Lovely day to get things done

Well, another day with little school ( our Teacher called in sick today, and was a pall bearer at a funeral yesterday) so a good time to get started doing stuff.

We went up on the weekend and marked out the footprint of the house 34 feet 8 inches by 50 feet 8 inches.

This is Gemma taking over here, Jerry got distracted.

The photos are of Branwen II our Dodge on the drive..the fire pit that Jerry prepared today, and lastly: the West corner front to East corner front.. the South facing front of the house.

Jerry said he was working in his t-shirt today, or rather sitting drinking a beer in the sunshine, and there was no wind at all. Whereas I as told it was nice out, went out and the wind was really cold, so I thought I've been out and seen the sun - nice, and went back in. What Jerry found at the site was an 'Important Notice' from Nova Scotia Power saying we had to let them know the new details, otherwise they would disconnect in 5 days.

It was fairly quiet at work, so I worked on the house plan, and made some changes to the interior layout, so at least I was getting paid for it. I researched baths and fittings

We took delivery of another bit of kit today that Jerry had ordered - A Charge Controller that has an additional display that indicates how much charge is held in the batteries, we already have the Inverter. Today we saw there are hot water solar panels for sale in the 'Maritime Merchant', so we need to investigate that.

The other thing I have done today is called a Tax Consultant who deals with completing your tax return. Since this is our first year in Canada, so we have yet another tax system to familiarize ourselves with. So we have an appointment with him on Thursday evening - he lives just up the road from us, but I briefly discussed our situation with him, to ensure we take all the necessary paper work with us.

And finally, Jerry is getting a price for the footings, frost wall and foundation slab, so we can get things moving.

Jerry back again. The reason for the strange house dimensions are due to building the walls from concrete blocks, which are 8 inches by 8 inches by 16 inches, so we have to make sure there is a minimum of smaller blocks.

Had a quote for $5700 for the slab (without HST) so I'm looking at doing things in stages. Will speak to excavator company tomorrow to get someone up to site to quote for the trenches. It's possibel bedrock is just below the surface, so excavation will be minimal. I'll take further figures from that point.

I have also ordered a Bread oven door (in cast iron) and a book on how to build a masonry bread oven, so that's another project on the list of things to do.

A Stroll in the Woods - Take 2!

A picture of a happy dog, and his hero.

Well considering I am still recovering my strength in all honesty, this was some hike. And being a woman and a wifey, I will say I was becoming a grumpy wifey towards the end of this mega stroll. I will not elaborate on the treck, only to say that much of it was forcing our way between trees, or being knee deep in snow when we were not. We did find what looks like a path around 6 foot wide, so we followed that for a bit, and then turned down towards where we thought the water would be. And it was quite steep and slippery in places, but then from 700 foot at the house site, the stream has to be down - logical really. This was no babbling brook, but a fast flowing stream, and although we went in the direction we thought it widened, we only found what looked like a wider section, and the stream divided around almost an island in the middle and continued on. So what we will need to do is check on Google Earth for the GPS coordinates of the pond, and then next time we do this, we will know exactly where we need to be going.

To add to this Oliver was missing for probably the last half hour, and then finally appeared. I have never been so glad to see this manky dog, he was so dirty, and when we got him in the bath when we got home, he had half the woodland in his feathering.. not good. What is good, is that we now have a very clean dog, a very sleepy dog, and having had his supper, a perfect hound truly. I love him to bits like this, but being his mummy I love him whatever he does, as long as he is not muddy getting in the car, or barking incessantly in the car. Today coming home he was too tired to bark, so a perfect dog, couldn't have wished for better. And Mummy was too tired to have a go at the dirty dog getting in the Dodge - but we did have a tarp on the seat, so not so bad. He is now curled up on the sofa, in a nest of cushions, more than slightly damp from him escaping from the bathroom before he was really dry. I think a photo of this hound might be in order.

So back to our day - when we arrived and the truck got stuck, we went up to the house site and I did my dowsing. I have been talking about this often, and then forgetting to take my pendulum with me when we have gone to the site. So as Jerry said I found two positive lay lines, one will be along the east - west axis of the house, and then another is quite wide and in parallel to this, and I think may end up being behind the house. The negative lay line is on the North - South Axis, and as a best guess will be just inside the bay that will be the kitchen/dining room/lounge.. so all we have to worry about is placement of furniture. The good thing about this is that we will not have to worry about the negative line being anywhere we would have a bed, as it is energy draining to be on a negative line for however long you are sleeping Every night.

So after the dog had his bath, mummy had a bath, and now I will have dinner, and probably fall asleep next to the dog on the sofa. Let's hope Jerry does not take a picture with me drooling in my sleep or something.

A stroll in the woods

Well, as Gemma said, we went back to the lot to have a look at the other half of our property, which has a stream/pond at the bottom of it. Thought it might make a nice stroll for us and good exercise for Oliver.

Firstly, apart from the bottom 20 foot or so of the drive, all the snow had gone, and what was left didn't look too bad, so I decided to drive up and park on the building site. This was our first mistake. Got about 5 foot onto the drive (fortunately off the road) and we stuck. Couldn't go forward or back even in four wheel drive, so decided to leave the Truck there and carry on regardless, intending to deal with the problem after we got back from our stroll.

Went up to the house site, as Gemma wanted to dowse for ley lines. Turns out we have 2 positive and one negative running through. Need to build that into the floor layout, or at the least into the furniture layout.

Then we decided to head off to find the stream. This was where mistake number 2 came in. We didn't think to bring the compass or GPS with us, or for that matter any means of marking our route, thinking it's only approx 1800 feet to the stream, wouldn't take us too long (Hah!!)

To cut a long story short, after approx 50 minutes of trial and error we got to the bottom and the stream, which is surprisingly fast flowing, and a possible use for a micro Hydro electric setup at a later point, but couldn't find the pond. So we walked along the bank for a while, and then decided it was time to head back as Oliver was looking a tad tired.

Now, if we had GPS/Compass/Blazed a trail getting back would have been fairly simple, but we didn't, so to cut a long story short (I'm sure Gemma will elaborate on the journey back) it took us probably an hour and fifteen minutes to get back to the road, having lost Oliver several times.

The good thing is that it looks like we won't have any problems supplying ourselves with firewood for the forseeable future just from dead and fallen trees alone, although we need to look into cutting some sort of pathway down to the bottom if we intend to regularly go to the stream.

So, back at the truck. Gemma advised me to straighten the front wheels and try again, and lo and behold we were un-stuck. Hopefully we won't have any further problems with the drive after today, as the snow is definately thawing.

That's it from me, I'm sure Gemma will add to this with her own version of events.

Good News on PNP!

For those who do not know PNP stands for Provincial Nominee Program, as in Canadian Immigration. We had heard a rumour that they would change the law to allow International students to apply for PNP, and we had hoped it would come in soon so that we could apply, and thus avoid the International Student Fee.

But the changes that are afoot are not as we had hoped, and logical truly, as they want the International Students to pay up the fee before getting their PNP.

This is from the new Business Plan:

In 2006-2007 - We will continue to expand the program by implementing another stream – an international graduates’ category – which would allow international students, who have graduated from Nova Scotia post-secondary institutions and who have related employment, apply for permanent residency.

Priorities - The following are the priorities for NSOI in 2006–2007, as they relate to each core business area. Many of the following priorities are multi–year initiatives.
Attraction and Recruitment -Nova Scotia Nominee Program
The major actions to be taken in 2007-2008 include:
Negotiate a new Canada-Nova Scotia Agreement on Provincial Nominees with CIC, with an aim of removing the numeric limit on the nominations that can be issued each year.
Make operational an International Graduates’ category aimed at international students, who have graduated from Nova Scotia post-secondary institutions and have related employment in the province.

According to this Jerry can apply for PNP once he is working in July 2008 approximately, as long as they have actioned this plan by then. This is what we had planned to do after he finished his course, but having this category brought in will make it a great deal quicker, and we can fast track to Permanent Residency.

This will be good news for Matt and AJ - Downshiftme too, as AJ is also studying with the NSCC (Nova Scotia Community College), so Huzzah! for all of us.

It warmer here in Port Hawkesbury today, and intermittently sunny, so a trip up to the lot is in order. We hope to start marking out the land, as long as the ground is not quite as frozen. Jerry bought some gardening tools yesterday, including a PickAxe which may come in useful. And of course a walk down to the other end to see our pond and take some photos along the way.

The Babbling Brook!

So these were photos from last Sunday which are better pictures of the brook now the snow is melting. You can see that the brook runs into almost a pond, but then it continues off to the left.

I think Jerry's idea to go up this weekend, and cross the road and to walk down to the other end of the lot and see what our other lake looks like. We pretty much have around 25 acres on each side of the road, the lot is around 600 feet wide, which makes the lot a total of a kilometre in length. So the walk will be about half a kilometre which I have decided I can cope with.

We will make sure to take photos of this new adventure.

Spring is here (Apparently)

Just an update on the update posted by Gemma earlier. The picture opposite is of a marshy area we discovered last weekend. Loads of bull -rushes, stretching for at least 100 foot back and 30-40 feet wide. This is within 100 foot of the building site, so we are a bit excited. We know there is a large pond/lake at the bottom of the site in the valley ( we can see it in Google Earth) but have been unable to get down there as yet due to the adverse weather. Maybe we'll get there this weekend. I'm sure Oliver will enjoy more places to explore ( and get extremely muddy in )


I have started getting together the Alternative Energy system for the house. I have a Xantrex/Trace 3624 Inverter sitting in the dining room and a charge controller on it's way from the US (Both courtesy of Ebay). With batteries and solar panels and/or a Wind turbine we will have the ability to produce our own power.

Found out today from another Forum that an electric cooker(range) can use up to 56 KWH per month just to run the clock!!! Will be un-plugging that from now when not in use.

That's it for now.

Cheers, Jerry

Finally!

So we can finally say we are proud owners of 50 acres of Cape Breton. We have confirmation that we closed on the purchase this past Monday 19th March 2007. From having an acceptance on the offer on this house on the 17th March last year, things are progressing very well.

On the left here you see an approximation of what the house will look like. It will be 50 feet wide by 34 feet deep and will be in three bays 18 feet wide. Thank you Matt and AJ for putting the plan of your house on Downshiftme , and instigated Jerry to work on ours using the same software, well done Jerry!!! Jerry has also added the house to GoogleEarth, so we can see how the house will look on the lot. What we need to do is work out how to attach that to the Blog.

At the front next to the glass we will have a planter bed which all adds to the inner workings of a passive solar house, and will give us all year round tomatoes amongst other things.

Now we know that once the snow is gone we can start marking out the site and get started with the digging. Jerry has two brothers in his class, who are part of a family business, who we hope to use to get the foundations completed. Today I also found someone at work, whose partner works in an electrical company, and who we can purchase what we need at cheaper prices through them. So now all we need is more of everything cheaper.

At school Jerry is going to be involved in a project for the local pathways association for Cape Breton, due to being a swot, and ahead of the other groups, and it involves building some structures for storage, and as such these will have roofs. Yes a building that has a roof, and why is this surprising, they are not supposed to do roofs until next year. Well by doing roofs this year, Jerry will be prepared for roofs in readiness for our own house, which is marvelous truly. The tutor knows that this is pushing things in our favour, so that we will not have anything holding us back to complete the house. This is saying a lot since we haven't started yet. The ground is still rock solid so we are not in a position to start yet.

The other news is that my sister (Gemma's sister in Toronto) as in Brenda, has invited me to go with her to Wales for our Mother's birthday at the end of May for a week. So having been ill, and feeling so poorly, this is something wonderful to look forward to. And of course here we are in our early 50's able to be daughters and childish again, and drive our mother crazy for a week. I will be going to Toronto first, so we can fly to the UK together, and this way I will get to see her Condominium again, which she is currently renovating. This is the sister that may have a waterfront cottage called Green Acres at one end of our land.

And the last bit of news, is an update on the health situation, which is the final results from the tests that were done in the first hospital visit. I am below a third level on my Vitamin B12, and without it you can find the following: fatigue, weakness, loss of appetite, intermittent constipation and diarrhea, abdominal pain, weight loss, menstrual symptoms, psychological symptoms, and nervous system problems, such as numbness and tingling in the feet and hands.
Of these I have the fatigue and weakness, loss of appetite, and weight loss, and sometimes the numbness and tingling in the feet and hands. The other issue was Iron Overload, and this shocks me as someone that has suffered from anemia most of her life, so that can cause fatigue, weakness, weight loss, joint pain, and abdominal pain, and I have all but the latter two. So do you see why I could say 'I weigh almost nothing' now, is dealing with these issues going to mean those days are numbered. I know I have to of course, as health is more important than the waistline. Either of these if left can rot the brain due to lack of oxygen, or arthritis. So I will be a crazy old dear doddering about, and we can't have that now can we.

The final news form Cape Breton today, is last night/this morning's storm. We had quite the storm overnight, although not too much snow in the end, but the Causeway was a whiteout first thing, and the wind pretty much turned over a truck. There were two accidents, and it was escorted traffic for many hours even after the road was cleared. So it was the talk of the day as to what had actually happened. We are fortunate that neither of us have to go over the causeway for work or school, so don't have to deal with this only way on and off the island.

We're Famous!

We are officially famous! We got a mention on a Podcast and website of Downshiftme our friends who live in the Annapolis valley on mainland Nova Scotia. Matt and AJ moved here soon after we did from Leeds in the UK, and we have been following their progress avidly. Thank you for your comments on our blog too. We look forward to meeting up with you this year, along with our friends on A Country Life .

I have to correct our comments from Friday, where I (Gemma) said that we would complete our purchase of the lot 'either today or tomorrow' - I think I thought it was Thursday! So at this point we don't know whether the completion happened, or if it will be on Monday. I think a phone call to the lawyer will be in order on Monday for us to know for absolute certainty that we finally own our own 50 acre piece of Cape Breton Island.

Yesterday we drove up to the lot again to see if the snow had disappeared yet, as we have had rain, and we thought that this would have helped. The promised 10cm of snow did not arrive, and instead we had freezing rain. At the lot the snow was still there, and quite treacherous in places. What we found was beautiful, the trees were covered in ice, like tubes of ice, and as we walked where the snow was gone every blade of grass was covered in tubes of ice. This is when we said - we should have brought the camera with us. So we plan to go up again today, and try and get some shots if is the same.

Oliver loves the freedom he gets at the lot, the ability to run where he wants, following all sorts of interesting smells - being a Setter Anglais (English Setter) his nose is his life. To clarify the Setter Anglais - you have to understand that Oliver is French, and although we talk in English to him, all his commands are in French - which we felt vital if he had to stay with friends or got out by accident and a local French person was trying to call him, or control him. And Oliver likes cuddles too - Matt and AJ, like Dylan, when I was ill I had Oliver and at least two cats for company on the bed with me, sheer heaven in my book.

Jerry showed me the stream and almost a pond he found this week, and there is evidence that someone has dug a culvert to let the water continue down the land. I can't wait to see this as the weather improves, as there is nothing like a babbling brook in Spring. The other thing we noticed with the trees is all the buds coming through now, all be it now covered in ice. We feel that Spring is almost here, trying to fight it's way in. We have our share of Fir Trees on the lot along with plenty of deciduous trees, a nice mix, but one of our original comments was that we will never have to buy a Christmas Tree again - on that point I will say that this is the very first year we have bought a live tree, having bought an artificial tree when we were first together, and is still going strong. I did not feel totally comfortable buying a live tree, but they were collected in January, and felt better about it after that now. Something we heard on the podcast from downshiftme today was that they have just received a book on Woodland Management, which we think will be good for us too, as it is imperative that we do not cut down trees without replacing them for the future. Coppicing woodland is an art in itself, and something one has to learn to preserve our future.

I (Gemma) spoke with my sister today, who lives in Toronto, and has lived in Canada for 35 years, and finally I not only live on the same continent, but just down the road from her, all be it a very long road. Jerry reminded me that today is Mother's Day in the UK, and my call to Brenda was to see if she had remembered, and she had not. So these two girls both forgot on my first Mother's day in Canada, so for shame on us. But on phoning Mum, at this point I have not tracked her down, so I will just have to say ' well I called earlier but you were out gallivanting!' - Mum who is 83 in May, does a lot of that.

On the house front, we are going to have to sit down and study and perfect the layout we want inside the shell of the house. The reason for this is to do with the necessary pipe work that will be needed below the foundation slab. Since we are hoping to get the house footprint marked out soon, and then get a contractor in to get the footings and frost wall built as soon as the ground warms up - or rather defrosts, we do need to finalise where pipes will be needed. So we need to decide where the bathroom, utility room, and kitchen sink, mud room and half bath is going to be, so that the final placement of the pipe work can be decided upon.

This week Jerry purchased a wireless router this week, which he has now installed, which took some configuring, but we now have access to our broadband both downstairs in the lounge and upstairs in the study. Since EDS the company I work for, are pulling out of Port Hawkesbury, and being a small town it may be difficult to find other work. What I may end up having to do is getting a work from home job, and they often require that you have both a separate study to be your home office, as well as broadband, and this has resolved this issue.

Update

Just thought I'd give an idea of what the house will look like once built. Bear in mind that the site isn't that exposed, the house won't be as big, and we won't have the front entrance, but you should be able to get the general idea. We'll probably have to compromise on the glazing on the south facing wall, as I'd like to do it as cheaply as possible.

The floor plan is shown as well. It's still a work in progress but more or less what we want. You'll have to excuse the mess at the front (bottom) of the plan, as it's supposed to be a planter bed, but the software I use wouldn't allow me to show that (at least I haven't figured out how to do it anyway. Front rooms are open to the south which means they need no seperate windows for fire regulations. If you envision the Clerestory windows running from East to West where the internal partitions are, you can see that the rear of the house will get plenty of light. In fact, as far as I can tell, the only room without any light will be the toilet off the rear entrance (or half bath as they refer to it here) Even so, I think a solar tube (skylight) will sort that out.

Nearly There

We have paid the money over to our lawyer, so just waiting to hear when the purchase of our lot is finally completed. We anticipate that this will either be today or tomorrow. This almost coincides with us having the offer on our Port Hawkesbury house being accepted on the 17th March last year. So we will be in the same bar this year celebrating another achievement, and St Patrick's all at the same time.

We are sharing the lawyer with the seller, but as it happens he is with the same company as our lawyer. Then the sellers lawyer is out of the country, and we have ended up with the same lawyer as in Our Lawyer. We just had to sign a document that we were happy for him to represent all parties. This is very similar to the system in France where you used the same Notaire, and is always trusted to represent fairly, and it is standard practice that they represent both parties. The British are so used to having their own lawyer that most find this situation difficult, but the French notaire is never happy having to split the cost with another notaire - and the inference is that they are not trusted to represent fairly, and on top of that they don't get all the money. We were among the few that accepted that the French system worked, and found our notaire very fair.

Jerry is on Spring Break from school, so he has been taking Oliver our dog up to the lot, and checking things out. We need to go that step further to get the house footprint marked out, as to where the frost wall needs to go, and we are expecting more snow tonight, so today may not be a good day for that either. But it feels more real every day. When Jerry was up at the lot yesterday he found what looks like a pond off to one side of where we are hoping to have the garden, or maybe the chicken run. Yes as much as it was hard leaving our chickens in France, they went back to our original home there, and were quite settled, but we do look forward to having chickens and a cockerel/Rooster again.

On the house plans front, Jerry is taking me to Central Hardware after work to look at a possible Bath for the new house, and a wood burner that would be for cooking as well, so you see we are planning in the right order here.

I mentioned in the last post what the doctor had told us about Cape Breton, and I found this on the internet:

• March 2004 - Cape Breton rated #2 on National Geographic's Traveler Magazine destinations poll
• rated the most beautiful island in the world by Conde Naste Traveler!

Yesterday, we dallied with the idea of buying a Cabin Kit, and building a house quickly to live in, and rent the house out sooner. This would then leave us time to work on building the main house. We realise that this would really take our focus away from building the house we really want, and so we have returned our focus to our original thinking. If we went down the kit house road, we would also have to put in further planning permission too. I believe the family that want to rent out the house will wait, and we have already said that once the shell is sealed and we have heating, we can pretty much move in there. It may be a case of putting things in storage while we finish up the interior. On the Planning front, we received a call this week from the Planning officer to ask us if we had started building yet. It seems that for every month end, they update their statistics as to where everyone is, that have been given a planning permit. Jerry said no we haven't started building as we don't own it quite yet, which was quite amusing, you had to be there really.

Of course once the house is done we can then dally again with the kit house idea for my sister either on the ridge behind the house, or down on the water front. Since the house is so open plan, I think a guest cottage will give guests privacy they would not have in the house, being we will be lacking doors mainly.

Another update on the health front, is that the doctor has called us again, and wants me to come back to discuss the blood results from the hospital now. That appointment is lined up for next Wednesday, but I am not going down the worrying road, I will just wait and see what they have found. On the positive side is that I do feel better, and any coughing is clearing the lungs now, but after a week back at work I am tired. I feel ancient and find myself going to bed at 9:30 at the latest truly. What cheers me is that the flowers my sister sent me when I was first ill, are still wonderful, and of course my bear - named 'Bandage' is still keeping a watchful eye on me. Oliver is still very jealous of Bandage, so I have to be careful, otherwise I will get home one day to only half of Bandage, so he is propped up against the flower vase. I have also received lots of Get Well Cards, and you know you were really ill when you get Get Well Cards don't you. You don't get them when it's just a cold or Flu.

On a different note Jerry and I are big Grand Prix fans, and we have the first race of the season this weekend from Melbourne - Australia, so we are going to have some very late nights in order to see the qualifying and the race. We are hoping to incorporate the St Patrick's night celebrations, with going home just in time to see the race.

We will let you know when the sale is through, and we can finally say we own a decent piece of Cape Breton.

And finally, thank you Caroline for giving us proof that someone is reading our blog, very exiting to have our first comments. Thank you for your good wishes, and hope to meet you this year.

Jerry here, just been up to the lot, and there is less snow as of today, but the ground is very hard, so digging is out of the question at the moment. Heard on the radio on the way home that the whole of the province is on a winter storm warning, so we'll see how things are in the morning. Hopefully it'll turn out not to be anything. The picture shows the pond and brook I discovered yesterday.Will have to see if it's just snow melt or a permanent feature. Tomorrow we hope to explore the bottom half of the plot, which has a stream and larger pond at the valley bottom.

Back to Work!

It was back to work for Gemma today, after a follow up visit to the Doctor. After worrying since last Tuesday about what the blood works would show, there wasn't anything to discuss after all. He did check my chest to see if it was clearing, and he gave it a thumbs up. So it was a good visit, and he signed me back to work.

When I mentioned that we were buying some land on the island, he gave us some wonderful pieces of information. Cape Breton Island has been voted the 2nd best Island in the world to visit (Bali was first) by a fancy travel magazine, and the National Geographic voted Cape Breton the 2nd best place to visit (Norwegian Fjords were first), so we feel that really says something about our decision to come to Cape Breton.

So Jerry dropped me down to work, and I felt like it was my first day again. But I soon got myself sorted, and took some calls, and got over that hurdle. I was wrapped up in my Lone Wolf Quilt, so I was warm and toasty all day.

Everyone was glad to see me, lots of hugs, they had missed me which was nice. Several comments about how thin I looked, so I really could say 'I weigh almost nothing!' and for those who don't know where that comes from - the film 'Four weddings and a Funeral', Duckface said that to Charles at one of the weddings.

I realise one thing that hasn't been mentioned on here that happened while I was home ill, just after the previous Doctor's visit, was that our Water Tank sprung a leak. Having been told by the doctor that I needed to shower with my head in the steam, I discovered we had no hot water. When Jerry checked in the basement he found water, quite a lot. I couldn't get a plumber, so called our neighbor to see if he knew of one, and he said he would come over to look. He pronounced the water tank old and defunct, and would need replacing. So Jerry went to buy a tank the next day, and John (the neighbor) spent three hours replacing the tank. Which meant we were without hot water for two days, and I was unable to do the head in the steam thing for the Pneumonia. The reason I wanted to mention this, is more the timing of it, in that it happened when I was not working, and there was no money coming in.

What I will say is that I did have a job to go back to for now, as I discovered today that the woman that worked for Adecco the employment agency was no longer working there, which is the second time they have terminated this woman. This agency is only in this town for this company, and although there are more agency staff than otherwise there right now, I think they felt there was no need to have someone there every day. Now they send someone down from Sydney just once a week.

The Lot!

Today we visited the Lot for the first time in weeks. General Line Road was in good shape compared to the last visit, when it was quite icy. However what will be our drive was still covered in snow, and over knee deep in places.

This first photo is taken from General Line Road, the drive entrance, and you realise that you will not be able to see the house from this point.

We trundled up the drive with Oliver racing ahead, and found the snow would not hold our weight in places, and our feet would sink up to two feet down in the snow. I found it quite strenuous, but Oliver thought it was the most amazing fun.

We confirmed what we already knew from GoogleEarth, with our GPS, that the house site is 700 feet above sea level. Even though I (Gemma) am living overlooking water for the first time in my life, something I had always wanted to do, I do realise that for our future, the higher we are above sea level will be better for survival. It would not have made sense buying low lying land.

What we did find was a clearing, which looks like it might be marshy, and has bull rushes, or the remnants of them, and both my sister and I love them, and we will have our own supply.

We are hoping to walk down the land the other side of the road after the snow has gone, as we both wanted to see what the lake /river frontage we have at the end of the land the other direction is like. We can see from the plan it seems to be the end of a river that almost becomes a lake, so we need to look at it to see what it is really like.

Happy Birthday Jerry!

Well today is a big day here, it is Jerry's birthday today! Such a big day that he did not get a card or a present from me, which I think I am forgiven for. He did however get some cards in today's post, and a verbal birthday wish from Brenda (Gemma's sister) last night, and one from me this morning. I am hoping that we will go out for a meal tonight, to mark the day in some way, otherwise Jerry will end up cooking on his own birthday. The other option of course is to get something delivered, I will ponder on that one.

I (Gemma) had planned to go back to work today, but didn't make it. I am just not quite strong enough yet, my chest still get's tight, but have now said I will go back on Monday. This is after seeing the Doctor again, who's receptionist called last Tuesday to say he wanted to see me to discuss my blood results. I feel very assured that, having diagnosed, that the system is good enough to follow up on my situation. However, I asked should I be worried, and she said she had not seen the results, only knew that he needed to see me again. So my Doctor was there last Monday, and sent me to the hospital again, and spent seemingly the whole day getting the results, and then has been away all week. But maybe not away away, as he then gets my blood results back, and feels strongly enough to ask me to come see him. This takes me back to the diagnosis by the doctor at the hospital: I do remember that he said that it is definitely Pneumonia, so that is something that is treatable, and so we will start with that. What he said was that not all the results were in, but this was a place to start. So it has had me pondering for the last four days as to which results were not back in at that time. I know I am not diabetic, and do not have a heart defect, my cholesterol was fine too, they mentioned thyroid issues as being common with such lethargy and weakness, but I don't know if this was one of the results that had not come back.

My Mum and my sister and Jerry tell me not to worry, the doctor just wants to follow up on my progress, that they are just being thorough. But I will say that it has unnerved me, and I spend my day thinking of little else. So I spend my day watching movies, and reading magazines - well looking at the pictures, as I have not felt like reading yet. And this is interspersed with hot showers with my head in the water breathing in the steam: I am being a good girl and doing what the doctor ordered, as this is better than any medication I am told. One thing can be said for this, I am very clean, my hair is very clean and very flat. The other thing that can be said of all this, is that I remain very thin, I weigh almost nothing, less than when I left school, and less than when we moved to France, and that was a thin time that first year in France (55 kilos and I am almost 5' 8"), sorry if I made anyone feel bad about their own weight here, not intentional. So all the things that had become snug, now fit me beautifully, so this is one thing that is good for me psychologically at this time. But I have more clothes that fit the bigger me than not, so a bit of a quandry, I will probably have to wear more belts I think to get around this problem.

The challenge to myself today is whether I can manage to hoover the house, and I will say it, it is in dire need of it, and if I do we can be assured that Jerry will not notice if I do or not. Such things do not worry Jerry, which I love him dearly for, he knows he did not marry a housewife. I sadly almost have a nervous breakdown over cooking, so Jerry sensibly cooks to avoid that situation, and whether I do household chores is way down the list of priorities. Jerry's logic is - why clean the floor if you are going to bring in more snow on your boots, and Oliver never wipes his feet, so you clean it and it get's dirty again. Whereas my logic is that you really have to do chores when you really begin to notice how bad it is getting, hence the need to hoover.


So what as this to do with anything, especially Passive Solar Living! not a lot really, but it is a blog about life, and working towards the goal of Passive Solar Living. And one thing we have working out from the above, is the need for a Mud Room, which will hold all our boots, and Oliver's Muttlucks, of which he has 3 left, not so clever when he has 4 legs, but there you go, what can you do. We are probably also going to add a building to the back of the house, for storage, as this will be very much open plan living, no room for clutter - I mean who are we kidding. Anyone who comes to the house will find almost no doors, and everything in view, so an impossible situation, I think Jerry will have to hire a housewife type person, so there is a need to budget for that into the total cost.

Having this additional building at the back of the house, will give us an ideal corner for morning breakfasts , exactly where the sun will be rising, with a woodland view. In fact the view from any side of the house is of trees, so hope you all love trees, we will let you pick a tree to talk to even, anything is possible.

Where I go back to work next week, Jerry is on Spring Break, and plans to go to the lot with a Level, and start making out the site. It is not ours yet, but they are happy for us to start moving forward with our plans. It all depends on how much snow is still on the ground up there, as there is plenty down here in town still. The general view is that winter was longer this year, and at least 12 degrees lower than normal, I think -18 yesterday. I am glad I have not had to go out in this for sure. It does look beautiful out though, you look up and see the sunshine and a Carolina Blue Sky, and then you look down and see how deceived you can be. We call it a Carolina Blue Sky in honor of our dear friends Dianne and Mark who live in South Carolina, and Dianne I practically live in the wonderful quilt you gave us when we came here. And thank you for yet another book box from the library of Lone Wolf. You know Jerry needs to build another bookcase, and maybe we need a library added to the new house plans.

And finally, all this talk about my health, and how fragile life can be has caused me to change my attitude about my jewelry: I will no longer keep it for special occasions only. I now choose a different ring to wear every day, and make use of the little I have, because although none of it is immensely valuable, they all mean something, and deserve to be worn.

And finally, finally, I would like to make a mention to all our friends in France who have fastidiously written to us in French, as we do to them, and we miss them very much. So for all that we were driven out by rich English people, who don't realise or don't care how much they are disliked, we have retained the friendships we made, even after moving all this distance away from them. It is truly lovely to receive letters and cards with all the news. But everything happens for a reason, and without the past and it's events, we would not be here writing this, and looking forward to a better future in Canada.

Good News and Bad News!

The Good News is that an X-ray taken today, shows a huge improvement in the Pneumonia, but still a shadow on the lungs, the doctor said this shows that the medication is working really well. Dr Ben also said this means I can go back to work next week.

The Bad News of course in all this, is that I do not get paid when I don't work. It is surprising when I get paid so little relatively, how much you notice when it is not coming in anymore. The additional issue here is that we will no doubt get a bill from the hospital, which makes me feel a real burden on our circumstances. When I return to work, I have to take care of myself, which means no extra hours trying to make up for all the money I have lost us.

There was an upside to things this past week, the Chamber of Commerce is requesting Resumes to be put forward to work for whomever they get to take over the building I currently work in. It is ideal for a Call Center, and the hope is that the COC can prove they have this database of people ready and waiting to work for them, so I have sent mine in and am very hopeful on that score.

I think we are just going into the last kick of winter here, and it is snowing again, we are due a much colder week. But then I think Spring will be here.

For us Spring will mean spending a lot of weekends up at the Lot, and taking Oliver up there to have a run in the woodland. My health will improve with spending more time out of doors. Things are progressing in the purchase of the land, is will apparently now be very straight forward, so we will soon own our little bit of Cape Breton Island.

I think it is worth a mention that we have found the lot on GoogleEarth, complete with mobile home they had there when they were carrying out the work, no longer there due to selling it. So we are able to see from the Ariel Views the extent of the land, all the way down to the river/lake frontage. The road goes through the lot and pretty much splits it in half, and we may let my (as in Gemma's) sister in Toronto have a cabin overlooking the water, as this is important to her. I think she may even call her little bit 'Green Acres', but we have to decide whether we approve of that or not.

We have been trying to think what we will name this house, as it will need more than it's civic number I feel to give it some personality. But we realise that we won't really be able to give it a name until we see it in the flesh so to speak and get a feel for what name fits. I feel a welsh name would be perfect, but this is a very Celtic region, so we have to leave it open for now, as in open to discussion.

To go back to GoogleEarth, we found both our homes in France, Rose Cottage in Liphook, and 250 Whitehorse Lane, you can almost see the deck we built in the garden it is so clear. It just shows us how far we have come in our 13 years together.

Diary of an Invalid

Well today is my first day downstairs in over a week, and I do feel that my health is turning this into the 'Diary of an Invalid'. After dragging myself to work for three days, I finally gave in and had four days in bed, and a doctors appointment that turned into 'You will go to the hospital now, do not pass Go, and do not collect $200' . Well not quite like that, but it felt very scary to be told that. After almost seven hours at the hospital, on a drip, and blood tests and chest X-ray, they said I could go home to sleep, but had to come back in the morning. They still did not know what was wrong, and I had four days in bed thinking I had a heart valve defect, and I kept telling the Dr that my heart would not stop this racing and stopping, but they kept saying it was not relevant.

So day two at the hospital was more blood tests, and urine tests, which told them I did not have Diabetes or Thyroid issues. But finally the Dr came to ask more questions, and the nurse that did the Triage told us he was the best diagnostician, but she didn't say he would look like the oldest Hippy in town. Well finally we had a diagnosis of Pneumonia, and all I could ask was how he diagnozed it, which he answered by the X-ray and the listening to my chest. When I told him where I worked, and the fact I don't get paid when I don't work, he bad mouthed the company big-time, and then did a double take to ask me was I management, and once he knew I was not, he felt free to carry on. What I didn't ask was how someone my age get's Pneumonia, I would never have imagined it possible. So now I have to get back on my feet and back to work.

One of the highlights of my week has been a flower delivery from my sister, and apart from making me cry, got the desired effect in the end. They came with a Beany Baby Bear called 'Bandage', who is holding a yellow flower, and has Get Well Soon on his feet. I haven't been able to hold 'Bandage' for long, as Oliver is jealous and wants to eat him. Yes I have had Oliver and up to two out of the three cats (Frodo and Freyja) on the bed pretty much the whole time, Day and Night. The third cat Loki has been up to visit and check on me at least once a day, which was nice.

The other highlight, that almost went unnoticed by me, was that last Monday 26th February, we got the building permit approved. So the purchase of our little piece of Cape Breton is now properly underway.