Wednesday, 19 October 2016

Hot sun and a slow life

We have taken full advantage of our lakeside house and totally chilled out and relaxed as we have everything we need here. After exploring the hippie, LGBT town of Northampton which we thought was going to be more interesting than it was, we thought why do we need to travel far from the house apart from to have dinner in and around the pretty town of West Brookfield.

Our hosts have popped by to help with a sticking lock on the front door. We were lucky they were around from New York, staying with a relative in order to build a shed for her! Their tales of how they came upon the house by chance when passing by, seeing it was for sale and 'open house' and so deciding to view it on a whim, were interesting. The 80 year old lady who owned it had transformed the place from a 4 room den with a loft accessible by ladder into this wonderful space with bedroom in the eaves and another on the basement level. Proper staircases to both. She also had an art studio at the back of the garage, perfect for one of our hosts who is a jewellery designer, so she and her partner were 'sold'. The old lady held out for the amount she wanted for it: "top dollar", but it is clearly worth it for them to be able to retire to from their hectic life in NYC. Canoeing, paddle boarding and fishing on the lake are favourite past times and no one could fail to enjoy the surroundings.

We had an average meal in the West Brookfield Tavern on Monday evening and were about to leave when a very friendly couple arrived and started to chat to us. After an interesting conversation swopping stories of  travels, they invited us back for a drink in their lakeside home on Wickaboag Lake. Another interesting house, part of an association of which many houses are holiday homes, as theirs had once been. Now it seems they live here all year round - and the winters can be quite harsh with 20mph winds blowing off the lake and snow drifts up to the roof. Hard to imagine on this balmy evening, temperatures have been mid 70s today. We were invited back for a meal in a couple of days time, very kind of them, we only hope it is a sensible size! 








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