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Posted on by Ian C.

When we visited Florida at the end of December, we weren’t only having a vacation … we also looked at a number of homes for sale, with a plan to purchase one as a second home!
Florida house prices are very low at the moment, so it’s a good long term investment – and of course having somewhere warm and sunny to go when New England is in the grip of winter will be nice 🙂

Anyway, we visited many homes, and eventually concluded that most were wrong for one reason or another … too near busy roads, pool north-facing so in shadow, too dark inside … but the last home we saw solved all those issues! The back of the home, where the pool is, faces south south east; there are skylights in the main living area, and it’s a quiet location!

The home has a total of four bedrooms and three bathrooms, with a nice master bedroom/bathroom, and is “open plan” with a large living area; the home is fully furnished and is zoned for short-term rental if we decide to do that … but for now, it’s just us! We completed the purchase today, and we’re flying down in the morning to spend a weekend there, and meet Brian & Angie from a management company who looked after the property for the previous owners, and probably will do the same for us …

 

Bridgette keeps warm

Posted on by Ian C.

More and more these days, Bridgette needs to keep warm (she’s about 15 years old now). We have a heated cat bed that she sleeps in for much of the day, but she also searches for other heat sources – for example she’s figured that the hottest base board (radiator) in the house is at the bottom of the stairs (it happens to have two hot pipes running through it), and in the mornings she’ll often stand next to it with her head about as close as she can get!

But the best way to get warm is to sit in the sun – she spends much of any sunny winter morning on the corner of the bed in the guest room, where the sun shines in:

But if we’re home, she knows to ask us to open the front door so she can sit behind the glass storm door:

Eventually even she gets too hot and retreats to somewhere more shady – but this is one of her favourite places in the winter 🙂

From Sun to Snow

Posted on by Ian C.

After enjoying the Caribbean for a week, we were dramatically re-introduced to New England winters with another snow storm, delivering 6″ or more. The roads were plowed, but because of rain preceding the snow the roads were very slippery – I nearly hit a wall when trying to drive to work, so gave up and waited for the next day!

And next day, the roads are clear and lined by beautiful white trees; at work these Robins have found a few left-over apples on a tree outside Christian’s office, but there’s not much food when the ground is covered in snow and ice!