New Beginnings

The month of May is upon us and so is spring... finally, it's getting warmer here in the Greater Area of Toronto. The shoots are sprouting, tulips and daffodils are peeping, all at the same time. The fresh lime green shoots and blossoms on some trees are a sign of new beginnings....another year of growth ahead before the cold comes again in the fall, where deciduous trees begin to shed like a shaggy dog moulting in the heat of the summer.

One of the baskets I got for Mothers' Day

We moved into our new accommodation, a 3 bed roomed townhouse at the end of April,  as the landlady kindly let us have the keys before  the 1st of May, the official date when our tenancy started.  Some friends offered to help us move a they had cars that were also vans (ie Honda Odyssey and Toyota Sienna) so we started moving some stuff on Friday, 29/4/2011.  Nellie and Brian were very kind and helpful and we moved quite a few boxes and suitcases in 2 hours. I had booked the elevator for the main move on Saturday, and so had managed to get Sue and William to help out too.  We all worked really hard and moved almost everything apart from the big stuff, like the beds, mattresses, sofas, TV, and dining table. Sue and Nellie were very industrious packing up my kitchen stuff and then unpacking at the other end. They were so great, they even packed up the stuff that had belonged to the condo, which I had to later take back.

door on the left is ours

This turned out to be a stroke of genius because when it came to paying the removal people, they charged us from the time they left the depot in Bradford, which is about 40 mins away in non rush hour traffic, and they were leaving at 8am. They did not get to us until 9.30am and were done by 11.45am, but we got charged for 4.5 hours at $99 and hour! Imagine if we had left more for them to move! Dave was going to tip them quite a bit, but when we had to pay over $500 to move just 100 yards down the road, we gave them a smaller tip.

Me in my new uniform

I also started work today at McD's. I was assigned a trainer and was to work in the lobby. Basically, keeping the restaurant and washrooms clean and tidy, emptying the bins, mopping the floors etc.  For a moment, I thought I was at home, doing chores, lol.  It was a bit hectic as the restaurant was expecting the owner of the restaurant to call by as well as the supervisor, so the managers on the floor were all a bit twitched! They were also expecting a mystery shopper to call by, this is a person inspecting how well the restaurant is doing by pretending to be a customer. A bit like the undercover hotel inspectors.  So, it was all guns on deck, everyone worked hard to get orders out on time, waiting times down, drive thru was driven like a rally track, and I and my trainer were in charge of cleanliness.  There is a lot more I would like to add here but as it is a public blog, I can't and wouldn't anyhow, now that I am a crew member!!!

Middle flight of stairs

The kids are very happy to have more space, as is Dave and me too,despite having 4 bathrooms to clean, 3 flights of stairs to negotiate and lots more carpet to vacuum! I will end here, as most of my readers of my blog are my FB friends, so kinda know what's happening anyhow, no need to bore...