Lynne Martin's Blog, page 4

Why We Love Paris in August

When we announced that we would spend June through August in Paris this year I could see dismay in our friends’ eyes. Even though most were too polite to say anything, I knew they were thinking, “Oh, my God, August in Paris? Really? It’s going to be jungle hot with no air conditioning, it will be jammed with unwashed tourists, and you won’t have anything to eat because EVERYONE knows Parisians evacuate in August. The restaurants will be closed. You poor things. What are you thinking?”

WRONG! None of the above has been true for us. Admittedly, a few days in July were so toasty that I spent one afternoon lolling in our apartment’s big old fashioned bathtub, happily sipping cold rosé while indulging in a good read on my Kindle. But right at the start of August the weather cooled, the tourists moved on to Italy or went home to get the kiddies ready for school, and a large percentage of the locals grabbed their bikinis and headed south with their children, dogs and grandma in tow. The lucky Martins were left behind to mind the store! Here are our top reasons to stay in Paris in August:



THE BEACHES: For a month, which sadly ended last weekend, the City of Paris sponsors an entire beach along the River Seine and traffic-free areas where anyone can spend the day relaxing with their tootsies in the sand, kayaking, swimming in pools suspended over the river, learning to sail, and other delightful activities for people smart enough to stay home. Our favorite was a picnic featuring sensational pates, cheese, fruit, bread and wine with pals as we watched the sun set behind Notre Dame.






Look at the view!
Wine, friends and the Seine



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SHOPPING

Let me tell you that shopping can be a contact sport in Paris. Between Madame Parisienne, who taps her foot until you remove yourself so she can get on with purchasing a new colander, and the ill-mannered tourist who is screaming loudly in his own language, annoyed by the sales person who has the temerity to not speak English, I usually stagger out of a store feeling exhausted and a little angry. But in August BHV, the big department store on the Rue de Rivoli, is mine, all mine! The upper floors where all the interesting things live is virtually empty, so I am allowed to browse happily, envying the treasures I know I’ll never have room enough to take home but love to peruse.





CROWDS

All of these people have gone home to Iowa or on to Ibiza, but they’re certainly NOT in Paris! This photo was taken in June when everyone was French Open-crazy. Now we can laze our way through much of Paris with almost no one in our way, except, of course, around Notre Dame or The Louvre.



For example, here are my husband and our pals Suzanne and Jeremy sprawling on a bench in the Bois de Boulogne rose garden with hardly another soul in sight!



DINING

“They,” whoever they are, say there are no restaurants open in Paris in August. “They” are mistaken! Things have changed. Many lovely places are open in August, and when we do arrive they are not crowded. We are greeted graciously, seated quickly, and dine very well! We have enjoyed the same excellent quality and good service we expect, even though we do spend a bit more time in advance searching out places that are open. I have a hunch the staff who stayed home to tend the store are happy to see us! They certainly give us lots of attention.

Does this look like starvation rations?



You can see how miserable we were.

WINE

Now, this is obvious.  France = fabulous wine, right? It’s even more fabulous when Renaud Vuillermet, of Caves Dargent, which was one block away from our apartment, explained every nuance of the embarrassingly numerous bottles of wine I purchased from him.  He educate my palate about the true wonders of a fresh, bright rosé on a steamy Paris afternoon and the deep luscious pleasure of a Grave 2009 Bordeaux for a late evening treat.  It was so worth lugging those treasures up three flights of stairs!!!

 

TRAVEL

We made a quick trip to London to see friends and meet the press with our friends at HomeAway.com, and discovered to our delight that getting a spot on the Eurostar was easy. We think all the French and British people are lazing on the beaches on the Mediterranean instead of vying for tickets to get to London!

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PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION

Even though some of the Metro lines and buses are still crowded around the big sights, we find we can get around the city with much less company than we’ve endured in the past. In August it’s rare to be jammed right next to other passengers, which is a good thing on SO many levels! Note the complete lack of company at this stop.

SEEING THE SIGHTS

Even the must-see sights don’t seem as crowded. Our pals Mary Lou and Nelson came to visit and when we took them to the Arc de Triomphe it was actually possible to take a photo of the great monument without including several people we really didn’t want to get to know!

SEEING FRIENDS

This year in Paris a bumper crop of friends, old and new, and readers of Home Sweet Anywhere and this blog came to Paris.  We had some wonderful lunches, dinners, parties, picnics and great visits.  Look at all these smiling faces!

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ENTERTAINING

We were so fortunate that our darling friends Andie and Georges allowed us to occupy their apartment for a while, so we were able to entertain new friends, Bonnie and Chuck Headlee, who were enjoying their home free life in Paris, and our long time friends Mary Lou and Nelson for dinner just before we left the city.  Here’s what we served:  pasta from the wonderful Ina Garten’s on-line recipes.

So next time someone rolls his eyes at the very idea of Paris in August, do tell them that it’s entirely possible for the weather to be mild, the waiters charming, the food terrific, and they might just run into the Martins swanning around in their bathing suits at the beach!

Channel Dancers

 

Note from Lynne: After a year of planning, we were able to coordinate a meeting with Mary webb and Howard Walker in Paris. They invited us to enjoy cocktails aboard “Nomade” when she was tied up at Port Arsenal on the Seine for a few days.  It was a spectacularly enjoyable afternoon, and their story about crossing the English Channel was so exciting that I asked her to write the first guest blog for Home Free Adventures.  She did a fabulous job.  Hang on to your life ring!

 

Mary Webb Walker

 

Howard and Mary Webb Walker were enjoying a great lifestyle in Florida when they decided to sell everything and plunge into a new adventure. The Walkers bought a motor yacht in Europe which serves as their only home and their means for exploring the European inland waterways and seas. This is their second year on  “Nomade,” and they decided to cross the English Channel to celebrate Howard’s birthday in London.

 

 

Channel Dancers

The early morning fog that completely obliterated the lighthouse at the end of the breakwater was slowly beginning to clear in the Port of Dunkirk on the northern coast of France. That glimmer of hope combined with our giddy sense of anticipation were the ingredients for a potentially regrettable decision.

“Nomade”

We’d been moored in Dunkirk for two days, awaiting a weather window for our first English Channel crossing on “Nomade,” our 57-foot Dutch steel yacht trawler that we call home. We had pushed hard, coming south from Amsterdam through busy canals and down the big Dutch rivers, then across the mighty Scheldt estuary into the port of Zeebrugge, Belgium before arriving in Dunkirk.

Our 56-mile haul across the Channel to Ramsgate on England’s south coast would be our first venture into the open sea, out of sight of land. Our previous trips had been limited to canal and river cruising, so this was a new challenge. Thinking about crossing the world’s busiest shipping lanes on our very first seagoing adventure was making our adrenaline start to pump.

Among other scary details, there was the racing tide to consider. It can create a rise and fall of over 20 feet in that part of France. The trick was to time our departure just right so that the tide flowed from behind, adding several knots to our speed, carrying us to the first turning point on our course at exactly the best moment. With our big adventure in sight, we wanted to get out of the starting gate ASAP so that we didn’t have any more time to let the ‘what ifs’ creep in.

After pouring over tide tables and rechecking calculations, triple checking five different weather reports in French and in English for wind, wave, temperature, precipitation, and visibility, we picked our go date. All was looking good until we peeked out the hatch at 7 AM. The dense fog waved my hair in about 10 seconds.

Decision time. Should we stay or should we go? This was where safety considerations had to trump our best laid plans, where objectivity had to overcome anticipation, where we definitely didn’t want to make a regrettable decision, but we needed to get moving before another bout of bad weather delayed us. So, after weighing all the intel, we finally decided to go for it. I thought, “If my cautious husband/captain is ready, then I’m rarin’, too.”

We had just agreed that we would take the plunge when a surprise guest appeared in the engine room. I was standing on the dock ready to loose lines when Howard suddenly popped from below decks, gingerly holding a bundle of dish towels away from his body and heading for the edge of the dock making that ‘whoa’ sound.

A foot-long, slithering, slimy eel had gotten sucked into the engine’s water intake filter. After eyeballing each other for a few stunned seconds, Howard had started chasing Monsieur Eel around the engine room (headroom four feet) on his hands and knees in what must have been a hilarious but not-funny-at-the-time YouTube-worthy scene. He finally managed to capture it, creep up the steps, and get it back into the sea. This eel was not happy and had the nerve to try to bite the hands that were saving its life, but into the water it went with no harm done to the rescuer or the eel.

 

With that bit of excitement behind us, we finally loosed lines at 11AM and plowed into a tide that was now head-on in cold, foggy weather. At least it wasn’t raining. This is when the adrenaline truly kicked in. We were finally doing it. We were crossing the Channel, that unrelenting body of water that separates southern England from Northern France, and the Atlantic Ocean from the North Sea and has served as the scene for many a lip-biting film.

Editor’s note: Just in case you think river cruising is long, lazy days lolling on the deck, check out this recent moment going under a bridge in France! Peaceful, right?

The heaviest fog rolled in just at the most challenging and dangerous point – as we were approaching the shipping lanes or TSS, a very British term for Traffic Separation Scheme. This is the Channel’s version of the New Jersey Turnpike or 405 LA Freeway, complete with median.You can’t just cruise at leisure across those five-mile wide sections of water, which, by the way, have no signposts saying, “You Are Now Entering the TSS. Proceed With Caution.” You have to identify them accurately via chart and cross at 90-degree angles or you could be a) mowed down, b) fined thousands of euros, and/or c) intercepted and escorted to port for who knows how many lashes, license revocations, and (horror of horrors), a British tongue-lashing. Helicopters hovered, their crews gleefully anticipating changing the fate of some poor green pleasure boater crossing at an 89-degree angle.

Dover Coast Guard broadcasts at this point were indicating only two cable lengths of visibility. For you non-nautical readers, that’s the equivalent of driving through a blizzard blindfolded.  Welcome to sailing in English pea soup while surrounded by ships the size of three football fields, each transporting what looked like small cities. Many were carrying dangerous cargo that was thankfully described in code to Dover Coast Guard to save us from being horrified.

Fortunately, our boat has amazing radar and AIS, which stands for Automatic Identification System. AIS reports everything about a ship short of how the captain takes his/her coffee. Just as importantly, it allows other ships to know you’re there. We could therefore anticipate what was approaching and avoid playing mid-Channel bumper boats, since the big boys have no chance of stopping quickly.

While Howard carefully steered through the northbound TSS lane from the flybridge, I was glued below to the radar screen in the wheelhouse, shouting positions of approaching ships. At one point, I happily reported that there were no ships at all. Two minutes later, I counted 24. Only when we got close enough to see through the fog did we realize that they were anchored in the “median,” waiting for the tide to turn in their favor.

Controls in the wheelhouse.

Just when we thought we were safe, our heart rates returning to normal in that median, a bit of euphoria began kicking in. It was time to stick our bow out of the median and cross the southbound lane, which were indeed looking like the LA 405 in rush hour That’s when the monster materialized.

We were almost home free when a dot appeared high on the edge of the radar screen at one o’clock. Based on the speeds at which the other “dots” we had encountered traveled, it seemed certain that we would exit the lane before this blip became a real ship.

Not happening! This one flew down the screen at a quadrant a minute. My normally calm voice started sounding more urgent as that dot accelerated. Howard threw the Nomade into reverse to slow our forward motion. As my shouts got louder, he executed a 90-degree turn to steer a course parallel to the flying dot. (Glad no helicopters were watching but surely collision avoidance takes precedence over their right angle crossing rule). Then she appeared out of the mist no more than 50 yards away, a close call with a ship that size. At almost 1000 feet long, MSC Yokohama was the size of the city of Yokohama from our perspective. Howard took a deep breath and angled toward her stern to enable us to resume right-angle crossing as quickly as possible. But the Coast Guard had warned us not to approach ships’ sterns too closely, or it could appear to their radar monitors that we may be catching a drug package tossed from the ship. Being intercepted for being drug smugglers was the last thing we needed, so instead of aiming right at the stern, we aimed a few yards behind it. Was our parting ever sweet relief as the Yokohama steamed off into the fog bank.

Finally, at the six-and-a-half hour mark, we emerged from the shipping lanes. Now we could jump up and down in sheer relief and jubilation! Almost.

At that very moment, just to make life interesting, the wind kicked up and the waves climbed high. We looked out on a sea of rollicking white caps.  Our final hour-and-a half into Ramsgate was no picnic, as we had removed our stabilizers, wonderful inventions that keep the boat flat in rolling seas. We would be cruising in France in a few weeks and didn’t want to mangle them in those narrow canals. Naturally we had assumed we could cross the Channel on a calm, sunny day so stabilizers wouldn’t be necessary. Without them we were rocking and rolling from side to side, then bow to stern, hanging onto the rails on the flybridge to keep from being tossed around as the swell height reached around eight feet.If this had happened a week before, we might have been terrified, but we were so ecstatic about clearing the shipping lanes that being on spin cycle was no big deal.

We definitely experienced divine intervention that crossing day, and along with Captain Howard’s cool head and amazing skills we made it unscathed. . We safely docked on Ramsgate’s floating pontoon under the most beautiful, surprising blue sky and welcoming sun.  Who cared  if it was 38 degrees Fahrenheit. We’d done it. Time to pop open the bubbly, then go share our tale at the local yacht club, where the ships in the lanes no doubt would grow bigger and closer with each telling.

We won’t think about crossing back to France for another three weeks or so. For now, we are the Channel Dancers.

Mary and Howard enjoying life aboard “Nomade” – not in the English Channel!

Keeping Love Alive – One Country at at Time

My head snapped around when I heard  Tim say, “If you’re going to live in a 500 square foot apartment in a country where you can’t speak the language, you’d better really like the person you’re with.” The woman seated next to him at the dinner party giggled.

Could we go from a 2000 S/F house with a refrigerator the size of a Volkswagen to live in a place like this?

When we retired and sold our California home in 2011, ditching most of our belongings and setting off with two 32-inch rolling duffels to live internationally, we meticulously tended to the details: insurance, finances, inoculations, and, of course, careful travel planning. We anticipated the emotional turmoil leaving our four daughters and their families behind for much of each year would cause, but we were so focused on the excitement of our new lives that we never really spoke about the risk we could be taking with our relationship.

Maintaining a happy marriage was easy enough in a stable environment, one in which we enjoyed the diversion of friends, community involvement, and some kind of personal private space – a den, an office, even a taking a moment alone at a desk in a spare room. Figuring out new relationship guidelines was going to be as much of a challenge as learning to pack light for nine months and several climate changes. Facing years of constant togetherness in a series of rentals, some no bigger than an igloo, would we be stretching the seams of our tightly woven cocoon too far?

Our first romance, when we were in our thirties, had failed because we were each still seeking maturity in ways that weren’t compatible. Thirty-five years later when we met again, my late husband was succumbing to Alzheimer’s Disease and Tim’s marriage was ending. We instantly knew that life had given us another chance at happiness, and we had to make every second count.

Our first romance.

Back in the day.

We each brought many years of marital experience to the table, experience that taught us to control hot-tempered impulses, put the others’ feelings first, and cherish every moment we had together. Since we had missed the difficult years, we had not wounded one another in the inevitable conflicts long-married couples experience; child-rearing, career problems, money conflicts, infidelities, mid-life crises, and all other opportunities to inflict irreparable harm to each other. A late in life marriage made it easier for us to behave with patience, courtesy and kindness because we were not haunted by old tapes or scabs from previous wounds. We were so compatible that our four daughters and some of our friends called us the “cult of two.” But could our cult withstand a life of derring-do for grown-ups, adrift in the world?

After all, despite our newfound compatibility, life on the go magnifies our differences. Tim is a more meticulous, persistent person than I, so he assumed the role of travel planner, a mantle that can become an anvil when things go wrong. Discovering that our charming apartment in a quaint French village featured a treacherous 15th-century, four-story spiral stone staircase but no elevator; living in Florence’s summer heat without air conditioning, a feat almost impossible for normal mortals; or making an eighteen-day transatlantic crossing on a ship so decrepit that it was headed for dry dock were situations that sorely tested our accustomed courtesy and patience with each other. Knowing that we wouldn’t be going “home” to regroup, but would continue on the road for the foreseeable future complicated our emotional reactions to adversity. Resisting the urge to snap and blame sometimes required supreme self-control on both our parts and led us to establish one of our cardinal rules for our relationship-on-the-road: She who does not make the plan may not complain about the outcome.

We discovered early on that one key to our happiness is spelling each other from the things we hate to do, especially on the road where every chore seems more involved.  Language barriers, local customs, and not knowing exactly where to find what one needs in a strange city can take a toll on a relationship. Queuing up to pay at a cash register is agony for Tim, so he stands outside the store watching the sidewalk parade in Paris while I cope inside with Madame as she weighs the rutabagas; I despise laundry, so since most European places do not furnish clothes dryers as we know them, he’s in charge of draping our damp undies over every available surface. The list of courtesies is long, and the patterns we have developed cut way back on the time and energy we could waste negotiating. We would rather enjoy our surroundings than bicker about who’s in charge of what chore.

In our new nomadic lifestyle, showing love is less about passion and more about patience.

The laundress on a steaming hot day in Italy. What a man.

There seems to be a prevailing notion that travel offers a romantic panacea to a relationship, but the truth is that sharing close quarters, sometimes challenging circumstances, and lacking the buffer of a daily routine can be trying. We work hard at controlling our tempers and supporting each other! For instance, once we’ve developed a plan, I don my cheerleader outfit, knowing we’re committed in more ways than one. Mad romance isn’t much use when you’re wading through water up to your knees in the dark, sodden map in tatters, rain dripping down the back of your neck, lost in a pounding Istanbul storm with no taxis in sight. True love is summoning the civility to say, “Don’t worry, sweetie, I know you’ll figure it out,” so your partner doesn’t feel even worse about having led you into such a dicey, soggy experience.

One warm summer day in Istanbul, early in our travels, I picked up my purse, closed the door, and walked out of our tiny apartment to join Tim as he stood on our fourth story terrace admiring the magnificent Blue Mosque. We were on our way to lunch. “You DO have the key, don’t you?” he said, alarm in his voice.

“I assumed you were ready to leave since you came out here,” I replied, hurrying over to try the door. Of course it was locked tight. The tiny bit of shade on the terrace was already shrinking as the sun soared higher; we had no water, and no way to get down.

The spectacular view from our famous terrace in Istanbul. The furniture was two cracked plastic chairs, but who cared?

I began to apologize as I fumbled in my purse, looking for my phone to email our landlord about our predicament. Tim skipped the opportunity for blame and waved away my apologies. “Sweetie, relax. This could have happened to anyone. We’ll get it straightened out. He’ll send someone to help,” he said as the sun hit its highest point.

After our landlord rescued us, we went inside for a drink of water before striking out again. I was still in mid-apology for the tenth time when Tim said, “I don’t believe it!”

“What’s up?” I asked. I turned around to see him grimacing as he dangled the key in front of him.

“Guess what was in my pocket all the time?” he said sheepishly.

I laughed. “I guess you’re really glad you were so nice to me out there!”Off we went to lunch, this time with the key firmly planted in my purse.

Laughing is definitely a key ingredient in our wandering life.   Tim cracks me up every single day, and my greatest joy is surprising him with a smart remark or a quick retort.  We are each others’ best audiences!

Whether you’re living in an igloo or a mansion, patience, kindness and laughter are the key ingredients to a love that works. Whether we’re averting a disastrous mistake or reveling in a perfect experience, every day we are together is a gift we could never have foreseen when we parted so long ago. After living for thirty-five years without each other, sharing 500 square feet together feels perfectly comfortable for this cult of two.

Celebrating A Million HomeAway Properties!

Congratulations to our friends at HomeAway!  Today they celebrate their one millionth listing of rental properties world wide in 190 countries!  Tim and I consider ourselves the senior poster children for this terrific organization, since we’ve stayed in over twenty of their locations in just the past three years we’ve been on the road home free. That leaves us just 99,980 places left to enjoy!

We even rent their properties when we visit our children in the U.S.  Having our own place certainly promotes family harmony and it allows us to entertain our children and grandchildren at “our” house, which is a real treat for us.

Three darling granddaughters enjoying lunch at Nana and Tim’s HomeAway rental in Paso Robles, California.

I’ve written a lot about our experiences here on the blog and in Home Sweet Anywhere, so whether you’re a new reader or have been with us for a long time, you know that we are great fans of all the advantages HomeAway offers.

Staying in vacation rentals gives us a chance to live like the locals, have twice the room at half the cost of a hotel, and save even more money by having the ability to cook our meals at home.  Unlike people on a two-week vacation, we really do live as we do at home, watching TV, reading, exploring the local attractions and meeting local people at a relaxed, unhurried pace.  So having our private space and room enough to feel comfortable is of primary importance to us.

Here are some of the terrific spots we’ve enjoyed in the past few years:




Tim enjoying lunch on our terrace the day the sun came out in Staten Island.
Too much fun in our little house. Tim, Deborah Ingalls and daughter Alexandra in our HomeAway in Paso Robles, California, last year.
This work space in our apartment offered lots of light in Berlin.
Here's my fabulous coat from Salvation Army. I'm standing in our apartment in East Molesey, outside London.
Our kitchen in Buenos Aires.
All set for a dinner party in the summer of 2013.
Tim working on more plans in our house in Portugal.
And of course, our favorite Paris hideaway on Rue Charles Weiss.



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Every place had its special qualities.  Our house in Portugal was enormous by our standards, with three bedrooms, two baths, a large kitchen, a wonderful terrace, and a quick walk to one  of the most stunning beaches we’ve ever seen!

The world’s record surf was set on this beach!

Our hidey-hole in Dublin was also near the beach, but the wild winds and slashing rains made us glad that our apartment was in a 300+ year old mansion that had withstood storms much worse than the ones we were experiencing.

Our apartment was a small part of this gorgeous old mansion. We adored living there.

By contrast, our tiny place in Istanbul was crowded but incredibly clean and efficient, and what it lacked in interior space, it made up for entirely with views of the fabulous Blue Mosque and the breathtaking Bay of Istanbul with its thrilling bridges and endless traffic of huge ships steaming by.

From our balcony in Istanbul. Magic! We know of three other readers who have stayed in that apartment so far.

We congratulate our friends at HomeAway on their accomplishment, even as we’re making plans right now to raise our rental numbers to at least forty in the next three years!  We may not make much of a dent in their 190 countries, but we’re certainly going to try!

 

 

I’ll Take Manhattan…and Staten Island, too!

The airport limo driver talked non-stop in colorful Brooklynese, and grudgingly helped us drag our luggage up steep concrete steps to the front porch. Tim struggled with an unfamiliar lock while a sharp wind peppered us with icy shards.  Finally, we staggered into a grandmotherly living room, complete with with lace doilies, plastic plants, and family-rendered art work.

We hated those stairs, but that’s why we had the terrific view!

It was freezing inside the house, too. The  usual light switch fumbling, bag-dragging, exploring routine began as we controlled our tempers, which were worn thin after a long day of travel from California. The rental apartment instruction book told us how to fire up the thermostat.  Soon the classic pipe clanging, hissing and rumbling announced the arrival of radiator heat from whatever monster lived in the basement, and things looked brighter. Here we were again, ready to make our home free life work in a new place.

Our cozy granny flat.

This was New York, well, to be more accurate, Staten Island, a place some Manhattanites don’t recognize as part of their city because it lies across the water, a twenty-minute ferry ride from the tip of the financial district, and an entirely different environment from the city’s.

We chose to live on Staten Island for the two-and-a-half-month run-up and follow through for  Home Sweet Anywhere’s release because we could get much more bang for our buck there.  We could not afford a two bedroom apartment with a decent kitchen, a real dining room and a small patio in the city proper!  So although the location had its drawbacks, having more space made up for it. The extra bedroom became a writer’s room, and we had space to breathe as we hunkered down inside during 2014′s terrible New York winter and early spring weather.  Tim’s dogged search through hundreds of HomeAway properties in various New York environs had paid off. The house was elderly but comfortable, and the bonus was the view. We had a spectacular, ever-changing show across the water with  tankers, freighters, tugs, and barges moving past our windows constantly.  The ferries  trundled back and forth from our island to Wall Street every thirty minutes, and on foggy days, the deep moans of the horns were exciting, mysterious.





At least green was beginning to show up by May.
These guys were always there.
She lived between us and Manhattan. We waved every day we went into the city.
Where is this thing going?



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The new Freedom Tower, surrounded by the other skyscrapers in Lower Manhattan, spiked heavenward, and at night we were treated to a billion-dollar light show. That killer view offset the ghastly freezing weather and ever-present chilly wind, the trek to the ferry, the more difficult trek home  at night, and the paucity of decent food markets.  Almost every time I walked through the living room I couldn’t resist sitting down for a few minutes to watch the passing parade.  Those big ships heading for God-knows-where seemed wildly romantic, and the the way the clouds changed the color of the water, the buildings, and the sky was endlessly fascinating.

Look at the clouds on the building to the right of the Freedom Tower!  It looks transparent.  These views were spectacular day and night.

 

Our days were filled with excitement generated by the book’s debut, but even with the heady hoopla we were enjoying, we still had our life to live.  Home free does not mean chore free, and just like everyone else’s life, it comes right down to finding a way to get food, clean clothes, and transport ourselves and our purchases where they need to be.  For us, this meant using the bus on Staten Island, the ferry to and from Manhattan, and the subway in New York.  Let me tell you that we quickly learned to add at least an hour on each end of a trip to the city.  Even though the ferry itself took less than half an hour, we faced a sometimes-grueling ten minute walk down to the ferry in howling winds and rain, and if we missed the connecting subway, which jerked, halted, screeched, stopped for unexplained reasons,  and sometimes limped its way up that other island, we were definitely late for wherever we were headed. For really important appointments we’d leave the house two hours ahead to allow for un-forseen transportation delays.  Our life was dictated by bus, ferry and subway timetables, which were about as reliable as the weather!  Our idea of a good day quickly became a day in which we didn’t miss any connections and made our appointments on time!  It became a game.  Sometimes we’d bolt from a nice dinner out in order to be sure we didn’t miss that 11:30 p.m. ferry home.

Everyone finds something to do on the ferry.
Waiting for the ferry to come.
We knew too much about everyone.
Ah….at last it's here.
This smile is frozen in place. It was about 40F.
A warmer day, and at least he has a seat!
Staten Island passengers were not all that happy.
Behave yourself.
Cold, damp. What else can I say?



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We found ways to amuse ourselves on the long commutes, and some wonderfully entertaining chats with fellow passengers developed, especially on the subway.  We loved this girl’s purchase.  She said it was going to hang in her bathroom.  I’ll bet her apartment was darling!

She was hilarious!

 

We’ll talk about food in Manhattan in another installment, but I must say that dining and shopping in Staten Island were new experiences. This item in the local market sent me to my computer to find out what in the world people do with this part of a goat.  I did not have the courage to purchase them, but at least I have a new understanding of Haitian and Caribbean food.

Look it up burnt goat feet.  It’s fascinating.

 

And of course there were times when we had to choose between real food and catching the next ferry home.  In this case, the desire for our radiators and dry feet prevailed.  I wasn’t proud of myself.

I do not believe that this color is actually found in nature.

 

Early on, Tim discovered The Stars and Stripes, a little deli perched on a triangle of land halfway between our house and the ferry.  Its owner, Louie, and his staff welcomed us, even though we were clearly not island natives.  His fresh food, lively conversation, and being welcomed like natives made us return again and again for a taste of real neighborhood life.

This was our version of the “Cheers” bar. Everybody knew our names and they were sweet enough to make our lunches exactly to order!

Two-and-a-half months of lousy weather, challenging transportation issues,  jostling crowds, and surviving the anxiety around the long-anticipated birthing of Home Sweet Anywhere tested us. In many ways, finding our rhythm and making a home for ourselves on Staten Island was every bit as daunting as learning to cope with the madness of Marrakech!  But then, confronting those very challenges, learning to live among people we would never have gotten to know in our old life, and succeeding in understanding a little bit of what turned out to be a very different culture from our own is what makes living home free the wonderful adventure it is.

 

 

Our Packing Secrets Revealed

Today we were enjoying our coffee while watching an enormous red transport ship glide by.The behemoth was deep in the water, piled several stories high with grimy containers stamped in several languages bound for parts unknown.  It was so big that it obscured our living room view of the new Freedom Tower that soars above Lower Manhattan.  Tim groaned, “Those big containers remind me of what’s next for us.”  I knew immediately what he meant and matched his mood.  Morning bliss ruined.  The packing clock ticking.

We have been in the United States for months, living in a series of HomeAway.com vacation rentals in California and New York while introducing my book, Home Sweet Anywhere.  Thanks to our generous readers and a willing press, the book found an audience right away and is enjoying an energetic launch, which means we can get back to our peripatetic home free life.  It also means that we must once again face a reality which confronts us every time we depart for one of our long adventures:  packing.

Sorting through the 10 x 15 foot California storage space is a day-long event each time, because finding our belongings after many months is like Christmas. “Oh….look what I found!  My khaki Keds’!”

During three years of this blog’s life I’ve addressed just about every issue that confronts people who live a home free life:  international insurance, the Schengen Agreement visa problem, handling money, asking the right questions, how to find an apartment, how to check into an apartment, how to keep from killing your spouse, shopping, repositioning cruises, cooking, dining and certainly drinking.  But the most-asked question is the one I’ve never answered:  what do we pack.  So here it is, the suitcase saga and how we have solved it, more or less, with three years of experience.

This man has too much luggage. Note the one hidden by the bench. This was how much stuff we took to Argentina. We learned a HUGE lesson here and have never repeated that error!

Choose the Right Suitcase.  Don’t be fooled. A great big suitcase will allow you to take more stuff with you, but you’ll pay for it.  Here’s a little algebraic formula:  big suitcase + overpacking = expensive airline charges x chiropractic bills.   No kidding.  If your bag weighs over 40 pounds, you’re in trouble with many airlines from the start and can incur horrific charges.  Your back won’t thank you, either, so get used to this idea.  We have two 32-inch rolling duffel bags and whatever won’t fit into those plus a carry-on doesn’t get invited to go on the trip.  I do carry my computer with me separately over my shoulder because, besides Tim, it’s my most prized, useful possession, but everything else is in the cases.

 

These people have the right amount of luggage for a nine-month trip. The rule: if you add something,  something has to go OUT!

Forget About Fashion.  People who are fashionable have closets.  I do not have a closet.  Therefore, I am no longer fashionable.  I rotate the things I do have until I want to burn every garment the moment I come off the road.  This is one of the prices we pay for being home free.  I suggest that you pick a couple of colors and an accent color and stick with it.  We have both been wearing black so long that we think we are attending an endless funeral.  I wear black, grey, white and splashes of red almost all the time.  Boring but workable.  Besides, black makes us all look skinnier!

And here we are in our favorite color. Those duds have been around the world a couple of times,. We look pretty happy in our funeral garb, don’t you think?

That’s not to say that you couldn’t plan your entire wardrobe around brown or blue or green, but it’s important that you pick some scheme and stick to it.  That way your jewelry, shoes, socks, scarves and other accessories will work all the time.  For me, donning my brown and beige stuff when I’m near our California storage unit is a big thrill.  Isn’t that pitiful?

Don’t ask me why I have a photo of these jammies, but you can see why I fear no bellhop or steward. Who would want me? And look at that bright hair. I guess I liked it, though. This was in La Charite Sur Loire, France.

 

About Lingerie:  I pack two pairs of modest pj’s, so if the ship’s steward brings the coffee neither of us is embarrassed, or if I get locked out of my apartment the cops won’t lock me up for indecency. I don’t have room to carry a robe, so I use a super soft, long, black knit sweater.  It doubles for a light wrap when the weather is cool and I’ve slept many times in it when I was freezing in Ireland or Portugal.  It’s just about my favorite garment.  The rest of this stuff is elementary.  Three bras, five panties, two tights (I have a pair of fleece ones for winter), five socks,  some knee-highs and a pair of panty-hose.

Check out these 11 ½ aaa babies. Be grateful for what you have, I say, you size nine braggarts!

About Accesssories:  I do believe I’ve mentioned my freakishly large feet on some occasion.  But in case you weren’t paying attention, I wear an 11 ½ AAA.  Yes, you heard it here. It’s awful.   So buying shoes along the way is not an option for me.  I take flats,  sandals, running shoes, comfortable pumps, flip-flops (also my house shoes), and if it’s winter, ankle boots.  Every one of them is BLACK, of course.  I take a large purse and a small one for dining out or special events. Guess what color they are?   I sometimes buy a cute canvas one at an outdoor market along the way if it’s summer.  I never take a hat because they’re fun to buy and not usually expensive.  Jewelry is pretty easy.  Nothing terribly expensive, nothing heavy.  Simple is better, and you’ll want to pick up things as you go along anyway.  Scarves – as many as you like!  You’ll want to buy these along the way, too.  A belt.

About Cosmetics, Medicine, and Sundries:  We take as few cosmetics as possible because that stuff is available just about everywhere we have been.  Sephora is universal, and certainly drugstores carry all the lotions and potions a person can use.  Prescription drugs should be taken along, and although we have been told that one can fill prescriptions abroad we have never really tried it.  I also take an extra pair of eyeglasses and the prescription, just in case.

About Electronics:  We have IPhones, a laptop each, a Kindle each, an HDMI cable so we can plug in our laptops to a TV screen, and an IPad mini.  We buy throw-away phones to be in touch locally and leave our IPhones on airplane mode to avoid charges.  We carry a great GPS with us to plug into rental cars. And, oh yes, my Bose noise-cancelling headset which allows me to write in the middle of a fireworks display, construction site, or shopping center.

About Other Essentials:  I would never leave home without my wine opener, my little plastic knife sharpener, and my instant-read thermometer, a pair of scissors, some scotch tape, some duct tape, a few envelopes, and a check book.

LYNNE’S PACKING LIST

2 T-Shirts: Layering is the world’s best travel advice.  I have two polyester/spandex scoop-necked long sleeved t-shirts that I couldn’t live without.  One black, one white.  They keep me warm under a shirt or sweater, or can go on their own as the weather warms up.  They look great under my blazer, too.

2 Pairs of Jeans:  blue and black

1 pair black slacks

1 Long-sleeved white shirt

1 Short-sleeved white shirt

2 Skirts – both elastic waist, knee length.

3 Tops that will go over the jeans and skirts

1 black dress – all season, goes everywhere, that will work with the blazer or cardigan.

1 pullover sweater

1 blazer that goes with everything

1 cardigan sweater

1 raincoat

1 hooded jacket

1 lightweight windbreaker

And here’s gentleman Tim in his regular costume!

 TIM’S PACKING LIST

1 Sport Coat

1 Windbreaker

1 Sleeveless sweater

1 Sweatshirt

1 Dress shirt

4 Golf shirts

2 T-shirts

5 Pairs socks

5 Pairs Underwear

1 Pair slacks

2 Pairs jeans

2 pairs shorts

1 Baseball hat

3 Pairs shoes

1 Pair black polyester work-out pants

1 Black polyester work-out baseball jacket

OUR RECYCLED CLOTHING TRICK

 You’ll notice that there is no mention of coats.  That’s because, unless we depart in deep winter, we don’t take them.  We bought the coats you see  at the Salvation Army in East Molesey, GB., in 2012, wore them there an in freezing Ireland for a month, left them with a friend, and enjoyed them again in a very chilly 2013 April in Kenmare, Ireland.  They now are keeping some nice Irish people warm.  An ecological and economical winner!

This handsome coat cost 20£ at a charity shop.
This gorgeous coat (note the grey scarf which is now being enjoyed by someone else) cost 20£, too! Both coats are living in Ireland now!



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The last week in May, we’ll pack up our New York finery, which was necessary so we could swan around New York and Boston looking like dressed up adults.  A big box of those duds will be shipped to California, where our darling daughters will plunk them in the storage unit.  May 31 we will pack up our duffels with the stuff on our lists, and board a plane for Paris, where we’ll headquarter for the summer and take side trips to place we’ve targeted for a long time.  We’re spending five days with our darling friends Andie and Georges on a farm in Normandy, and we’ll probably take a short trip to Amsterdam, perhaps revisit Berlin, and maybe go to the South of France.  We’re talking about several other destinations, and I think our pals Rick and Margo will allow us to occupy their comfy leather chairs for a London fix.  Planning is half the fun.

I know for certain that  we’ll be wearing our same old duds no matter what we do, but nobody seems to mind!  At least I’ll pick up a new hat!

 

 

 

 

 

Exclusive Subscriber Excerpt

HOME SWEET ANYWHERE

Introduction

Smart people do not loiter at the Columbia Bridge, nor anywhere else near the border in Laredo, Texas.

Nevertheless, this is exactly what my husband, Tim, and I found ourselves doing at dawn on a sparkling June morning as we anxiously waited for someone to come along and tell us the correct procedure for crossing the border into Mexico. Expats who often made the trip we were about to embark upon instructed us to use the bridge, not the more heavily traveled main border crossing, which is famous for delays and gunplay between drug dealers and border guards. But directions from our unlovely hotel to the bridge had been hard to acquire, and as we struck out shortly after dawn, we were still not sure if we had it right. The freeway intersecting the city was too new for our map, Google was inconclusive, and the hotel staff was clueless. Needless to say, we were a little nervous.

We’d stayed up too late the night before looking for a route, our iPhones and laptops blazing. It would be a ten-hour trip—provided there weren’t any surprises. We had to time it just right, crossing the border early before the crowds, so we could arrive in the Central Mexican mountain town of San Miguel de Allende before dark. Smart people also avoid roaming around Mexico at night.

Finally some people arrived and entered the border office building. So we stopped loitering and entered as well to find the employees engaged in a lively recap of their weekend activities. We approached the desk hesitantly, clutching our customs documents. An official, clearly annoyed at our interruption, curtly glanced at our paperwork, relieved us of several hundred dollars for the auto entry fees, banged our passports with a faded stamp, and instructed us to wait for the gate to open so that our car could also be inspected.

Once again, we found ourselves waiting anxiously for another official to arrive. When she did, the challenge of pawing through our SUV, crammed with luggage and gifts for our Mexican friends, which we had disguised to avoid hefty duty fees, proved too much for her. After a couple of desultory questions, she waved us through the last barrier standing between us and our newly minted expat lifestyle. We were on the road.

The border crossing marked our first step toward traveling internationally full time and finally living in places we longed to see. For years in our separate lives, we had just dreamed of going to all these places. Now we were finally making it a reality. But even more importantly, our ability to take on the world without a home base full of familiar things was also rooted in the joy my husband, Tim, and I experienced at finding one another again after a thirty-five-year hiatus.

Our torrid two-year relationship in the 1970s had ended painfully because our timing was wrong. Tim was a brilliant, handsome, sexy lyricist living a financially risky Hollywood existence in the unfettered style of that decade. I was a dynamic tall blond with a demanding career in public relations. We had been friends when we were married to the parents of our children, and when those marriages dissolved for different reasons, we rediscovered one another quite by accident and fell madly in love on the spot. It was a glorious two years, but with two little girls and a ranch-style house in the San Fernando Valley to take care of, I didn’t have the courage or energy to marry Tim and his freewheeling lifestyle, even though I wanted desperately to be with him.

Thirty-five years later, I answered the door and welcomed Tim into my home. He had phoned a few days earlier, saying he was planning to visit Cambria, the seaside village in Central California where I had lived for fifteen years. I could not have anticipated what happened next. I thought our connection would have settled into its proper slot in my life’s experience. When I accepted his offer to stop by for a brief catch-up, I told myself that he was a former lover from eons ago and now a valued friend, nothing more.

Not so. The minute I looked at him, the years disappeared. My heart knew that he was mine, I was his. That was all there was to it. We were in serious trouble.

“I’m so happy to see you, Tim,” I said, smiling. Before he could answer, my husband, Guy, called, “Who’s here?” from his studio downstairs.

My husband was a well-known illustrator/artist, popular with everyone. We had everything we wanted—a happy, loving marriage and comfortable life, a perfect garden, a terrific kitchen, a working art studio, and great spaces for entertaining. It was idyllic except for one monstrous reality: Guy was succumbing fast to Alzheimer’s disease.

Tim had arrived on one of Guy’s lucid days. The three of us chatted in the afternoon sun, enjoying the views of the Pacific through pine trees that meander down to the Cambria beach. At that point, Tim had been settled down for years and owned a small electronics manufacturing business, a far cry from his former rock-star days. He amused us with wild tales about that frantic industry. The conversation was going well, but when Tim mentioned that his marriage of twenty years was ending, I felt my carefully constructed world tilt.

When he left, we parted as old friends should—with a peck on the cheek and a fond hug. We simply could not speak of the obvious. Time would continue to rob us.

It was an impossible situation. My husband required my loyalty and devotion, and of course my heart still lay with him. We loved each other dearly, and for twenty years I had enjoyed the responsibility of making our lives run smoothly and playing the part of his muse while he pursued his active, successful career as an artist. Watching Guy’s mind slip away was breaking my heart. I needed to stay focused, and yet my desire to never let Tim out of my sight again was equally compelling. I was miserable, afraid, and jubilant. I was in love.

The next few months were pure anguish. Guy lost ground every day; finally, for his own safety, our doctor told us that he needed to be in a facility for Alzheimer’s patients. He had reached the point where he needed the level of supervision I couldn’t provide at home. Guy said, as we walked into the common living room, “My dear, what a lovely hotel. Did you know that it’s famous for its restaurant?” I was devastated. He settled in immediately and never inquired about our former life again. Three years later, he passed away—and eventually my new life began.

The notion of traveling internationally full time came to Tim and me several years later as we sipped drinks on a friend’s terrace in San Miguel de Allende. We were staying in her beautiful colonial house for a month while she was away. By then, we had reunited and eventually married and settled in California’s Central Coast wine country, while traveling as much as we could. A cheerful blaze crackled in the outdoor fireplace as we chatted about where we’d like to go next.

This conversation presented the perfect opportunity for me to bring up a delicate matter I’d been considering for quite some time. On my next birthday I would be seventy, a huge milestone. That was definitely past middle age (what I had always considered myself, since I was so healthy and energetic), unless I planned to live to be a hundred and forty. With the big day looming, I was feeling restless and frustrated because there were so many places I wanted to go, but not just to go. I wanted to experience living in these places, not only visiting for a week or two. The problem, I had realized in the months since this thought first occurred to me, was our big house, with its accompanying overhead and maintenance responsibilities. Owning it prevented us from leaving for too many months at a time. But since my relationship with Tim still felt relatively new, I’d kept my mouth shut, worried that if I mentioned my secret concerns he would think it meant I was unhappy just being with him.

But that day in San Miguel, I was so antsy about it that I couldn’t contain myself anymore. I took a deep breath and said, “You know, Tim, I don’t want to upset you or hurt your feelings, but I have to tell you this. I’m not happy living in Paso Robles. It’s not you, God knows, but I’ve realized that there are a lot of places I need to see before I’m too old. I’m just not ready to quit exploring the world yet, and a three-week vacation just isn’t enough travel for me. I think we need to figure out how to be away more than we’re at home.” I closed my eyes to avoid seeing his expression, terrified that he might misinterpret me, that he would think I was unhappy with our life together.

Instead, he roared with laughter. “Oh my God, we’re on the same page! I’ve been thinking exactly the same thing for months, but I was afraid you’d think I’d lost my mind. I thought you wouldn’t consider leaving the house and the grandkids.”

I stared at him in disbelief—and with that, our plan was born. We would “unretire” and find a way to move freely around the world, soaking up the sights and places that had been gathering

With those magical words, off we went on a breathtaking adventure that would carry us into a high-rise in Buenos Aires; a peaceful country hacienda in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico; a tiny apartment with a big view of The Blue Mosque and the Sea of Marmara in Istanbul; a darling flat with a great kitchen a few blocks from the Seine in Paris; a villa apartment overlooking Florence; a medieval three-story walk-up in La Charité-sur-Loire, France; a balconied one-bedroom by the River Thames near London, an apartment outside Dublin in a three-hundred-year-old Georgian mansion with views of the Irish Sea; two rooms in a colorfully tiled riad in Marrakech, Morocco; and a beach house near Lisbon, Portugal.

Here’s the best part: we are in no hurry to see the sights. By living this way, we have the most precious commodity in the world: time. We aren’t tourists at all. We are temporary locals, wherever we choose to park our suitcases. And now that we are “home free,” home is wherever we are. How could we know the adventures that awaited us?

WANT MORE????  Go to the home page and order Home Sweet Anywhere!

 

 

The LA Homage Tour

Ghosts and snippets of scenes swirl like quick cuts in a movie  every time I am in Los Angeles.  Some of the richest and some of the most terrifying moments of my life happened in that beautiful, laid back but  hectic, schizophrenic city.  It still seems strangely like home because I remember where everything is, but it’s a dream home in which images shift all the time.  I lived many lives there between 1964 and 1988. I spent my twenties, thirties and forties there, the years when most of us rear children, build careers and learn who we are. The cast of characters  dance before me like holograms as I whisk along the freeways and take sneaky back ways to beat the traffic around Hollywood or the San Fernando Valley, the ones that only locals know about.

I was married there twice, had some romances in between them, one of particular import with a handsome, talented lyricist named Tim Martin. I reared my beautiful daughters in a post war ranch house in Granada Hills, created careers in broadcasting, cosmetics, public relations and the small equipment leasing business, made many friends in various circles, gave dozens of parties, had some glamorous Hollywood moments in “the business,” experienced life’s tragedies and triumphs, and finally left it all to move to  Cambria, a charming beach tourist town two hundred fifty miles up the coast where the only traffic tie-ups occur at the grammar school when the kids are handed off to their moms.

I’ve returned many times through the years, visiting friends or attending events.  I even lived there again for a year in the ’90′s while my late husband  designed movies for Disney.  It was another chunk of LA life that was full of experiences and friends.

Tim’s children were reared in the San Fernando Valley, too, and his careers were as varied as my own. Friends and acquaintances crowd his memories, and we decided that since we had the time, we owed ourselves a few weeks  to revisit our former lives and inspect what is left of the LA we knew.

A happy writer reading her work.

As usual, the  book project inserted itself into what we had hoped would be some time off, and although we were delighted that Audible invited me to record Home Sweet Anywhere, it cost us four  long exhausting days.  Still, the engineers/directors at Outloud studios in Burbank made us feel at home and we were happy with the professional results.

The Magic Castle in its majestic setting overlooking Hollywood.

In spite of the interruption, we managed to  revisit some of the places that we remember so well.  Almost every block, off ramp and billboard tweaked some long-lost memory, and since restaurants and bars figured heavily in both the music and public relations business, many of our homage stops included food and drink. We groaned when we saw a strip mall where The Tail of the Cock, (a famous restaurant/watering hole in the San Fernando Valley) should have been, but our dismay was tempered by the fact that The Magic Castle (a fabulous private club in Hollywod featuring live magic and a terrific bar) still perches on its hill above Hollywod Boulevard.

Exactly as it always was.
Check out the handsome guy and the fading wonderful murals.



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The venerable Musso & Frank Grill (a New York-style bistro that features what Humphrey Bogart called “The best martini in the world,”  (and I agree) is exactly as it was twenty years ago – all dark mahogany, faded twenties murals, fabulous liver and onions and grumpy waiters.  Tim and I had both fequented Musso & Frank during our Hollywood days and we had noted our mutual memories of aged waiters with their long white aprons and dour expressions being abrupt.  This time, the ancient waiter, whom we both remembered,  was charming, and he served us with the grace and style borne of long experience.  Halfway through my perfectly made martini we realized what had changed – we were now almost as old as the elderly waiters, so they actually treated us with respect!  Perhaps the march of time does offer some advantages.

Our friends Michael and Hildegard Lindsay, who fed us well and treated us to a warm, cozy evening at home.
My dear friend Rosemary Forsyth, whom I have known since those Hollywood days when she was my client. Beautiful as ever.
Dana Newman, my guiding light and brilliant agent, who is guiding us expertly through the maze of the publishing business.
Judith Salk, my long-time true friend.
New friends Sandy and Elliott Gordon, whom we met in Britain last fall. They invited us to a terrific party where we were invited to show off Home Sweet Anywhere and talk about our adventures.
Our friends Nick Teague and Jered Gold with their pals Anna Maccaulay and Christine Hanson. Food and drink, of course!



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We looked up old friends and made some new ones, too, revisiting some of those cute little bistros along Ventura Boulevard where we lunched for many years, and The Smokehouse, across the street from Warner Brothers in Burbank, where the prime rib is just as juicy and the bar still feels slightly decadent.  It hasn’t changed a bit.

Back to basics in LA.
The Smokehouse prime rib. Always the same.
Hamburger Hamlet's world renowned chicken wings.

Musso Frank's fried oysters.
Musso Frank's liver and onions.
No idea were this was, but it looks delicious.



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These fellows made even a losing day seem like fun!
We had such a great time we went twice!
Our friend and host Chris Hendrickson delivers the bad news that he and Tim have just lost the pick five by a nose. It's true.



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We did manage some activities which weren’t food-centric, but even at the the racecourse at Santa Anita one needs food and drink, especially after losing the pick five, which paid really big money.

When people ask us about our home free life, we inevitably mention that we traded the comfort of having a stable home base for the luxury of having time to fritter away an afternoon with no particular purpose in a place we’ve longed to explore.  This time it happened to be in a city we know well, but we still found ourselves indulging in aimless wandering just as we would in Paris or Buenos Aires.  Sights and streets brought back ancient history.  A ride over Laurel Canyon, the route between the heart of Hollywood and Studio City in the San Fernando Valley, brought up tales we’d long forgotten, some we’d never told each other.  It was a colorful stay that blended our past, present and future in a way no other city could, and I’m sure we’ll go back to visit our personal archaeological dig again before too much of it changes forever.

California Dreamin’

We’ve were holed up in San Luis Obispo County from late October until the first of February.  The plan was to enjoy friends and family, rest and relax in a world where one takes a car, not a pulled trolley to the market, and everyone speaks the same language, more or less.  We ended up doing some of those things, but mostly we worked on promotion for my book, Home Sweet Anywhere, which is to be published April 15 by Sourcebooks, Inc.

Our little rental. Built in 1902, refurbished, comfy and located in historic downtown Paso Robles. Of course, it became our Home Sweet Anywhere workshop, too.

Although it is an exhilarating process, in many ways we found that birthing a book is more challenging than gestating a human being.  Think about it:  there’s not much for the producer of a baby to decide – things just happen naturally whether mom likes it or not. Negotiating the absolutely unknown territory of the book world did not allow us to let anything happen naturally.  It required a singular kind of rapt attention and constant decision-making that we had not expected.  And birthing a book certainly takes longer than nine months!  We were so naive that we thought once the final edited version had been accepted we’d be able to kick back, maybe enjoy doing a few radio interviews, sign some books, and wait for a few dollars to come our way.

Nooooooooooooooo, that’s not exactly so.  Wending our way through editorial changes, book cover creation and changes, helping to craft promotional material, hiring our brilliant Caroline Galloway to spearhead our efforts, learning to work with a publishing house, dusting off Tim’s considerable marketing skills,  and stretching my ancient PR muscles didn’t give us much time to play in Central California.  We worked hard every day.

But we certainly found time to play and enjoy our California family, friends and meet some of our great Home Free Adventures readers!

One of our daughters, Alexandra, and her family live on a “gentleman’s” farm in the rolling hills of Central California, which has become headquarters for events and fun for our family and friends.  They’ve tried their hand at raising pigs (you’ll note the excellent sausage being made by a gaggle of friends, fueled by copious amounts of the elixirs from our famous Paso Robles wine district).  There are chickens a-laying down by the barn, two Parsons Jack Russell terrier who specialize in terrorizing small animals and occasionally bring home a deer leg for mommy, and  I’m told that soon there will be critters living in the “Winner Winner Chicken Dinner” hen house, too.

View from the farm, breath-taking at all hours and scene of much frivolity!
Part of the farm family, in which the shorter people appear not too pleased with their Saturday tasks.
Making friends with pets!

Another gorgeous view
Farm Bounty.


Kirby presents his people with a deer part.

Family and Friends gather to celebrate Thanksgiving at the farm!



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Another darling daughter, Robin,  lives in Cambria, about twenty miles away, and we enjoyed Halloween fun and a slumber party with Grandmother Nana, her two girls, and the three cousins.  It was such a treat for a grandmother to get all of her girls together for an overnight that included chocolate cake with raspberry filling, fancy French face masks with cucumber eye pads, a make up session and finally a movie.  Mommy and her girls had lots of lovely Paso Robles wine, and we all stayed up past our bedtimes.

Let the fun begin!
A treat for little girls!
A spa moment.
Make-up queen.
Who are these masked women?
Spider Woman!



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Our time at “home” was terrific in so many ways.  Between working sessions, we had delightful dinners, lunches and parties with old friends, a visit from a pal from London, spent New Year’s Eve in Roseville, California, with our dear friend Kaye Lewis, and were happy to meet Home Sweet Anywhere friends Ashwini and Hemant Parulkar there. We even hosted sixteen in our tiny rental house for a Christmas “do”.  It was the first party we’d given in a long, long time and we enjoyed it immensely.  So did the guests.  Some stayed ’til 1 a.m.!

Celebrating life!
Daughter Alexandra and her pals let me make sausage with them one evening…from a pig grown right on the farm!
Too much fun in our little house. Tim, Deborah Ingalls and daughter Alexandra.
Another dinner party? This is harder on the waist than a cruise!
These girls are having too much fun. Deborah Ingalls, Lynne and Alexandra. Paso Robles wines are fantastic.
Chocolate with a little liqueur isn't a bad idea for Deborah Scarborough and Alexandra.
Our long time pal Kaye Lewis entertained us for New Year's weekend.
Tim's partying hearty with Audrey Negley
Our friend Julie Castle with daughter Robin.
Our lovely Doris San Fillipo and her husband Jerry came all the way from Beaumont to play poker with us in our cute little house.
Judy and Clif Garrett gave us one more beautiful dinner.
Our new best friend Angie, who makes us look better.
A Christmas gift from Tim.
Our pal Teela cuts a rug with Clif Garrett at the Cambria Pines Lodge.
We spend a lot of time sorting through our meager belongings!
Alexandra and mom on the Victorian Christmas walk in Paso Robles.
Ashwini and Hermant Parulkar in Roseville. We were so happy to meet them.



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And of course the background for all this fun and frivolity was the exquisite Central Coast of California.  Even in its severe drought it’s one of the most beautiful places on earth.  It certainly was a good choice for a place to hole up, re group, and prepare for our next big adventure – what we’re billing as our L A Homage Tour. A month in the city where we both lived for many years and reared our children seems to be just what we need as we prepare for the countdown to the publication of Home Sweet Anywhere on April 15!  Stand by for more from the city of the angels.

The Slow Lane in London

As we were recounting  wild tales of almost three years living home free to some willing new listeners in California over dinner this week, it occurred to me that we appear to live an exciting, fast-paced life when we’re on the move.   Friends are amazed that people our age can dash around Europe, dining in Berlin’s exotic, exclusive China Club, taking in ballet in Buenos Aires, seeing palaces in Paris, or devouring Moroccan stews in Marrakech, but the fact is that we don’t run very fast.  You need to know that there’s a lot of down time between those highlights!  I started looking at our pictures and observed that most show us being very busy!

Nice, but not too exciting!  Computer banging even in a beautiful setting, isn’t all that thrilling to see.

Have you ever noticed that almost all the photos in your family albums feature people laughing, having fun, posed in lovely spots, or celebrating an occasion? There’s a reason – and it’s the same one that compels me to usually show you only the exciting moments of our travels, not the every day humdrum part.  Ordinary stuff can seem really dull.  I mean, who wants to see someone reading or watching TV or banging away at a computer?  But when I look at photos of our life in other places, I realize that some of the best days weren’t special at all…just fun and easy, almost routine, like being at home without having one of our own!

Not much going on here, either.  Just a little afternoon stroll.

As I looked at our September pictures, I realized that we didn’t do much at all.  Nine months, five countries, one transatlantic voyage, one completed book and thorough edit, many magazine articles, and a lot of sightseeing squeezed in between sight seeing and making new friends had left our tanks on empty.  I realize now that we never really spoke about it, but when we walked into our English apartment in East Molesey, Surrey, near London, put our travel-worn clothes in the tiny wardrobe, stocked up the comfortable kitchen with necessities, rearranged the furniture to our liking, inspected our much-loved view of the River Thames, and plopped down on a familiar couch for the cocktail hour, we knew we were beat and ready to stay put for a while!  It was especially appealing since we had rented the same place the year before, so we knew exactly where everything, including the toaster and the hair dryer, was located.

This spot in our apartment claimed a lot of our time and attention every day.

During most of September we relaxed, drank and dined with new and old friends, and enjoyed a low-impact month of re-charging in a country whose language we speak, more or less. We had spent most of eight months in places where we might as well have been interplanetary beings, not equipped to read many signs or labels, and certainly unable to eavesdrop or follow conversations more sophisticated than the weather or which bus to take.

At our house with our pal Rick Riccobono.
A relaxing local dinner with Tim's friend Derrick Allen.
Playing in the rain with Suzanne Flenard and Jeremy Schuster.
Lunch with new California friends Elliot and Sandy Gordon.
Liz and Tom Kaiser, locals who entertained us so nicely.
With Margo Riccobono at a street fair.



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On the one hand, the isolation certainly enhanced Tim’s and my personal relationship because most of the time it was impossible to communicate with anyone but each other; on the other hand, knowing almost nothing  about what’s going on in one’s immediate vicinity was odd and strangely tiring. Local TV news does not exist for us when we are in France, Portugal or Germany unless  events makes it to CNN. When there were strikes or protests in Paris, which are almost daily events, most of them benign, we had to rely on a Yahoo search to find out the cause, and even then the reasons for the upset were sometimes so obscure that we didn’t understand it anyway!

So in England we reveled in some down time, making our way into the big city, which we do adore, only a few times, and  even on those occasions we went to see friends and gobble up their delicious home made barbecue or dine out in their neighborhood. We did see  Helen Mirren do her fabulous Queen Elizabeth interpretation live in the lovely play, “The Audience,” indulge in some really great Mexican food (imagine), and spend a damp but hilarious day with our friends from Paris who came for Design Week.  But after each trip we would  scuttle back to our quiet little East Molesey where we could meander by the river, watch fabulous British TV, cook in our kitchen with real human-sized equipment, and generally kick back in the gorgeous autumn weather.  It was a thoroughly enchanting September for us and we were happy to be low-key for a while.

Our stop.
Our little station.
It's a different story at Waterloo in London!
Leaving our little putt-putt car at the station..
Our private car :) to London.
We'd scuttle back home to our local pub on the river!

My leader putting us on the right track in London.
A foodie's dream exhibition at Somerset House.
This tube car is NOT crowded!
China town always makes us happy.
Fantastic Mexico City cuisine at Lupita in Covent Garden.



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September passed quickly, and it finally occurred to us that we are now so familiar with London, particularly with our little hidey-hole in Surrey, that it could become a habit.  So we’re now making plans to take our home free act on the road to new places. Africa, Australia, South America.  Viet Nam, Korea, and the South Pacific are real contenders, too. Notions of those places titillate us and remind us why we hatched this magical plan in the first place.  So once again, rested and restored,  with the book on its way at last, we are in our favorite mode;  crouched over computers, pawing the book stores’ travel sections, scouring the internet, and asking friends and fellow travelers to share their experiences as our adventures for 2014 and 15 take shape. I have a hunch that we’ll find new hidey-holes in places we have yet to see!