Every story has a start, a middle and an end.  This story has started, it’s too new to have a middle and who knows when or where it may end.

The start: quite by serendipity.  Serendipitous for me, not so for the person I was working for as she was palliative and, as it turned out, passed within months of me moving into her lovely heritage home.

I had a dog at the time and I had explained to the person responsible for my client’s affairs that I’d need time to find a new place as a dog was a happy place for me, less so for most landlords.

“Stay on”, said she “until the estate settles. You’d be our caretaker.”  I loved that old house. I worked for my keep, helping the executor downsize and sort, and deal with a century’s worth of accumulation.

And then the house sold.  It had taken two years which meant I really was quite settled.  And I had also become good friends with my “employer”, the executor.  “I have a suite in my home just over there” she said as I packed furiously, “move in there until you figure out next moves.”  Which I did.

I knew it would be temporary as that person would be selling her place the following Spring.  The following Spring is the season I am still in.  The house sold quickly with a shorter closing than either of us reckoned on.

So decisions had to be made.

Prelude to The Prelude

I sold my last property in 2016. The plan at that time was to figure out what I wanted to keep, what I needed to keep, regroup long enough to create an action plan and do something I’d never done before.

Serendipity and I are well-acquainted and thus it was that a woman in a nearby town who never went on Craigslist was on Craigslist and saw my ad for a place to land, no lease preferred.  She offered me the suite in her home for as long as I wanted it. I was thrilled and we became fast friends until her passing three years later (18 months after I had relocated to be closer to children and grandchildren).

Closer to family: action plan never created or implemented.

Back to The Prelude

I had been making noises about galivanting for too many years. I had loved my visit to Spain for my daughter’s wedding. I had a good friend in California who had come north to visit me a couple of times, it was my turn to go south! I had a friend in the Dominican Republic who I’d been promising to visit (to meet in person, actually – we’d met online years ago and never in person). And, most recently, there’s a connection to The Cayman Islands.

I’m feeling the boot on my butt calling my bluff.

Soooo…. I’m making decisions:

• renting would mean a year’s lease, so will be avoided
• Spring and Summer in Victoria are pretty nice so I’ll stay for now
• somewhere on this website you’ll find listings for things for us to do in “retirement” – included is house- and pet-sitting.
• I enjoy pets and have experience with a pretty impressive collection of them
• my 30+ years of home ownership gave me lots of experience for house-sitting
• friends have been trusting me with those responsibilities for years
• staying here allows me to keep my dementia clients and my income until I pay off Canada Revenue (I’m not a delinquent! Apparently I earned enough last year to have the CRA rub their hands together in glee!)
• setting up a profile on Trusted House-sitters was pretty easy

And so my Life With No Fixed Address begins!