After lunch I went right back to working on the gate and time just flew by. Before I knew it Gus was coming around the back of the house to tell me they were leaving for the day. “Made good time today Miss. Bobby wants to go fishing Saturday, so we are going to do our best to wrap things up tomorrow. We will be back around 7:30 if that is aright with you.”
Was up at the crack of dawn today for the roofers. While I was waiting for them to arrive I decided to take some of the tomatoes and cucumbers I had picked up at the farm stand in the park and make a salad; a little salt, pepper, balsamic vinegar, yum! It should all be perfectly marinated by dinnertime.
Yesterday’s task was the front porch. I spent most of the day pulling down old ivy, sweeping off years of leaves and cleaning the gutters. Once everything was clean I set about sanding the pillars so they can be painted. And that was it. Other than sitting on the steps and staring at the canal a few thousand times, the porch occupied my entire day.
The kitchen is in working order! Even the fifty-year-old refrigerator works, and surprisingly well at that. I also got the parlor cleaned out and the fireplace operating. By this time I had worked up quite a stink, so I threw on my bathing suit and went out back to the water pump to wash up. While I didn't exactly feel clean when all was said and done, at least I smelled clean.
Well, I did it. I am officially a resident of Brighton again. It is strange that just 10 years ago I swore I would never come back here. It’s not that Brighton was a bad place to grow up, just that I never quite fit in. In a strange twist of fate, I realized a few months ago that the life I had built for myself in Charlotte fit me so poorly that it chafed and I was constantly raw from it. So I did what any corporate burnout on the verge of a nervous breakdown would do. I ran away! Not really, of course, but I did quit my perfectly good/thoroughly soulless job as a financial analyst, sell the house in the suburbs and resign from all the boards and committees I had used to fill the emptiness in my life. My friends all think I should be committed. They simply took exotic vacations to deal with their corporate burnout, they never even considered “throwing it all away”. They see this all as a huge risk, but I see it as the inevitable. I worked my way up the corporate ladder structuring tax credit real estate deals, primarily historic rehabilitation. And now I have taken all that knowledge, purchased an old canal house back home, convinced one of my clients to invest in the project in order to get some more tax credits to off-set his obscene wealth, and am beginning to turn the old place into a bed & breakfast. It is the last property to be restored on this section of the canal. Actually, I don’t think anything else was ever out of use. Across the canal is a restaurant and a bike shop that runs tours along the towpath. Next door is a canal boat tour company. And on the other side a Victorian park.