Overnight in Pawtucket

As the work  of getting the house in Pawtucket draws to a close, I have wanted to spend more time there and see how things are working and also   what I notice still needs doing.
So this past Friday, 14 October, my husband  and I drove to Pawtucket with our overnight bags.  I was scheduled to meet the painter and  look at his work  again.  He has been working there  since June and   has  transformed the house inside and out.  I guess that I  was not surprised when I arrived to find him and his fiancee--who works with him--completing  one last task. He was just finishing installing a new lock and dead bolt on the front  door.  As always, his work  was perfect.  He is a  talented professional painter and  he also will do things like install new lights and overhead fans. So I feel blessed  that he has been able to devote much time and energy to this project.
At his urging, I went to purchase a new back door look like the one already in place which  had started to  show wear and tear and reluctance to turn.
I went to a treasure trove nearby--Tussier's on Central Avenue.  A hardware store like Tussier's is an original of Pawrtucket :  in a  barn-like structure   and filled with all that is needed to maintain the older homes that surround this area. Within minutes I emerged with a new  lock and bore it triumphantly back to the house.  Dennis the painter installed the  new lock in a few minutes.
My overnight in Pawtucket was off to a great start.  I stayed and  did  a load of wash in the washing machine in the basement--all of which has been totally repainted and  illuminated fully for the first time with  four new fuorescent light fixtures. Now I  no longer feel as if I can barely see down there and all spookiness has vanished with the new lighting. I washed and dried the sheets  for the new mattress that  I had  bought for the four poster bed in the bedroom.
Then I bade a fond farewell to Dennis and Joanne--but not before talking  out in detail the specifics for the actual move;  Dennis and  another  helper that he employs will  move our furniture and personal effects from our summer house in South Kingstown to  our winter quarters in Pawtucket.
After we left we  went to visit my Aunt Anna at the wonderful  Linn Health Center in East Providence.
 How I found and settled on that great  health and assisted living facility is a story for another posting.
After visiting Anna for a couple of hours, Yash (my husband) and I rewarded ourselves with a stop off for fish and chips at the inimitable Gregg's restaurant in East Providence.  In line with my low carb  routine I substituted   a salad for the French fries and winter squash for the coleslaw--with the wonderful, fresh fish.  All's well.
We returned in pouring rain to the house in Pawtucket and   tried  to watch the TV. My Aunt had an interesting quirk--she only watched Channel 10 and since she  could get that with an antenna, she did not have a cable  hook up. we found the  TV in a closet but could not locate the antenna. So we  looked for books to read instead. We  went to  our beds early because the next day was  going to be eventful--a trip to Phantom Farm in Cumberland in the morning and then  afternoon  at the Regal Cinema in Swansea  to watch a direct live from teh Met performance of Anna Bolena--an opera of Donizetti's that I  have never seen.
More on that later.

Pawtucket garden

One of the  things that I am most looking forward to in my return to Pawtucket is that I will have the chance to make a new garden there. I have made  gardens in  the  last three houses that I have lived in and they have taken both my energy and  cash.  And it is wrenching to leave the  trees and plants,   gates and arbors and trellises  that I have assembled and tended  carefully. I delight in watching the  bulbs emerge that I plant each  Autumn. I did not  know  that I would be moving to  Pawtucket and yet in some way  it has been looming there  like  a big  boulder over my head that I did not look up to see.
Now I see a new garden as one of the big  positives of  returning there. The yard is not large, but it is   ample for my  purposes.  Right now the  tiny house is looking a bit overwhelmed by  evergreens that were planted over 40 years ago as foundation plantings and now seem to dwarf the house.  They have been trimmed but not fully contained and their trunks  are thick like  trees. So I  want to take  many of them out and replace them with  smaller and more colorful shrubs and  flowers.
My head is filled with thoughts of hydrangeas and  day lilies. Color schemes are  in my mind and I am poring  more than usually over the catalogue form Wayside Gardens--for ideas.

I  hope to  have the large shrubs removed in the  next ten days and  begin to plant some  small  bushes and maybe two  small flowering trees in the front  yard.  Then I will begin to place some bulbs--they are the hope for next Spring.  I am also  thinking about where and  how to place  bird feeders so that I can enjoy them from the  kitchen window.