Three days and counting…Getting things done…

Posted by worldwide-admin on with 2 Comments
Locals were walking on the steep roads during the procession last night. The woman on the far left in navy blue is our own, Santina, our precious cleaning lady.

Note: Today’s photos are from this date in 2013 while living in Boveglio, Tuscany, Italy. For more details, please click here.

It is so busy around here. This morning we finished your order to have the suitcase shipped to the hotel in Minnesota, waiting for us when we arrive on September 9. I contacted the hotel’s general manager that the briefcase will arrive in a few days, asking him to store it for us until we arrive. I also included a photo of the bag with the message.

As we stood on the road outside our house, the procession stopped for a few minutes for prayer. There’s Santina again in navy blue. Notice the heels on her shoes!

Then, we headed to the postal station, but three items I ordered from Amazon weren’t in the mailbox, nor was anyone at the postal station, so I could inquire if they had the packages. Now, we’ll have to return later on Wednesday or Thursday. There’s a huge rainstorm occurring right now with lots of wind, thunder, and lightning. We’re not going out in the golf cart in this weather.

Tomorrow is my much-needed pedicure appointment at 11 00 am. While I’m busy with that, Tom will fill up the tank on the golf cart at Walmart and buy a dozen eggs to get us through the remainder of the week.

This patio is where we suntan a few times a week. These impatiens attract the bees, as do most flowering plants requiring us to pay special attention during our hour in the sun, quite close to the planters.

Once back at the house, I’ll finish the post, upload it, and then return to packing. We already arranged transportation through Groome from The Villages to the Orlando International Airport, which picks up for the international flight at 5:50 pm for our 10:30 pm international flight. It’s over an hour-long drive, especially with rush hour traffic at that time of day.

We’ve gone through all our remaining food, and we need one more dinner to wipe out everything we have. Thus, after my pedicure tomorrow, we’ll stop at the Mexican restaurant in Colony Plaza and order food for tomorrow night’s dinner.

The second of the two planters. As you can see, the giant leaves belong to the zucchini. We’ll see more zucchini over the remaining summer as well as the abundant herbs we’ve been using.

For Thursday evening, we have frozen burger patties for Tom with bacon, cheese, onion, and canned tuna for me, which I’ll make into tuna salad using the remaining eggs, onions, and celery, using sour cream for the salad dressing. This will be the best we’ve ever used up our remaining food. In the past, we were happy to leave food for the household staff but with no household staff here, there was no one to leave it with.

Speaking of household staff, yesterday I got a wonderful message from one of our housemen in Marloth Park, Vusi. When we left, I had reformatted my old laptop, which worked well except for one key on the keyboard. I cleaned the exterior, screen, and keyboard so it looked brand new. Vusi was thrilled, hugging me several times, saying, “Oh, thank you, Madam.”

A zucchini that grew in the garden box on the patio.

Thus, yesterday when checking my email, there was a sweet message from Vusi that warmed my heart. He wrote:

“Morning, madam, hope everything is good there, I just wanted to say we (the animal, us) miss you, have a great day🍹🙏may God bless you

And thanks for the laptop. It’s still working good. I really appreciate 🙏Vusi.”
Immediately, I wrote back to Vusi, thanking him for his thoughtful message and how much we’re looking forward to seeing him in less than 11 months from now. We have so much to look forward to.
That’s it for today, folks. We have lots to do and look forward to being on our way soon.
Be well.

Photo from ten years ago today, July 25, 2013:

Here’s a Ziplock bag half-filled with water and a few Euros to ward off house flies. See the story for the results of using these well-placed bags over the past 48 hours. (BTW, it didn’t work). For more photos, please click here.

It’s all good…

Posted by worldwide-admin on with 0 Comment
When I walked to the produce truck in Boveglio, it was surrounded by no less than ten local residents, anxious to buy their weekly supply of fruits and veggies. How convenient!

Today’s photos are from this date in 2013 while living in Boveglio Tuscany, Italy, for three months. Please see this link for details.

Just think. In 11 days from now, we’ll arrive in Edinburgh, Scotland, and be able to start posting new photos. Most likely, after getting some sleep after the red-eye flight, we’ll have recovered sufficiently to do some sightseeing. We are checking out some options now since we’ll have a few days until boarding the ship.

It’s exciting to finally be traveling again. We spent so much time in Africa after we left India from being in lockdown for ten months in a hotel in Mumbai we hadn’t traveled much. During those 2½ years, while we based ourselves in South Africa, we traveled once to Zambia, Botswana, and Zimbabwe, and five times to the US (six times for Tom for his brother Jerome’s funeral).

We had several other trips booked that were canceled due to Covid-19, including 12 cruises in total that were also canceled due to Covid-19. It’s not that we didn’t try to travel; we continually ran into cancellations preventing us from moving on with our plans.

As a result of the frustrations over all the cancellations, we didn’t keep booking many future travels until the past year when Covid-19 became less of an issue. We had a fantastic time in Marloth Park and were grateful we spent our less active period in such a wonderful place.

It felt awkward taking photos, so I did so descretely. Unquestionably, I was the only tourist in the bunch as I heard the locals chatting endlessly in Italian. I did my usual head nodding, hiding my camera under my shirt.

Not surprisingly, we look forward to what’s ahead next year, including our eventual return to Marloth Park next June and any new plans we’ll make after another shorter stay in Marloth Park. At this point, if all goes well on our upcoming cruises, we’re thinking we’ll book more cruises in the future. It’s a wonderful way to see many parts of the world we may never get to since not every country is suitable for a two or three-month stay.

We’ve had a good time in The Villages and may return for a short stay in the distant future, especially since we enjoyed seeing many of our friends and making new friends. We’d hoped to see more of our readers who wrote to us, but time got away with us.

Plus, as I continued to suffer from the head and facial pain, there were times I was grateful we didn’t have more social plans. However, there was never an occasion that we canceled any plans with friends, readers, or family, nor did we stay in on Friday and Saturday nights due to my discomfort. I’d decided to continue with my life, accepting this pain as a reality until somehow it would resolve.

Today, I am pain-free, but yesterday wasn’t so good. At least now, with the acupressure self-treatment I started on July 5, many days are pain-free as opposed to none before beginning these procedures. Perhaps in time, I will be pain-free. Any drugs I had taken or could take for this only mask the symptoms.

With more fruit than vegetables, I could not restock our usual supply of cauliflower.

What I am doing now can possibly eliminate the source of the issue by releasing the painful nerve. I am hopeful as I continually do the “exercises” several times a day or at least, each morning and evening. If I have trouble during the day, I perform the process again. It was terrible last night after dinner, but I added a few more pressure point procedures and got some relief, enough to ensure a good night’s sleep. Today is a new day!

Soon, our final Kroger grocery order will be delivered as we continue to use the food we have on hand and our newly delivered items. We needed some meat and salad ingredients to get through the next several days until we departed.

That’s it for today, folks. Thanks for hanging in there with us during this quiet time.

Be well.

Photo from ten years ago today, July 18, 2013:

Here’s what I purchased today from the vegetable truck that stopped in Boveglio, Tuscany, Italy, for a total of Euro $4.09, US $5.33. Prices were lower at the grocery store, but the freshness and convenience made it worth paying more. For more photos, please click here.