June Update; Retiring in Paradise

Yesterday the sun set at 8:30pm which is a sharp contrast to Barbados where the sunset is at 6:30pm*. The sun falls like a rock out of the sky and you have to move quickly if you wish to see the beautiful sunsets over the water. The time difference is because of the tilt of the earth and Barbados is closer to the equator.

It finally warmed up for the month of June in Boston. In fact, we have had 6 days in the 90’s which is a lot hotter than it gets in Barbados. However, the heat caused a humorous situation at our house. I told my “There will be no heat” son to turn on the central air because the house was hot! He said that I could turn it on myself with the app that he put on my phone. If anyone has witnessed my cell phone skills you know this was not a good idea.

It’s kind of embarrassing but I told him that I had no idea about how to use the app. You see, before I went to Barbados to work on our house there, Glenn with my permission,  changed the hallway thermostat. He replaced the easy to use programmable thermostat that I put in 30 years ago with this new one that is controlled by an IPhone app. I use my phone for a lot of things but controlling the central air conditioner or heat was never one of them. One day I had the house so cold because I adjusted the temperature down instead of up, that I had to go outside to get warm. Glenn had to show me a couple of times how to use the app before I was able to use it correctly. Now that I know how it works, it’s kinda cool. I can have some fun when I go back to Barbados by controlling the heat/ac in Boston from my house in Barbados when Glenn is at work or while he’s asleep!

Well, we haven’t done a great deal in preparing to ship our belongings to Barbados. Our plan was to get here and have plenty of time to buy appliances, get the house in order, do doctors appointments and settling some financial matters. Our cushion of time is slowly eroding and it looks like we will be rushing around getting things done in the next few months. No worries, I plan to take notes along the way so anyone reading this blog will have a roadmap on how to “Retire in Paradise” as Sandra and I are doing. My ultimate plan is to write a book that will be “A Guide to Understanding the Bajan Culture and a Roadmap on How to Retire in Barbados.”

You cat lovers will be glad to know that Chance is doing well and has everything here under control. He still finds places to hide when he wants to be alone having us searching the house to make sure he did not get out. He has hidden in drawers left open, on top of dressers, in boxes, bags, under or in the bookshelf and in closets. When he goes downstairs we can’t find him at all until he decides to come out. Then there are times he runs around the house full speed jumping and pouncing on things like a crazy cat. Occasionally he will unexpectedly hop in my lap when he wants to be stroked and he just purrs and purrs to his heart’s content.

*By the way, sunrise in Boston is 5:15am EDT while sunrise in Barbados is 5:30am EDT which means there is 15 hours and 15 minutes of daylight in Boston and just 13 hours of daylight per day in Barbados in June.