THE WEATHER REPORT

It's been such a dreary week -lots of rain and quite cold for this time of the year.  So, what does one do to perk oneself up during that bad weather.  One could sit at home and read but at our age your eyes can get tired.  One could clean, but not every day.  One could play cards on the iPad, but not all day, everyday.  One could take naps but that would be a bad habit to fall into.  One could blog, but not much to blog about if one is couped up inside the house.  One could grab an umbrella and go to ones local movie house and see a good movie but not everyday.  So, what does one do to lift ones spirits- SHOP!  So Sharon and I went this week and got in a little trouble in the shopping department.  We discovered some new stores.  Some really nice stores!  We really did need some clothes for this colder weather and it's more of the same in the Scandinavian countries.  So we had too!  They do have some lovely clothes over here.  Anyway, I also felt it was time to have some new looks on the. Blog.  (Mmmmmm- do you suppose I could write off some of the expense of the new wardrobe someway- I'll have to look into that)!  Now my only concern is what am I going to get rid of when I move to Avignon.  I just don't think all the old and all the new is going to make it in my two suitcases.  I wonder if my new landlord would accept a box if I shipped one to him.  Well, in 2 months I will let you know what's going to make it to Avignon and how.

Last week we noticed that there was a little water on the wash machine and this week we are looking at pails and pans on top of the machine catching the drips - lots of drips.  Fortunately for us the owners brother lives in Amsterdam and the owner had him come over to take a look.  We now have a big hole in the bathroom wall but Lauren discovered the problem and the plumber will come in while we are gone and fix it.  Perfect timing?  (This is a very old building and some of the pipes are iron and then there's some PVC, and then some copper - they don't always fit so well together and after time problems develop.  Anytime you need some help analyzing a plumbing problem just give me a call.  You can tell. I know a lot about plumbing.).  Just glad we were here to notice it.

As I mentioned before we are heading to Avignon in November.  We had a little trouble trying to pay our initial payment. Poor Sharon who was dealing with the issue was getting so frustrated.  We couldn't deal directly with the owner because he had the property listed with an agency.  We couldn't pay through the agency.  They kept refusing our credit cards. We tried every card we have over here.  We could not figure out what was wrong.  All the cards had plenty of credit ( this was before we went shopping 😀😀😀!  and no daily spending limit.   We finally got a number to call ,which we did, but it was a recording in French and we did not understand  any of it.  I pushed zero thinking that would get me a representative. Nope!   The recording just kept on.  Long story short,  Lauren , the owners brother speaks French and we called, he listened and told us to push one for English.  At last we were speaking to a person and it was explained to us that we could not pay on the iPad but had to put in the CC info on a computer.  Fortunately there is a little place close to the gym that we have used before to do some printing so we went there and got on the computer,put in the CC info and finally received a "Merci, your payment has been accepted"! ALLELUIA!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tomorrow we leave for Copenhagen.  We have a cab picking us up and taking us to the train station and than a train to the airport.  It's our first time to fly out of Amsterdam.  So much easier to take the train but this is too far.

 A little coffee break after shopping.

Last time, well maybe last time for this sweater.  It's been replaced.

Sharon found a new red hat!

And, on the way home tonight from getting a bite to eat, a flower shop was open and we just had to take some pictures of the flowers and arrangement!