It’s been a while

It’s been a while since I have written a blog. Since I have written anything, actually. I have tried, so many times. But every time I read it back, I’m horrified by what I see on the screen. “I can’t write that”, I think, and so the last few months have had me in a type, delete, repeat kind of blogging block. Because we moved. We moved away from the place we had made our home, and the people we had come to call friends – our Vancouver family. We moved, and I didn’t know how to write about it without sounding angry/depressed/ungrateful/spoilt/ridiculous/all of the above …

We said goodbye to Vancouver on 5^th July 2017. It was hard. We flew back to England with lumps in our throats, trying to make our new adventure sound exciting to our little girl (and to ourselves), and trying to make her understand why all her toys had just been taken away in a truck, not to be seen again for a few months.

Sometimes we make decisions that we don’t want to because we know, in the end, it will be for the best. Sometimes you have to give up something wonderful in order to discover (you hope) something even better. So, Toronto, you’re up. Let’s see what you got.

Weeks 1 to 3

We flew to Toronto on 1^st August 2017. It was meant to be 31^st July, but that’s another story, for another blog. It was the 2 kids, my mum and me. J had flown in to Toronto 10 days before to get a head start on the new job and to get the air bnb ready for our arrival. After a long and emotional journey, finally seeing J at the airport and then discovering that the air bnb we had booked months earlier was even better than we could have imagined, was such a relief. As soon as we opened the door, despite being exhausted, E’s face lit up when she saw the play kitchen in the living room and the swing set in the garden. Suddenly, with our little family back together again in Canada, things started to feel a bit less daunting and a bit more exciting.

 

Swing set in the garden of our Air BnB

I had contacted a number of nursery schools before we arrived in Toronto, to see if they had places for E in September, and I placed her on the waiting lists. We were late to the game (another short notice move), and I wasn’t sure if we’d be able to get her in anywhere before Christmas. Mum was here for a tour of one of the nursery schools. It was lovely, and the teachers were great with E. I instantly felt like this could be somewhere she would thrive. Shortly after the tour, E was offered a full time nursery place, 5 mornings a week. Perfect! That was one box ticked. Now just to make some friends …

Mum and I spent the next week exploring the neighbourhood, finding local parks and discovering new coffee shops, grocery stores and libraries. We met other parents in the park, swapped numbers and organised to meet up again. It felt oddly familiar, even though it had been 2 years since I’d last had to go through the process of making friends from scratch.

 

Some of the local parks

The week that mum was with us flew by, and it wasn’t long before we were leaving tear stains and snot trails on each other’s shoulders as we said our goodbyes. Mum had been my safety net, and now it had been taken away and I was going to have to face this new city alone (during the week anyway). I’d done it once before, so I knew I could do it again. I just hoped the people of Toronto were as nice and as welcoming as Vancouver.

 

Toronto island with mum

Getting some last cuddles in before heading back to the UK

The day after mum left, I decided to take the kids to the neighbourhood near our permanent house. We weren’t due to move in for another 2 weeks but I wanted to start meeting people. I parked the pushchair by the splash pool, sat B down on a blanket and let E run around the park in front of us. There were plenty of other kids E’s age splashing about in the shin-deep pool, their mums looking on from the side. “Go and speak to one of them,” I told myself. But I froze. People were in twos and threes, they knew each other and were engrossed in conversation. I didn’t know where to begin. I started thinking through conversation starters in my head:

“Do you come here often?” No that’s ridiculous! Its bad enough as an actual pick up line!

“Are you local?” No, too League of Gentleman – not the type of characters I want people to associate me with!

“Nice weather, isn’t’ it?” BORING!! You’re not a meteorologist, and you’re not in England, so don’t talk about the weather.

“Hi”, well yes, Shakira, that would be a good start but you probably need to say something else as well if you want the conversation to go anywhere!

This was a lot easier when mum was here.

Whilst my brain had been thinking up all this nonsense, a lady with a little boy about E’s age had set up her picnic blanket next to us. She had a pug puppy and was telling her little boy to share his water toys with E, who was staring at them longingly. She had an English accent. Aha! Now that’s an easy conversation starter! I called over to E to make sure she was playing nicely and turned to the lady, about to say something really cool (obviously), but she beat me to it! Damn!

We got chatting and it turns out her family had only been here for a year, but she’d made some great connections. She was so lovely and friendly, and told me about loads of classes and events I should join/sign up to. She even invited me along to a book launch that was being held at her friend’s house! We swapped numbers and arranged to meet again. Making friends – tick.

The following week, I drove up to a beautiful house by the Humber river. I’d arranged to meet my new park friend at the book launch. B had taken ages to get to sleep. J had gone on a last minute over night-er to NYC, so we’d had to call a babysitting agency and it was taking longer than usual to make sure everyone was settled before I left. At one point, I thought I wasn’t going to make it out, but I desperately didn’t want to miss this amazing opportunity to meet some new people and have some fun, after a pretty stressful few weeks/months.

I followed another guest round to the back of the house, and walked into a beautiful garden party. There were lanterns hanging from the trees, fairy lights scattered through the flowers and beautifully decorated tables, with candelabras and gold place settings. There was yummy catering and a free bar set up, and everyone was given a copy of the book, The Dead Husband Project by Sarah Meehan-Sirk. Forty plus guests were milling around the garden, chatting and drinking and I had a moment of panic when I realised I’d only ever met my park friend once before, and she had been wearing sunglasses – what if I didn’t recognise her and/or couldn’t find her! Not to worry, she spotted me straight away and quickly introduced me to a few people. It was a fantastic night, and I felt so lucky to have met this amazing and friendly woman, and to have been invited along to such a magical evening. If this night was anything to go by, Toronto was shaping up to be pretty special.

 

Weeks 4-5

The beginning of week 4 in Toronto was moving week. On our last day in Vancouver, our realtor had excitedly FaceTimed us from a property in Toronto. It wasn’t really in the area we had been looking in, and it was on a street with no pavements (something we had specifically said we didn’t want), but she was convinced this was the neighbourhood and the house for us. We were homeless, having just handed the keys to our Vancouver house back to our landlord, and staying in a tiny air bnb a few streets away. We’d taken refuge in a Starbucks when we got the call. We saw the house through squinted eyes on J’s phone – it looked great (although it was hard to tell) and massive. We were feeling pretty terrible about leaving Vancouver, and so in a moment of extravagant madness, we said yes to the property and signed on the dotted line without having actually seen it in person!

Luckily, when we finally picked up the keys to the new house and walked inside, it was even better than we could have imagined. E has the space to run around outside – for the first time ever, we have a garden big enough for her to actually play in. And when winter kicks in, the house has a basement and playroom so we wont feel too cooped up (hopefully).

As soon as we had gotten our mitts on the house keys, we arranged for our stuff to be delivered and unpacked. We hadn’t seen any of it since the beginning of July, so it was so nice to get our bed and sofas back. It took the moving guys the best part of a day to get the huge truck unloaded and to build beds etc. I unpacked all the kitchen boxes and put those away, whilst E ran around the garden excitedly with B watching and giggling in his bouncer. We were so fed up of living out of suitcases that we went all guns blazing at the unpacking and actually managed to get most of it done over a weekend. Yes we had a few stray boxes left, and no pictures on the wall, but I think we did pretty well on that first weekend. Every evening in the first 2 weeks, we tackled a box, or put up a few pictures, and pretty quickly the place felt like home. We did Ikea trip after Ikea trip, and probably the most expensive grocery shop I’ve ever done (who knew mops and buckets and re-stocking your entire canned and dry goods cupboards would be so wallet lightening!)

 

The first cupboard to be unpacked! I needed my tea station!

The moving truck!

B helping unpack …

Getting the Emma Bridgewater out of boxes and on display = home

After a couple of weeks, I remember sitting on our sofa in our new living room thinking, “We did it. We actually did it … again”. Two years ago, we made the decision to move to Vancouver. It was one of the best decisions we have ever made. Now we’re in Toronto and everyone says it’s a fantastic city. So far, I’m in love with our house and I’m in love with our neighbourhood. It took me over 6-8 months to feel like Vancouver was properly home and to build up my network of friends. I need to allow myself that time here too. But so far so good, and I’m pretty bloody proud of our little family, and everything we have achieved this summer.

All this moving is very tiring …