The Time has Come

The idea of moving to Nova Scotia came to me a few years back when a colleague of mine told me his family was packing up and heading east. He showed me pictures of the house they bought in Halifax and was thrilled with the profit they would garner from the sale of their home in Ontario. More than the money they would pocket, he couldn’t wait for the adjustment to his pace, work-life balance and overall quality of life.

Curiosity led me to check out some Halifax real estate online and I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. And compared to Ontario and the greater Toronto area, the prices were very agreeable.

I’ve lived my whole life here: Toronto, Thornhill, Richmond Hill. I announced to my family that it was time for a change. I was met with a resounding, Are you crazy?! Maybe, but I started to regularly share my intention that one day, when the time was right, when the kids were finished high school, when I retired from teaching, when I was prepared to leave family and friends, that I would relocate to Nova Scotia. In the meantime, there were several boxes that would still need to be checked.

The joke in my family was that I wanted to move to a place that I had never been. I had only visited

the neighbourhoods of Halifax and surrounding towns online, reading up on places I could envision living. I studied the maps and tried to get a sense of it all.

Sophie, my older daughter, was the first one in our family to actually physically travel to Halifax this summer with her boyfriend, Taylor. They loved it and upon their return confirmed their intention to move there one day very soon. The Halifax bug was contagious!

The second conspicuous sign came from my younger daughter, who started at Dalhousie University this fall, a choice that involved many discussions, as she also had a chance to attend OCAD in Toronto for fine arts,

Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia

a tremendous passion of hers. But the chance to leave the province and experience a completely novel setting won out, and so I joined her Labour Day weekend to help settle her into her student residence in Halifax.

For three nights, I stayed in a lovely downtown hotel, and by day I wandered the charming streets, explored the waterfront

shopped in cute boutiques and ate great food. And to scratch an itch, I had reached out to a real estate agent prior to the trip to see if she could show me a couple properties along the south shore, having decided that a small town outside of the city would be an ideal one-day home.

Martins River was one of the beautiful properties we viewed, a two hundred year old, two-story peach of a house on over an acre of gently undulating grass, bordered by a river along one side, facing a strait leading into the Atlantic Ocean.

Inside, the home had the most awe-inspiring mouldings, beams, slanted ceilings, stone fireplaces, and wide plank wooden flooring. My mouth hung open for the duration of our visit, while occasionally uttering interjections, trying to avoid any drool from landing on the wooden countertops.

Sadly, this special abode was already conditionally sold. Besides, I wasn’t quite ready to take the plunge, so said thank you and goodbye to my wonderful tour guides, indicating that this was exactly what I was looking for and would be in touch in 7-9 months, at which time I’d be ready to search in earnest.

About a week later, I received a call from the real estate agent. The financing fell through on the offer. Martins River would be back on the market the next day. Unfortunately, she would not be able to represent me, should I be interested, as she had another client interested in MY home, hence had a conflict of interest.

At that point, I can only describe my actions as purely outcome driven, led by years of dreaming about this moment and owning the decision that I had already made, timing not always perfectly harmonious. The intense feeling I had in that house also told me this was an opportunity for which I should move a few mountains.

Within ten minutes, I found a new agent, Amy Fisher, and put in a call. She was on it. She set me up with a mortgage broker and lawyer and we put in our offer. Two days later, I received the call. We got it!

The offer was accepted the day before my 53rd birthday. Ours was one of three offers. I felt a huge burst of sunshine from the universe and felt wholly that this was the home I was meant to have.

For the next month, in between cleaning, decluttering, and preparing our family home to be sold, reading and signing documents, setting up financing, arranging shipping, power, etc., I’ve dreamt of what I want to do, room by room, in my beautiful new, old country home.

You can check in here, where I’ll be posting updates and also follow my Instagrams: @onmartinsriver and @spottedjoydotcom

The time has come for a new adventure and I couldn’t be more elated. Elated to make the South Shore of Nova Scotia my new home for Spotted Joy and for new experiences living in Atlantic Canada.