Our first visit as owners (7Sep-14Sep05)

After finally buying the house in June, we made first visit in September. When we arrived, the garden, which had looked so beautiful, was overgrown with waist-high weeks. Kaye was a bit prepared for this, but Ed was shocked. The house had been closed and was full of dead flies and spider webs. We spread out blankets on grass and ate a picnic dinner outside. After eating, we used our cell phones to call our respective mothers, and luckily got through. We didn't yet realize that reception in our little area is pretty bad. This was the last talk Ed had with his mother, Martha, where she was lucid. She enjoyed hearing about our arrival, the state of the garden, and our picnic dinner.

We slept quite comfortably on an air mattress on the living room floor.

The next day we went to a local shop and bought a stove and a refrigerator and a garden table and four chairs; they were delivered that afternoon. When Kaye lit the oven for dinner, flames came up from underneath -- yipes! The next day we returned to the shop and tried to explain in French about the fire. A repairman came out and tut-tut-ed while installing the valves -- seems like the first guy had installed the valves for propane instead of butane.

Our next adventure was arranging a delivery of fioul to top up the tank so that we'd have heat when we next visited. This went off fairly well, in spite of our poor French.

Our real estate agent brought over a friend, who might be interested in keeping the yard mowed and doing some small chores. We thought we had a deal, but only found out weeks later that he decided against the work.

Less that a week after we arrived, Ed's mom died, so we closed up the house and drove back to The Netherlands.