I would like to say that I think the Canadians are the most polite, courteous and patient people I have ever met. The phrase 'Your very welcome' has become so accustomed to me now from hearing it said after asking for anything from an extra sugar in my coffee at Tim Horton's or asking where the snow plow area is at Canadian Tire that it has stopped me from smiling every time I hear it. It's just the norm here, you are polite and courteous or you just do not get along.
The last three months have been hard work. The fact that we have only just got a definate date as to when our worldly goods are finally turning up is just one of the many reasons why but, to bring you up to date, here is what has happened since my last, over due update.
A Place To Live.
We have had it lucky. Yvonne's mum has lived in Canada since 1996 so we were very privileged to have the opportunity to have a roof over our heads as soon as we landed. Pamela & Alan (Yvonne's mum and step dad) allowed us to be in their house as if it was our own and for that, I am eternally grateful however, after 2 or 3 weeks living out of suitcases, 5 of us in a house not meant for that amount of people, it started to get difficult. My fault really because if you know me at all, I enjoy my solitude sometimes and I was just not getting that. Plus the fact that I have been living away from that environment since I was 18 and now at the ripe age of 41 I was thrown right back into it again went down with me like a wet fart in a jacuzzi. We needed to get out for everybody's sake.
We looked at older properties to start off with. Canada, along with the rest of the world has had a downturn in property prices so we decided that maybe we should cash in on this and buy a cheap, fixer upper. We saw 2 and viewed one. It then became obvious that this was not an option as they were so much of a 'fixer upper' that they needed bulldozing to the ground and rebuilding again. What with the prices the bank foreclosure people were after and the cost of actually rebuilding again we could have bought a new one, so that's what we decided to look at next, a new house.
WOW. How beautiful are these? Everything we looked at had all the latest mod cons and looked like something out of The Stepford Wives film. We did the math and realised that we could afford something so off to the bank we went.
Now what was it Les Dennis used to say? Oh yeah. 'If its up there I'll give you the money myself'. That was trying to get a YES from any bank for a mortgage which is understandable. I mean, would you lend $250,000 to somebody you didn't know? Bearing in mind the worlds economy and that Canada pretty much protected itself from the ridiculousness of the banking ethics that the UK and the US held by NOT lending money to people it did not know or could not afford the payments, we were stuck with one last option, renting.
We contacted dozens of real estate agency's and nobody seemed to care or wanted to help. Renting does not earn the agents any money so we were struggling right from the word go. Then we met Bernadette Mailette. She spent some time with us and while we flicked through the online brochure of what little there was to offer in renting we came across 1 property. It was amazing. 4 bedrooms, double garage, detached, finished basement, garden over looking a lake, everything. We saw it the following day and instantly fell in love. The biggest thing we were worried about was that it was just that, too big but we thought 'Hell, family from the UK can come over and stay without putting up the airbed, its beautiful and, lets be honest, I want to show people how well I have done'. We asked about and everybody we spoke to said that for the price being asked, we should go for it. We did and that is where we live now. House twice the size we are used to and for less each month than we were paying. Thats the next chapter, how to pay for all of this?
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