044 HOME DECORATING

I’ve never been much of a decorator, but I do know what I like.  I have mentioned in previous entries that I am a technology junkie, but on the flip side I have a real love for the medieval side of things.  Hence my love of the TV series Game of Thrones, Robin Hood when I was a kid and all the way to adulthood.  So when I got this place and lucked out with the off-white walls, dark quartz countertops and the grey/brown laminate floor, it just cried out to me medieval.  Even the stainless steel appliances remind me of suits of armour worn by the knights.

That’s why I have concentrated on a blend of modern and old look. Leather couch and recliner in chocolate brown (Renee’s suggestion on colour), the medieval looking Harvest Table and chairs and then getting a very medieval looking chandelier to compliment it.  That is the basic overall colour scheme, dark and white, with splashes of colour thrown in.  The light blue towels in all the bathrooms provide some and again were Renee’s suggestion.

Now it is time to add some accents to the decorating.  I mentioned before that there was an old painting that hung above my parent’s couch for many years, that I have always loved.  That came with me and as mentioned in a previous article, I had someone hang it for me, basically on a feature wall in the kitchen area.  It reminds me mostly of my Mom as it is very subdued colours and a winter scene that makes me think of Saskatchewan where Mom was born.

THE MOM PAINTING

Several people on Facebook, Renee, my cousin and daughter Caitlin have been relentlessly trying to convince me to display some of my photographic work.  I have several 8x10’s that hung in the old place, of various wildlife shots, but what was suggested is that I blow something up big and on canvas.  I could not think of a shot that was worthy of such treatment, but I finally settled on my “Blood Moon Over Burnaby” shot as the only one that might be worthy of such treatment.  Yes, I am my own worst critic.

So after much research, I finally did it.  I contacted a company called ABC Fine Art in Burnaby and after several online exchanges and phone calls, this would be the print.  The wall that it will go on is behind the couch and is 5 feet wide, or 60 inches.  With those measurements we settled on a print 50 inches by 40 inches and I emailed the photo file.

BLOOD MOON OVER BURNABY SHOT I SELECTED

Over the last week I have been waiting on the print to arrive, I have had numerous second thoughts and was worried it was going to be terrible as a big canvas print.  Toby (not my dog) the owner of the shop assured me it would look great.  It was scheduled to be shipped to me today, but various things conspired against that and Toby loaded the print into his friend’s truck and drove it all the way out here himself.

He gave me tips on how to care for it and then the big reveal.  I am blown away.  The shot is incredible and I cannot be more pleased with it.  It fits perfectly in the area designated and looks great with the décor.  The one downside happened when Toby asked if I had a hammer and nail.  He was quite prepared to hang the print for me, but I have no nail and my tools are still lost in the box maze which is my garage.  So tomorrow, I will head out and get some proper painting hooks to hang it.

THE CANVAS PRINT SITTING ON THE COUCH
IT CAME OUT GREAT

Renee expressed her disgust numerous times that I was “not prepared”.  It’s kind of difficult to be prepared with my tools buried and when I was expecting a courier to show up with the print, not the actual owner of the shop and the artist who made this come together.  No matter, I will buy the hooks tomorrow and if need be I will buy another hammer, even though there is probably 10 or 11 of them in a box somewhere.  If it means deflecting all this criticism I will do it.

UNWRAPPED AND ON THE WALL ABOVE COUCH

So the challenge continues.  Deciding what will go on the walls next.  There is a really nice print of a wolf in a snowstorm that Renee gave me.  It’s not my work but that’s ok too.  There is some thought of hanging a painting of a lighthouse I did some time ago.  There are paintings of a police car and police motorcycle that a friend and former colleague painted and they will go in my office.  Then I will dig out more photos I have taken, and put those up.  But none will be this big, or on canvas.  It's just too expensive to do it more than once.

043 THE ROBOTS ARE COMING

 Yesterday afternoon I realized the floor needed vacuuming and I hadn’t gotten around to doing it in the morning.  At the old house, when I pulled out the upright vacuum and started doing the floor, Toby would go mental.  He hated that thing!  It didn’t matter where he was, inside, outside, when the vacuum started out he would come running in and insanely bark at it and even occasionally lunge at it to try and bite it.  It was like this noisy thing had murdered his whole family or something.

I probably hate vacuuming as much as Toby hates the vacuum.  I vowed when I moved to the new place that I would not be doing any more vacuuming.  To that end, I ordered the townhouse with laminate floors upstairs and down and no carpet.  Apparently according to safety regulations I have to have carpet on the stairs, so that’s the only place in the house that has carpet.

How was I going to get away with not vacuuming you may ask?  Hire a maid?  Certainly an option, but no, I decided against that because it would get awful expensive, and with Toby running around the house, it couldn’t last for several weeks without some type of cleaning.  Sweeping is an awful lot of work too.  So what is a guy to do?

I admit it, I’m a technology junkie and my solution was provided by the iRobot company in the form of the Roomba vacuum.  I did a lot of research on these and discovered that even though they would vacuum the floor ok, it was a good idea to have a backup and give it a good going over once every two weeks or so.  So that left me with the idea of a Roomba and a built-in central vacuum.  Which put me back in the position of still having to vacuum.

ROOMBA DOWNSTAIRS

That is until iRobot came out with their newest model, the 980.  These robots have better edge sweepers and way more powerful suction, negating the need for additional vacuuming.  In addition, they have a built in GPS which enables it to return to its base station if it uses up all of its battery, charge up and then return to the exact spot that it stopped.  In addition, I can control the Roomba with my smart phone.

So I bought two of them, one for upstairs and one for downstairs.  I have used them over twenty times, but had never actually watched them work and do their thing.  I always activated them from my phone while we were out on the morning walk, so as not to disturb Toby and in turn disturb the entire complex with his frantic barking.  This afternoon I took a chance while I was sitting here doing nothing, prepared to grab Toby if he went nuts.

So I activated the upstairs unit.  Other than the beeps of it starting out it’s surprisingly quiet, although you can hear it running back and forth over the floor upstairs.  So, now came the moment of truth.  Toby was in the living room and the Roomba base station is in the dining room.  I hit the start button and was waiting for the fireworks, expecting Toby to attack.  He didn’t.  He saw this little machine coming towards him and watched it indifferently for a few minutes and then went downstairs into the entryway, where it’s cooler.

AND AWAY SHE GOES

I was fascinated by this little machine, running back and forth over the floor in an apparent haphazard pattern.  But, there must be a method to its madness as it was getting everything clean.  It just kept going back and forth and side to side, picking up dust and dirt.  I couldn’t stop watching this little beast, it was hilarious.  It would go over and over a particularly dusty spot until it was clean.  It went right to the lip of the stairs and stopped, only to turn around and go the other way.

My daughter Caitlin, told her boss that I have the Roomba vacuum and his comment was “your Dad is a special kind of lazy, isn’t he?”  I just giggled about that, because as I said, I’m a technology junkie and anything that makes my life easier is A OK in my books.  Especially when it does my housework for me and allows me to pursue my many other interests such as photography.

I bought two of them so that I can clean upstairs and downstairs at the same time and don’t have to move the unit up and down.  They weren’t that much more expensive than getting a central built in vacuum and besides, they are entertaining as heck, at least now that I have actually watched it work.  Right now the units are called Roomba Upstairs and Roomba Downstairs, but I’m thinking, maybe I should come up with names for them.

042 ROSES LOVE SUNSHINE

One thing I have noticed on our many walks around the neighbourhood are the many and varied types of flowers.  There’s daisies, rhododendrons, dogwoods, wisteria, lilacs and many others whose names I don’t know.  But the one flower that I don’t see at all, is one I used to see all around the old neighbourhood, and that’s roses.  It kind of amazes me really, they are so beautiful and smell so nice.  Finally, though, the other day, I spotted a lone rose bush in someone’s front yard.  No flowers yet though.

WISTERIA BLOOMS

BLOSSOMS

HAVE NO IDEA

My grandfather used to grow roses, and my Dad after him, in fact until the day I left, there was a Peace Rose in the backyard, that my Grandfather planted.  It wasn’t doing too well anymore because it was overwhelmed by the Lilac tree, but it was still there.  Almost every house around the block in the old neighbourhood had at least one rose bush in it.

PEACE ROSE

When I lived in Surrey, in a little garden at the front of the house, with full Southern exposure, I had six rose bushes.  I did very little to them except dust them with Sulphur occasionally to fight “black spot” and I would dig in rabbit poop, from our two rabbits in the back yard.  Those rose bushes grew to almost 8 feet in height and provided hundreds of blooms all summer.  When my ex and I split, she didn’t want them any longer so I dug them up and transplanted them to the house in East Van.  They didn’t do well there at all because there was too much shade from the cherry tree.  Getting Toby didn’t help them either as he used to gnaw on the stalks.

HAVE NO IDEA

PANSYS

I’m pretty sure you can grow roses in containers, and I would love to do so, but with the townhouse, I’m not sure what I can get away with.  The back deck would be perfect and I don’t think would cause problems, but it faces north and gets limited sunshine until late in the day.  The perfect spot is the front entryway which is south facing and gets sunshine all day long, it’s just with the strata I’m not sure if I can put a container out on the entryway or not.  I see lots of other people have done so, but I don’t want to spend the money only to be told I can’t have them there.

DOGWOODS AGAINST BLUE SKY

LILACS

I would love to plant them in the little garden area right out front.  The plants that have been put there are not doing well at all and it may be because they were planted too soon to finish off the exterior.  Having them in containers would solve two problems.  One I don’t think it would breach strata rules and the second is it would take minimal work on my part, which of course was one of the things that led to me selling the house and moving.  Too much back breaking yard work.

YELLOW DAISIES

It would look very pretty and would bring back some pleasant memories without all the work.  It would also and another touch of individuality to my place.  That being said, I do love how each unit has been designed with a slightly different look, so they don’t look like the cookie cutter approach to most townhouses and condos.  It could be a slightly different colour scheme, different style entryway, some units have decks, some don’t.

I took the first step today by dropping into a nursery to check out what’s available on the container growing front, but I couldn’t find anyone to help me, nor could I find exactly what I wanted.  I’ll go back again and try another day.  What I would dearly love to get would be a “Peace Rose” as a tribute to my Grandfather, but I didn’t see any available in the nursery.  Some red roses would be nice as well.  I’ll keep you posted on what I decide and what I can do.  Here’s hoping!

041 COOKING ANGEL

It has been a weekend of cooking and baking for me.  On Friday with Renee coming over, I started at 7:00 in the morning and began making chili for dinner, putting everything in the crockpot and letting her go.  For desert, I made my World Famous (in my opinion) Peanut Butter cookies.  I’ve made them several times before since I’ve been here, but with practice my technique becomes remembered and improved, and this is my best batch yet.

For a long time, I have told Renee that I used to be pretty good at baking and I think she has started to believe me a bit between Peanut Butter Cookies and Milk Chocolate Chip cookies, but I told her I was quite capable of doing a scratch bake, Angel Food cake.  I know she didn’t believe me on that one.  They really aren’t super difficult but they can be tricky if everything doesn’t go just right.

After we came back from our adventure exploring Maple Ridge and running into a Farmer’s Market/Festival of some type where we came face to face with a Black Bear and me with no camera except my iPhone 6.  Luckily he was a stuffed bear, on display by the BC Wildlife Conservation group.  So I snapped a few close ups.  One day, I’m going to have my big camera and get some live shots.

YOGI NEEDS A PICNIC BASKET

We did another run to the recycling depot and got rid of a ton more Styrofoam, cardboard and old appliances and from there headed down to the Fraser River walk.  My body was not cooperating too well today, so I sat on a bench and watched some birds playing.  Renee and Toby went on.

When we got home I made us some Orange Julius, from an amazing recipe I found online and I swear you cannot tell it apart from the real thing.  We got nice and chilled down from drinking those.  We probably didn’t need it that much though, because while the temperature 3 days ago was 30C the temperature today was only 12C.

But I digress.  Once we finished off the Orange Julius, it was time to make good on my claim of being able to bake an Angel Food Cake from scratch.  I whipped up the egg whites into a froth as needed.  Sifted the dry ingredients 5 times as called for, folded them altogether and poured it into a pan and then into the oven it went.  After an hour it was ready and put out on the counter to cool.

BAKED AND COOLING

TADA, FRESH FROM THE PAN

While waiting for that to happen, I set about chopping vegetables for our dinner of Chicken Fajitas.  OK, I admit it, I used a kit here, but I did chop up all the vegetables and chicken.  We sat and watched the news and scarfed down our fajitas and after a short rest it was time for the unveiling.

CHICKEN COOKING

VEGGIES ADDED

I ran a knife around the edges of the pan, flipped it over and out popped my perfectly done scratch baked Angel Food Cake.  I set out to finish it off by making the chocolate drizzle my Mom used to make.  Where she used semi-sweet chocolate though, I opted for milk chocolate.  I much prefer it.  After drizzling the cake with the chocolate, I cut up some fresh strawberries as a garnish.

DONE AND ICED

FIRST SLICE

Here comes the moment of truth, the big slice of cake, it looks great, handed over to Renee who sampled it and said that “it tastes great”.  She had never had a scratch baked Angel Food Cake, and it tastes quite a bit different from the packaged ones you can get.

After a couple of great dinners and deserts in a row, Renee proclaimed herself stuffed to the gills.  Come to think of it, I am too and after finishing off this article I’m heading off to bed.  Tomorrow will be another long day of doing things and walking Toby.  This being retired sure is a lot of hard work and I’m not sure where I found the time to go to work way back when.

040 SERVICES GALORE

This move has been a great deal more expensive than I ever thought possible, but in other ways not so much.  I say this because some things came in way under budget and with judicious shopping around and various referrals it’s been quite acceptable.  I have mentioned some along the way, but I’m going to try and mention everyone in this article and give my recommendations as well.  It has also been a lot more work than I ever bargained for and my back, wrist and knees have been letting me know all along the way.

When I started out, I needed to downsize and get rid of a lot of junk.  That’s when I called in 1-800-GOT-JUNK.  Way before I even got to the point of selling, my sister and her kids came in and removed a ton of Dad’s old stuff and furniture, but afterwards there was a lot of my stuff that didn’t need to come with me.  The guys from 1-800-GOT JUNK came in and removed whatever I pointed out.  They did a great job and took away two small dump truck loads of stuff and both trips came in under $1000.  I highly recommend these guys.

I also knew that physically and time wise I would never get the remaining stuff all packed and ready to be moved, plus I didn’t want to make numerous trips back and forth with a full or empty pickup truck.  Recruiting friends and family just wasn’t going to happen.  So after a ton of research, I settled on Bekins Moving.  Benny came in to give me an estimate of the cost with an additional estimate for the cost of moving.  I was expecting a bill for $10,000 but the estimate came in at just over $3,000.  The move kept getting put off because my new place was not yet ready.

Finally, the Bekins guys came in the day before the move and in 8 hours had my entire life packed into boxes.  I had no furniture to speak of for moving which helped.  The next morning, they came in and loaded up their truck in a little over 3 hours and off we went.  Two hours at the new place and everything was moved in.  The cost came in $1100 under the estimate and I got almost $100 back when I returned their boxes.  Unpacking was up to me and as of today, everything is unpacked and put away.  The garage is still full, and my office is still a shambles, but it’s coming along.

Even before the movers, I knew I was going to need furniture.  The first stop was Sleep Country for a bed.  OK, I went a little nuts here buying a Queen Sized adjustable bed, but after twenty years sleeping on a hide-a-bed, I think I deserved it.  Initially I was going to use both spare bedrooms as office and storage space, but I opted to leave one as a bedroom and so got a double bed for one room.  It was a lot more than I expected to spend on beds, but they gave me an absolute great deal and I highly recommend them for beds.  Even better is that they delivered and set up the beds too.

Living room furniture was next and I had already decided on leather but I wanted real leather rather than the imitation stuff.  My vague plan for decorating was basically man cave, medieval modern.  Since one of the items that was on my must have list was a recliner, it was thought, go to the original and shop right at La-Z-Boy.  A leather recliner and sofa that was picked out was going to cost almost $9000 and that was just for the two pieces.  I was actually going to spend it, until they told me it was a 13 week wait for delivery.  I wouldn’t recommend them at all.  Way too expensive and customer service was iffy.

That same evening we went to The Brick.  It was specifically for the dining room table and chairs that Renee had initially seen but we both agreed matched my theme.  While there I enquired about what else I needed and ended up getting everything including a 65 inch 4K Ultra HD.  Furnishing the whole house (dining room and living room) came to under $7000 which was much cheaper than La-Z-Boy wanted for the sofa and recliner, plus The Brick delivered it when I needed it.

TELUS took three weeks, several calls and three visits from installers to figure out that they have no cables running into the complex, so I switched to Shaw phone and was up and running the next day.  It took him 5 minutes to hook up the phone.  The guy that came and hooked up the internet and cable took a little longer but he had to configure 2 TV’s and a computer.

Because I actually have a stove, I needed to get pots and pans and all manner of cooking utensils.  I did all sorts of research online as to the best brands and wouldn’t you know it, Canadian Tire of all places was the best place to get it.  Especially when they had their big sale on.  A 13 piece Lagostina stainless steel cook set which normally sells for $1100 I got for $300.  Also a KitchenAid Pro Stand Mixer which was normally $900 I got for $400.  So go figure.

PUTTING IN
SCREEN DOOR

SCREENGUY SAM

For handyman work, I had Don Nordheimer from Red Willow Services come in and hang my big painting, mount the medieval chandelier and the ceiling fan and for 2.5 hours work only charged me $115.  Along those same lines, I needed screens for the house and got a fellow recommended to me by the name of Screenguy Sam.  For $310 he custom made and installed screens on all the windows and patio sliding door.  Talk about a perfectionist though.  He installed the screens the first day and of the 9 screens, only 3 including the door passed his quality control.  He came back last night and put them in and this time he proclaimed about two of them, “they fit, but they are not perfect”.  So he took them away to re-do again. He did this three more times until every screen was perfect. The frame colour so closely matches the house, you can’t tell from the outside they are there.

Finally, the other service people are Renee and myself.  Renee has lugged things up and down the stairs and helped pick out items for the house.  Amazingly on the big items, she has agreed with and liked my selections.  She steered me towards “chocolate brown” leather for the chairs, where I wanted black and she was right, it does look better.  The dining room table and chairs are brilliant in that because they are roughhewn wood they can be used for “formal” dinner parties as well as just casual everyday use.

CHECKER CUPBOARD

CUPBOARD FILLED

Considering that my tools are buried somewhere in the garage, with the cheap screwdriver set I bought I’ve managed to put together my glass topped computer desk, three shelves for the TV’s and computer room and yesterday a really funky black and white checkerboard cabinet from Ikea which will hold all my movie collection as well as other things like the X-Box 360 and games.

It’s been a long row to how, but with the help of some great people, the house is in livable if only semi-organized 5 weeks in.  It’s coming along, slowly but surely and there are more ideas floating around on things to add.  But for the most part now I can just sit back and enjoy my new surroundings and get to know the area as well.

039 LOVE IT OR LIST IT

As I sit here and realize that I have now been living here just over a month I thought I should reflect on some of the things I love, like or hate about the new house and things I miss about the old house.  I’ll start with the old place.  I miss the apple, cherry and Hawthorne trees in full bloom in the springtime, but I sure don’t miss raking up all those leaves in the fall.  I also don’t miss all the crud and crap that fell on the cover of my boat throughout the year.

I miss my neighbour Yoko who always had a happy greeting for us and pets for Toby.  I miss the park across the street where I grew up playing and where Toby spent most of his life playing.  I don’t miss the tiny little, cold and dirty basement that I lived in for twenty years.  I miss the memories that were made in that hose, but they come with me.  I miss my “big white house” as I called it as a kid, but I sure don’t miss the maintenance involved.  That’s about it that I can think of at this time.

As for the new place.  I love having a master bedroom with a real bed.  The walk-in closet is awesome ALSO and I have managed to fill it up pretty well.  Granted I am probably the only person anywhere that hangs up T-shirts rather than putting them in a drawer.  I actually do that because I don’t like putting T-shirts in the dryer and so I hang them up to dry.

I love having three bathrooms, well actually two and a powder room.  Part of that, I absolutely love having a walk-in shower that is huge.  Having the glass enclosure instead of the shower curtain that sticks to you is amazing.  I also love having a high capacity water heater so I can stand in the shower until I’m wrinkled and still have hot water left over.

I love the front loading washer and dryer that are very easy to use and do such a great job without tearing clothes occasionally like the old agitator washer did.  I sure put it through a workout in the first couple of weeks in that every single item that was washable, went through this washer and dryer.  They handled the load like a trooper.  Clothing, towels, blankets, sheets, quilt covers and even a down filled sleeping bag.

I especially love having room to move around and see different sights through my multitude of windows.  In the old house I had three small windows, only one of which opened.  It is so bright and airy in here, it’s awesome.  It’s quite a contrast to the almost dungeon like existence I had before.  Yes, I had access to the upstairs, but that was my Dad’s space.  Even a year after Dad’s passing, I never felt comfortable with the thought of moving upstairs.  Silly, I know but that was just the feeling I had and couldn’t get past.

Once I got past my initial fiasco with the stove and all of the smoke alarms, I love cooking on this stove.  One big secret I discovered is do mostly everything at a level 6 medium heat, rather than the full on high 10.  I have been baking up a storm as well.  Several batches of my amazing (if I do say so myself) peanut butter cookies and milk chocolate chip cookies.  Next project is an angel food cake, just because Renee doesn’t totally believe I can do it.  I think she’s more of a believer now after all the cookies.

I have been very impressed with all of the neighbours I have met so far and all the new ones arriving intermittently.  I truly believe we are going to have an amazing community around here.  All of the surroundings are changing almost daily, with the landscapers working overtime to get the outside looking great.  We have a small park that is just in the finishing stages behind us, and just a half block up the street there is a pond in the process of being put in.

The roads are nice and wide which makes driving the truck in easy and it is a great thing when it comes to swinging in with the boat and backing it into the garage.  Granted that isn’t going to happen too often but it is nice to be able to do it.

My back yard is almost finished off now and the grass had its first cutting the other day.  A couple of shrubs have been planted in the little garden by the gate and it will be interesting to see what they become.  There needs to be lattice put in, under the deck, otherwise Toby has free range to 3 other yards, but the construction manager said that it is coming shortly.

I know what you are thinking, there must be something I don’t like.  If I had to pick something, it would be the one hour commute every Wednesday to play hockey at UBC.  But that is a personal choice and I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t have such a good and fun group of guys to play with.  Thinking about it though, I used to drive 45 minutes every Thursday to play with the group in Delta.  They weren’t such a good group though and if I was still playing there, I wouldn’t be doing the drive.

So, that is just a few of the loves, likes, hits and misses about the move and the new place.  If I was on the show Love It or List It, I would definitely have to say “Love It”.  Speaking of which, I am getting bombarded by junk mail from real estate people wanting to buy my place and/or sell me another one.  They are completely out of luck on both counts.  I’m not selling and just the thought of moving again makes me nauseous.

037 COYOTE UGLY?

As I sit in my office, both late in the evening and now early this morning I realize how much closer to nature we are in the new place.  This is not an unusual experience for me with trips to the lake every summer, but this is now where I live full time.  It starts with the tentative call of a coyote off in the distance and suddenly becomes a very loud and very close answering reply from another coyote.  He’s either down in the gully next to the stream, or he is standing right under my window.  He is quickly joined in the chorus by the sound of many more coyote voices.

It was not unusual to see coyotes in the city, in fact there was one that used to come and visit Toby at the back gate.  There was another that would sit across the street at the park and occasionally let out a yelp late at night, but it was not at the volume nor the numbers that we are hearing here.

We have also been advised that we live in bear country and that we need to be “bear aware”.  I have not seen one yet, although it is still early in the springtime.  There is a touch of wilderness right outside my back door, and there are certainly numerous areas of wilderness within a 5-minute drive of here.  We are slowly exploring our new area and it is amazing.

WESTCOAST EXPRESS ARRIVES

RENEE DISEMBARKS

Some of these areas I explored as a kid on both family camping trips and outings with my Scout Troop.  Alouette, Rolley, Pitt, Stave and many other lakes and parks are all within a 5 or 10-minute drive from here.  From Vancouver it was more like 45 minutes to an hour and so I tended not to just jump in the vehicle and drive out.  It took planning.  Since we have been out here, a whole month now, we have just grabbed the cameras and gone.  No planning, no expectations.

LEADS TO ALOUETTE LAKE

ON THE SHORES OF ALOUETTE

Yesterday we took a drive and a lengthy walk out to Pitt Lake.  On one side of the gravel service road is Pitt Lake proper, on the other side are the marshlands.  There are a plethora of birds and other wildlife to admire and photograph.  I even got a shot of a white swan in flight.  I am going to have to call this a “lifer” as I have never seen a swan in the wild before and certainly have never seen one flying.  My only previous experience with swans was the tame ones in Stanley Park.

WALKING PITT LAKE

SWAN ON FINAL APPROACH

There were Red Winged Blackbirds, again a first for me, Ospreys and Eagles which I get to see at the lake every year.  Heck, the Eagles I got to see in my back yard in the city.  But this is different and more special.  I can’t even quantify what is so different or special, it just is.

ON THE SHORES OF PITT LAKE

RED WING BLACKBIRD

Also late at night or early in the morning I can hear the distant sound of the train horn as a freight train goes by.  In some cases, it is the Westcoast Express commuter train.  On Friday evenings it means Renee will be arriving and on Monday mornings it means the adventure is over for another weekend and she is heading off to work.  I can very vaguely, almost remember what going to work is like, but then I have been retired over ten years now, so it is a very faint memory.

It was funny on this past Friday, as I waited for Renee to arrive on the train.  I had my camera with me as usual but decided to get a shot of the Westcoast Express coming into the station.  I was approached by three separate people asking me if there was a celebrity coming in on the train.  I guess because of the pro model camera and long lens, they assumed I must be part of the paparazzi.  I just told them it was my girlfriend arriving, and at least one lady figured that Renee must be a celebrity.  In a way she’s right, Renee is a celebrity to us.

Speaking of memories, I went to The Olde Spaghetti Factory in Langley the other day.  It was to attend a First Responders Luncheon hosted by an old friend and Sergeant, Brian Honeyborn.  It is for all first responders in the Lower Mainland, but it tends to be primarily retired members.  There were a lot of familiar faces of old work colleagues from VPD.  There were the police members and just as importantly some of our radio operators and call takers.  They are a very important part of our first responder family.  They take the calls before they ever get to us and more importantly our radio operators were our life lines.

I DON'T KNOW WHAT IT IS BUT I GOT IT

I swear Renee is trying to kill me.  Yesterday after our normal one hour walk with Toby, we had to go to Pitt Lake where we engaged in a leg numbing, back breaking two hour walk along a flat access road, lugging the big camera.  Today was a body destroying, two-hour mountainous hike in Golden Ears Park, next to Gold Creek and leading up to Alouette Lake.  It’s a good thing she’s going to work tomorrow as I don’t think my body can take a third day of hiking in a row.

Karl is now the proud owner of a high end Broil King BBQ.  He has come and gotten my old propane BBQ which I bought in 2011 when Dad was in hospital.  It’s been replaced by the new Natural Gas Broil King BBQ.  I’ll tell you something though, this older BBQ felt heavier and definitely more awkward carrying it to his vehicle than it was bringing the new one up on the deck.  Granted I was just back from our mountain trek and was certainly feeling it.

I have now taken this article from the wonder of wilderness and wildlife in my new surroundings back to the memories of my previous working life.  They all play a part in where my life is at this moment and the past makes the present more special and makes one appreciate everything just a little bit more.  Stay tuned for more adventures to come.

037 HANDYMAN MY HANDYMAN

I want to preface this article by saying I am pretty handy when it comes to building things, or figuring out all those things that need doing around the house.  In my younger days I even wired, plumbed and dry walled the entire basement of my house in Surrey.  I’ve built lots of projects at the cabin including my new floating dock two summers ago.  Heck I even painted the entire outside of the old house when Dad was in hospital in 2011, in addition to repairing the stucco.

BUSINESS CARD

PREPPING CHANDELIER

CHANDELIER UP

Alas, my best days seem to be deserting me.  With my back in the shape it is in these last couple of years and a pair of arthritic knees, it makes things much more difficult to do and even played heavily into my decision to sell the old house.  But even they physical limitations can’t compete with the situation I am now in.  I have a ton of tools and have no idea at all, where they are buried in the myriad of boxes in my garage.  Think the final scene in the warehouse at the end of Indiana Jones and The Raiders of the Lost Ark.

PREPPING CEILING FAN

FAN UP. YES THERE ARE 2
WHITE BLADES BY RENEE'S
REQUEST

So when it came to putting up the chandelier and ceiling fan and mounting the large painting, I decided it was time to get someone else to do it for me.  I had referred to me a great fellow, a retired school principal as it turns out, who is now a home handyman.  He does everything, and no job is too small.  He just finished doing a major bathroom renovation for one customer and then on to my little job.  He is based out of Port Moody, but it seems he will do things mostly anywhere in the Lower Mainland.  His name is Don Nordheimer and he charges a very reasonable rate.

He came in this morning and two and a half hours later the three jobs were done and he was off to the next one.  It was great work and very professional looking results.  I’m certainly glad I had him hang the painting, because on a job like that I would have a real tendency to eyeball the results, with some not so good consequences.

MEASURING FOR PAINTING

PAINTING HUNG

This has really put the finishing touches on the house.  The chandelier looks great over the table and the fan moves a lot of air.  I can’t think of too much else that needs to be done.  A little bit more clutter to clear up and I definitely have to get busy straightening up the disaster area which is my office.  The only other things that come to mind is to remove the baby safety stops on the upper floor windows.  They only permit the windows to open only an inch and a half, and since there is no babies around here, they are coming off.

I also have to have someone come in and fit the windows and sliding door with screens for the warmer months.  I have already noticed a couple of mosquitoes flying around in here, and they must be stopped.  The management company has given me a recommendation for two different screen specialists that they have worked with before.  It’s probably a good idea to work with one of them as they would know whatever restrictions there are in working with the building.

I can kick back and start relaxing and enjoying the place even more now that mostly everything is done.  I can work on the garage in bits and pieces, although the faster I get it sorted out, the faster I can move the boat further back, which will allow me to park the truck inside as well.  That of course was one of my main wants when I bought was a garage big enough to at very minimum hold the boat but at best to hold both vehicles.  My boat must be so happy, it’s the first time in its ten-year life that it has lived indoors without a cherry tree dripping all its stuff on the covers.

036 IN SICKNESS AND IN HEALTH

Well, I have passed a couple of more milestones this weekend.  It’s my third weekend in the new house and it’s also my first time being sick.  A dubious honour to be sure, but there it is.  I had to go into the garage on Friday night to get all my empty boxes ready for pickup by the moving company.  The final tally was 57 boxes and I have at least that many in the garage still.  But, all the boxes are gone from the living area.

All day I felt great with no hint of illness and after dinner I went down ad got the boxes arranged.  Then I got energetic and emptied 8 more boxes.  I even managed to find some of my tools.  Talk about packing everything though, I opened one box of items and found a bunch of mouse poop inside.  It was shortly after dumping it into the garbage that I started feeling a “tickle” in my throat and within an hour I was hacking up a lung.

It got progressively worse overnight with fever, chills and nausea.  I had no energy at all, but we had to go to Rona to pick up the new patio set I had ordered.  I was so bagged that Renee actually unloaded the truck and set up the furniture.  Right around dinnertime, I took a downhill turn and was shivering so bad and could not get warm.  I went upstairs and of course did the Google Health thing, which has been turning minor ailments into fatal diseases for years.  By the time I was done reading, I thought I had Hanta Virus because of the mouse poop.  It doesn’t hit that quick though.

Anyway, I crawled into bed and covered up with the quilt and passed out.  A couple of hours later I woke up and there was Toby snuggled up on the bed next to me and doing his level best to keep me warm.  Renee said that he had been out on the deck with her and about 5 minutes after I went up, he jumped up and headed for the stairs.  She followed him and watched him very gently crawl up on the bed next to me and snuggle in as close as he could get.

He stayed there for hours next to me and every so often he would get a concerned look on his face and lick my hand.  Just to say, I’ve got your back Dad.  It’s funny though, sometimes I wonder about him.  When Renee comes over, or any of my kids come over, it’s like I don’t exist.  But here was a case where he completely ignored Renee to be with me.  It was so sweet.

It’s not the first time he has done it either.  Back when I first got him after about six months, I had pneumonia and he did the same jumping up and staying close to me.  Another time recovering from knee surgery he also got up next to me and was so very careful not to bump my sore knee.  Dogs are amazing creatures this way and I’m sure I’m not the only one this has happened to.

I woke up this morning, yeah, every hour on the hour, but finally got up at 4:00 AM.  I still have a bit of the cough and fever, but feel a whole lot better at this moment.  I have never had a “cold” manifest itself so quickly and starting in the chest, or that seems to have run its course already.  Touch wood that is the case, because I hate being sick and feeling so miserable.

Maybe it was just a way to force me to rest a bit as I have been going solid for the last month.  Today, I’m just going to kick back and enjoy the house.  I’m darn hungry too as I didn’t eat dinner last night.  Meanwhile Toby has wandered into my office and looked up at me with those big brown eyes and put his head on my lap.  I gave him a good ear rub and assured him all was ok, and he has flopped down on my feet and let out a heavy, contented sigh.

035 BOXING DAY OF A DIFFERENT SORT

Things are moving right along and I think I have reached a major marker point.  There are no boxes left in the living area at the house and Bekins is coming today to pick up the stack of their boxes that have accumulated during the unpacking.  I have had to flatten them and arrange them into sizes so that whoever comes to get them can more easily fit them into bins on the truck.  It was kind of difficult to figure out who to phone to arrange this, but I finally got it figured out.

So last evening, I went down into the garage and arranged the fifty or so boxes into flat packs of varying sizes and then I got ambitious and actually managed to empty 8 more boxes in the garage.  I even found one box marked tools, but when I opened it, I found it was full of tools like a grease gun, torque wrench and a series of huge sockets that would be used by a heavy duty mechanic.  Why Dad would have had those is beyond me, but none of them are any use to me at this point.

On Monday evening last, my garburator suddenly quit working.  I thought it was something jammed but despite my best efforts could not locate it, or get it unstuck.  This is made even more difficult because I cannot for the life of me find my tools, which are buried in the multitude of boxes still left in the garage.  In any case, I phoned in for warranty work and the fellow showed up yesterday.

He pulled the garburator apart and could not find anything jammed in it and concluded that it just “gave up the ghost” as it were.  He then popped out and returned twenty minutes later with a brand new unit which he proceeded to install.  It works like a charm.  He said he has been installing the same units for years and never had one fail before.  Just my luck.

Another problem has since arisen.  The dishwasher which works like a dream, suddenly has a problem.  I haven’t had a dishwasher for years, but the one that Mom & Dad had growing up and the one in my former house were so loud when in operation you could not stay in the same room or have a conversation.  This one is so quiet you have to put your ear against it to see if it’s on.

Anyway, suddenly the dishwasher is finishing its cycle with a large pool of water in the bottom.  So, I broke out the instruction manuals for both and in the troubleshooting guides both indicate that the installer may have forgotten to take out the knockout plug for connecting the dishwasher to the garburator.  I will check on that when I go downstairs.  I may even be able to fix it myself as I do have a screwdriver and brute force, which is what the manual says to do.  “Punch out” the plug it says.  I used to be pretty good at punching things out that needed it.

One other problem I encountered, is that I had an external gas line installed on the deck, to connect the BBQ to.  The other day, I spent an hour trying to figure out how to connect my BBQ to it.  Well, it turns out that it is a totally different system between Natural Gas and Propane BBQ’s.  So I looked into having mine converted.  It worked out to be cheaper to buy a new BBQ than convert the old one.  So I got myself a brand new Broil King and it was delivered last evening.  Pre-assembled no less, because again, I have no tools.  It was a quick matter to hook it up and I made us a great steak dinner.

COOKING WITH GAS

Overall things have gone pretty smoothly with the move, other than the ongoing saga of TELUS, but that is an already told story.  I love it here and mostly feel a part of the community already and have met a bunch of my new neighbours and everyone seems great.  Some haven’t even moved in yet, but are here “visiting” their houses and looking forward to their possession dates, just as I did.  I think we are going to have a great little community within the community at large.  I haven’t had this feeling since moving into our cul-de-sac in Surrey all those many years ago.

I didn’t really feel a part of the community in East Van, although I did meet a lot of people once I got Toby.  We had our own little dog community at the park across the street.  I am happy to be here and wake up in wonder every day.  I also have moments where I miss the old house, but not the living conditions over the last 20 years.  I even have had dreams about the old house and wake up surprised that I am not there any longer.

Last Wednesday on the way to hockey, I stopped to get my skates sharpened in my old neighbourhood.  They are the only ones I let touch my skates, so it is worth the diversion.  Afterword’s I had to drop off the heaters that were given to me by the uncle of the new owner, so that I could survive the winter without the furnace.  When I left his house and continued on the way, I looked up the street and way in the distance I could see the old house.  It gave me a funny feeling in the pit of my stomach as well as a wave of sadness.  But, I kept driving and the feeling slowly went away.