Returning Home After a Long Absence

Followers of this blog know that I’ve written about the trials and tribulations of adjusting to life in a new location. (See, for example, Settling in to Island Life.) Today I had the startling realization that there can also be many frustrations in returning to your home base. I think after our previous sabbaticals we were just so excited to be back among our friends that we didn’t stop to think about the hassles involved in re-establishing our lives. We are certainly every bit as delighted to see our friends and family again as in previous times. (Although I’m waiting a few days before seeing them, to be sure we didn’t get Covid on the way back.) Yet it feels different this time; the joy is tempered by several niggling negatives.

There’s a hazard to having rented a big, beautiful house while away: our apartment here seems tiny and old. Yes, it still has a lovely view and, objectively, it’s a reasonable size. But my mind needs to readjust to the dimensions. And the building is getting a little down at the heel. We don’t want the hassles of owning a condo, nor of renovating one, but I understand the appeal of being able to upgrade to more modern standards and tastes. We may ultimately revisit our no-ownership decision.

I stepped out on one of our two lovely balconies in the warm sunshine yesterday afternoon (part of what we love about this apartment unit) and discovered that pigeons had roosted in the shed area at the end of the balcony. So job #1 was cleaning out huge amounts of bird poop and hanging sheeting to keep them out of there till they accept that it’s our space again, not theirs. All evening they were swooping to the corner, then sitting disconsolately on the edge of the balcony till I came to chase them away. I’m not seeing them today, but I’m keeping the plastic sheeting up for a few more days just in case!

We’ve both had scratchy throats, stuffed up noses, and fatigue since returning about 36 hours ago. Covid tests are negative (so far). I think it is just travel fatigue and allergies. Our house is, of course, quite dusty from our nearly 6-month absence, and there’s plenty of snow mold outside at this time of year. I realize that my nasal passages were clear in a warm, humid climate in a way they never are here. (On the other hand, I got way more bug bites there! Trade-offs are everywhere.)

We knew our car battery would be dead and our good friend, Kevin, had volunteered to give us a boost when we returned. DH had had the foresight to back into our parking space before we went travelling, so it was possible to reach the battery with the jumper cables and they seemed to work fine. We went driving for about 25 minutes, then stopped at a mall to get DH’s phone service reinstated (more on that below). When the clicker didn’t work to lock the car doors, we thought at first that maybe the clicker battery had died. But no, alas, the car battery had not held the charge at all. Called Roadside Assistance and, despite it being a clear, sunny day, they told me the estimated wait time for a boost was over 400 minutes!!!! So much for that service.

On the plus side, in this part of the world many people do carry jumper cables, so I didn’t have to ask many for help before one gave us another boost. This time we drove on the highway for an hour (good thing we’d left the car with enough gas in it!). Got home and … same thing: no battery charge. Apparently “modern” cars, with all their onboard electronics, need to be driven at least once a week. And a fully discharged battery won’t come back to life. This problem has come to light big-time with so many people not driving regularly during the pandemic. So tomorrow we’ll have to get towed to somewhere that can replace the battery for us. In a car that only has 15,00 km on it!

Another frustration: trying to reconnect our phones. We wanted to keep our Canadian telephone numbers while travelling but when you are away for several months it makes no sense to pay the phone companies the $12-15 a day(!) they want for their travel packages. Several people had suggested using Fongo, a free Canadian-based wifi phone service. For $15/month, Virgin will let you park your phone number, and I already had a Fongo number I used for business, so I just transitioned to that and used a Spanish SIM card with a different number there. Since that looked like it was working, we ported DH’s Virgin number to a Fongo number instead of paying to keep it going and using a different number out of country. Mistake. First of all, Fongo’s service was terrible. Lousy sound quality (especially on his phone), it often hangs up a few minutes into calls, and sometimes won’t dial them at all.

Anyway, to get him back on a proper service here in Canada, they need his account number from Fongo so he can keep that same telephone number. We have no idea what that account number is, and Fongo support often takes a few days before replying. So, stymied there too.

I know that in another day or two all this will melt away, along with the rest of the snow outside (she says optimistically, ignoring Tuesday’s weather forecast). Thinking back to other long absence returns we’ve had over the years, this isn’t a patch on what I went through when we returned from our first sabbatical. I was pregnant with our first child, and OHIP (the Ontario Health Insurance Plan) had apparently cut off my coverage, despite multiple conversations giving them our departure and return dates. I battled with them for months, as my pregnancy got heavier and heavier, and my doctor’s office and medical labs got increasingly testy about the fact that their bills weren’t being paid. Finally, after I’d written a detailed letter to the Minister of Health, I got a call on Christmas Eve from his Executive Assistant assuring me he’d get it fixed. And it was, just in time for my baby’s arrival two weeks later.