Knocking down the “to do” list…Contacted an immigration attorney in South Africa…

One year ago today… Tom and I hid in the bedroom, and once the others arrived for Don’s birthday, we suddenly appeared to be surprising everyone.  In the background are Keith (Don’s brother) and Ken, with Don and Linda in the center and Robin and Karen in the foreground.  It was a fun surprise. We had a fantastic stay with Kathy and Don. For more photos, please click here.

It was a quiet but good weekend. We had a happy hour party here on Friday night and attended a party by the pool on Saturday afternoon. The Vikings won their game, making Sunday special.

Last night, we laid back and watched a few shows, including Jack Ryan on Amazon and a good show we’d downloaded on Graboid, The Resident, a medical series we’d missed along the way. 

The Resident would be a tremendous binge-watching series, but right now, we don’t want to take the time to be watching too many shows. We have other “fish to fry” while also participating in a multitude of social events with the sisters and other locals.

When I finish the daily posts and respond to any email messages from our readers/friends, the day passes quickly. Then, there’s dinner to prepare each day, our almost daily walks, cleaning and laundry (every four days), financial matters to attend to, leaving little time for research and planning for the future.

As far as research goes, we’ve made some headway in the past few days. So far, it appears Scotland, like Spain and Portugal, has some beautiful holiday homes within our budget. We’ve enjoyed doing the research and need to focus on this in the next several weeks.

Today, I ordered the shipment of our accumulating supplies at our mailing service in Nevada. It should arrive by the end of the week. Once it comes, we’ll assess any additional items we may need and have them shipped to us in Apache Junction, or in the worst case, I’ll head out shopping.

I don’t enjoy shopping in stores, although I didn’t always feel that way in my old life. The varied selections and the abundance of items can be daunting, making the process somewhat unpleasant. I don’t think that way about grocery shopping which has always been enjoyable.

This morning, after researching online and reading many reviews, I found a South African immigration attorney to whom I wrote an inquiry explaining our situation, asking if they could assist and their fees for such services. 

The time difference makes it difficult to call during their regular business hours from 9:00 am to 4:00 pm. We’re hoping they will assist in expediting this immigration issue, enabling us to sail on the cruise arriving in Cape Town on December 2, 2020. We’ll report back what we hear.

Once we arrive in India, the time difference will only be three hours making any necessary phone calls more practical time-wise than now while in the US. 

Today, I sent another email requesting an update from Home Affairs in South Africa, the department which handles immigration issues for locals and foreigners. We’ll see if they respond.

The research will continue after we clean the house. The kitchen and bathroom are done. All that’s left is vacuuming the floors (Tom does this) and washing them with the mop (my job). It didn’t make sense to hire a cleaner for this small place, and now that I’m feeling well, I can share in the process.

However, in future full-sized vacation homes, we’ll hire a once-a-week cleaner as we had in the past when such a service wasn’t included in the rent. Heavy-duty cleaning is not something either of us cares to do in our retirement.

That’s it for today, folks! We hope you had a fantastic weekend and all is well your way!

Photo from one year ago today, January 6, 2019:

One year ago…Two hippos we spotted when visiting Rita and Gerhard’s temporary condo at Ngwenya in South Africa on Thursday evening. For more photos, please click here.