Leaving City Life Behind

Returning from UK on 28 February it was immediately evident as I came out of Cranbrook airport that plans to start second week of March were just a tadge ambitious. The snow was still many feet deep and it remained icy cold.  So I filled the next couple of weeks looking over my plans, a trip to Calgary to review my window order with my selected supplier and further refine my kitchen design, and also to have a bit of city weekend before becoming fully focused for several months on building out in the sticks.   Excavation commenced week of  Monday 20th March for 3 days, cutting in the drive up the steep incline to my build site, removing the root stumps of the trees I had felled the previous September, preparing the build site, and digging the trenches for the stepped footings (explanation to come later).  Fortunately the early winter heavy dump of snow had effectively blanketed the ground before a deep freeze could really enter the soil, but within an hour...

My love for Canada, right from the start of my first three years working at DRDC Toronto (2000-2003) on a UK Canada naval exchange, was for its vast open spaces and amazing scenery.  For that, I perhaps have to partly thank my then OC of the Experimental Diving Unit .  In my joining interview, he ran part of the discussion on the lines that he would never question whether my work was up to date as he knew it always would be, and that he therefore fully expected me to take every opportunity to travel and explore his country, be it through work or my own time.  As such he was entirely unquestioning and generous. Work took me regularly to the vistas of both coasts and the Great Lakes, and generous vacation time gave me more opportunities to explore the same on extended road trips or by air.  Hence my eventually returning in 2008 as an immigrant to live initially in Vancouver and then Ottawa.  My seven years in Ottawa were enjoyable, but latterly work in the ...