Wednesday, December 27, 2006

We've moved swamps!

First of all, apologies for the delay in updating our epistle. We spent a hectic couple of weeks moving house, our crate of furniture arrived from the wide brown pancake and we hosted Christmas for the American side of our family. None of which are particularly good excuses on their own, but put together made our life a little hectic.

So yes, we've moved. First of all let me point out that finding houses over here since Katrina is fairly difficult. Lots of people are willing to sell us their house, but seeing as we're evil foreigners no bank is willing to lend us any money. Without that magic credit rating sitting on some central computer somewhere, we're terrible risks and can't be trusted with money. So our only choice was to find somewhere to rent. The second issue was that there were very few houses available to rent, and most of those that were available didn't really want animals, or if there had to be animals, then a single small dog only was acceptable. No-one wanted an 80 pound somewhat excitable blonde bombshell in their precious house. And the third problem was that no-one really wanted a long term tenant. Most people only wanted to rent out their house for 6 months until they could sell it, and we weren't particularly keen to move again in 6 months.

So please bear this in mind when you check out the pictures - we actually didn't have much choice about where to live. So here it is, the great southern mansion of the swamp dwellers.............


Mmmmmm....mansiony......

Renovated by people with extremely bold tastes in colour




Note also the extreme lack of furniture - we spent about two weeks in the house sitting on two folding chairs looking at a disconnected TV....

And especially for Marty & Mike - check out the view from our backyard. Yes, that's a golf course.And finally, looking back towards the house, and at a very distressed puppy who doesn't understand why she was shut inside the house when I was allowed outside. Life is so cruel.

And I was going to finish there, but I found a few more good shots of the kitchen, Gator Girl's office, the view from the balcony and the terrible life our dog leads. Enjoy! Merry Christmas all, or Happy Holidays to those sad types who need their hit of political correctness.