Christmas 2008 The Bottomleys
A very Merry Christmas to all, and the best of wishes for 2009!
The big news of early in the year is the birth of our third grandchild, Sarah and Dan’s son Wyatt James Mason. He joins sisters Noelle, now going on 6, and Roxy, who is two years younger. They live in far western Canada, where Dan teaches at the University of Alberta. We now know Edmonton quite well; indeed, we’ll be out there for an early holiday at the beginning of December.
A bit earlier in the year we made a long postponed visit to Charleston, SC to visit Bruce’s Aunt Ag, his cousin Todd, and her husband Lou. Charleston is a beautiful city. We enjoyed it a lot. And, as things turned out, Aunt Ag became ill shortly afterwards and died a few months later. There’s now only one left from that generation of an extended family which traces to two sisters who came here from Scotland a hundred years ago. How courageous they must have been. Scotland the brave!
At about this same time we were able to rent one of the apartments we own in Baltimore to the family of a young woman who was undergoing (highly successful!) leukemia treatment at Johns Hopkins Hospital. It was wonderful to observe her progress and be a small part of the happiness that was so in evidence throughout. We later rented the apartment to a Hopkins medical student and hope to continue this in the future.
Other than these activities, the entire first half of the year was pretty much a non-event, as we spent that time trying unsuccessfully to sell our house in Maryland. We got to be really good at the ten minute evacuation drill, where we would get a call saying that somebody was coming to look at the house—so we had to be instantly gone, leaving it in perfect shape. This of course means that the house was ‘staged’ the whole time, i.e., made to look as if normal people weren’t really living there. So we never quite felt like we were able to live the life we wanted to be living during those times.
By mid-summer we concluded that the housing market just was not going to work out for us. Buyers (lookers!) regularly walked away from ours and lots of other houses, upset at some tiny detail that nobody would have cared about a year ago. Or figuring that they could save many thousands of dollars if they just waited a bit longer. So, as many others have been doing, we offered the house for rent, and by all measures we won big time! Within just two weeks we had a lease from a well qualified and very nice family that had just been transferred into the area. They weren’t able to sell the house they were moving from, so they had rented it out, just like us. We do feel secure having homeowners living in our house.
Things got busy with the date of September 20th looming in front of us. While the house was neat and tidy and most of the 30 years of ‘deferred maintenance’ had already been taken care of, getting everything organized, packed, and out of there was still a challenge. There were multiple furniture decisions involving the NH house, either of two Baltimore properties, donations to charity or to neighbors, selling to the tenants, and the county dump. Most of the items for NH went in a POD, which is really a great way to move. You rent a 16 foot container and fill it at your own pace, they move it when you say it’s ready, deliver it when you say you want it, and pick it up when you’re done with it. Rates are reasonable, and even more important is that there’s no horrible Moving Day trauma. The downside is that you have to be careful not to slack off.
That’s what we were up against as of mid-summer. So, what to do? Go away for a week and have fun! The opportunity presented to us was the wedding of Dan Mason’s sister Denise in Montana, just at the edge of Glacier National Park. We had never been there, and it was high on our list of parks to see. It was an opportunity for a reunion with Sarah, Dan, the grandkids, and Dan’s folks. And it was a fascinating experience, as Denise’s husband Joe is native American and the wedding was conducted in the Blackfeet tradition to complement their civil ceremony of a year or so ago. A drummer, a pipe, eagle feathers, and vows recited from memory, in the Blackfeet language!
Then it was back to work. We stuffed the POD and watched it disappear down the street, filled the local storage unit with items destined for the Baltimore properties, said goodbye to our great neighbors up and down the street and around the corner, loaded the cars, packed the cat in his box, and headed north, stopping briefly at a friend’s birthday party for a few more goodbyes!
It does feel so nice to finally be living in our home in the woods, knowing that we are here for real and don’t have a schedule of getting back to an unsold house in Maryland looming in front of us. We had lived in Maryland since 1970, raised a family there, made many wonderful friends, and enjoyed tremendously rewarding careers. But now we’re back in New England. We see mountains every day. Flocks of wild turkeys and the occasional deer come through our yard. There’s no lawn to mow, and we consider leaves to be part of the natural ecosystem. Our kayaks await us on the beach at the bottom of our road. But it’s not like we’re in the middle of nowhere. New London is a wonderful town with a nice library, a small college, a summer playhouse, a brewpub, a Main Street lined with family owned stores, and easy access to the major shopping locations. We’re home! Except when we leave to visit family and friends and exotic places.
Well, actually we did leave for a while quite soon after our arrival, on a long planned trip to England and Scotland with Sue Anne’s sister Aimée and her husband Steve. It was all new for them, a return to familiar places and discovery of some new ones for us, as well as a reunion with some long time friends. We were there for two weeks and had a great time! You can read our daily blog and see pictures, videos, and drawings at our family Web site www.bottomleyweb.us.
Then it was back to New Hampshire for a month. We unpacked the POD and organized for the next event, which was back in Maryland of all places. We’re there now to rehab our Baltimore properties in light of the involuntary departure of our primary tenant. We shall say no more about that. Then come early holidays with Sarah and family, then with Karin and Dan, and finally it’s back up north to our own house, complete with a Christmas tree from our own back yard.
Those who can recall previous Christmas letters might remember that for quite some time now we’ve promised that each would be the last one before we moved. Well, now we did it! Our mail address is PO Box 66, Elkins, NH 03233, our home address is 617 Sugarhouse Road, New London, NH 03257, phone is 603 526-2496, and e-mail remains bbb@acm.org. We welcome visitors!