Anyway, we spent the first month deciding we were going to go for a general Victorian/Edwardian theme, setting the build around English village life in 1900 or so; landscaping, getting to know the estate tools, buying houses to lay out for rent ... I gladly contributed my grandiose ideas which an ever-patient Fatima added to her to-do list ... wrote up a covenant, set up an Estate office around the side of Fatima's first "own" Antique Artistry store (imagining of course we would be interviewing potential tenants ...lol!) and then we sat back and waited for the inevitable flood of renters .... and waited .. and waited....

After a week or so with no bites, we were starting to get a little concerned - had we really picked the right market? Were we advertising properly? But, slowly and surely, the houses started filling up ... we still have our initial few tenants now, something we are really proud of.

As Love filled up, I decided we ought to expand ... and so was born Fatima's Desire. Keeping to the general theme we'd already established, houses and now some small village type stores (using the Rothenburg build from SLer Skimi Mission - wonderfully soft toned textures - I love them still). A few of our residents on Love decided to move over to Desire, and so we were on our way again.

One thing I did want was some way of physically joining the two islands - a bridge seemed a natural thing to do, so Fatima added yet another "to-do" and built Tranquilty Bridge - this is based on the RL bridge which connects the island of Angelsey to the rest of the British mainland (NW Walesto be precise). The Bridge has attracted a lot of positive comment, and even one offer to buy a copy!

As Love and Desire continued to fill - with some turnover in the list of those renting with us, we discussed what next. We decided to add to the general feel of the isles by adding 4 Openspace sims (these come in sets of 4, each set costing the same as a normal island, but with greatly reduced prim limits as they are really meant for activities like sailing and flying). We put up an island in each of the sims and proceeded to rent them out. Hmm ... time for another island ..... Fatima's Beauty was born!

First off, some history: Fatima and I met when I was new to SL and we pretty much hit it off straight from the start. It took us a while to get together, but once we had we bought a fair sized waterside plot on the mainland and Fatima started on building our new home. That became known as Spirals Castle and was, I think, a labour of love on her part - it's a bit of a leap from pools and small waterfalls to a whole castle, but Fatima did an amazing job. I of course had almost no building skills whatsoever - and certainly hadn't discovered the joys of texture buying....

Experienced SLers know that there is a continuing and often acrimonious debate about the merits of holding land in SL - mainland vs. private estates. On the one hand, owning a piece of mainland is pretty secure - you're paying tier to Linden Lab (as do we all), but you're subject to the whims, banlines and texture overload of your neighbours; estates tend to be themed and if responsibly run can be a great place to live, if a little more expensive than mainland. A problem sometimes arises when a tenant either gets into a dispute with the estate owner, or is just banned outright with no recompense; sadly this does happen; but Fatima and I are determined no-one will ever have to lay that charge at our door!

Anyway.... after a month or so in our mainland plot, we noticed that it had pretty much filled up and we were suffering from the dreaded lag ... too many art galleries and the texture overload that brings. And one resident decided to position his tree house right outside our window! So I determined it was time to move on yet again - although I kept it a secret from Fatima hehehe - I did tease her unmercifully about a 'present' that was on its way and drove her into a mini-frenzy lol!

That 'present' was our very first island, Fatima's Love - and I took an enormous amount of pleasure in tp'ing Fatima over to the new island when it had been delivered - I even wiped the destination in the Teleport Offer box so she wouldn't know where she was going... and of course, the moment she arrived I crashed, so I never did get to hear her "OMG!!!!!" - I think to be honest it was her screams that crashed me.....