Monday 9 May, 2011 We go shopping in Sydney

We now have our workshop in the woods taking shape: it’s almost a little rural industrial space. Michael will take logs and produce lumber, from beams to trim. He can build anything, it seems. But before we go on the Masterbuilder has to see an eye specialist. Mary-Anne thinks he needs checking, so checked he will be. We hook up the trailer, which is now without license plate and one light and clearly not very legal even if from Quebec, and head off through the rain to Sydney to fetch doors from Home Depot. It is raining hard now, no doubt part of the Welcome Week activities arranged for us by the Cape Breton Tourist Board. 80 kms along the lakeside road. I drop Michael, then call at Seaside’s office to get the address of their outgoing server. Amazing how nice everyone is here, how they take time to chat, how they obviously find us as fascinating as we find them. A bit like Jacques Cartier on the banks of the St Lawrence back in the 16th century. Then a walk around a very bourgeois furniture shop, Schwartz, which makes me wonder where are all the people who’ll buy and live with this type of furniture. Very heavy, very comfy, like a store full of LazyBoys. Then on to Staples where I can’t find a few file folders but have to buy a package of 100 which I suppose will be useful if we run out of IKEA cardboard for the wood stove. Then to Walmart for sandpaper, lights for the trailer and floss. I can’t find any of them. I ask an “associate” who also doesn’t know. He’ll find someone to help. He finds no one. We stumble on the lights, then sandpaper... I leave a trolley with stuff in it to go off and search: another “associate” takes my trolley and replaces things back on their racks where no doubt I won’t be able to find them... Late for Michael, then 2 hours in Home Depot talking to a man who went to school at Mac High, just across the road from us in Sainte-Anne. How did he end up here?
How did I end up here? What are we doing?
It’s still light at 8pm when we drag 7 doors up two hills to home. HOME. There, I said it. In less than a week Cape Breton has conquered me.