The Virginia Experience

Friday 2 March 2007 - My blog is re-starting but is now at

http://virginia49.vox.com

See you there!

posted by Alison @ 10:07 AM 0 comments

Thursday 30 November - The last day of November and we leave Virginia today, sadly. We had a fabulous meal with friends at our house group last night and a lovely, lovely evening. It always upsets me to say goodbye.

The washing machine is on and we have nearly finished packing - looks like it WILL all go in. Carolyn and Dan pick us up at 2.30 pm to take us to the airport and before then we will probably have lunch at the Polo Club. We have to do a few errands before we finally leave but I think we are fairly organised!

It is going to be about 74 degrees today but we have to wear sweaters in preparation for Gatwick.

I have just been Skyping with Laura to give her the flight details. We are looking forward to seeing everyone again but sad to leave our friends here too. We plan to be back in March if we can find a new home in UK and complete the legal stuff in time. This is going to be a busy week, clearing the house and cleaning it. It's hard to believe that we are finally at this point after 18 months. By December 8 it will all be finished and we will be officially homeless. Watch out all friends and family for some visitors!

TTFN

posted by Alison @ 9:35 AM 0 comments

Wednesday 29 November - This is our last full day. Greg is showing the builder around the house because we are due the 11 month inspection although there is nothing really to worry about. Greg is also getting to be known around here and suddenly he being asked to fix people's computers. Sadly he cannot charge them because it is against the rules of our visa to earn money in America! I need to start some serious cleaning so that I don't have too much to do in the morning. We will probably leave here just after lunch. I am afraid to start packing in case I can't get everything in the suitcases - I will do it later . .. .

posted by Alison @ 9:49 AM 2 comments

Tuesday 28 November - Greg went off to Real Early at church, the last one for a while. He came back with the news that one of the men in the group, who is a historic interpreter had to go off to a reahearal of 'Tar and Feathering'. He said the tar is actually molasses mixed with something else to deter insects - still sounds horrible to me.



















Went for a walk in CW because it is so warm. Watched some of the performances which vary every time. It is so quiet there now after the Thanksgiving holiday but the Christmas lights go on next week so the holiday season will start in earnest.

This poor pig was formerly an inhabitant of Jamestown Settlement.

posted by Alison @ 9:51 AM 0 comments

Monday 27 November - I went to K Mart quicky to get the final Christmas present. I just hope we are not overweight with our bags. After lunch Greg went to a friend's at the edge of town to install her new computer and to help her with one or two things. He was gone a long time and got home only just in time to change to go to our friends in Ford's Colony for dinner. We had a lovely evening which ended with us watching a DVD of the Last Night of the Proms from the Albert Hall in London. It was the last one conducted by Sir Andrew Davis. We really enjoyed a good dose of patriotism and were pleased that they enjoy the Proms too. Maybe we will go to the Proms one day.

We got lost leaving the gated community but with help of the SatNav, finally got back to the right road. PJ will be amused, as we were. I said to Greg, 'we will go past Zoom soon' (a gas station) which is where I always end up when I'm lost. The car always seems to home in on it. So of course when we saw Zoom, we had to giggle - PJ and I had been through the same things a few weeks ago. The lighting is poor along the side of the roads so when it gets dark you really have to know where you are.

posted by Alison @ 9:23 AM 2 comments

Sunday 26 November - A beautiful day. Church this morning and there were a lot of 'goodbyes' because we won't see some people until we return in the spring. We will say our farewells to our house group on Wednesday evening when we go to friends for dinner and a get-together. Had lunch at the Red Lobster with four other people and then came home to change.


We decided to go onto Jamestown Island again for a trip around the circular path, we actually hadn't done it all up until now. It was absolutely glorious and I took pictures of wildlife, lakes, ponds and of course the River James which was calm and looked like glass.












Came home via CW and the Cheese Shop which was very quiet and no one sitting outside. A few Christmas trees have appeared in Merchant Square and it looks like the decorations will be up soon, I wish we could be here to see it. It seems people buy and decorate their Christmas trees in their homes immediately after Thanksgiving which seems very early here. A 7' tree costs about £15 here which is a similar price to home but there is more variety of tree types and they look fuller. If we took our trees indoors at this time at home, they would be bare by Dec 25. It does look nice though when we drive around and see the trees in the windows. It is so mild here that it is hard to believe that Christmas is less than a month away. It is forecast to be 74 degrees on Thursday when we fly from Newport News, what on earth do we wear, it will be so much colder at Gatwick! I must say, I am looking forward to the next stage of our plans being over, ie clearing out the house, finding a new home etc. We have not been really settled for 18 months now.

posted by Alison @ 9:40 AM 2 comments

Saturday 25 November - Woke up to a frost on the ground and a small herd of deer outside the bedroom window. I suppose we will see them more now that the leaves are off the trees. It is a very bright day but it must be very cold at the moment, the forecast is for the temperature to peak at 65 degrees F later on. We plan to go to the Jamestown Settlement new museum exhibit again. We took the family a few weeks ago but it is the sort of place you need to go to several times to take it all in.

I have booked the removals/storage people to take our things out of our house in UK on December 5, and we complete (close) on the 8th/ We will stay with friends nearby during that week and gradually clean the house (again) and tidy the garden. Autumn has happened since we left so it must be in a mess.



This lady is making chocolate in the Palace kitchen. The children will remember that, we spent quite a long time in there. Sadly there were no samples and we failed to buy any in the Wythe Candy Store in Colonial Williamsburg - every other sort of chocolate but not the one that closely resembles the local one.

We spent most of the day at the Settlement, it is a special occasion concentrating on food ie what the Powhatan Indians would have eaten and how they prepared it. What the settlers would have eaten etc. Almost everything the English ate came from England to start with because it was a military fort so they did not spend their time farming at all. The food was being prepared at the fort and the interpreters (actors) ate it for their lunch. Some of the dishes are popular today at home eg pork sausage, bread pudding, sweet pies, bread and soups or stews. It was busy because it is a holiday and because of the special food theme. Every building in the fort had interpreters in them so we took our time every place we visited. One of our friends, Dick is starting as an interpreter by the ships next week and we saw him there on his final training day.

I had to smile, because the poor lady who was by the canoes when the children were here was cooking up some spices. She said to us 'you look familiar' so I explained about the grandchildren and their love of canoes. I wonder if she remembered Evie's remark about the Teletubbies! I wish there had been so much going on when the family were here but we have taken lots of pictures to send to the children in case they are still working on that project.



To Callum, Issy, Ewan and Evie - they have finally finished the canoe you were working on and it is ready to launch.

NB To our grandchildren - General Washington sends his regards!

posted by Alison @ 9:26 AM 0 comments

Friday 24 November - We had a wonderful Thanksgiving meal. Apart from the turkey we had a sweet potato casserole (a kind of sweet pudding because it has eggs in it), a cornbread dressing (stuffing), a broccoli and blue cheese casserole, cranberries, and several other things. It is all eaten on one plate. Carolyn told us that it was a southern Thanksgiving because she is from the deep south. Apparently it is different in other parts of the USA which makes sense. For dessert we had my pumpkin pies which were OK, and another cake and a date pudding with lots of nuts. We were telling them about clotted cream and how it is made. I will try to get some for them if I can. There was lots of talk of politics and even after several hours we still failed to put the world to rights. It is so interesting to hear these discussions. We came home with a plate full of left-overs and one of my pies which is in the freezer now, I will take it to Nancy and Genes' on Wednesday when we go over there for dinner.



This shows how the level of the lake has gone down since the leaking of the dam.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MARK!!!

It is what they call Black Friday here. It's when everyone goes off to the sales - we did not hit the shops because we have heard so many horror stories.

posted by Alison @ 9:53 AM 4 comments