Enjoying the outdoors

So, life is now starting to settle down for us, although with some hiccups along the way.

On Friday, Ian received a letter from Social Security telling him that he hadn't provided the relevant documents to prove he was eligible to live and work in the USA . This shocked us completely as we'd provided everything that was needed so we didn't know what had gone wrong. After some digging on the phone, we found out that they'd lost the copy of our marriage certificate so all it needed to rectify it was another visit to the office to supply the relevant document. It also turned out that Annalie's Social Security Number had been issued. So on Monday morning we queued in the rain (yes, it's tipping it down here now) so that Ian could present the certificate and Annalie could collect her number. Thankfully, Ian's application went straight through this time, so now we're bona fide legal residents - phew!

So what else have we been up to? Well, golf seems to be a big part of life over here so we seem to be spending a lot of time (and money!) on that the course the moment. The IAE golf league started up, which is less of a league and more of an excuse to play golf! We went off last with a five-ball so we were a lot slower than most. We both had a complete shocker and it got dark before we could finish the nine holes, so we gave up scoring.

After this abysmal display, Annalie decided another lesson was in order so went to see a PGA Masters coach on Saturday. He was excellent and picked up a number of bad habits to correct and by the end of the session, he'd spent more than double the amount of time he should have, but still only charged for half an hour she was a star pupil and he said she has the potential to be a very good golfer - just got to practice. So Sunday we went out to Minnechaug again. Although it was an inconsistent performance from both, there was some very good play too. Practice makes perfect - like we need the excuse!

Ian also decided to get his feet wet and drove up to West River in Jamaica, Vermont for some kayaking with Andy, one of the IAE guys. A long drive up there on Friday night was followed by a few beers and a night sleeping in the car - not something that is alien to Ian!! His boat wasn't quite right for some of the rapids that were on show but a little later in the day he went off with Andy for some more tame waters, but it was still a bit white knuckle at times and he did end up going swimming a couple of times. He took the camera up so there are some pictures in the photo album.

On Thursday we ventured for our first night out in Hartford to celebrate the engagement of Mhairi and Steve, a couple who came out on secondment here as singles and have hooked up whilst over here. They're a really nice couple who joined us for golf at Minnechaug last week. As is typical of New England, the chosen drinking establishment was an Irish pub! Nothing strange about that in this neck of the woods! A nice night was had by all, especially the chocoholics amongst us who were wooed by a cake that was the epitome of death by chocolate! Arteries were hardened all round.

Ian's been out test driving cars again but we still don't know what we want! All this shopping is so stressful