The Twist Part

A week after our one night camping trip in Oliver, we were back there again, just for the day.  Four hours driving each way. We shared the driving and it went better than I thought.  We even went for another swim in Tuc-el-Nuit Lake.  We bought more fruit on the way home, and took a side trip in Manning Park.  There is a 15 km road that winds up, way up, to some alpine meadows.  It was evening by this time, and we were loosing the light, and finally decided that it was really too late to go that far.  We settled for going halfway and stopped at the viewpoint.

Here's the view from left to right

Larry was standing too close to the edge for my liking.  It was a long way down.  The wind was gusting.  The only consolation was that it would probably blow him into the sign.

That's the highway and the lodge down there

A week later Larry went back to Oliver on his own, then to Kelowna to visit relatives and stay overnight, and he also brought more fruit back with him.  Nectarines and peaches this time.  Ripe nectarines smell divine. 

All these trips to Oliver were not just about buying fruit. 

They were about buying this.

Meet Wyndson Cottage.

Okay, this really isn't what it looks like, but it could be, with a paint and reroofing job, and that addition out the front.

Yes, we've bought a tiny old 600+ sq. ft. house, on an approximately 60 x 100' lot in the old part of town.

When we first visited Oliver, we really liked what we found there.  We had fun just hopping on our bikes at the campsite and riding over to the store.  We liked the weather.  It gets pretty hot there in the summer, but gets about a fifth of the rain that we get.  These last couple of years I've lost my tolerance for all the rain and the cold, late non-Springs that we have been having.  The physical work required here to keep things looking half decent, combined with physical ailments is becoming a bit much. All that rain means things, particularly weeds and grass, grow at an alarming rate.  Since we don't have many animals now, it's hard to keep up with the beating back of the jungle.  We enjoy our ten acres, but are sort of ready to give something else a try.  So the plan is to use this house to test out how much we really do like Oliver.  To go there and stay for a week or two at a time and see if Oliver is a place that we'd be happy to retire to.  

A friend told me she thought we were smart to do it that way.  She knows of some that have sold up and moved to their retirement town, and then regretted the decision.

It would take us ages to sort out everything here and actually sell the place.  My mum is in a care home 40 minutes away.  We haven't finished sorting everything out to sell her place. 

We aren't ready to cut the mooring lines and sail away for good, but can hopefully enjoy time in both places before making a final decision.  

And if we find that in the end we really don't like Oliver, no harm done, we still have the farm.

It's not all bought and paid for yet, but by the middle of October it will be ours and the bank's.

It's all VERY exciting!