What might have been...

Were it just MC and I here now, by the weekend, this would have been our garden and our boat house (and yes, that's the Atlantic NOT a lake or a big river)...
As it is though, Ellie and Thomas's bedrooms would have been in the basement and were smaller than in all of the other properties we saw. I just could not (quite) allow myself to live on the reasonably opulent upper floor and push the children downstairs so it looks like we'll get a very standard run of the mill detached 4-bed place in the suburbs! The picture does not really do the place any justice, but it's the best I have.

We saw five houses today, two very similar brand new places which we can move into immediately, one about 10 years old with curtains that made me feel ill, a lakeside place with more bizarre insects buzzing around than you could shake a stick at and some particularly vile wall paper and the above ocean front place. We liked three out of five and based on the needs of the family rather than the needs of Mark and Marie-Claude we have chosen a clear favourite should we not see anything of real interest tomorrow. It will probably be one of the new builds, very well build and finished houses with one slight snag, although the build quality looks excellent, it seems to be the norm to leave trailing cables and exposed sockets for security systems and cable TV etc. Blanking plates cost $1 each, but are not used by the builders! Odd considered the attention shown everywhere else.

I know some think I'm a bit mad about somethings - however I was particularly delighted this evening at the supermarket when in the 1-8 items queue the bloke in front of me was given a stern talking to for trying to pass about 15 items. Well done to the Atlantic Superstore for that (as pictured yesterday in "The view from the hotel").

They were pipped for the Customer Service Award of the Day however by "The Rite Fit" children's shoe shop in the MicMac mall. Ellie was sporting her new (pink - surprised?) trainers for the first time and within ten minutes was complaining that her toes were hurting. So we dropped into the aforementioned "Rite Fit" and asked if they could check the measurements. They decided we were sold a size too small in Quebec City on Monday, without question, they replaced the shoes with a larger size and sent us on our way. One gold star and all of our children's footwear business in the future goes to this shop. With snow on the way and winter boots and snow suits now on the shelves, they will do well out of us!