Week 3 - A home (well for a few months anyway)

Week 3 - New Home!

Well, you will all be delighted to hear that we have moved into the house on Gore Street and are settling in well. The house is a lovely old limestone townhouse on three floors with a very small yard at the back. On the ground floor there is an open plan living/dining room and a kitchen (also small) and the utilities are in the basement (a bit dodgy, but however!). On the second floor there are two large bedrooms and a nice bathroom with an old claw-foot bath (the house reminds us of Laurelville!) and on the top floor again two large bedrooms and a bathroom and a roomy landing where the girls have a double futon couch - this is their "chill out area" - and we're hoping to get a t.v. up there for them too. The great thing about this house is its location - it is walking distance to Ellie's school (25 mins) Patrick's school (15 mins) the library (5 mins) Paddy's office (30 mins) and very importantly downtown (10 mins). So we can walk pretty much everywhere from here. There is a real walking/running/cycling culture here - that's how most people get around which is great to see. The streets are full of people out and about and I suppose the locals like to do as much as possible while the weather is still so nice (its been 20+ every day since we came). We did have rain one day but only for about 15 mins!

The Kids are settling in to their new schools. Patrick even ran for class representative!! he wrote his speech and practised it over and over (we all knew it off by heart!) and he stood up there in front of the class and said it for everyone. He didn't get elected but wasn't he brave?? Ellen is getting on well too in RND high school and has made some friends which is great. Laura has been looking at the winter semester courses at Queens which all start after Christmas. She has a lot of time on here hands tho, during the day so she did up her resume and dropped it into any shops that are hiring at the moment. One shop called her for interview yesterday, then after a good in depth interview they gave her a trial on the shop floor and then offered her a full time job!! She is delighted but the only snag may be that although she has applied for her work permit, she doesn't actually have one yet so they are going to call her today to say if she can start right away or if she has to wait til the permit arrives.

Paddy is enjoying getting stuck in to his new role in the CYA. They are a friendly bunch and the offices are very nicely situated at the Portsmouth Olympic Harbour so its so far, so good. He starts his travels this week with a trip up to Ottawa and over the next couple of months he will be visiting Toronto, Nova Scotia and a week at the International Federation's conference in Korea!!

I'm keeping busy with setting up the house - it came with furniture but none of the extras e.g. bedding/towels/kitchen equipment/bins/pots and pans etc. etc. it's funny to be shopping for all this stuff again that was just "there" at home!! Even the most basic supplies like salt and pepper, herbs and spices for cooking, a can opener - the stuff you take for granted at home, have had to be got. Thankfully though, during our first week in Kingston, a colleague of Paddy's (Marty) invited our family over to his home for dinner. It was lovely!! apart from being a much needed home-cooked meal (best ever brownies!) it also meant I met up with Beth, Marty's wife, who kindly took me under her wing and brought me shopping to all the right places for the stuff we needed. I'm telling you, the amount of choice for everything here is crazy!! Anyway, Beth pointed me in the right direction and we are now almost sorted. We've also had a couple of cups of coffee along the way and its been really nice having a friend too!! I've also cooked my first few meals here and haven't either blown up the kitchen (well half a kitchen - it's not fully installed yet) or poisened the family so its all good.........

Today is Arthur Guinness day and Paddy and I are planning to pay a visit at 17.59pm to a local Irish Bar called The Toucan to raise a glass and toast you all in Ireland!! so 'Cheers' everyone!! Tomorrow the kids have no school and we are going to head to Sinead and Chris's cottage on Lake Huron for the weekend. We're all really excited about that and can't wait to spend some time with the Bonthron's!!! yippee!!!

Thats it for now folks - more updates next week.