Windsor Cottage Chronicles

This blog is starting to look suspiciously like a love letter to New Hampshire—with a few passive-aggressive footnotes about the weather. It’s a far cry from other places I’ve lived: Houston, Phoenix, Santa Monica, San Francisco, London, Boston… and Anchorage (which, to be fair, is the closest match—minus the volcanic ash, wandering moose, salmon runs, and the deeply questionable concept of a midnight-sun tee time at 2:00 a.m.). March in New Hampshire means one thing: Town Meeting . For the uninitiated, this is a centuries-old New England tradition where residents gather to govern themselves directly. Yes, really. No filters, no middlemen—just your neighbors, a microphone, and a strong opinion. I used to think Texas politics had a flair for the dramatic. Then I attended Town Meeting. Picture a room full of people, with seriously opposing viewpoints, debating municipal budgets and whether the town should build much-needed infrastructure (tax funding required). Now add just enough unpr...

We still don’t have all the concrete, and the weather is freezing, so I won’t bore you with that (you’re welcome). But— hey hey hey —my heart positively sang when I learned from our loyal community that seven, yes SEVEN , building framers were hard at work on our house today while we’re away. The beat goes on… even without a slab.. There is real hope—actual, tangible, don’t-jinx-it hope—that we might have this expansion buttoned up before the depths of February. Hope is doing a lot of heavy lifting these days, but we’re sticking with it. With that optimism firmly in place, I wanted to pause and wish all of you—mostly close friends, neighbors, and a sprinkling of distant relatives—an absolutely fabulous, joyful, and, in these complicated global times, especially peaceful Christmas. Peaceful in the physical sense, and peaceful in the psychological sense too (the harder one). Since the slab has become something of a taboo subject, I’ll pivot to what is decidedly not taboo: travel. We mana...

Zoom ba-dee-zoom—we fled! After weeks of house-project intensity (All work and no play make Jack a dull boy), our youngest daughter wisely booked us a Thanksgiving escape. Not to the Overlook Hotel—no ghost twins inviting us to “come play”—but to the Mountain View Grand Resort & Spa in Whitefield, NH , a Norman Rockwell sort of place that still had quaint dial up phones on each floor. The Thanksgiving feast was superb, at least one busy bartender tried hard to adopt us, and our bedroom window framed  Mt. Washington like a very expensive screensaver. We even saw a Christmas play, visited the  longest candy counter in the world,  and I vigilantly watched hubbie take up double-blade axe throwing with suspicious enthusiasm. But the prize moment? Driving past the Old Man of the Mountain —or more accurately, where he used to be. For thousands of years he perched on that cliff, becoming a legend of Native People's folklore, and unofficial mascot of New Hampshire, seen...

I went quiet for a bit because I swore I wouldn’t write about concrete again. If you’ve ever seen Peppa Pig , you may remember Daddy Pig’s favorite overdue library book: The Wonderful World of Concrete , which he discreetly used to read his collection of girlie magazines. When he actually read the book out loud, he reliably put the entire family to sleep. I didn’t want my blog to have the same effect. But neighbors have been asking what the holdup is. So, here we are. Concrete again (we've been told). Our first real construction crisis hit when the nights turned freezing and the local concrete company couldn’t fit us in until what felt like the next Ice Age. Because of our tricky access, getting a concrete truck in would require closing down Lake Avenue, special rigging and a special pump truck, with a very long hose on supports or swung over the house into the wall molds. Translation: slow, expensive, and scheduled perilously close to deep winter. So the team decided to do it t...

Right now, the world feels a bit surreal. Just a week ago, I was in leafy-green England celebrating life — playing Rat-A-Tat-Cat with the grandsons (a game that reveals far too much about one’s poker face), helping build electrical kits that miraculously didn’t electrocute anyone, and cheering at swim practice and soccer under bright floodlights. The nine-year-old’s moves had me seeing Beckham-in-training, while the seven-year-old’s piano practice had me seeing… patience-in-training.     Now I’m back at Lake Sunapee, where the wind howls under both sun and moon, the temperature dips below freezing, and the lake is as moody as I am before coffee. But oh, the progress! You may not think this is sexy but I do! The hole is dug, the footings are in, and we’re waiting on the elusive concrete truck. Once it arrives and the curing time is done, we’ll have a foundation — both literally and spiritually.  Getting to this point wasn’t easy. Rain and runoff turned our exc...

We’ve been drumming our fingers for four days. Equipment woes and a three-day weekend have slowed things down. Our builders spent much of Friday wrestling with machinery, and over the long weekend, Doug, the Excavator, and his newly repaired sidekick, Doug-Less , the Front Loader, sat alone on our plot as a Nor'Easter blew through, dropping the temperature into the low 40s.      The mornings are colder now, and everyone I talk to has a story that starts with “... poured the foundation too late in the season” and ends with "cracked foundation.”  I briefly consider the worst possibility if we continue to delay. Big projects have their ups and downs, and I’ll admit, I’m in a bit of a down spiral right now. But then I consider that our builders are good people — they care deeply about their craft, and when the machines roll again, I know they’ll be all in. They take a lot of pride in their work and experience. Even so, from my perspective, every quiet day feels...

After a long weekend (with weather too perfect to be productive), the crew rolled in bright and early Monday, fueled by muscle, momentum, and maybe sheer stubbornness. Their mission: remove what remained of the old ell. It was a long, hard day, and by late afternoon everyone was moving a little slower. One of the guys had caught some kind of early seasonal virus, but true to the brawn nature of building, he was here—sniffling, sweating, and working it off. By the end of the day, the ell was gone, the air was full of sawdust and satisfaction, and everyone had earned their rest.  The dollhouse foundation Later, I stood back and looked at what was left. How is it that an empty foundation looks like a dollhouse? How did we ever have an office and gym in that tiny space? And up above—our den, with its wraparound couch, game table, television, and elaborate fireplace—it all felt so much bigger when it was full of life. Tuesday dawned quieter, but only for a moment. The crew soon discove...