Condé-sur-Noireau, France - 48° 51' 7" N 0° 34' 20" E

Having the hull finished at the welding shop is a major step.  Chinook now looks (mostly) like a real sailing yacht.  Super, super exciting.

Welding done, the hull is put onboard a dolly to be removed from the shop.

From the dolly, Chinook is lifted onto a truck bed for transport.

This is the fastest it will ever go!

A la prochaine!

The hull is on in its way to Cherbourg to be given a coat of paint, then fitted out with electrical, plumbing, cabinets, furniture, standing and running rigging and all sorts of other expensive bits and pieces.

Fauburg - 48° 27' 46" N 7° 28' 41" E

While in France, we get to help with the renovation of a 300+ year old house in a 1200+ year old village. Does that make it a ‘newer’ neighborhood?

We are so impressed by the work Florence is doing and her courage to take on this job.

This is Florence's new place in Obernai.  It was originally part of Fauburg.

Fauburg (light brown) was annexed by Obernai (dark brown)
somewhere between 741 and 1216 BCE

This is how it started out.  Pretty plain.

Open the walls and voila!  Beautiful beams!  Those are staying.

A big mess, but the results are going to be worth it.

The ceiling is coming down, too.  More timber beams!

A picture from the attic, looking down at the carnage.

One room mostly clean.

Sandblasting the timber beams.

New and old wall coverings, new and old timber beams

Framed walls to hold the insulation, new windows and electrical conduit.

Framing around the timber beams.

Starting to take shape!

Lunch at the hopefully-soon renovated farmhouse across the lane.

Looking from the family room into the living room, with
the future kitchen to the left.

Looking from the living room, kitchen on the right (behind the fireplace)
and family room on the left.

A makeshift kitchen is set up on the ground floor.

Shelves and coffee/tea station on the ground floor.

Progress has been made and Florence and the kids are able to live in it while the renovations take place.

It is really starting to look beautiful.

Leaving Canmore - 51° 05' 03" N 115° 22' 07" W

It's our last night in Canmore. Tomorrow, we head to Calgary then a Paris-bound plane on Tuesday.  It is both incredibly exciting but also a little odd. It has been a bigger challenge than we had anticipated, packing up our perfect life.  We love living in Canmore with all the fun activities and a marvellous circle of friends.  Leaving now, as the snow has melted and the trees have leaves with the anticipation of summer, is particularly tough.  And weird that our bikes have been sold. 

We rode the tandem for the last time.  We have loved that bike.  It is a great way to get around town and you can chat as you go. Many non-cycling friends and even Mum have been ridden round on the tandem.  So many great memories. It was a tough one to part with. 

Best way to get around town - and now, she is sold.

Paring down on things that we will no longer need has been frightfully difficult. The spare ski jackets, the extra bike helmets, ice skates, xc ski boots - we can usually round up enough gear for all our visitors.  And now we find ourselves running a big stack of sports equipment to Switching Gear to sell.  What if we do need it?  The coffin (Thule roof bin for the car), the bike stand, the chalk bags, the baskets of toques and scarves and gloves. Good grief! Life as we know it is changing.  

The really weird thing is we are not leaving Canmore immediately.  We have two weeks between our house being rented and us heading for France.  And even then, we are not moving onto our boat, it will not be finished until February.  We are sailing and racing on a friend's Garcia Exploration 52 then are back in Canada for the Dempster Odyssey. We will be hosting friends and family at Adrienne and Ray's (who have kindly allowed us to use their home) - weird!  We will then be in Australia on Popeye before our boat is splashed. 

 So we need to have stuff for those activities. We need to organise and sort and figure out what is needed in France, what to take up the Dempster and onboard Popeye.  And what we need on Popeye and in France or in France and on the Dempster etc... Stress levels are high. This is a much more challenging exercise than we had anticipated.  And then there is that precious stuff.  My Grandmother's hat block, Sean's chest of swimming medals, every letter Craig Douglas ever wrote me - what to do with these?? 

A small selection of the huge box of letters from Craig

The last few days in our house were so overwhelming, we just threw things into boxes.  Boxes haphazardly marked 'Even More Jackets', 'The Last Box' and 'Stuff'. So we arrive at Adrienne and Ray's with a slimmed down but yet still somewhat voluminous pile of poorly catalogued boxes. 

So with the pressure off to be out of the house, we set about further reducing, sorting and packing. We packed up 150kg of household things to air freight to France to pick up when we arrive.  Shipping things saves us from having to buy them.  Things such as duvets, sheets, towels, tools, books, cutlery, knives, bannetons, chopping boards, coasters, quilts, blankets and, of course, Sean's guitar.  Using vacuum bags and Tetris skills, we packed everything into Rubbermaid bins and zip-tied the lids.

  

This is the hodge-podge in mid-process (sorry for
the mess, Adrienne and Ray!)

Packed, labelled and ready to ship. 
Next time we see you, we will be in France!

Thanks Karen for being such an AWESOME sister-in-law and getting
 us an employee discount on Air Canada Freight

So now we are off to Calgary.  Farewell to Canmore for the time being but on our return in August, our world will be very different.