A Passion for Passion Fruit

It all started with an innocent introduction by a guy named Jahvid at the Poipu Plantation on the island of Kauai in Hawaii.  There was definitely an initial spark, but it took a chance encounter in Sydney, Australia to really get the relationship going.  After a few other quick encounters in the Philippines, Hawaii, Ireland, and even Seattle, I was hooked.  A very nice combination of sweet and tart!

When I moved to Guernsey, I was pleasantly surprised to find passion fruits in the supermarket.  The place I shopped when I first moved here had some for awhile.  Then we got a new Waitrose (UK supermarket chain) and they had passion fruit in abundant supply.  I heard a rumor that they would decide what to stock longer term based on items that sold well when they first opened.  I was buying passion fruit by the dozens to make sure they keep stocking it.  I have wondered what the store management must think when I’m off the island for a week or so and their passion fruit sales go way down.

Our passion fruit comes mostly from Africa – Kenya, South Africa, and maybe one or two other countries.  The South African fruit seems exceptionally large.  Maybe they use the same steroids and Botox enhanced farming methods as used in the US.

How to eat: cut in half; scoop out and eat seeds.

Beware of Buyers

When I left the US in January, I decided to put my Seattle condominium on the market.

After 4 1/2 months of lukewarm interest (including a price drop), I finally woke up to an email from my real estate agent one morning that I had an offer!  It was lower than I had hoped for, but the buyer accepted my counter offer.  Now, just to wait a month or so...

It just so happened that I had a meeting in Vancouver a couple of weeks later, so I took the opportunity to go to Seattle and sign various things that needed to be done in person.  Everything seemed to be on the right track as we got past the period for the buyer to get out of the deal based on the resale certificate (condominium rules, finances, etc.).  Then one day I had an email from my agent that the buyer wanted out of the deal based on something in the Board minutes and wanted her $10,000 earnest money back.  Unfortunately, the notice was after her review period expired and she did not check a box on her offer that would allow her to get out of the deal based on something in the Board minutes.  As a result, my agent recommended that I refuse to sign the paperwork to terminate the deal.  After some exchanges to try to resolve the issue, it seemed clear that the buyer basically had cold feet.

The buyer then went silent for some time, leaving me to wonder whether or not the deal was going forward.  Finally, as we got near to the closing date, my agent informed me that the deal would not go forward but I would get the earnest money.  So, now I am back on the market and I am taking on a renter to help offset costs until the next buyer comes along.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society is a wonderful book that gives some historical background on Guernsey during and just after World War II.  My mother lent me her copy to read when it became clear that I would be moving here.

In addition to being a good story, the book gave me some interesting historical background on Guernsey.  It also meant that when I was telling people I would be moving to Guernsey at least some people had heard of the place.  Not to bias any potential readers as to the type of story it is, but my unofficial sampling was that almost no men had ever heard of Guernsey, while about 75% of women had heard of it - mostly due to the book.  However, I should note that there was the occasional person that had heard of Guernsey cows.

My mother’s book club read the book just before I moved here.  I can only begin to imagine the amount of joy that it must have brought her to be able to tell her friends that her son was moving to Guernsey.

One of the authors of the book (Annie Barrows) is just now in Guernsey for the Guernsey Literary Festival.  Today, I went to her very entertaining presentation and I’m happy to report that my mother’s copy of the book will soon be making the long trip back to Olympia with a little extra writing in it.

As an example of how small a place Guernsey can be, I was having a drink with a friend last night at a local hotel bar.  Sitting at the table next to us thoroughly enjoying a book she was reading was none other than - Annie Barrows. 

The current rumor is that the book is supposed to be made into a film with Kate Winslet linked to the project.  I hope to be able to report on some Kate Winslet sightings in the near future.

The Coach House

The place where I am currently living is called The Coach House.  It’s common here for buildings to have names instead of house numbers, but both do exist.  [More on this later.] 

I have two floors above a garage.  Unfortunately, the landlord has the garage.  I’m in a part of town that has some nice views over the harbor and the castle.  I have a nice view of my neighbors.

The lower floor has a kitchen/dining area, a lounge (living room), and a small bedroom.  The kitchen has some very small appliances – a stove, a dishwasher, a refrigerator, a separate freezer, and a washer/dryer.  Since the place is furnished, the kitchen came well stocked with gadgets, including quite a few things that I can only guess at what they’re for.

The upper floor has a bathroom and a larger bedroom.  The bathroom actually has both a bath tub and a separate shower stall.  Unfortunately, I can’t stand up straight in the shower and I don’t dare drop anything.

The place is heated by hot water circulating in radiators from a small boiler in the kitchen.  The temperature is hard to regulate since the heat is either on or off.  Now, I’m starting to wonder if the place will be too hot if it gets warm in the summer (even with the heat off).  I’m counting on the constant wind and abundant windows on the upper floor to provide natural air conditioning.

Overall the place is older looking on the outside, but fairly modern on the inside.  The front door uses a skeleton key to lock from the inside or outside.  If you don’t know what a skeleton key is, I suggest asking your oldest living relative.

Finding a Place to Live

It’s not easy finding a place to live when you don’t know the area very well and you currently live about 5,000 miles away.  I knew I would be in Guernsey at the end of October, so I thought it would be a good opportunity to investigate the housing market.  My boss gave me the name of some estate agents to contact as a starting point.  I was able to do some looking on the internet to get some background information.  My plan was to call each of the three companies to try to arrange a few hours with each to see places when I would be in Guernsey.  Unfortunately, the people I talked to were not very customer service oriented, and seemed to be putting up lots of road blocks to work with me.  Hmmm, isn’t your job to match a place to live with a willing renter?  With some persistence, I managed to convince three people to at least consider the idea.

Most places to rent are listed with only one estate agent, so you have to work with several at one time to get a good feel for the market.  [It’s basically the same idea when buying, but we’ll come back to that later.]  When visiting Guernsey, I was hoping to see a wide variety of places to get an idea of location, pricing, and what was available.  Two of the three agents didn’t seem like they wanted to show me many places and certainly did not want to spend too much time with me.  The third was much more patient and really seemed to understand my situation.  Between the three of them, I started to get a good feel for where places are on the island and how much I could get for my money.  There were places close to the office and places in the middle of the “country”; places in basements and upper floor apartments with nice sea views; one apartment that smelled bad and one with a nice view of the power station.  The one common thing is that all of the places seemed pretty small and with very little storage space!  It seemed like the best thing was to have an in-town location convenient to the office to start.  I could then further investigate locations after I arrived.  In the end, there were several that stood out above the rest and one place in particular that I really liked.  Now, I had to wait for my housing license.

When the housing license came through a few weeks later, I made arrangements for another trip to Guernsey with the intent of signing a contract on a place to live.  As expected, the license gave me access to local market housing, which basically means that I can legally occupy any housing on the island.  However, there is a catch.  I am assigned a number (TRP) that sets a minimum size of place I can occupy.  This helps to ensure an affordable housing market for true locals.  My TRP would be about right if I had a family of four or so.  Fortunately, they have an exception that anyone can occupy a two bedrooms or smaller place regardless of TRP. 

When I visited in December, I asked each of the three estate agents to show me the best of what was available at the time based on my criteria.  Unfortunately, my favorite place from the first round had just been rented.  I saw about 10 places – two stood out from the rest (one that I had seen in October).  In the end, I went for the smaller of the two places.  It seemed like a better fit, and it came furnished (I had no idea how long it would take my furniture to be shipped).  I was also glad that it was listed with the estate agent that seemed most interested in having my business.

So, I signed a one year lease and put down a deposit on The Coach House (more details coming).

If you are curious about the Guernsey housing market:

http://www.swoffers.co.uk/

Royal Wedding

Ok, I admit it.  I ended up watching the Royal Wedding.  After all, I did get the day off for it.  I turned the TV on just as all the action was heating up and then I ended up getting hooked.  At least it looked like the happy couple were enjoying themselves and actually care about each other (the groom’s family doesn’t have the best track record here).  I did get a kick out of the “for richer, for poorer” part of the vows.  I’m guessing that these guys won’t have to worry too much about delaying the car payment so that they can make the mortgage payment.

It all got me thinking about my own wedding and all of the many others I’ve been to over the last 30 or so years.  I can remember very little about the bride’s dress or what her colors were, despite all of the money and efforts devoted here.  However, I can remember where most of the ceremonies and receptions were.  Most of all, I can remember the food and especially the cake.  My stomach can clearly remember to this day, the best food was the Castle wedding and the best cake was the Kaplan wedding – an incredible chocolate cake with white chocolate frosting (honorable mention to the Isensee Frango cake).  I have a difficult time imagining the reception food being better for the Royal Wedding.  As I have heard on several occasions – all of the cooks in hell are English.  The booze was probably better though, and more plentiful.

For those of you paying attention when Will and Kate left Buckingham Palace in the old Aston Martin convertible, you may have noticed a red on white “L” on the front of the car.  This is the scarlet letter given to those learning to drive in the UK.  In this case, I assume there was another deeper meaning.  [Guernsey uses the L and also has a black on yellow H for “hire” (rental) car.]

On Guernsey, you could tell that something was happening on Friday (other than a day off) as many people had UK or English flags on display to brighten up an otherwise gray day.

On a personal note, the Middleton (bride’s) family camped out at the Goring – a wonderful, old family run hotel just behind Buckingham Palace.  I have stayed there on many occasions and thoroughly enjoyed the “royal” service.  However, I think I may have been staying in the servant’s quarters compared to what the rooms they stayed in must be like.

In case you're curious...

http://www.thegoring.com/

Days Off

It might be an appropriate time to mention days off here.  We haven't had any public holidays since early January, but that's about to change in a big way...

We have a four day weekend this weekend for Easter (even for those of us that - um- only know when Easter is coming based on the amount of candy on display in the stores).  I'm taking the ferry to St. Malo in France for the weekend.  Hopefully, more on that later.

Next weekend is now also a four day weekend thanks to a couple of people named William and Kate that can't seem to get married on a Saturday like the rest of us.  We get Friday off for their wedding (watching is optional), and then Monday is a "bank holiday."  They don't seem to bother naming their days off after some famous historical figure.  I guess all of the bankers need a day off to spend their hard earned bonuses.

The following weekend is a three day weekend as the 9th of May is Liberation Day, marking the day that Guernsey was liberated from German occupation at the end of World War II.

Unfortunately, it's then a little draught until another bank holiday at the end of the summer.  After that, I think we have to wait until Christmas and Boxing Day (26th of December) at the end of the year. 

To fill in the gaps, I guess I can work on my 5+ weeks of vacation.

Carl Versus the Smoke Detector

Is there anything more annoying than the “chirp” of a smoke detector with a low battery at night?  Maybe a snoring spouse, or perhaps a mosquito buzzing in your ear? 

I can remember hearing about the Chinese water torture when I was young.  A captor drips water on your forehead until you confess.  It doesn’t sound that daunting, but I think what drives you bananas is not the dripping water but the anticipation of the next drop.  The smoke detector chirp may be the modern day equivalent of the Chinese water torture.  It REALLY makes you want to change the battery as soon as possible because it’s impossible to sleep for anticipation of the next chirp.

Changing the battery in smoke detectors is something that I have successfully done many times in my life so it should be quite easy (especially since I have the added advantage of being closer to the smoke detector than most others).  However, like many things outside the US, there are some differences.

To remove, push screwdriver into slot and push cover away.  They seem like such simple instructions.  Being a well educated person, I think I can easily master the task.  Now, what to do if your screwdrivers are in a container on a ship somewhere in the Atlantic?  Also, it’s Sunday so every place that could possibly sell screwdrivers is closed.  After some spirited experimentation (including the occasional naughty word), a butter knife, a key, a screw, and a pair of scissors are all ruled out as possible screwdriver substitutes.  Since I’m leaving town the next morning, I decide to defer the project to when I return and hope for the best.  Unfortunately, the Chinese smoke detector torture works its magic for part of the night.  Even though it doesn’t chirp during the night, I still have problems sleeping for fear that it may start chirping. 

After I get back from my trip, I borrow a screwdriver from my landlord.  Despite having the correct tool (and quite a few more naughty words), no success.  Finally, I decide that I will break the $%@#* thing if necessary and then go buy a replacement.  As I am trying to break the cover off – voila – it finally pops off as it is supposed to based on the directions!  Once the cover is off, it’s easy to tell how the mechanism works and I could see the type of battery needed.  Case closed.  Better educated for the next time, I guess…

For all of the hassle it caused, I decide to leave the smoke alarm disconnected for a few days.

Worthless Guernsey Trivia

Guernsey has possibly the highest concentration of actuaries per capita of any place in the world (and I work with many of them).  This is due to the financial activity combined with a relatively small population.

Guernsey is one of the few places in the world with only numbers on the license plates.

I have been told that Guernsey has one of the highest divorce rates in the world.  So far, I have heard two explanations for this:

1) People can be forced to marry early in a relationship to avoid having to leave when a work permit expires.

2) There is money, many temptations, and those who stray are easily found out since it’s a small community.

Guernsey has no VAT (sales tax) and a flat 20% income tax.  By comparison, many European countries have a 20%+ VAT.

Since the roads are narrow, cars are allowed to go up on the sidewalk to allow another car to pass from the opposite direction. 

The tides can be very extreme.  On some days, waves are splashing on to the road at high tide and the same bay is completely empty at low tide.

[Same day - same bay]

Getting to Guernsey

Moving to Guernsey requires jumping through a number of bureaucratic hoops.  My new employer needed to get me a work permit, which in my case was not too difficult because I have a number of unique skills helpful for my position and the local financial market.  Guernsey has a limited housing market, so I also needed a housing license.  There is both open market and local market housing – the open market has fewer restrictions but it’s more expensive.  Fortunately, I was able to qualify for local market housing with the housing license. 

The housing license came through first.  To validate it, I had to have an actual place to live and have all the employment paperwork sorted out. 

We were aiming for a start date as close to January 1 as possible.  Everything seemed to be falling into place when I finally got my work permit in mid-December.  The catch was that I needed to apply for a UK visa, presumably since I would usually be traveling through the UK to get to Guernsey. 

Most readily available information on UK visas deals with very simple cases. My case was more complicated.  Unfortunately, the British embassy in the US had outsourced visa processing to an outside company that doesn’t seem to know much about the process.  When I sent an email (free method for asking questions) explaining my situation, their response was that I needed to contact the embassy for the country where I would be working.  [Just to clarify, Guernsey has no embassies as a UK Crown Dependency.]  A follow up email attempting to clarify my situation got no response.  Next, I called the processing company (at $1 per minute).  The person I talked to seemed to have no idea what/where Guernsey is, and insisted that I did not need a UK visa.  At the end of the call, I felt obliged to tell her she was of no help and I didn’t want to pay for it.  Finally, I was able to talk to someone at the immigrations office in Guernsey who put me in contact with someone in the British embassy in LA he had worked with on someone moving from the US to Guernsey.  He confirmed that I did need a visa and he walked me through the process.  Unfortunately, this was just before Christmas.  Thanks to a liberal interpretation of “next day” by FedEx and some days off at the British Embassy, it was suddenly January and I was officially in limbo.  I gave up my office at the end of December, so I was at home in Seattle trying to keep some work projects going and preparing for the move.  My LA embassy contact came through quickly in early January and it was off to Guernsey with as much as I could pull/carry on the 9^th of January.

When I arrived in Guernsey on the 10^th, I went directly to the immigrations office to show them my UK visa to validate my Guernsey work permit which would then validate my housing license.  I assumed this would all be a matter of a few phone calls, but suddenly it looked like it might take a few days.  I was faced with having a place to live in Guernsey that I was already paying for but I was not legally able to occupy it!  Fortunately, when my estate agent called the housing department they gave me the go ahead to stay at the apartment.  I quick run to a store for some sheets and pillows and I was in business.

The next day, I woke up facing limbo in Guernsey until all the appropriate paperwork came through.  A call to the housing authority confirmed that everything was in order and I could go pick up the paperwork.  It was now time to officially start my new adventure…

Prologue

I can remember my first trip to Guernsey in 2000.  It was September and the weather was sunny and warm.  One of my initial thoughts was “I could live here.”  Of course, I think this about many places I visit but the opportunity to move rarely presents itself and Seattle has a certain appeal.  Also, I was living in Epsom (in the UK) at the time, so maybe it was an unfair comparison. 

Fast forward to 2010 and here comes opportunity knocking.  Now, I don’t consider myself the type of person that just packs up and moves across the Atlantic.  It helps to be presented with the option of staying in Seattle at 70% of pay (and probably decreasing in the future) or moving to Guernsey at full pay.  Also, it seems like a good time in my life for a new adventure.  So, here we go! 

Guernsey is an island with about 60,000 people in the Channel between the UK and France.  It is part of the group of Channel Islands just off the north coast of France.  Even though you can see France on a clear day, it is more closely aligned with the UK.  English is the primary language, but many of the place names are French.  Guernsey is in the UK for some things and independent for others.  For example, Guernsey has its own currency that trades evenly with the British pound.  It is an international finance center attracting banks, insurance companies, and rich people with its low tax rates.

The first thing a visitor notices is the very narrow roads, often with a stone wall on one or both sides.  This is not just the perspective of someone from the wide open spaces of the western US as it is quite common to see cars with damage to one or both side mirrors.  Once you have safely made it from the airport to your destination, you may see the turquoise water (if the weather cooperates) sprinkled with rocks and other islands.  In the main town – St. Peter Port – it’s hard to miss the castle in the middle of the harbor.

More details to follow…

In the meantime, here is good background information on Guernsey:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guernsey