Week starting 25th August – Work starts on the land, and bureaucratic & medical successes
Things have commenced in Dahlonega, Georgia 30533. We went out to inspect progress on cutting the driveway through the woods. Work only got underway on Friday, but Bill estimates that we are a third of the way to where the house will be. Up and down hills, across streams – this is not a straightforward job. Of course, that will only make a muddy track, and will need gravel laid down to make it useable for building work. The roadway will be properly paved once the building work has been completed. I will be putting photos of the progress on this website soon.
A really important thing this week was to get Lisa’s foot checked out. We found a place in Gainsville where we could have an x-ray done and her foot checked out. The good news is that all is healing properly, and Lisa will be able to abandon the boot in favour of a slightly less encumbering support in two or three weeks. No more sleeping with a footsheep for company then. Other bits of progress:
* We have the new iPhones working properly (almost) – and have US phone numbers.
* Lisa has managed to get her credit ratings unfrozen.
* I have a Social Security Number – the magical number that you need to be a real person in USA.
* We stopped at a BBQ restaurant in Dahlonega for lunch and got into discussions with the owner. He turned out to be a real Big Green Egg afficianado. We told him about our self-imported egg (now happily relocated to the Isle of Wight), and he has promised to do a great deal on an egg for us once we move into the rental house.
* We signed the lease on the rental house and did a walkthrough with the estate agent. I think that we will be very content there whilst the build goes on – and it is much more convenient to the build site, shops and everything than the cabin.
* We found a good fresh vegetable supplier (so much better than the supermarkets) by following signs along a back road.
On the wine front, two interesting developments. On Thursday, I received an email from the mailing list for the Blackstock Winery – it went bankrupt in February, alas, following bad harvests and other problems. Apparently, another local winery has just bought all the inventory of wine and are selling it at knock-down prices. I jumnped into the car and drove to their premises within half an hour, and bought several cases at about a third of the price I have paid in the past. Rebuilding a wine cellar with bargains – can that be bad? And on Saturday we went to the annual Crush Celebration at Yonah Mountain Vineyards. It shows how much in advance of Europe the weather and harvest is in Georgia. A good day out
And finally, on Saturday I heard that my Green Card has arrived. So now I am a fully landed legal immigrant. All I need now is to pass my driving licence test.