We have been living in the house in Kitchener Ontario for just two weeks. It is hard to believe that it is such a short time ago I was in West Chester Pennsylvania and now here. In fact being honest I'm not quite sure where I am. I had the misunderstanding it would be maybe cooler up North. Well that has been well and truly de bunked as the temperatures here are as hot as West Chester. So for the Americans that's 90's folks and for the Brits and Manx, that's around 30's in degrees and high humidity.
(The actual location of our new house is between the Welcome signed to Waterloo on one side and Welcome to Kitchener on the other. We are physically closer to Waterloo. We are tucked right down in Southern Ontario and pretty much on the same band of weather pattern that we had in West Chester PA, USA)
I had also wondered if it was cooler and would we get cicadas ? (they normally tell me in West Chester we are entering the summer and it is hot! ) Well guess what, the window is open currently in Kitchener and I can hear cicadas, so that answers that question. I also wondered about mosquitoes. We got those in West Chester and so sitting out became quite miserable in the summer. Well last night I was sat outside and something, don't think I saw it, bit me. So answers that question too.
The bottom line is at that is hot here (actually hotter than stink) it is green and there hasn't been much rain. So ground needs that badly. That said it is rather nice to know there are seasons and things do change. (I'll get back to you on winter!)
The house is slowly coming together and we feel each day a little more settled into the house. There are still more projects to do but for now we have the house to ourselves and our fab construction guy goes on another job.
I have taken a few snaps and thought would share those of our last days in West Chester PA USA and the beginnings of our Canadian adventure (funny how people use the word "adventure" for traumatic house move!)
We were on our way back to West Chester after being at Lucy's for tea
The sky was lovely
Then the truck arrived from Canada, in fact Toronto to be precise
It was a massive truck
Did I say big
And in the road outside where they were doing road works. Wow, so a massive hole behind the truck that they are filling in. Oh and they closed the road, not us and our moving truck, the people doing the work. I was a bit worried we wouldn't get the truck in before they closed the road. But I suppose you don't argue with a truck that is as big as ours. So I shouldn't have worried
Early morning in West Chester and the streets are deserted and we are on the way to put the cats into the car and depart. We stayed the night in a hotel for the last two nights, as the house was being packed and loaded.
Here we are for a group hug!
There is Archi hanging out in the "room of confinement" (there are some snaps later, don't worry)
This is pretty much the drive view. Amazingly there was hardly any traffic and we had country views all the way. It took about 6 hours to get to the boarder
That would be New York State then
Yup sorta boring
OH what's this ?
something like coming to the Canadian Boarder ?
Hallelujah, we're going the right way then
That's right brother we are nearly there! Yes I have headphones on but remarkably I can still hear you. The black and white thing behind their seat, is what we carried Archi and Bella in.
This is a bridge over Lake Ontario at the Boarder. I have another shot of the actual demarcation line, on my camera....where ever that is
And now we are in Canada. It took four hours at the Boarder and we are driving to Waterloo Kitchenenr as fast as we can
Cats in "Room of Confinement 2"
Back of the house
side of the house (pretty close to the neighbors, basically where those posts and trellis is, that is up to our boundary. )
In our kitchen, this is when the house was being worked on and our furniture has yet to arrive....
This is our indoor pool at the house and Damian loves this particular room. Once he got the salt balanced and temperature regulated and away he went. It was brisk at first, think he said like swimming in the sea...! He means the sea up North, like the Isle of Man!!!
Walking around the neighborhood and you see fruit trees
Lots of leafy streets
Marvelous colours
Oh and smiley family (this is when we were staying in the airbnb, then we moved into a hotel for another few days as moving was delayed, it feels a long time since we got to Canada! But the reality is that we moved actually on the 28th June. It is only a few weeks)
These are the sculptures in downtown Kitchener by the municipal buildings
Oh no people in the shot!
It is rather a cool collection of out door arty things.
We went on the hunt for cool vintage stuff and we found this place. Which is architectural salvage and turned around and wow there was a steam train. Louie is seriously thinking of volunteering. What fun!
Just acres of blue sky
Just 10 minutes from outside Waterloo. Just lovely, in a place called St Jacobs
Found this on the street round the corner from the house, which I thought was rather charming
and these squirrel prints in the concrete sidewalk
The houses in the streets between us and our walking distance shopping area are quite quaint. Built in the 40's. We are in the 1950's area
And onto Stratford Upon Avon! That's right a place called Stratford, where they put on a festival of plays, Shakespeare plays and it sits next to the River Avon. They started doing the plays in the late forties.
Some street art
Some grumpy hot people
More street art
Now that's cool, have no idea what it means but it is great.
And Stratford itself. The third best place in Canada to live, especially for retirees. I definitely could live here. It is funky and housing stock lovely and it has the river. Apart from the fact that it is seemingly in the middle of no where. It is a good hour and a bit drive from Kitchener Waterloo and it seems longer as it is one straight road, that actually makes you cheer for the corners!
We were escaping from the house, that did look like this upstairs. This is Damian dancing and that is Isaac going into the cupboard to escape. This was the day before moving. We thought that we would clean. Silly us
This is the nervous breakdown I like to call "kitchen"
Found a flag and hung it and Bella who is beautiful, isn't about to be upstaged by a flag, even the Manx one
This was the kitchen the next day. Pretty proud of that. The boys helped masses!!!
Remeber the dancing shot, well this is the same space and Louie and Isaac unloading the TV
We went back to Stratford, Lucy was visiting and we thought a break from undoing boxes would help. Think this is a great building. It lead me to read all about the yellow brick market. It is fasinating.
Lots of gardens by the Avon
With lovely flowers
It was brutally hot, in the 100's
Ah there he is, Mr Shakespeare himself.
And that would be the River Avon
Partners in crime
It was lovely to see all the flowers and river and just a different scene
idyllic
Ah yes and Ice Cream Man! He just couldn't resist it.
Yes, I could definitely retire here. Just so peaceful and restful
This lovely building in Stratford is a lawyers office
You have to enlarge the window to the bottom right to see that Jesus is in the window. Made me smile
So back at the house and this is one of the large windows in our main reception area. They have triple glazed windows to stop the street noise and they work well. Can't say the window style is something I would choose but actually it reflects the light and gives lots of light throughout the day without the need for window coverings. (Lucy helped me test out what can be seen from outside:) )
This is one of my cosy nook created spaces (this before was a wet bar and the wall facing was a walk through area. The fireplace was not on this side of the wall and also there was a bit of wall that came across in the right of the picture, so a lot of work done in this space) and this faces the window in the picture above. We have a double faced gas fire with pebbles in it. All rather wonderful and worth the effort to make it all happen. It is a favorite place to sit already
This is the view from Louie's little octagonal bathroom window, his bedroom and en suite faces West, lucky boy!
Lucy made me put this wonderful canvas I have, in the area opposite the kitchen island and it looks wonderful. The light throughout the day really makes this piece look so vibrant. A great piece to look at while I work away in the kitchen.
The upstairs has some way to go. Namely the sofa into the space. It should happen Saturday and then we can make that homey too. Bella on the other hand needs no such comfort and the cardboard is the place to be anyway. (That and brown paper are her all time favorites) Warm sun from the sliding balcony doors and stretch!
and relax
Or maybe move onto another piece of furniture and sleep off the heat!
The boys unaffected and occupied doing what boys like best
So the "adventure" and we didn't even get onto the actual living here. The worlds most complex and complete recycling system and the website that explains all of that to you had Lucy and I crying with laughter. It is good they are thinking of the environment but...well that might get a feature another time. Needless to say I am being an expert recyclable person now! and will have moved on Master skills at the time of writing the next blog.
So far we are finding Canada very different from the states. The people are much more reserved and quietly get on with their stuff. The jury is still out on what to make of that, this is early days. That they in these parts find Americans a rarity, well that was interesting (Having Lucy the foreigner stay, was amazing. They know the Isle of Man but Americans in these parts is rare!?). But if you consider that Kitchener and especially Waterloo are surrounded by farm land and country, it makes sense. This isn't viewed as the "big smoke" like the monolith that Toronto has become. It is seen as country and removed from all that, despite the fact that with the addition of Cambridge in this area too (another small city) that KWC (Kitchener, Waterloo, Cambridge) have a combined population of 523894 as of 2016 and in 2014 it was 496382, it has had a population explosion of 27000. That would explain the housing shortage and the fact that downtown Waterloo has condos being built at a rate of knots. It is a great example of a place having a sense of self that isn't necessarily reflected in the facts that you are presented with. It also means that the tri state cities are very pocket like. They feel different and the people there feel removed from other places. The geography of the mind is amazing. In Waterloo itself there are many sub areas and we wanted to live in an area close to Belmont Village, our house in located in Westmount next to Belmont and so two areas are joined by the Village and the shopping there (2 minute drive). For more shopping there is Waterloo (5 minute drive) and then bigger shopping in Kitchener (11-15 minutes drive).
For now the drive to downtown Waterloo feels like an adventure and amazingly I could get lost doing just that with the car. I have walked it and so have a vague idea of where to go but will have to work on confidence building. Driving here is again different. The roads also aren't straight and everyone is in a hurry. But slowly each day I am getting it and like the move to America, I will acclimatize. I have English chocolate, a pie shop (of the English kind, both savory and tarlet, yum!) and a fantastic gallery of clay and glass. Really lots to see and do. I won't be bored!
