Chapter 24
WHERE AM I NOW?
The winter of 2022 was a particularly severe one in New Brunswick with lots of snow. It seemed as though every morning we woke to a fresh fall and it would be out with the snow shovels and Blain starting up the snow blower to clear paths to the chicken house and the barn. Property prices in New Brunswick were higher than they had ever been and Celene and Blain were thinking it might be time to move to an easier climate with a bit less hard work, so it would be time for another move for me as well. We had all moved many times so that didn’t bother us at all, it was just a question of Where to this time?
I had enjoyed Sydney when I lived there in the eighties but would I now? It might be bigger, dirtier, more dangerous. In April I decided to spend a month there and find out, so I rented an airbnb in Darlinghurst. I suppose Sydney had grown bigger but it certainly wasn’t dirty and it didn’t seem dangerous either. Several times I was out after dark but never felt threatened, in fact I found kindness and friendliness wherever I went. Madeline joined me for part of the time and we enjoyed the beautiful weather and the beaches, there I am swimming at Bondi Icebergs pool.
One of the big attractions was that Belinda was living in Waterloo, Nick in Pyrmont and Tom at Lawson in the Blue Mountains, so at the end of the month it was back to Canada and time to start the familiar job of packing up and sending my belongings off by ship. I knew from experience that freight would take at least 4 months to arrive in Sydney so once again I sent off the things I wanted to keep – my market china, a few books, pictures and treasures and my beloved carpet square which had been in every one of our houses since 1987 and which to me said Home. Everything else was sold in the online auctions – furniture, electrical appliances and kitchen things. Celene and Blain had done a wonderful job of completely renovating the barn and landscaping all the outside areas and of course being summer the gardens were looking magnificent, flowers everywhere, vegetables all flourishing and so many raspberries that we just couldn’t eat them fast enough and of course no point in freezing them as we were leaving.
The realtor did an excellent job of presenting the property and as well as still photos of every area, the photographer took drone footage of the property outside and the tracks in the woods. From memory I think there were 5 viewers, they all made offers and Celene chose the best couple because they had recently sold their own property on Vancouver Island and they had cash, so the sale went through in a few days. I was sorry in one way to be leaving because I had thoroughly enjoyed rural life again but as always, I found moving exciting and looked forward to whatever the future would bring.
A great stroke of good fortune was that Belinda recommended me for a flat in the same complex where she lives (left), not the same building but very close and she was a tremendous help with the move, buying the essential electrical appliances and cleaning materials and helping me with getting connected to internet, utilities and so on. I couldn’t get in to the flat as soon as I arrived in Sydney so I spent some time with Marcus in his lovely solar powered tropical house completely off the grid on 20 acres and just outside Darwin.
When I got back to Sydney my freight arrived and Tom was a great help with helping me to negotiate customs, border security and so on and Madeline assembled various bits and pieces from Ikea for me so once more I was happily settled in yet another new place (right). Shortly after I moved in, I had a melanoma operation on my leg which necessitated a skin graft and took 3 months and 1 day to heal, during which time I received wonderful attention from the Redfern district nurses who visited me every second day for the first 6 weeks and twice a week after that.
The day that I was officially discharged by the visiting nurses, I walked down to Gunyama Fitness Centre which is just about a kilometre from my apartment. It’s a magnificent facility with a 50 metre outdoor pool, a 25 metre indoor pool, a hydrotherapy pool and well equipped gyms and studios for every conceivable type of exercise and class, a creche so that young parents can continue to exercise and a well-patronised coffee shop. I joined because I had just intended to swim a couple of times a week but then a kind and friendly woman in the dressing room (Thanks Carmel) encouraged me to join aquarobics classes which I did and then I found that there were so-called gold classes for people over 55 and I joined more classes and started going every weekday – and I love it. I have never met a friendlier or more welcoming group of people in any place that I have lived before – instant friends!
The Waterloo/Green Square/Zetland area is what is known as a 15-minute village, an urban planning concept in which residents can walk to everything in 15 minutes – and I can. I no longer drive and I can walk to Coles, Woolworths, Aldi, my medical centre, the Gunyama fitness centre, the library and the railway station all in 15 minutes or less. The bus stops across the road and takes me to the city and the route ends at Circular Quay so then a short walk to the ferries and the Opera House where I am a subscriber to the symphony concerts. Public Transport (trains, buses, light rail and ferries) are all capped at $2.50 per day for seniors so that includes even the train to the Blue Mountains or the ferry to Manly.
In short, I have found Sydney an ideal place to live. Will I spend the rest of my life here? Who knows? As I’ve said before, I’ve always enjoyed moving and if the occasion arose, I’d do it again but right now I couldn’t be happier. There we are at our lunch gathering on Mother’s Day – Luca, Tom, Mika, Nick, me, Mary, Piper, Belinda and Linus and Erika was the photographer. How could life here not be fun?
