The last hurrah of Winter

Tags

Canada., Maritimes, move, PEI, relocation

We returned from PEI where for 10 days we enjoyed Spring like weather or at least early Spring with some warm days and temperature of up to 14C which is pretty warm for February. Ottawa in comparison is a frozen gulag and last night we had a late Winter storm, which I hope is the last of this Winter. Next 10 days the temperature is above 0c. It is Spring everywhere else in the Northern Hemisphere, pictures from Europe shows flowers and budding trees.

So as Winter folds up we look to Spring and what I hope will be our relocation to PEI.

Contrary to popular belief in Central Canada, we found that normal life followed its course in Winter in Charlottetown like anywhere else. What is close are all the tourist souvenir shops, tourist restaurants and other tourist traps, none of which is of any interest to us. We went to the opening of a new exhibit on portrait painting by Robert Harris at the Art Gallery of the Confederation Centre, it was very interesting, since he is also featured at the National Gallery here in Ottawa. We also returned to the little memorial chapel of the Anglican Cathedral to see his pre-Raphaelite frescoes on the wall. I did notice they are in need of a good clean-up but I suspect that would be very expensive and you need a specialist for that type of work.

Lots of good restaurants and music, yes they are full and there are lots of Islanders about. The Farmer’s Market was a very special attraction, it’s a real farmer’s market not the faux market we have here in Ottawa with just a handful of producers selling there wares. There is also a very diverse scene at the Market on Belvedere street, with an excellent coffee shop serving a perfect espresso and we also found caterers, one of authentic African dishes, we were impressed. It is a different pace of life more quiet and slower. Everyone knows everyone else. Lots of business is done by word of mouth. We saw a few places we were interested in and now we are in negotiation with 2 landlords over places we might want to rent. We are strictly looking in the old 500 block of the Capital. All the housing in that central district were built between 1790 and 1890, lots of character. Many were great mansions divided into apartments, other houses which have two apartments now.

One Sunny day we went to North Rustico on the North side of the Island some 30 minutes away from Charlottetown. It’s a fishing village so all the boats were out of the water for the Season but the lobster season starts again in a few weeks and the boat captains are looking for crew. We stopped at a very nice little restaurant for lunch and had a great lunch. The air was clean, crisp and it was all so peaceful. Again the people are very nice and pleasant everywhere. We discovered a great bakery and many other food specialty shops. So we were able to check the boxes on all the questions we had.

So in the end we established that yes we could live there and be happy.