Before I left London, my friend Gaby suggested that I write a blog of my experiences in Montreal. Gaby is usually full of good ideas, but I wasn’t sure about this one. I’m not particularly one for blowing my own trombone and I’m not entirely sure anyone would be that interested. But once I arrived and went to email people to tell them we’d got here safe and sound, I realised that there were a lot of people I wanted to tell. Somehow group emails always feel a bit impersonal, and you probably know my thoughts on Facebook! Selfishly, I thought, this might be a nice way to keep a diary of our experiences here and for me to dust off my old writing skills, which haven’t been used in some time. And if close friends would like to have a read, then great. But just a few ground rules for myself – this is not a blog about children, and it’s not a blog about food – although both may feature here and there. It’s not a blog about being a mother and it’s not a blog about being Englishwoman abroad. It’s just some observations about our time here. I have always wanted to live in Canada, ever since I visited it with my parents at the age of 16 – even before, as my grandad was in fact from Montreal. So now I’m actually here. This is a blog about that! And another rule, I hope people will respond and I promise to still email personally as often as possible!

So, it’s a week in and I’m sitting with a beer and spaghetti, on the sixth floor of a tower block overlooking Montreal. It’s pretty humid today, although I’ve been told this is nothing compared to how humid it will get. But I’m not complaining as it’s been lovely and sunny and the evenings are warm and relaxed. In some ways it feels like we’ve been here longer than a week. We’ve seen about ten properties and I feel quite attached already to our local high street, Avenue Monkland – more of that another time. 

But back to our accommodation. We’re on the sixth floor of the ugliest building in the neighbourhood – a fact that I find embarrassing to tell locals! When I woke up this morning we were surrounded by fog which gradually wore off to produce a lovely, sunny day. A bit like my head clearing after an early wake up call from Cherry! It’s a very modern place, everything is glass and pristine, I’m sure you can imagine. As I use the saucepans, frying pans, dishes and bowls I wonder if they have ever been used for the purpose for which they were made before. This is the kind of place that lone businessmen and women inhabit for brief periods whilst they work hard and eat out. But we have found one main advantage of living so loftily – we can be nosey from above! It’s a great pastime watching the world going by below. Cherry is entertained for lengthy periods by the buses and very Canadian trucks which go by and I like it as daytime turns to dusk and the odd person is seeing wandering along, or at sunset where the pink sky nestles over the city. We’re lucky enough to know we probably won’t be living in a tower block again, but it’s nice to see things from a different perspective for a while.