Hello from Lindsay & Kelly in Canada

Introductions
#1

Hello, TH community! So great to see this message board up, what a fab space & resource.

My partner Kelly and I live in Ontario, Canada. Specifically in Prince Edward County, which is a gorgeous little rural community between Toronto and Ottawa.

I grew up in the UK and Ireland and came to Canada from the UK when I was 12, now I usually spend 3 or 4 months of the year in the UK visiting family and exploring. I work remotely in online marketing so I am able to take my job with me, and Kelly works in film so has less flexibility but joins me on my adventures whenever she can.

I’ve been a TH member for a few years and done 9 or 10 sits, we have also had sitters for our own home previously. I absolutely love the idea and community of Trusted Housesitters, the homeowners we’ve met so far have been wonderful, warm people and we have been lucky enough to sit some amazing pets in fantastic locations.

So far we have done sits in Canada, England, Scotland and the US. We hope to do many more sits once we are able to travel again!

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#2

Welcome @Lindsay and Kelly … so glad you have joined us!! Thank you for sharing your story we can’t wait to hear more and share in your THS adventures.

We love having you in our space and in our community, enjoy the conversation and getting to know other members!!

Angela & The Team

#3

Welcome Lindsay,
I went for an exchange of homes on Prince edward island. Different location than Prince Edward county ?

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#4

Hi Provence, yes PEI is about 1500 km away from me! Love it as well though, we visited a few years ago and had a fantastic time.

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#5

That’s the problem with Northern america : the distances. The first time we flew to Vancouver, for an exchange of homes, my husband could not believe we were seeing from the window the St Laurent during hours…

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#6

It’s so true. My family in England shudder at the thought of a 3 hour drive and laugh at me when I measure distance in the amount of hours it takes to drive from A to B. I love that driving just a few hours in Europe takes you to different worlds, I think PEI was about 16 hours when we drove out there from here!

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#7

@Lindsay years ago, before I had a husband and kids, 2 friends and I had a holiday where we drove about half way across Canada. We’d been in Montreal for the Formula 1 Grand Prix, then flew to Vancouver and hired a car. We had a couple of nights in Seattle, then back into Canada and started our journey. We travelled through British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and finished off in Winnipeg, Manitoba. So many places I vowed to revisit but haven’t done yet! We found it amazing that in the prairies you’d see the next town and it only looked a short distance away, but an hour later we seemed no nearer! Maybe once the world returns to normal we can explore Canada again by housesitting.

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#8

Wow @Debbie that’s quite a trip. Sounds like you’ve almost seen more of Canada than I have! I haven’t made it to Saskatchewan or Manitoba yet.

#9

@Lindsay I think I’d prefer to take it slower and spend more time in places next time! I’ve spent a lot of time in Montreal, and also visited Quebec CIty, Toronto, Niagara and Ottowa. The 1000 islands area on the St Lawrence River was one of my favourite places too. I’d love to show the children some of the places, and by the time that’s possible, they will hopefully be old enough to not be complete pains on the long flight!

#10

We live quite close to the 1000 islands, and Kelly is actually from Kingston. It’s a fantastic area. You’ll have to try the east coast next time, Halifax, Nova Scotia is well worth a visit too!

#11

@Debbie @Lindsay that’s some trip …

In 1982 we moved from Edmonton AB to Halifax NS, the company was going to fly myself, husband and two children (9 & 1) but wanted to transport our beloved Springer by road … that was a NO for me and we decided to all go by road.

Off we set. The whole journey almost from coast to coast, took us 8 days and this was before hotels were as doggy friendly as they are now, smuggling Holly into our room at 2.00 am and then trying to cover up her barks in the morning when she heard housekeeping was a challenge which we laughed about afterwards.

Out of all three children, she was the best behaved throughout the whole journey.

Canada is such a diverse country … a beautiful one and one which is perfect for slow, pet and housesitting travel.

Thank you both.

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#12

@Angela-CommunityManager Oh my goodness what a journey in only 8 days! It must have been rather stressful trying to smuggle Holly into the hotel. Definitely something you’d have a giggle about afterwards though!

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#13

What a trip! And how funny about smuggling Holly into the hotels! I’ve always felt a little ashamed of how little I’ve travelled within Canada, when we have the time & money we usually go to Europe, so we’ve been rectifying that over the last few years.

We’ve road tripped from here in Ontario to PEI and all around Nova Scotia and New Brunswick which was great fun, and in 2019 we flew to Calgary and then drove to Vancouver and toured around BC a bit. Will hopefully see the Rocky Mountains again someday!

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#14

@Lindsay Yes we definitely visited Kingston. We still have polarized sunglasses we bought there. Lenses are now very scratched but they’ve outlasted any sunglasses we’ve bought since! I think we stayed in Rockport in a lovely little place overlooking the river. I’d love to visit the east coast too.

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#15

We’ve been swapping homes in Prince Edward Island, new brunschvig (shelburn), Quebec (cantons de l’est, Montreal, Quebec, Malbaie) B C (Victoria, Vancouver, Hornby)
Love your country
Hope to sit there or swap again

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