Saturday October 10, 2015

Sunday we had a nice breakfast and headed out on our bicycles for a short ride around our old haunts.

It was a beautiful ride, the hills didn’t seem as steep as they used to be. Maybe Simcoe County has flattened out with all the snow that fell the last two winters.

The trees are changing colours, this area is beautiful at this time of the year.

We headed up to our favourite ice-cream store. NOOOOO, it is no longer there! The General Store in Midhurst has been changed to a PharmaSave, pharmacist, with a small convenience store and. .. .

a Kawartha Dairy ice-cream outlet. Yeah. The ice-creams are more expensive, but they were good. We will keep this on our list of favourite riding routes.

We got back in time to help Melinda prepare Thanksgiving Dinner, my contribution was the roasted vegetables – lovely. Ralf helped in the garden.

Monday we got up early and headed out on another of our favourite routes to Orillia.

This is a 100+ km route along the shores of Lake Simcoe.

Our lunch stop was at the Mariposa Market, which has excellent baked goods, sandwiches and good coffee. Another excellent ride with beautiful fall colours.

The disadvantage of where Melinda lives is that there is no flat way to get to her house! Options are two steep hills or a two-stage hill, it goes up flattens off and then goes up again.

Over the week-end we had discussed changing our search criteria for a condo/townhouse. We had wanted to be closer to the downtown area of Barrie, it is an older part of town and consequently the condos/townhouses are older. But our favourite cycling routes start from that area. There was a condo available in the area where Melinda lives and we decided that this could be our new cycling area. We could find new routes that were varied – flat and hilly, the disadvantage is a hilly return and this area has more wind for some reason.

Tuesday we viewed a condo in the south end of Barrie, close to shops and bus routes. It was a lovely townhouse, in a nice neighbourhood. We spoke to a man that was on the condo board and another resident who were very enthusiastic about the place. The condos were well maintained with new roofs, doors and windows. Ralf and I looked at each other and we both knew we would put an offer on the place.

Wednesday our offer was accepted and we will be moving into our new home at the end of November, hopefully it is not snowing on that day.

I think we are both relieved that we have found a place within our price range, where we will be comfortable. A place to come home to from each new adventure. Yes, all our bike routes will end up with us coming up one of the three hills, but it will keep us fit for our continuing bike adventures.

The other good thing that happened was our Doctor had de-registered us, as we had been away for over a year. This means we can register with a new Doctor in Barrie.

Melinda has friends staying over for a couple of days. Val and Rick are the parents of the current World’s Pairs gold medalists in figure skating. We chatted to them about figure skating and their many and varied trips to see their son skate all around the world.

Thursday A late start to the day. We did go back to the Family Medical Unit and register for a new Doctor and I got an appointment for a mammogram. We also viewed the condo again to see if we need a home inspection. A home inspection was done one year ago, we took that report and viewed all the comments the inspector had made. The current owner has done most of the repairs. Our only concern is the air-conditioning unit. We are getting a HVAC guy in on Monday to look at it, we may be able to renegotiate the price if it needs replacing.

I stopped in at the library and picked up the latest (it came out last year) Diana Gabaldon book – I am happy, I can sit and read with no worries in the world.

Friday, a shopping and washing day. Nothing more exciting than that. The weather is getting colder and there is forecast for snow on Saturday. That’s o.k. I can read my book!

Saturday Ralf has raked the garden for Melinda and is now vacuuming the carpets. Our new condo has no garden, just a little balcony where we can probably put a couple of planters. No gardening to be done in the condo – yeah!

Saturday October 10, 2015

Our world cycling trip has come to an end for the moment!

Here\’s to all the wonderful people we have met. Here\’s to the new friends we have made, to all the inspiring conversations we have had, to all the touring cyclists we have met, and the countries we have crossed. Keeping the rubber side down and the wheels turning, thank-you to all our warmshowers hosts. Thank-you one and all.

It has been a week of ups and downs. There have been times this week, when all I wanted to do was get back on Mrs Sweetcheeks and ride, or book a flight to Bangkok or somewhere warm. Then there were times when I relished the long lie-ins, the hot showers with big fluffy towels, the comfy bed with a big pillow, eating toast with butter and having a cup of tea with milk, fresh fruit and fresh veges and cooking with more than one pot!

We have spent time finding our way around Barrie on the transit system. We wasted half a day because we stayed on the same bus instead of transferring to another bus which would have halved the journey time. We tried to register for a new doctor and were told because we already had one we could not transfer to a new one even though our old doctor is out of Town by about 12.5 kms and we have no means of getting there. We have chatted to our bank manager and we have looked at some condos and townhouses. House prices have soared in Barrie since we have been away.

We opened our storage unit, and my “Green Mean Machine (my road bike) was front and centre. She was covered in cobwebs, but we had put a lot of grease on the chain and parts and she looked as if she was raring to go.

We got the suitcases out of the unit, yeah we have clothes. When we got back to Melinda’s place we did a fun fashion show! Some clothes do fit, but none of my skirts, trousers or jeans fit, I will need new trousers, jeans etc. I hate clothes shopping, although twenty-two months wearing the same two sets of clothes has got a little boring.

We didn’t ride our bikes all week as it was cool, wet and windy, we have become wusses already.

Tomorrow we will go for a ride – on MrsSweetCheeks, we cannot clutter up Melinda’s garage with four bikes, although it would be nice to ride the Green Mean Machine.