test blog #10

Add this to the list of things I said I'd never do, along with colour my hair and move to the west coast while my mother is alive. My hair, once a lovely honey blond, became a drab brown. My mom moved to the west coast first! And we need a bigger vehicle that can handle rural road conditions. And so, we own an SUV. In 22 years in New York City, I didn't own a car at all. We bought a new hatchback wagon in 2005 and a well-used compact in 2017. And yesterday we bought a big thing: a 2014 Mitsubishi Outlander with two sets of tires (including new snow tires) and 88K kms on the odometer. As we were shopping, both online and in person, I saw that I really prefer a boxy shape, an SUV that looks more like a small truck -- Subaru Forester, Toyota 4Runner, Volkswagen Tiguan. But the car has to be in good condition and within our budget, and we didn't see any of those that fit. A 2016 Tiguan did turn my head, but the payments would have been a big stretch (who needs that!), plus the ...

Here are some photos of our town and the area surrounding it. Our lovely little rental house is an endangered species, a ranch, all on one floor. Excellent for my problematic knees and ankles. It would have made more sense to build the deck on this side, where there's a lot more space and still plenty of privacy. Instead, the deck is in the back, up against a neighbour's house -- which I'm guessing was built after ours. But these neighbours are rarely home, they are usually off exploring in their gigantic RV. And we are very happy to have a deck! Diego wants to play. Our street -- looking towards the cul-de-sac, the forest. Our street looking towards the main road. Note the mountains in the distance. Here's the view from around the corner, on an (extremely rare) clear day. Less than a five-minutes drive, we are in town. Here's my library! Downstairs from the Library is the Port Hardy Museum. They've been closed for the winter, but I'm looking forward to wor...