Hey, everyone! I’m picking up where I left off with my notes from our trip to Durham. As you’ll recall, we had just landed and driven to the rental house.
Ladies and Gentlemen, meet Vincent, a very cool dude.
So we arrived at the B&B a bit after seven. It was a sweet little house in red and white, recently revamped by (I suspect) new owners. It was an AirB&B, and was one of the sort where you never actually meet the owner, but once Martha had toured the place, she was kind of impressed. “For once,” she said, “there’s enough light.”
This is a long standing complaint with us. We’re readers, of course. We always travel with books and magazines. But, in most hotels, and many B&Bs, there is not much light. There will be an overhead light, of course, and maybe a free standing lamp or two, but there aren’t any of the table lamps and desk lamps that you need to read comfortably while in a chair, a sofa, or the bed.
I can’t count the number of times I have gone sadly down to the check-in desk to see if they have a reading lamp we could borrow for Martha, or even just a brighter bulb or two, only to have the clerk (sometimes not that bright a bulb themselves) regard me with the sad indifference you bring to Boomers, antiques, sufferers from senility, and other anachronisms left over from The Dawn Of Time.
This little house, however, had lots of lamps. They were on the end tables next to the sofa, near the two chairs in the front room, and on *both* sides of the bed.
We were saved! And I could actually take notes in my steno pad.
Might not be able to read ‘em, but at least I could take ‘em.
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In fact, Martha was even able to tell me where the landlord shopped. “I recognize some of the furnishings,” she said. “That’s from Wayfair” -- pointing at a wall decoration -- “and that’s World Market” -- a piece of furniture. “She [meaning the landlord] has good taste.”
Sometimes women frighten me. At least when they shop.
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Vincent was already waiting for us in the driveway. And, bless him, he came with three huge pizzas and a bottle of merlot.
So we all moved into the house, us bringing luggage and him bringing food, and after a good many hello-hugs, we ate and had a long conversation...
A conversation which, had it been twenty years go, might well have lasted to the wee hours of the night.
But, we’re more sensible now.
And sleepier.
But that’s for later.
More to come.
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~mjt
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