Back on Land on Salt Spring Island
23 December 2017 | Salt Spring Island
Jane, sunny although .... cold
Season’s Greetings to everyone, may you enjoy lots of time with your friends and family at this magical time of year. Being with loved ones, for us, is what Christmas is all about. This year we are blessed to be spending the day with dear friends, their kids and ours in North Vancouver. It seems sureal that last year we were in Australia with Amy and Edwin, and Russell’s extended family. Hot and sunny to cold and sunny. The snow may even stay to give us a white Christmas. The first in many years.
Life on land is treating us well, and we are quickly settling into the wonderful small island community that Salt Spring offers. We have managed to see a great number of friends since our return, and hope to see many more in the coming months. It is wonderful to reconnect with so many friends. Our home is taking shape and with some second hand items from the Salt Spring Exchange, and some new furniture that Amy got us for free, the place is becoming quite cozy. We managed to get a king sized bed delivered, although it arrived ten days late. Luckily we only had to sleep on the blow up mattress that we bought for one night – phew. We also picked up a UHaul truck load of furniture and two new queen beds on Wednesday. So are now set up for guests.
Our new home could do with a lot of work. Sadly it would cost the same to renovate as it would to rebuild. So our focus is to leave everything as it is and to build ourselves a new home during the summer of 2019. That being said we will probably leave buying any more new furniture until it is finished. We are used to camping and we have all that we need until then ☺
Russell had a great trip down from the north island in New Zealand to his home town Timaru, in the south island, in November. He took all our goodies from the boat, and items stored at his sister’s in Auckland, and spent about a week visiting family and friends on the way. Once in Timaru he organised the freighting of his beloved classic car (in bits) and families artwork, plus a full van load of boxes, to Vancouver. While Russ was busy in New Zealand I organised setting up house back on Salt Spring. This included unpacking a huge amount of boxes that had been in storage. We gave all our furniture, etc.. to the kids when we left ten years ago, but we still saved a lot of “stuff”.
It was certainly a trip down memory lane for me, some of the items I unearthed were classic and several brought a tear to my eye. Where had the years gone? What memories we are so lucky to have.
We have several friends living on the island and I was certainly well looked after on my arrival. It is a terrific community, similar in a lot of ways to the cruising community that we enjoyed offshore. We have already been invited to a couple of Christmas parties and have meet lots of our wonderful neighbours. We know that we have found the right place to live are going to love it here.
I have joined a lovely yoga group and am starting tennis and a “nine and dine” girl’s golf group in the New Year. There is a delightful movie (theatre) venue close by that has weekly shows of current films, a theatre (plays) and lots of restaurants/pubs and music venues to keep us entertained.
The community is very diverse, relaxed and friendly with lots of interesting people to meet and get to know. We have enjoyed some of the gorgeous hikes around the island and hope to join up with a weekly hiking group in January. The Saturday market is still running and there are some very talented artists around the island who have stalls and in the summer open up their studios. The island is known for its fairy houses, so far I have only found one, so the challenge is to find them all. I am looking forward to creating one next summer to add to the list.
I could go on, but want to get this out before Christmas. Not sure when our next blog will be, probably before the summer, but from now on I will be posting only occasionally. As many friends have asked that I keep the blog going, and as it is a great way to keep in touch it will continue.
May you have a Great New Year. Please stay happy, healthy and have a ton of fun in 2018.
Cheers and beers
Jane and Russell