Home Inspection

Sorry I haven't updated before now, the week has been long and busy as Rob and I continued to dot the i's and cross the t's with all the information we needed to complete for the house sale.
First though, we did actually go out socially for the first time in a long time last Saturday. Rachael's birthday and mine are just 8 days apart, and although we didn't have any plans initially we decided to to go out for a meal with friends from the camera club. Instead of Wharf Wraps we tried Boon Docks just down the road. Having never eaten there before we weren't sure what to expect, but I have to say the fish was very nice as was the cheesecake...It's been a long time since I enjoyed some sweet desert! Talking calories I am down another 2lbs...Not much I know, could be better but at least it wasn't a gain.

Wednesday was our Home Inspection on the house, I hadn't planned on going along but in the end I decided to as it would be the last time I got to see it before we exchange in May. Our home inspector was excellent I must say, very thorough and spent 2.5 hrs poking around in every nook and cranny. At the end of it he didn't find anything major wrong, some minor things that we had already addressed in our initial offer which the owners are going to fix and just a couple of other things that we didn't already know about. The first being some moisture/water in the crawl space underneath the extension. Even though the work on the extension was tip top, with gravel laid in the this portion of the crawl space there was still water sitting there. He suggested that a sump pump be installed in that part to prevent it from lying around in there. The rest of the crawl space was fine with no issues. The other thing he found was a reverse polarity in the electrics which needs to be fixed. So after that was all done we then put in an amendment to our offer asking that these two issues be addressed and the owners have agreed to install the sump pump and fix the electric issue.
The status of the property has now officially changed from Condition/Pending to Sold. Our final walk through will be on the closing day which is May 1st and then we will start moving in. We shall be giving notice this week on our rental. I must say I will miss this old place when we leave it. It has after all been our home for 3 years (4 years by the time we move out). I will miss the deer and our neighbours and I am pretty sure the cats will miss not having stairs to run up and down! I on the other hand will not miss the stairs one bit!

Winter is still rumbling on here, I thought...nay hoped we were over the worst of it but yet more snow is predicted tonight and through the week. The sun is shining but it is terribly cold. Every week I will it to be over, this has been the worst winter in years here, and I believe the same it true of the UK. There isn't really much to choose between them, snow or rain...both crap! But at least we don't have the flooding.

One more thing...If you haven't heard me bang on enough about the vocal band Home Free...Here I go again! I downloaded their Album 'Crazy Life' from iTunes and I haven't stopped playing it since. Really, if you haven't checked out this album yet, you really should. You won't be disappointed!

We're buying a house!

I have at long last some news to blog about! Yes we found our home! 

What a mad week it has been! Firstly let me say thank you to all of you that sent me birthday wishes via email and in the post, Much appreciated. On Sunday Rob and I went to view a bungalow we liked for the second time. Having given it the once over already we definitely liked the place, but wanted to see it again to make sure. On Sunday evening Pat, our realtor, Rob and I sat down and drafted an offer for the property, it was submitted Sunday evening and the offer time was extended to 8 pm on Monday evening (my birthday).

I was hoping to be able to tell you that we secured the sale on my birthday, but sadly that was not to be. The owners countered the offer and it was still to high for our liking. I can safely say I was pretty depressed on Monday. However, all was not lost, after a phone call between agents, we knew that if we met these people half way we would make a deal, so that's what we did on Tuesday and submitted a new offer. Yesterday we heard back that the offer and all our terms had been accepted, (pending inspection next week).

The offer will complete on Feb 19th if the inspection goes well and finance is secured, which should be okay as we have all our ducks in a row. The closing date is May 1st, and we should officially take up residence at the end of May when our rental lease expires, which gives us 4 weeks to do a couple of things in the house, a little bit of painting and move our stuff in.

So what's this bungalow like I hear you ask? Well it's old but beautifully renovated, with a large, new and rather gorgeous kitchen, it has 3 bedrooms, the master one being exceptionally large as the owners added a 12x12 extension., The hardwood floors throughout are all new, as are all the windows and the roof. There is a dining nook off the kitchen with French doors that open out to the back deck with is so cute as it runs along the entire length of the bungalow at the back. The living room is very cute and small, more of a formal seating area, and then adjacent to the living room, double doors take you through to the family room, a more casual area for TV and recreation, off the family room in a small passage is a double cupboard that accommodates the washer and dryer and opposite that a cupboard which currently houses a freezer and the cats litter box. :o) This is also where the back door is located. In all there are 3 access points at the back of the house, the third door being in the master bedroom which leads out to the deck also. There is one bathroom in the property next to the master bedroom. There are 2 sheds in the back garden, a smaller garden shed and a large...very large storage shed. The whole place is very cute and had loads of curb appeal. It's in an area of Dartmouth that we like very much and located on a quiet and pretty street full of mostly other bungalows. A well manicured box hedge frames the front of the property giving it even more of a cosy and cute appeal.

In our deal we negotiated all of the following: all curtains and blinds, stove, fridge, dishwasher and microwave, electric fireplace, lawn mower, hedge trimmer, bathrooms cabinets and mirror. As they say over here, everything is negotiable in real estate! It is very different from the UK where you tend to buy the bare bones and not a lot else. The owners also agreed to fix all guttering, weatherproof and fix all internal and external doors (which were ill fitting in some cases) and box in the electric meter on the side of the house. I can tell you these owners have great taste in colours and decor, so the great thing is hardly any painting to be done as I love it the way it is. Just their boys bedroom needs the once over.

So now it all systems go with papers to the lawyer, life insurance to sort out, and our down payment, which is currently being held in an RSP (retirement savings plan) over here. Exciting times and much to do in the coming months, I can't say I am looking forward to moving as I didn't much like it last time round :o) But at least we will be in before Summer. Just keep your fingers crossed for us that the home inspection doesn't throw any spanners in the works!

In other news we have just renewed our permanent residence cards, we had a few months left to run on the current ones, but wanted to make sure we renewed in plenty of time, not knowing how long it would take, a mountain of paper work and 7 weeks later they arrived. We will definitely go for citizenship within in the next year or so...whenever we have time to fit it in!

Groundhog Day...Again!

Oh dear I am late to the party again this week. Just a distinct lack of interest unfortunately.

Groundhog Day came and went on February 2nd.
Wiarton Willie, the albino Groundhog from Ontario spotted his shadow and therefore predicted another 6 weeks of Winter, once again this amused me no end as his eye sight cannot be the best surely?!!
As for Shubenacadie Sam in Nova Scotia, he didn't see his and predicted an early Spring...So I guess it came down to the big one, the decider....Punxsatawney Phil in Pennsylvania and he sadly also predicted 6 more weeks of Winter. So there you have it, the reliable, marmot weather predictors have spoken (metaphorically). I would rather hear the weather forecast from them than the actual weather forecasters on the TV any day!

Phil...looking a tad hacked off as he was woken
up and made to predict the weather :o)

I think they only said what we already knew. This Winter has been bad and will continue in the same vein.
As I am typing this update another 20 cm of snow is falling outside, it has become the trend that we get heavy snowfalls on Wednesdays and Sundays...And I for one am sick of it.

The house hunt continues with 2 more viewings last weekend....One of which is promising but slightly over priced. Our poor realtor will need a medal by the end of this, she has had more than one or two coffees with us and spent literally hours listening to Rob and I bickering. One thing for sure she will have earned that commission by the time we buy somewhere.

53 Days Until Spring...Apparently!

So here I am again, a day late, and the sad thing is I have nothing new to write about. Winter is rumbling on and we have had a ton more snow since I last blogged. Another big blowing blizzard! I am thankful to say that on the day it happened, Tuesday I believe, I was not feeling very well at all, so I stayed at home, Just as well really as they shut up shop early again because of the awful driving conditions.

Rob and I continue the house search and all that goes with it, Here house buying seems so different, and somewhat convoluted. You apparently need an army of people on hand...There's your realtor, your financial person and your mortgage broker to name but three of them. Once you put in an offer on a house, the seller barters via their realtor and comes back with a counter offer...If your don't like it, you reject it as you cannot counter a counter offer...and then if you want to go again you have to put in a whole new offer from the beginning...Just as well they have plenty of trees here for the amount of paper it consumes! There are so many variables and bitty fees to think about, nothing ever seems to be straight forward....It seriously messes with your mind. NOTE...If you are reading this and are my one of my friends here in Nova Scotia, please avoid this subject with us as we really don't want to talk about it anymore than we have to as it is/has been all consuming of late.

Talking telly for a moment, I am loving this year's Celebrity Big Brother, it certainly has been one of the most entertaining and eventful series to date and not for any good reasons! I would be surprised if any of those so called celebs actually have a career left after they have come out of there. It's certainly been grabbing some headlines and even the Daily Mail who had turned their back on reporting about Big Brother since it moved to Channel 5 have got back in on the act. I have been watching yet another excellent series on Netflix 'Hell on Wheels'. I didn't think it was going to be my kind of thing at all, set just after the civil war has ended it follows the fortunes of a man looking for revenge for the murder of his wife, which in turn leads him to become a part of the crew building of the transcontinental rail road. It has some fantastic characters and is so well written, pretty gruesome in places! Watch it if you get the chance.

Below I have posted some excellent (and quite factual) Canadian Winter funnies I was sent last week. Plus a rather disturbing video of Prime Minister Stephen Harper singing.Who knew...One...he could sing, and two...he could sing so bad! And lets not talk about stage presence! You can search more of Harper's hits on You Tube...Scary!

 

This one is no joke....Taken outside the back door at
 work on Wednesday!

And us Brits thought Cherie and Tony were cringy having

a sing song!

Stress Factor

If someone ever told me that house hunting was fun, I think I would quite literally kick them in the head!
House hunting is quite possibly the worst thing I personally have ever had to undertake.

Rob and I are still looking and largely 'falling out' over houses and costings. We had a second viewing today of one we like, but we are still not quite committed. We have decided to keep to a thrifty budget as it is now our intention if possible to buy a modest home here and still keep our UK residence as well. In the long term we think this could work to our favour having additional options and a property portfolio. I will of course keep you posted on our progress but for today that's all I have to say on the matter.

I find myself unable to concentrate on anything else right now, I haven't picked up my camera in weeks and have become a recluse. Unfortunately that's what happens when my mind gets bogged down with an issue of magnitude like this. I went to visit the dietitian again about a week or so ago, I hadn't seen her since well before the festive season, and held out no hope whatsoever of any further weight loss since my eating routine had fallen by the wayside somewhat...BUT to my utter amazement I had actually lost 7lbs. That brings my total so far to 15lbs in total since I started. I do attribute some of this success to the stress factor. I still have a very long way to go, but needless to say I am pleased.

Another symptom of stress has also appeared, I have a cyst or sty in my left eye. It came up a few days ago and is pretty painful. I am hoping it goes away soon. I dread to think what state I will be in as and when we do eventually move house!!

We have had some lovely 'above seasonal' temperatures and no snow this week...Well we did until last night and then the snow came down once more. It was pretty cold, damp and rainy today turning some of the snow to a slushy mess, just in time for it to freeze tonight and makes those roads extra nasty tomorrow morning...JOY! Can you tell I am full of positivity right now?!

Now where was I...?

Sorry, I have been rather lack lustre in my updates, but I am slowly getting back into things.
When last I blogged I do believe I mentioned there was a blizzard on the way...Well as you may of read and heard, it hit and hit hard. My Journey to work on Friday January 3rd wasn't pleasant, the snow had started coming down in the early hours and by morning there was enough of it blowing around to make it a tad tricky and slippy. I made in into work in one piece with my only real issue being a bloody huge truck on  my off ramp who was stuck and spinning his wheels. Fortunately I managed to get round him  without him slipping backwards into me. As the morning progressed the weather got worse and worse, buses, cars, delivery vans were all having difficulty getting around as the snow swirled around. By mid morning a decision was made that we shut down and leave at 12 pm. By the time noon rolled around, the snow drifts were pretty big and the conditions outside were terrible. Those in the know may remember my driving as being a bit shaky at the best of times, and now here I was having to drive home in a complete white-out. This was without question was the most scariest driving ever. I couldn't see anything, not where the edge of the road was, the road itself, or anything in front of me. I knew Rob was already at home and clearing the parking lot as best he could for me to get in, so all I had to do was make it there, what made it worse was the fact there was literally no one in front of me to try and follow, the odd cars that were on the road were behind me making me the one leading them (god help them). I crawled along at about 5 miles an hour and eventually made it on and off the highway and down my road where I was confused to see a car coming down the wrong side of of it at me....And I thought I was having trouble....Having made it to the parking lot, I turned in, only to get stuck, at which point thankfully Rob was there, he was telling me what I should be doing to stop my wheels from spinning but I wasn't listening and having none of it, I was so pissed off at having to drive and so uptight by the whole experience that I just got out and let him deal with getting the car into what looked liked our space.

Finally inside and out of the snow neither of us went anywhere for the rest of the day. By the evening the snow finally slowed and eventually stopped. Rob decided to start digging out a path at the back of the house. The amount of snow was apparently the most Nova Scotia has had since White Juan hit.

Since then we have had freezing cold temperatures, then warmer ones, a whole lot of rain which washed away much of the snow and currently as I am typing, very high winds and more rain. So if you are reading this in the UK which I believe is already mostly underwater, no doubt you can expect some more rain in the next few days as it works its way over.

In between the crappy weather we haven't done a whole hell of a lot. We went to view another house last weekend, it looked lovely in the photos but upon closer inspection wasn't all that great, some brave DIY had occurred and the end results were nothing we really wanted to live with, plus the area wasn't great. Tomorrow we are off to see 2 open houses, I am not mad keen on either but who knows they could surprise me.

This week at work I met a real life Homicide Detective. He came in to get an aerial map printed up for a court case he was in the middle of. I was (sadly) and immediately star struck (because I watch Dexter and a multitude of other crime related shows). I found myself saying wow I would love to do your job, to which he was a bit perplexed, thankfully I managed not to start talking telly to him. ( I remember a long time ago now my friend Sylvie and I were big fans of Holby City and Casualty and we actually believed that because we watched these medical dramas we could actually perform many of the emergency procedures....lol...She no doubt won't thank me for mentioning this). But I think the same now of crime dramas, hence my interest in this poor man. He seemed very chatty and willing to tell me about the case he was currently in court for, it was so cool...at the end of our chat he was about to leave and for some unknown reason I asked him for his card...he gave me one, and now stood there, I felt I should offer an explanation as to why I wanted his card...The next thing that came out of my mouth was possibly one of the more stupid things I have said to date...I said..."Thanks, you never know when I may need you"....He

looked confused, I blushed and kicked myself at the same time, why in the name of all thing sane would I need a homicide detective??????
I do utterly amaze myself sometimes!

I will leave you with a couple of photos from the blizzard, to give you an idea of the drift size and the amount of snow Rob had to shift.

Big drift, almost window high out the back

Digging a pathway from the back door

Happy New Year!

Welcome to 2014!
I do hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and New Year.
I think it's fair to say that Rob and I have been pretty inactive over the festive period, aside from him having to be on call various days. We had some snow (always my favourite...NOT), some of it on Christmas Day.

At least we escaped the ice storms which disrupted so much of Christmas for people in Ontario. Thank goodness they have a stand up Mayor who knows how to sort things out...And yes I am being very tongue in cheek! New Brunswick copped for a load of bad weather too and some people still don't have power there right now either. The last storm we were supposed to get brought us rain, which for me was pure delight. It melted some of the snow and for a few hours was a balmy 5 degrees it then turned bitterly cold again with minus temps and wind chill. Joy oh joy we are due more snow tomorrow night and into Friday. The weather forecasters will be gearing up and getting tremendously excited again at the prospect of possibly uttering the words 'winter storm' once more. I really cannot put into words how much I detest weather forecasters here in the Winter, I don't think it helps matters that they deliver the news with such glee in an upbeat manner.

Christmas Day Rob and I went for a walk round Shubie Park before heading to Rachael's for Christmas Dinner. It was so pretty and very cold, all the squirrels were out and looking for snacks, at least 3 tried to literally climb up us to see if we had anything for them. Dinner at Rachael's was a feast, she warned us she goes overboard with food and she wasn't joking...Fully stuffed with turkey and trimmings we vegged out and watched several DVD's I took over. Older Son Connor and girlfriend Sam were in and out and younger Son Dean was in full attendance. We left late in the evening around midnight and took with us a whole bunch of Tupperware full of leftovers which we ate on Boxing Day.

As far as presents go, easily my favourite gift was a Union Jack foot stool we got from Anne and Smiffy, It has been exceedingly well used since Christmas. The only trouble with it is the fact that Shakespeare has taken a liking to it as well and wants to sharpen his claws on it at every available opportunity!! Robert bought me a funny present it's one of those robot floor sweepers, I don't actually think he bought it for me but more for the cats.

Poor Hamish doesn't hear it at all and only knows it is there when it bumps into him, then he promptly jumps out of its way. Shakes on the other hand stalks it around the room. Too scared to jump on it, he just follows it around.

Rob and I finished watching Breaking Bad on Christmas Eve...I have been slightly depressed ever since. I have started watching them all again from the beginning. Already I am back up to Season 4 which I think tells you I have done very little else.

So now it's back to the daily grind, I am just willing Winter to be over quickly, but I think I will be sorely disappointed on that front. Rob and I will start to look around for a house again now Christmas is out of the way. Hopefully there will be more we like coming up on the market. As of right now there are only about 3 a like, one is out of our price range and the other 2 are nice but not necessarily where I want them to be. Out of those two one I like very much and the other I like on the inside more than the outside. The only good thing is Rob quite likes them as well which is progress of sorts.

Not sure when my next update will be as Sunday is far too near now. Until then here are some photos from the park as well as some fun shots of novelty melting snowman I got from Nancy for Christmas.

Also a video from Home Free, they won the Sing Off (yay!) and have an Album coming out in Feb! This is their newest music video, you can also check it out here...It's so good! Remember NO music just voices!

Build him and watch him melt....Needs a limbo pole me thinks

Woman photographing ducks and dog watching squirrel...
Click to view larger

I definitely can't feel my hands or any nuts under here....