Day 49 - Hungover in Paradise

Jackie woke me up at 9.30pm. I felt ropey after too many beers & homemade limoncello drank into the early hours. Charlie, our host, was up, but went out at 10.30am to play a darts match.

We are staying in a 3 bedroom bungalow belonging to Charlie, which is very nice, but the garden & pool are absolutely stunning. It is paradise in Arizona.

Charlie our host is a 46 year old single Englishman who works for Rolls Royce as a mid-flight aircraft engineer. He was originally from Derby & has lived out in Tucson for the last 6 years. He bought his bungalow 4 years ago & has spent a lot of time & money making it into a fabulous place particularly the garden. The property is located in a rural northern district of Tucson in the Catalina foothills affording fabulous views of the Catalina Mountains.

The private garden has a pool, waterfall & is full of cacti & bird feeders that attract a constant stream of birds & other wildlife. Beyond the garden wall, Charlie owns the immediate surrounding land & that is full of cacti & small trees. I’ll save details of the flora & fauna for another day.

Charlie (Charles Harrison) likes his darts & is ranked 27th in the USA & plays in tournaments all over the country. Last night after a few beers we took him on at darts, but even with a head start we couldn’t complete when he was hitting 180s.

It initially seemed weird staying in someone’s house when they live there. We have exclusive use of 2 bedrooms & a bathroom & shared use of the rest of his house. It means that when he is out at work or darts, we have the whole place to ourselves & it genuinely feels like paradise.

Charlie was out all day until gone 4.00pm, so Jackie & I just wallowed in & by the pool. It wasn’t without incident, a hummingbird feeder for no apparent reason fell of its hook & smashed, I sat on a lilo Jackie had been on all day & it popped & sunk, but worst of all a dove flew into the glass door & died.

When Charlie returned we broke the bad news to him, luckily he was in a good mood, because he had won at darts! Jackie & I then went out to Walmart, where we bought 4 new lilos for Charlie & I bought myself some swim shorts & flip flops.

That evening Jackie cooked a delicious Cottage Pie, which we all had, then we just chilled in the garden with a beer. Perfect!

Song of the Day - Paradise by George Ezra.

Bonus Song of the Day :-

No Doves Fly Here by The MobRead more