Before the new season starts

Thank God we are back in Grenada, after a summer of constant work.

This year we decided to rent out our condo in Ottawa and help my daughter to buy a house in Hamilton, big enough to accomodate us as well while we stay in Canada.

It just came to me when I saw the offered rental conract for the third year for the condo, which increased my poor daughter's rent to almost 1, 500.- dollars. I kow that paying that much a month would cover any mortgage payment and related expenses. So I suggested looking for a house, and she reluctantly agreed, after I assured her that we would look for a place with an in-law suite, with seperate kitchen, bath and entrance. As a mater of fact, she got warmer to he idea after actually seeing such a house, where her friends had got built to live with the parents of the wife. She realized that it is a passable concept for people oher than the Chinese and Indian Canadians (the husband is Mexican). Anyway, we started looking at some condos with developed basements, but none was suitable. If they had seperate entrance, they lacked a kitchen, or windows, etc. One day, after Al came to Hamilton to visit Ayse, we were spending time outside the house, while the cleaning lady was busy at home, we passed by a house for sale, advertising an  in-law suite. I called the realtor a Chinese lady (Jian), which sounds like  my brother's name.

Anyway, I called Jian, and she came in about an hour. The house looked small and old from the outside, so we were not prepared for the nice looking tiles and kitchen , as well as all the amenities we wanted, except the seperate entrance. But the deal maker was the price, it was 100 thousand less than all the condos we had seen. Its location was also not bad, two blocks away from my daughter'rented condo. She was familiar with the area, and not too far away from her work place.
 
We put an ofer, and decided to get possession in he middle of September, when my ordeal started. I had to return to Ottawa to clear our condo, the clutter of which had not been dealt with for fifteen years.   I used dozens of garbage bags to seperate garbage from   charity. The hardest was to convince Al to deem the items he wished to throw in the garbage as  potentially useful for somebody. We  made two trips to Shepherds Of Good Hope dowtown Ottawa and numerous ones to Salvation Army close to our home. Then packed-tranported our stuff (filled the large truck to the rim)-filled our side of the house wihout much settling, and started painting Ayse' s side. Three rooms had to be painted  because of hideous colours, and did or got done a lot of repairs and changes to almost everyhing in the house. After a month and a half of constant work, Ayse' s stuff came. The movers who did both of the transporting, were asking me how we were going to fit into his seemingly small house.

When it was completely done (about a week before we started foe Grenada), we liked what we did, but before then, Al was ready to explode with every occasion. He was sour grapes the whole time. He was angry with me for moving away from Ottawa, where we have a lot of friends. Yes, but I was spending half of my time in summer staying at my daughter' place anyway. Now we have good accommodations at least. I hope to see our friends in the Caribbean or Hamilton.

We have two friends in Hamilton, whom we knew from before, as well our neigbours are quite friendly. The moment the truck brought our furniture, we met with our neighbours across the street. They are a nice family feom Afghanistan. The man of the house, Mohammad, offered to park his car elsewhere when he heard that the truck was coming to our driveway, and introduced himself to Al. They hit it off immediately. After a couple of hours, when the truck had left, he came to our door, accompanied wih two nice ladies, bringing food to feed an army. I invited them inside, but they declined very graciosly. So we had some conversations during the renovations in the house until we were ready, and invited them for tea a few days before we left. It seems that we are going to have  a neighbour whom we can trust to help Ayse, if she needed immediate assistance.

A week ago (3rd of November), we landed in St Geoege's, Grenada. We stayed at La Sagesse resort, and worked on the boat for three days, and launched on Wednes day (the 7th). We are very happy!