BLIMEY! THE ADVENTURE WE DID NOT SEE COMING!

We didn't go looking for adventure, but it came looking for us!   

In order to understand how excited we were by what happened just yesterday, you need to know how Jim and I feel about all things British.  We have never actually BEEN to Britain (our daughter Becky is always bugging us about it!).  All we know about the British is what we have learned vicariously, through British mystery novels and PBS.  

We no longer have cable TV, so all we ever watch really, via Netflix, is old BBC mysteries and the occasional sitcom.  We love the customs, the language, and the fact that they actually use older characters for seasoned veteran detectives, not 20 somethings who couldn’t possibly have risen to such lofty ranks at that age, like we see in American mystery and cop shows.  

Since there is a British expat community here in central Florida, we also frequent the local take away food place called The Perfect Pie.  Consequently, our freezer is full of Cornish pasties and cottage pie.  We LOVE all things British! 

Yesterday Jim and I went to a lifestyle meet and greet meeting in our community clubhouse.  At the outset of the meeting our lifestyle director introduced a young woman from Britain visiting us from a production team which is considering filming a documentary about retirement in Florida.  This seemed cool, but it was quickly forgotten because we had another mission and were set on accomplishing it.

At the end of the meeting Jim and I headed right over to the coffee room intent on having our photo taken – finally – for our community directory.  When the photographer who was also at the meeting finally came, the young British woman came with him, for some reason anxious to video whatever little exchange we three would have before he took the photo.  Having learned that we are relative newcomers here, after our photo was taken, she asked if she might interview us.  That request began what was the highlight of our day.

If you've read any of my blogs about our move, then you know, one of the things I found difficult about moving so far from the state where we lived all our lives was not just not knowing anyone here.  It was also not BEING known by anyone here.  So to have someone ask us personal questions about what we did before retirement, why we came to Florida, why to this community. . . was wonderful.  She wasn’t just asking to be polite, for the sake of what she does and why she came, she really wanted to know.  And we were so excited to share it all with her.  We even invited her over to see our house!  At the end of our conversation she asked, if the project goes forward would we be willing to be part of it.  How could we say no? The prospect sounded so fun!  And she said she’d take us up on our invitation to see our home, and bring her producer along!

When she called us later in the evening, asking if they could stop and see us, we readily agreed.  We were beside ourselves with excitement to have two Brits right in our own home, and we told them so as soon as they walked in the door!  

The conversation we had with them gave us more detail on what they were planning.  Although they hadn’t yet decided whether to use our community, the plan was to use a Florida retirement community for a three-part documentary on retirement lifestyles.  Their project was to send a team of celebrities to a foreign country to spend a week living there as retired people might do.  They had already completed and aired the first, filmed in India, and Florida would be the second.  A third, based in Japan, would follow.  Once again we were asked to tell the story of how we came to be here and it was received with great interest and lots of questions.

Interestingly to us, they were also very curious about our church search because it was important to us and a critical decision we took a long time making.  Listening to their questions gave us some insight into life in Britain as well.  We were asked if it was okay to just “show up” on a Sunday to a church we had never been to before.  There was some curiosity about what churches here are like as well. 

They seemed intrigued that we deliberately chose a community with a community service club because serving others is so close to our hearts.  We had an opportunity to share with them all of the wonderful things our club does here to serve a particularly impoverished nearby school – contributing uniforms, warm coats, bags of groceries to carry families through the weekends, and classroom help.

We learned that in Britain, “pensioner”, which is what retirees are called, is not a welcome word.  There is nothing like what we have in our Florida retirement communities in Britain.  Retirement is thought of as the end of a useful life.  That is so unlike our experience here that we were even more eager to share our life and lifestyle with a British audience!

So when we were again asked whether we would be willing to welcome the British celebrities to our home and our lives, should this project go through, we were even more eager to say yes.

When I wrote about adventures in the blog I wrote last week, this one wasn’t even on our radar, not could we EVER have anticipated it!  

Adventures, however, come when we least expect them!  It’s always good to be ready!