We have spent the last two days in a gab fest and enjoying one another’s company.
Tom has recently retired after spending a career as an architect being involved with some amazing building projects across the US. Janice had a very busy working life being a physician and she has been retired for a few more years than Tom though is still called upon for assistance from her practice that she sold.
They live in a lovely established neighbourhood outside of the center of Houston which backs onto a bayou with a leafy green aspect. It is almost living in the trees. No sooner has thanksgiving finished than out come for Christmas decorations. The neighbourhood was very busy with contractors installing the outside lights on the properties which made for a nice walk around in the evening.
Tom put together a collage of flood photos for us to give a perspective as to just how damaging it was.
Kitchen and dining room.
The new dining room. Tom collects money (as most of us like to) and he was giving Fraser a list of the bills that he is missing from Australia and Canada.
Luckily the grand piano just needed new legs and Tom played it for us to prove it still sounds good.
It took over a week for the water to subside and then a lot of the drywall had to be removed, and the house left open with blowers to dry it out prior to rebuilding. There were issues with looting in the neighbourhood but there was a sign put up by the locals saying looters would be shot – no questions asked. That seemed to have stopped them and the police who were also patrolling on boats didn’t ask them to take the sign down – only in Texas.
This s the lounge today.
Toque spun her usual magic with everyone including Oreo who is a blind and deaf miniature Shetland who visited for Thanksgiving. We didn’t do any visiting into Houston itself as we really needed a rest from the road so we just hung around the house enjoying one another’s company.
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