Update after the Weekend!

Jerry's Mum and step dad came through Port Hawkesbury this past weekend. And our house in town here and the lot got a big thumbs up all round.

It seems we have wild strawberries growing in abundance, possibly some Elder, and possibly some wild rasperries. And seemly growing everywhere are tiny purple violets, and also some white ones. And we already knew that we will have more bull rushes than we will know what to do with, and the new green growth is already starting to come through.

Jerry's Mum and step dad are taking a mega trip across Canada, probably a trip listed by everyone as a must do one day.. and that is a train trip from Halifax to Toronto, and then the train across to Vancouver. From Vancouver a cruise to Alaska. Then a flight back to Halifax, and they come back to us for a weekend. Of course the latter past is not included in everyone's list.

We are still waiting on the quote for the foundation. But are thinking more and more that getting Jerry's colleagues to work on it on their week off in July would be a perfect way of getting it done a lot lot cheaper.

We were sad to hear that Matt and AJ our friends from downshiftme are not going to be podcasting every week as they have been doing. What Jerry and I have always said is that it was not something we could do, we would feel under too much pressure to have something terribly interesting to say each week, or feel that things have to be done in order to be able to talk about them for the podcast. So sad as we are we do understand the reasoning. It has been part of our weekend since coming to Nova Scotia, (we didn't have broadband in France so had not been listening to their progress), and we will miss listening to them. We found we enjoyed it very much even when nothing extraordinary had happened that week, or if they were just exhausted. The reason being is that that is what life is about - most people's lives are filled with more less interesting days and weeks than ones with exiting events.

With our decision to start this Blog, we decided from the start it would cover most things in our lives, not just to do with the house build. Having said that, the decision that may lead to the house not being built till next Summer has made us feel that there will be less to say about the house on this Blog than there would have been. However, at this point we do plan to continue, and update when we can, with whatever is happening in our lives.

An update on our house decorating plans for our house in town, is that paintwork we can do without a problem. Regarding replacing the old windows - which are mostly downstairs, we need to cost that out, windows and labour. Also at that time check out how well insulated the walls are, and cost that out if it is necessary. Our heating bill for fuel this past winter was $3000 at least, and a decision as to whether we have all this work done will depend on whether we plan to rent out the house once our house is built, or to sell it. The way I see it is that if we just have to fund one winter of fuel and then sell the house next year sometime after we move to the new house, it would not make financial sense to replace the windows now. But if we intend renting the house, then people may not stay in the house for long if they find the fuel costs too much for them, so we may well have to do that for our long term benefit. So something we have to think about as to what our future plans are before doing any major work.