Following the departure of Peter and Paula on Sunday afternoon, we had far too many odd jobs on our plate to complete before heading off on Thursday for a couple of days in Charleston in South Carolina for a family wedding. So no serious unpacking this week.
We have discussed with TJ (the concrete and landscaping specialist) about the area immediately in front of the house. The budget is very tight, but the crush and run gravel driveway is resulting in far too much grit being tracked into the house. We had hoped to get through the winter before anything would have to be done, but that is not going to be practical. So, we have commissioned him to get a concrete area poured in front of the house, and he can do this whilst we are away on the coast. We also need to start talking with Jonathan about a stand-by generator – we have now had two power cuts (three hours each time) since we moved into the house. Local friends say that this is not typical, but since the house is all electric for heating and everything else, we are not happy at the thought of this sort of outages in the winter. Jonathan did make all preparations for installing a generator (powered by our propane tank) when he was wiring the house. Oh, dear, more expense.
So, on Thursday morning early, we set off for the 5 hour drive to Kiawah Island, an upmarket golf resort near Charleston. Kiawah Island is a triumph of hope over experience. What was an area of salt marshes and sandbanks has been transformed into luxury accommodation and five golf courses. But all the landscaping and buildings cannot change the fact that this is a very low lying collection of beaches, lagoons and buildings just above sea level – right in the track of passing hurricanes. There is only one road onto the island, a causeway over the salt marshes stretching for miles. The houses are all built on stilts (which are carefully disguised as garages, though the walls are designed to wash away in a storm).
We hired a flat for the weekend (a lot cheaper than the only hotel). The entry was up a long flight of stairs, but even then the elevation in the living room was only 28 feet above sea level. Apparently there have been several hurricane disasters on the island (Hurricane Hugo did a lot of damage), but building continues. We had a fine view over a lagoon and were able to observe a range of sea birds. In spite of regular notices warning about them, we didn’t see any alligators – probably a bit cold for them to be out and about.
The wedding festivities were not a trivial matter, this was a long drawn out (and, I assume, horrendously expensive) event. On Thursday evening, there was a low country boil dinner for about 50 guests in a mansion overlooking the sea. Unlimited food and drink, and an opportunity to meet Julie (Lisa’s cousin and mother of the bride) and all her family. On Friday evening, there was a “rehearsal dinner” for about 150 close family and friends. This was combined with a fancy dress ball during which the numbers swelled to close to 300 with a large band. Sea views on the back deck and a spectacular sunset were an integral part of function. In spite of the date (Halloween), there were not a lot of zombies and Walking Dead, but there was a good turnout of nuns and bishops. We went as the Granthams from Downton Abbey – my accent helped with verisimilitude.
Saturday was the actual wedding ceremony, supposedly on the 18th green of one of the golf courses. Alas, the previous good weather was not holding up. There were heavy storms through the night, and we woke to grey skies and drizzle. Lisa went off to a ladies lunch (husbands not invited) whilst I put my feet up and relaxed. The weather brightened up during the afternoon, but it was still chilly and damp. The venue for the wedding had moved, I believe, to closer to the golf course clubhouse as there was still occasional drizzle. The service was fairly short (once the dozen or so bridesmaids and supporters of the groom had been lined up). I do not know if we had an abbreviated version of the ceremony in view of the inclement weather, but I was happy to see the sun break through the clouds as the service drew to a conclusion. This was followed by dinner for about all the attendees in the golf clubhouse, and very good it was too. A large dance band with both classic and modern hits provided the basis of the evening entertainments. And Lisa found herself one a table with a childhood friend of hers that she had not seen for many years.
On Sunday we found our own entertainment, looking round the island (which reinforced our conclusions that we had no interest at all in moving here!). November is really out of season here, and most of the facilities were closed (though we did find a great lunch in one café that we found open). But it was also really chilly – not really the weather for a seaside break.
The cold stormy weather that we had suffered on Saturday and Sunday had blown in from the West, and had hit Dahlonega harder on Thursday night and Friday. We saw online reports of an inch of snow in the area, though it cleared up during the following day. Lisa checked with TJ to see if he had been able to pour concrete in spite of the weather, and he confirmed that he had. But the high winds had brought down a tree which blocked the driveway to the house – luckily he had been able to move it aside using his earthmoving equipment. Using our Internet-enabled thermostats (yes, we have all the latest whizzy technology) we tried to check on conditions in the house of Saturday, only discover that everything was offline. Our electricity supply company has a good online incident reporting system, so we were able to discover all the way from Kiawah Island that 700 homes in the mountains were without power for up to 12 hours on Saturday in the aftermath of the storms. And, of course, our house was without power again.
An emergency generator has now moved to the top of our priority list.