Category: Uncategorized

Today’s post brought to you by: Apple devices

Grateful for: whoever taught the Greeks how to cook

Trying hard to accept: I have to wait another 5 years to come live here

Of the 86,000 people who live at The Villages I don’t think any of them walk from A to B. Mainly I suspect because … usual story … there are no footpaths.

You’d think they’d encourage people to walk but I guess most people move dem bones on the golf courses or in one of the many, many exercise classes.

Ah, now let me tell you about the classes and other things on offer here. Nobody could ever act like a kid on school holidays and whinge “I’m bored.”

Today, for example, I could’ve gone to: any of 10 different art classes, any of 23 new release movies, every exercise class under the Florida sun including Bone Builders (osteoporosis be gone!), or air gun club, pool, bridge, learn-how-to-use-your-Apple-device (I really should go), book clubs, or Angel Snugs knitting for kids with cancer. And that’s just the ones I can remember. (Feels like The Generation Game conveyor belt.)

I was too late for first choice (yoga) and second choice (Pilates) and third choice (one-stroke painting) so aqua aerobics it was except that I wrongly thought I’d be able whack off half the estimated walking time and be there with 20 mins up my sleeve to chinwag with the locals, but alas had to admit defeat with 3 minutes left to walk 2 miles and call into the next pool I saw.

On my power stroll I saw 659 cars, 1,654 golf carts, 1 cyclist and 1 obviously-visiting-from-overseas pedestrian zipping across 4-lanes of traffic and traipsing along grass verges.

Everyone’s so friendly here. One woman even stopped, holding up a line of traffic, to offer me a ride. “Aren’t you freezing?” she asked.

It’s 20-something degrees!

Ben told me that Starbucks has opened its largest store in the world – 4 stories high – and guess where it is? Yip, Chicago. And guess who’s going? Yip, you and me Izabela. And guess what we’re NOT ordering: anything with the words Christmas, spice, eggnog or cream in its name.

This arvo I decided to walk to Walmart except that Google maps tried to kill me and send me straight onto a vacant lot with a train track running across it so I called by one the guard houses and asked John for advice. Seems the train track might’ve been the best option because John shook his head and said the other route would see me doing a kamikaze sprint across 6 lanes of very very fast moving cars and trucks.

Admitted defeat (again, eeek!) and walked 1.5 hr round trip to Publix supermarket past The Villages regional hospital – bigger than Wellington hospital -and every specialist medical facility you could ever want.

Two interesting things I found out from Ben which should make you lot in the antipodes very grateful you live there. Number 1: no such thing as the dole in the US. You only get a state-funded unemployment benefit if you lose your job. Never worked? No benefit.

Number 2. The level of your state-funded pension is based on your previous income. The higher your salary while you were working, the more money you get when you retire.

Oh, three actually. When you start a new job you get this many annual leave days: 0. After a year you get this many annual leave days: 5.

Here are a few squillion pictures. And good news – there’ll be more tomorrow. And the next day …

Typical street in the village we’re staying in. There are about 10 villages, each with its own manned guard house and collection of shops and golf courses and pools and other stuff I’m yet to discover. Jill-in-the-pool this morning was bemoaning how quickly The Villages is growing. More new homes = higher fees.

Guard house at our village.

Goes without saying there are more golf courses than you can swing a putter at.

This is “yes m’am” Jake the paramedic. There are 9 medical centres here. Told me he loves his job – probably partly because he never has to fight his way through blocked intersections to reach patients.

About to jump into 1 of 20 outdoor pools and meet Jan (Michigan summers; Florida winters), Laura and Jill.

If only I could’ve fitted this in my bag. I met Andy and Kathy, owners of Estate Sales Ltd, at the house next door. They get so much work at The Villages they don’t need to go anywhere else. Everything next door was for sale: half-used box of ground pepper (50c), travel-size shampoo nicked from hotel (25c), and right-up-my-street wooden bed frame – Cape Cod style – $150. If only I could’ve fitted THAT in my bag.

I know how much you love seeing what I ate so here’s tonight’s. Normally I have as much time for lamb as I do for the Labour Party but if I wasn’t so skinny-and-money-conscious I would’ve gone 2 rounds of this gyro. Think beyond the 2am kebabs of Courtenay Pl and imagine a highly seasoned with Christmas stuffing flavours, almost schnitzel-like, incredibly soft piece of deliciousness.

Flaming saganaki, Batman!! Normally I have as much time for cheese as I do for The Green party but I’d never say ochi to one of these.

Today’s post brought to you by: A Chevrolet ute

Grateful for: Ben, Joanne and Jerry

Trying hard to accept: The ringing in my ears

Those are my legs. That’s a loaded Ruger .22 caliber revolver.

Today has been one of the best days of my trip. It can be broken down into: people, food and guns.

Let’s start at the very beginning. A very good place to start.

Ben’s friends Joanne and Jerry invited us to their house about an hour into the back of beyond to eat a fish fry.

Drove right into the heart of Trump land. See those baseball caps, Peter? See your head? Put 2+2 together. Just kiddin’, my little redneck.

Across the road from the Trump stand I was struck with my new career idea. Buy smokes at $2.99 a packet, fly home, sell them down the pub for $39.95. Easy as cherry pie (which Joanne made for dessert tonight, served with Cool Whip. Yum).

Joanne and Jerry farm bees and have a shop up the road that sells … would you believe it … honey, and lots of other things like pickles made by local Mennonites, soaps, BBQ sauce, seasoning, candles and more.

Out in the parking lot, Don was cooking up boiled peanuts.

“What’s a boiled peanut?” I asked Jerry when we’re out in the Chevrolet. “You ain’t never had a boiled peanut?” he asked incredulously.

Before I had a chance to explain that peanuts don’t exactly grow on trees in NZ (first one to point out the obvious wins a prize) he’s on the phone to Don getting him to mix me up a half-regular, half-Cajun order.

Now, like me I’m sure you’d think that buying peanuts from a roadside truck would mean a small bag. Well think again folks.

Out in these parts it means a low-country boil. Jerry jumps back in the ute carrying a box the size of 3 phone books. In case the peanuts got lonely there was corn, carrots and potatoes. And if you think boiled peanuts sound pretty bland you’d be pretty much mistaken. They are unbelievably good.

Joanne and Jerry built their house in the 70s. And I mean built with their own 4 hands.

It’s on a huge section with the bees of course but also a massive processing and packing ‘shed’ built by Jerry, 14 utes, trucks, tractors and ride-on mowers, a great big lake next door and a menagerie of wild animals including alligators, turkeys and black bears.

Jerry said he’d show me the Ocala national forest up the road. Disappears off to the bedroom to grab something. That something turns out to be a Ruger revolver.

I asked the same stupid question everyone asks when confronted by a real gun for the first time. “Is that thing loaded?”

Well it sure was. Bullets the size of your middle toe. As was the other revolver and the 4ft high shotgun that also shared the room.

When I picked it up it was so heavy I almost dropped it. Would’ve really shot myself in the foot then.

It was scary, thrilling, scary, and unreal. It’s like all those movies you watch coming to real life. The revolvers were so heavy I couldn’t imagine how you’d whip one out of your buckle, release the catch, point it and shoot all before the other guy beat you to it.

“Us good old boys out here never go anywhere without our guns. We just don’t”, Jerry explained as we drove and I held the gun like a baby, with my gob hanging open. “You typically have one down your boot and one in your buckle.”

Then he told me all these stories about what happens if someone comes onto your property, how it helps to know the local judge’s brother-in-law, why you should never stop if someone waves you down on the side of the road, and why there’s no need to instal an alarm on your property.

We drove into the pine-laden Ocala national forest across white quicksand tracks that’ll claim your vehicle in 5 mins if you don’t know what you’re doing/don’t have an all-wheel drive.

Past campsites with anti-bear metal trash boxes and right up to the lake edge. Half expected a black bear to come leaping out of the trees. Lucky it didn’t ‘cause the revolver was only strong enough to injure it, which I can imagine is something you don’t want to be doing when your ute is parked facing forwards in the bleedin’ lake.

We returned home to start frying the fish. As I’m sitting at the kitchen table trying not to eat all the boiled peanuts in one go, Jerry comes in from the deck and asks if I want to fire the revolver.

I was out on that deck faster than a bear swiping a honey pot.

“Hold it like this, pull the catch, line it up, hold tight, hit that bucket square on. Easy.”

Pretend you’re Farrah Fawcett, hold it with two hands because otherwise you’ll drop it, line it up, hold tight, completely miss the bucket, and jump in fright at the force of the kickback and the incredibly loud, high-pitched noise that probably reached The Villages and rings in your head for the next hour.

I then went and shot more things, namely the breeze, with Jerry while he fried the fish and hushpuppies in big cast iron pots over gas burners.

This is a fish fry. It was a plate of pure southern delight. Go clockwise from 12 o’clock. That’s corn on the cob. Obvs. Then:

• Boiled peanuts
• Pickled okra
• Giant hushpuppies
• Cornmeal coated and deepfried snapper
• Cornmeal coated and deep fried orange roughy (you know that stuff we pay $42/kg for in NZ!)
• Cheese grits
• Broiled (grilled) snapper
• Shrimp in butter
• Homemade beans kind of like Boston baked beans made with pork and honey and spices
• Carrot and potato from the boiled peanuts feast.

I can’t even begin to tell you how delicious that whole plate was. I can’t even give out my usual best-thing-on-the-plate award because it was all so very very good.

Joanne and Jerry made me feel so incredibly welcome and invited me and Ben back for the big family fish fry on New Year’s Day. If only …

Here comes the sun! There goes the sun. Oh well, it’s still hotter than mid-summer Wellington.

Decided to be industrious and do some ironing before breakfast (oh have to tell you there’s this easy-iron spray stuff that supposedly makes ironing easier – I don’t care about that, it just makes your clothes smell so good. Cheapest perfume out).

So manage to make cup of filter coffee in the machine. Manage to turn iron on. Manage to turn TV on.

Next thing I’m up to channel 734, trying to find a non-Fox news channel … keep going … get into the Spanish TV section … up to channel 1,027. Probably broken the ‘channel’ button pushing it 1,027 times trying to get out of cable TV land and back to zero.

It’s funny, even though I’m in a country which is culturally similar to NZ I’ve often felt like a fish out of water just negotiating everyday things.

Working out how to use the coffee machine (remembering to stick the filter in!), avoiding accidentally racking up cable TV charges, working out how to set the iron to ‘cotton and linen’, paying for anything with scary eftpos-sign-name-on-screen machines. The list goes on.

Part of it is because I live a very simple life in Wellington. The fact I can use this iPad is worthy of an OBE. I haven’t owned a TV since the days they sat on cabinets and weighed more than your fridge. A microwave or dishwasher will never darken my doorstep.

I’m so used to doing things for myself without need for a car, machine, anything electronic, computerised or smarter than me.

So to find myself in the land where you can buy anything you ever imagined and are yet to imagine, full of things that think and act for you and anticipate your every move two days in advance, is at times overwhelming, fun, oh so tempting and downright scary. Have I broken it? Have I said/done the wrong thing? Have I offended someone?

Of course there’s only one solution to this. Practice makes perfect. So I need to move here.

If I could make a cake (if I could turn the oven on first) of:

• 2 cups of NZ’s work-life balance and welfare system
• 1/2 cup of southern sunshine
• 6 tonnes of biscuits, chicken fried steak and gumbo
• 3 cups of Chicago’s architecture, style and class
• 4 cups of southern hospitality
• 12 stones of a wealthy, absent bloke to pay for the whole thing, and do my tax returns.

Then I’ll be as happy as Larry. But not Larry King ‘cause look what happened to him.

We called into The Villages sales office. Where ‘office’ is defined as a palatial mansion with more Tiffany light shades, crystal bowls and unused rooms than I’ve ever seen in my life. Here I am in the parlour.

Tomorrow we’re going on a sales pitch tour round The Villages in an old tram. If you all chip in $80,000 (tax free!) I’ll buy you a pad here. Scrap among yourselves who gets to use it when. I’ll be down the road in a much flasher house, without my wealthy, absent husband.

Today’s post brought to you by: WordPress tech support

Grateful for: Arm rests on golf carts that stop you falling out

Trying hard to accept: I’m officially retired. No idea what day it is.

It’s 4am and I’m rewriting this post from memory after karma caught up with me and paid me back for something bad I did 14 weeks ago and wiped all my posts.

Luckily I’ll be near The Villages sales office again today so will be able to sink into one of the 100s of plush chairs in one of the many parlours, libraries, dens and phone booths with sofas in them when I need a sleep.

• Any of you who have ever worked with me know how much I love a bulleted list.
• Prepare yourselves.
• The sun seems to have gone the same place as my missing posts.
• Almost turned blue on the walk home from the pool this morning. But then again, I do support National so probably my own fault.
• Once I’d donned 4 layers, I pretended I was Peter Fonda.
• Without hair.
• And went zooming around with Orris in his golf cart.

• One of the places he showed me was this rec centre.
• It’s one of about 12.
• Each one’s decorated in a different theme.
• This one is Cape Cod nautical, reminiscent of staying at the Kennedy compound in Hyannis Port.
• Yes, I have stayed there.
• They invited me last visit.
• Sucker!

• Then after a Thai chicken salad bigger than your average rooster, it was all aboard for Ben, Georgia and me.
• As we took in a free tour of The Villages.
• Designed to push those fence-sitting, would-be buyers over the line.
• The tour guide was from Queens, Noo Yok.
• Which put a smile on my face.
• This is one of 10 tour trolleys.
• Custom made in Illinois.
• At $180,000 each.
• Gulp.

• Really interesting tour actually.
• Best bit was seeing a polo game in action.
• This man is not a member of the Royal Family waving at his subjects.
• But a suspiciously young-looking resident watching the game.
• Which you can also see if you squint real hard.

• Then blow me down if it wasn’t time for Thai Take Two.
• I would show you a picture of what I ate but it was tofu covered in peanut sauce.
• And you can imagine what that looks like photographed.
• Buenas noches.
• Which is ‘good night’ in Spanish.
• The language of the international polo set.
• Or ‘good neigh-t’, if you’re the horse.

Today’s post brought to you by: My credit card.

Grateful for: Panera Bread for making the most buttery blueberry scones – but not for informing me I just ate 570 calories + butter – and letting me sit here for hours using wifi.

Trying hard to accept: I stood in a gift store in the heart of Trump land and bought a ‘Make America Great Again’ Christmas decoration. In my defence, am a mere trafficker.

While Ben whacked a few balls round a golf course, I spent the day at the main market square.

After 5 hours sleep, 4km walk and 100 lengths of the pool (small print: pool is shorter than my bath) I decided first stop would be a rest at The Villages sales office. (Small print: they have free coffee).

The paved with gold road up to the sales office. Half expected to see Scarlett and Rhett zipping by in golf cart.

It’s the kind of place where doormen anticipate your every move, including offering to take your photo. Mondays must be slow.

There are 46 shops (make NZ prices look cheap) and 4 streets in the market square.

I set a personal best and managed to get lost.

Followed teenage girls guilting their grandmothers into buying them at least one item per store, and tolerant, loving (stupid) husbands following their wives around.

Probably earning their leave pass for golf for next 6 days straight.

After going into every shop and buying nothing except a marked-down paperback in Barnes & Noble, and the aforementioned gift for the only Trump supporter south of the equator, I rested my weary self in Panera Bread.

Snakelike queues saw me talking to a woman in line for ages. Decided I need to get “NZ is as much in Australia as the US is in Canada” t-shirt after she told me how well her granddaughter imitates Bindi Irwin.

Forgive her though ‘cause she stopped by later just to wish me a good trip.

Nice huh? As was the woman next to me on the sunny wraparound verandah who I had a long yarn with. Apparently the Moscow Ballet (Nutcracker of course) is coming to The Villages. Good grief is there nothing this place hasn’t got?

Judging by her reaction when I said I’m going to Baltimore I won’t be stepping out of the Airbnb after dusk.

Hopefully my host there, Yellow Brick Road Dorothy, will let me hang out on her Ikea-cushioned sofa. She’s a classy gal that Dorothy. Exquisite taste.

I’ve got same cushions.