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“Space is big. The whole point of the frontier is that we go there to do new things in new places – not one place, and not one thing, but all of the above.”

Rick Tumlinson

It is very nearly four years since we acquired our lovely home on the Saanich peninsula.

I have – as it happens – good reason to recall that moment in time precisely. The day that we moved in to our new residence – the day after all of our worldly possessions were delivered by our carrier – I arrived early in the morning because I wanted to watch on the TV one of Scotland’s final pool matches in the 2015 Rugby World Cup, the which was taking place back in England (the reason for the early start times on the west coast of Canada).

Now here we are – four years on – and the 2019 Rugby World Cup is just about to start in Japan.

This post is not, however, about rugby.

I made reference in a recent post to the fact that we have been re-decorating our downstairs ‘family’ room. This work was actually started by a dear friend whilst we were away in Europe earlier in the year, but she and I finished it off together over the summer. We then had the carpets cleaned before reorganising all of our downstairs spaces ready for our recent guests (also trailed in the above mentioned post).

Why is all this significant – and why ‘final’?

Well – this past four years has seen a great deal of action on the home front – as regular readers of these meanderings (should such there be) will be aware. There have been legal battles to be fought – monies to be scrimped and saved – new decks to be built – extensive renovations of the main living spaces to be wrought and all manner of other nipping and tucking besides.

On our arrival here four years ago the downstairs ‘family’ room was immediately pressed into service as a repository for goods and chattels from our transatlantic move for which we did not at that point have a home elsewhere. It then became a temporary studio before subsequently being turned into a furniture store and living space when we moved everything downstairs for the four months during which we handed over the whole of the main floor to our contractor. It then reverted to being a dumping ground and part-time workshop… until earlier this year.

Now – finally – four years after our arrival here – the last remaining unallocated space in our home has been turned into a proper functioning room.

Job done! Yaaaaaay!!

 

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“The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining”

John F. Kennedy

I don’t recall ever having had to think much about roofing. Now – I know that those in the UK (and elsewhere) who own older homes – particularly those with complex roofs – may find such things to be a constant source of anguish, but apart from a few relatively minor incidents my six decades in the British Isles were largely free of roof related concerns.

This was doubtless greatly helped by living in the sort of houses that were furnished with tile or slate roofs – the which have a life expectancy of anywhere between sixty and two hundred years, depending on climate and construction.

It was thus a bit of a shock on coming to the west coast of Canada to discover that the shingle roofs common here have a very much shorter expectancy, and that our roof would probably not live much beyond twenty five years – if well looked after. Ours was already about ten years old when we acquired it!

The problem on the west coast is that the moisture-laden climate rapidly leads to roofs that once looked like this:

Photo by Andy Dawson Reid…looking instead like this:

Photo by Andy Dawson Reid

Naturally there are companies in BC who will strip back all of the moss and detritus and spray the shingles with an inhibitor to discourage further growth. Such services are not cheap but help to extend the life of the roof and thus ultimately to save money.

It need hardly be said – given the very fact of this post – that this we have just had done. Our roof now looks like this:

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidSpiffing!

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