Jack gets his Wednesday guest post out on Wednesday for once – –

I’ve written earlier about how much I hate moving!

It’s partly just the hassle but also the fear of the unknown. We mainly moved for strategic reasons to do with Wendy’s job and didn’t really know much about Wytheville at all.

But I needn’t have worried. The first thing was that we were taken in hand by Jim and Pattie who were friends of the previous owner of the house. They have kept an eye on the house and our cats while we’ve been away nights and ‘lent’ us the wonderful Paul, who has already built us a turning bay in the driveway and trimmed the bushes that were cutting out the light.

The first day we were here we found that a used-book store had just opened (so we don’t need to), and the owners, Randy and Lisa turned out to be real nice folk too!

The upshot is that we ended up with a houseful of folk last Saturday for our housewarming party. Five from Big Stone, one from Blacksburg, two from NC, Jim and Pattie and their friends plus Randy and Lisa.

The house dealt with the incursion well and I felt like I was at home.

Of course, we’re still dealing with the complications of address and bank changes, but I feel we’ve arrived finally.

As an added bonus, the party proved that we’re not so far away that old friends can’t get here fairly easily.

Meanwhile Haley is running the bookstore back in Big Stone and has all sorts of innovative ideas for it. So we’re pleased that it will continue, and the changes she is introducing make it more hers and less ours, which is good for her, for us and for Big Stone Gap!