be the day that we headed North and visited Sarasota for lunch, followed by a film and then on to Costco to top up the freezer.

Soon after we left Rotondo West the skies started getting darker but we arrived and had lunch at the Five Guys Burger joint, if you love Burgers these are pretty much the best we have ever tasted. So filled with burger, fries and iced tea we headed off to the AMC multi cinema in the same zone as Costco which was handy. We had booked to see the film 1917 about two soldiers in the first world war who were charged with the responsibility of notifying another part of the army some very important information and the film is all about the relationship and the very severe challenges faced to do this task.

Having visited the trenches in Northern France some years ago it all felt very real indeed and it certainly made Jennifer and I have a tear at the end of the film. Its also won Sam Mendez the Director an award for Best Film and it really is very good indeed.
Following the film we headed in to Costco to purchase some steaks and lamb chops and a few other bits and pieces and as we left the building the heavens opened and we both got drenched taking out our  shopping to the car. On the way home it continued to really chuck it down almost like the rains you could get in Singapore every afternoon. Quite a few roads were flooded to a few inches however we made it home OK although we did see the result of two rather bad road accidents.
So a quiet evening looking at some of the ‘YES MINISTER’ series on the BRITBOX Channel whilst chewing on some rather nice gulf bay shrimp and a glass of plonk and then an early night was called for.
A  bit more shopping to be done locally tomorrow and then we are set for the next 4/5 days and just ready to relax.

Fire, What fire???

It was a quiet day on the email and house development front and so we decided to have a quiet day just reading and enjoying the fantastic weather. The swimming pool was stuck around 32 Centigrade and just like a warm bath.
Around lunchtime we heard sounds of the emergency services for about 15 minutes and the the noise died away but very soon to be taken over by the sound of one helicopter doing perhaps some training at the nearby small airfield however in the end it seems like two helicopters were doing practising?. We have been aware of this small private airfield for a little while and occasionally there is either a small private jet or small stunt plane doing some practise but not to the extent of today.

From the corner of our swimming pool we can see a little bit down the road through the quite dense trees a couple of fire engines passed by quite slowly and we thought they were just patrolling. Little did we know that just over half a mile away in the same place as us Rotonda West was a huge fire started in the undergrowth in a small area and then developing and effecting over 250 acres.The only reason we knew about this event was when the pool man came this morning and said so what about the fire then? , he looked stunned when we said nothing actually and what fire he was he talking about. Apparently the smoke was so bad a number of local roads were closed due to smoke and they evacuated about 40 houses which were near the fire but the good news is they were able to get it under control with no lost of buildings or life. Electricity supply has been lost to several houses we understand whilst our pool man said that a number of pools have been inundated with dust and ash. With the wend yesterday in a different direction to normal we did no get affected at all. OH well that might have been a little to close.

What with the bad storms back home together with the risk of flooding in Weybridge which eventually turned out to be nothing but very serious in other areas of the country the last thing we needed was being chased out of our rented house.
So another quiet email day with one email from the builder confirming that Jennifer could have the better oven which not only cleans itself but makes the morning tea as well!
Yesterday evening we had a BBQ with some Costco Australian Lamb Chops which are superb and so thick they take about 25 minutes to cook and so together with a glass of plonk we then watched a film on Netflix which quite frankly we did not fully understand and had to put on the subtitles so as to understand what the main characters were saying but perhaps did this a bit late so still a little bit in the dark what it was all about.
Noel has occasionally watched bits of video from the democrats trying to choose there new patron saint, talk about dog eat dog, its a bit like the participants in the Alan Sugar show called ‘Your Fired’ where all the contestants start off by saying how brilliant they are and better than anybody taking part and then totally screw up afterwards.

Oh well its time to watch Chelsea play Bayern Munich, I hope that's its on TV otherwise its back to the pool.

Well so much for a holiday???

Well the last week has been so very busy on the housing front. We have had to make quite a lot of decisions on bathroom tiles, kitchen units, flooring and a number of important things which takes up lots of time. Its even harder to look at colours on a notebook computer as they distort the colour a bit and so we compared the tiles on a mobile phone, then a small Nexus notepad and then again on the notebook computer to try to see what colour we are really getting.

At the moment this work is taking several hours every morning with the odd phone call to cover various matter but the sales lady at the builders has been most helpful even though we may not get all we need in way of appliances etc. So our day consists of getting up at around 07.30 and sometimes earlier then  working our way until nearly lunchtime, only then can we go a take a break as you think of stuff in your dreams or when reading or watching something on Tv and so neither of us sleeping well at the moment.

I thought that by  watching Chelsea play Manchester United would cheer me up and take my mind of houses but the team left their professional capabilities on the team bus although we did have two goals cancelled by VAR with one being most questionable and the other perhaps just a little bit offside.

The weather this week has also been very hot and nice with the temperature hovering around the 28 C mark and the swimming pool at a steady 32 C, just like a warm bath and so a swim and then hang by the side of pool taking in the sun is very nice.

A couple of days ago we received some English visitors who had been looking at the house we are currently in as they wish to rent next year and so we showed them around, not sure if they rented though.We have already booked for Feb and March 2021 in a brand new house which is being built about 100 yards down the road and so we plan to take a peek before we leave here.

We understand that solicitors are targeting 5th March 2020 for Exchange of Contracts and then completion and move dates have to be agreed. We hope they may not be in a hurry to move but if they are it looks like we shall return to the UK early.

I am getting through ink cartridges quite fast and so must order some more but as most people know the cost of cartridges far outweighs the cost of a printer, its scandalous.. If I were US President I would stop it!!!!

Oh well back to the drawing board

FACT, FICTION OR JUST AN OPINION- THE WORLDS NEWS ? ORGANISATIONS ARE A MESS

Its very difficult to tell what is fact, fiction or an opinion  today when you listen/watch to TV News or read the press as often it bears no relation to the truth or even fact. I include in this the BBC who have a number of well known so called commentators who like to give you a report  of what is happing in UK politics without actually knowing the real facts of the matter.
The word ‘COULD’ is used so often today so as to create a story which bears no relationship to the truth. this not only happens in the UK but I suspect most global news organisations and its about time something was done to stop it. For a start the newspaper should have an additional section marked very clearly that this is an opinion of the author and not FACT.  There should also be a section which is actually marked NEWS where specific items can be reported factually viz:- there was a car crash with a number of people injured. Rather than” that on this section of road there COULD be a car crash where several people get hurt”. There is a great deal of overusing the word ‘COULD’ just like the world could come to an end at the millennium? and what happened then just plain old nothing, except for some humorous T-Shirts
I also read with interest the FACT but not a FACT that the recently resigned Chancellor of the Exchequer left over being told to fire his staff, I bet this wasn't the way it happened. Ever since Mr Philip Hammond left the job and being a known Europhile no doubt ensured his advisers? , for the want of a better word, were of the same ilk. So I guess that with Boris trying to stop the known chaos between number 10 and number 11 staff/advisers he felt it made sense to have everybody in the boat rowing in the same direction. This certainly makes sense from a business perspective. And more foolish for Savid for not recognising this.
At the moment we are in the US and watching some of the news politics and they have the same problems here relating to the new round of hustings for a new leader of the Democratic party. It looks like Biden is out and the fact that his son,allegedly  not fiction this, took advantage of his dad’s position as Vice President of the USA in his direct role for Ukraine- the complete matter stinks and makes Boris holiday in Mustique somewhat tame.
Finally, Scotland and the SNP having been in power for 13 years and seen the country go down hill have made continuous efforts to have another independence vote. As mentioned in an earlier post, attack is the best form of defence and so the SNP divert attention from home issues and focus on Independence, Lord help the Scottish people if this ever becomes a reality.
Here endeth the first lesson!!!!!

Perhaps going back to work may be quieter???

Well the last few days have been extremely busy what with filling in all sorts of forms for the Solicitor and also check the work or the various parties as there have been a number of mistakes like showing the property is Leasehold with a share of Freehold,(which is for an apartment block), understating Piplin House  sales price by nearly £ 50 K just to mention just a couple of minor points.
As mentioned last week we purchased a Canon printer/scanner at Best Buy in Port Charlotte and this has turned out to be a brilliant idea as we had no idea how much we would need to print and and scan. On Tuesday the 11th we took a trip down to Fort Myers for a change to visit the Costco store there but primarily to visit a stationary store where we could purchase  a stapler, filing folder and hole punch, Sellotape and paperclips and envelopes and so we are now prepared for most things that the solicitors are sending to us.
We are aware of an exchange of contract date of 5th March but not sure how this will impact upon our holiday timings and an earlier flight home, we shall see.We have to agree with the builders flooring and paint and other factors but awaiting a complete list so that we can understand what we have to agree to, perhaps we can do it all from here or not as the case may be, we shall see.
On Tuesday after a busy day out in Fort Myers we went for an early dinner at the Lighthouse Restaurant and Bar  in Englewood and this is located in a strange place just behind a very cheap and run down housing area but the views and food were really good, Jennifer said the crab cakes were to die for whilst the gulf bay prawns which Noel were also excellent.

Noel has been communicating with some old colleagues in Hong Kong about what is happening from a rioting and virus infection perspective and does not make good ready. Many Chinese factories are closed but hoping to reopen in March which means that many suppliers are behind on delivery and so air cargo will be a mad house in April.
Today we took the hire car for a clean in and out as it was in a disgusting state when received, we have complained to hertz but not sure what good has been done, we shall see.
Having spent the morning on paperwork and shopping its now time to sit by the pool for a brief rest and looking forward to a BBQ of sirloin steak and Pork ribs, sound terrible doesn't it.

29 Cent in the Shade and 32 Cent in the pool- Cannot be bad

Well its been a very busy time for us during the past week what with shopping and overcoming the jetlag but particularly the  unexpected change with regard to our housing situation. The house had been on sale since the beginning of January 2019 with only a limited amount of viewings but suddenly it sprang in to life in mid January this year with as many viewing than the whole of last year.
Well you never can tell who will purchase you house but we were visited by a young couple with parents and spent a lot of time,more than usual which we understand is always a good sign, then a few days later they came back again and this time brought their two young children and very shortly after that we received an offer and negotiations began. Oh we thought , where are we going to live and also we are flying out to Florida in a few days and before we left the couple confirmed the price and we have an agreement subject to contract.
Over the past year we have been visiting areas to find out if they would be suitable for us to live with our requirements of close to shops, train stations etc and we still ended up wanting to live in East Horsley but in the interim period there had been no indication of any suitable housing for us either old bungalows and/or houses with main road frontage and so we backed off. However en-route one day to East Horsley we passed a new development by the well established Octagon Group on a large , ex MOD plot, in West Byfleet which looked interesting but we had not bothered with before. So on the Wednesday before we left on the Friday we paid a visit and liked what we saw and overnight made an offer but unfortunately somebody else beat us to it.-Damn. However we did mention if anything falls through to let us know.
In the meantime the buyers of Piplin House did a full building survey and the house passed well we understand and so now its all with the solicitors for exchange of contracts on 5th March, or thereabouts. So we thought lets wait till we get home before we start looking again and then in the middle of last week we were contacted by Octagon to say another plot was available but after consideration turned it down. Two days after that somebody else pulled out as we presume they could not meet the builders timetable for completion and this is a four bedroom, three story house with all the latest gizmo’s and a utility room and integral garage and its near the shops etc. On site they will also be building additional larger houses and also also apartments and eventually a care home and se would, in theory, as we get older just go smaller and smaller until we end up in a box.
So the matter is with the solicitors and then the paperwork started to arrive requiring lots of work and although we have a notebook computer with us printing and scanning facilities are quite a distance away and also we now the proud owners of a new Canon printer/scanner and had to buy staplers, hole punches and folders for keeping stuff in.
So for the past week Noel spend a couple of hours answering messages and signing and sending documents but the big issue is when the new buyer want to move in as ideally we would like mid April but they may want earlier requiring to return home holiday from a fully paid for holiday. In addition the builder will/has starting pressing us as we need to make choices on colours and perhaps other stuff by the first week in March which also might require a trip home.
OH WELL- its all fun and games

In the middle of all this we are enjoy the nice weather and taking advantage of the warm weather and the temperature of the swimming pool. Be back with soon in the next day or so for an update

A little shopping and swimming

After a swim and  late breakfast we headed of to the Publix Supermarket about then minutes away and did some essential buying of bits and pieces that we needed to run a kitchen and also get some vegetables. We also needed a thermometer to the pool so as to know how warm it is.

We returned to the house in time to meet up with the pool cleaner whom we knew from previous houses we had rented and had a brief chat about current US politics and when I asked his opinion on the impeachment of the President Trump he said if was  all ‘Bulls**t’ and he hopes that TRUMP will win again later this year. We are still a bit tired and so enjoyed a good afternoon nap and then Noel’s turn to cook dinner and so we used up the rest of the Costco chicken and created the famous ‘Splodge’ and it was warm enough to sit outside next to the pool and enjoy our dinner.

Well the next few weeks will see if the house is finally sold and we will have to spend some time planning our list of ‘To Do’s ‘ for when we get back as early indications are that house Legal Completion will be the  second week of March, give or take a week, whilst we are still here in Florida and will look to move out towards the end of April, sounds like fun and then we have to get used to living in a caravan for a while which should not be to difficult.

So as far as this blog is concerned it will not be updated daily but only when something of interest happens as there is no point reporting that we got up, had breakfast, lunch and dinner, watched TV and a c couple of swims and went to bed.

Bi for now

A quiet day of rest

The first thing I did was to check out the car as we had discovered that where there is a cupholder,the  entire base of the unit was sticky and grungy and had messed up the bottom of the plastic water bottles we had put there for our travels. On further investigation we discovered that the vehicle had many marks and damaged door and food particles on the back seat and floor. Wow this is appalling and so Noel wrote off to Hertz to lodge a complaint.

We were of course still tired from our travels and as we don't, for some reason or other, appear to get younger and more used to it we then enjoyed a peaceful day resting by the pool.
We used the time fully unpack our suitcase and look around the house to find out where everything is and of course the most important what cutlery and crockery and cooking equipment we have but in each case there was loads of stuff. This house has three bedrooms, one master, and two smaller ones and the layout is very similar to the first house we rented here some years ago.
In the meantime we had been communicating with our estate agents and also the builders of a new estate being built at West Byfleet that we were interested in as had seen one unit that we liked but I was sold elsewhere whilst we were thinking about it. OK Well lets wait until Piplin is fully sold before looking to hard.
A further afternoon  relaxing and then Noel BBQ’ d up some Costco Australian Lamb Chops and boy were they good!. First though the BBQ grills needed a good clean and as usual at all the houses we have rented the BBQ’s have never been clean to the our standards which are quite high. In this case to top and visible part of the grill tray was OK but as soon as you tuned it over it was covered in muck. How people cook and eat from this beats me.
Anyway an evening of Netflix and then to bed.

Hertz Rental Car problems and bad weather and traffic- not a good start

We had an early breakfast in the Hotel and then the Hotel shuttle bus dropped us off at the arrival part of the terminal where all the Car rental companies are based. There was not a long queue waiting to be served at Hertz but only three staff to arrange booking in but there was problems with two parties as it we had to wait almost 25 minutes to get served. If we had not prepaid for the car I would have gone next door to Alamo.

Finally we got served and they tried the usual tact, Sir with having a car for two months you really need a bigger car, no thanks I said and off we went to the garage across the road where all the hire companies store their vehicles. This garage is so dark its almost impossible to check the outside of the car for damage and for that matter inside you cannot see at all. However we chose a vehicle which had a large boot (trunk in USA) and loaded all our cases and headed off for the exit where they check all your documents and then let you out. Well at this point it all went wrong as they scanned the car several times and could not find it on their system and so could not let us leave. All this took about ten minutes with other car drivers hooting us in frustration and so finally they said we should go back and choose another car which we did. We returned to the bay for mid-size cars only to find there were none left and so we were upgraded to the next level and a bigger vehicle. We then had to move all our luggage over to the new car and we finally left having been trying to collect the car and leave took nearly 1.5  hours and therefore we were behind on our planned schedule.
With the SAT/NAV  positioned ready to go we headed off for our first stop in Sarasota en-route to Rotonda West but the journey was anything but easy with heavy rain and a considerable amount of traffic jams we finally arrived in Sarasota and stopped for a Wendy’s burger for a fast lunch and then on to do our stock up shopping at Costco.

We bought all the usual stuff, steaks, lamb chops and many other goodies and at check-out the cashier asked were we having a ‘Superbowl’ party, needless to say as Brits this is of little interest to us.
From there about another hour to Rotonda West and the nearby Publix supermarket where we purchased a few last minute items before heading off to the rented house where we finally arrived at about 18.00 and nearly 2.5 hours later than planned.
The house is very nice with great views from the back of the house and we tucked in to our Costco ready cooked chicken with salad and a nice glass of chardonnay before heading for an evening of TV watching. Some years ago we purchased a Amazon TV Fire Stick from Amazon USA and by plugging it in to the back of the very large TV we can watch our Netflix and other stuff.
And so to bed.

Florida here we come

Well after a busy few days what with the house being on the market for sale and very strong interest from one party we left the house by Taxi to Gatwick for our flight to Orlando. We were having such a good discussion with the taxi driver insomuch as he forgot where he was going and we ended up Northbound on the A3 instead of Southbound to the M25. That's a good start I thought.
We arrived at Gatwick in good time and were checked in within ten minutes and headed off to the restaurant area where we had a brief lunch and then boarded the Norwegian B787 Dreamliner aircraft with a nine hour flight ahead of us. The flight was not full in Premier Class but did not bother to go back to check on economy however the important part was that it left on time and subsequently arrived in Orlando 20 minutes early.

I was a bit worried that we had not received all the Immigration paperwork including Customs declaration  on board but apparently this has been dropped , well at this airport anyway, and immigration procedure was spectacularly fast and within an hour of touchdown we were waiting for the Hotel transfer bus to meet us even after a short train ride to the main terminal. We were staying in the Homewood Suites just off the Airport which was conveniently for a large choice of restaurant’s but after checking in and dropping our bags we went right to the steakhouse for a beer and a nice late dinner.
According to the weather forecast tomorrow will be wet and windy. Ummm not good.
Now looking forward to a nice long sleep