Moving

John's cousin Janice and her husband Jim always find apartments with beautiful views. There'll be lots of sunset photos from this spot on the balcony of their new place at the University of B.C. Photo by John.

Janice and Jim were both students at UBC many years ago, so this move has brought them back to their beginnings. 

The dining room with its sky and cloud view.

Janice and Jim are impressed with the variety of great food in their new neighbourhood. On Wednesday, we tried the local pizza take-out place. 

As people who haven't moved house in four decades, John and I get a bit of a vicarious thrill out of observing those who do. How do they make that decision? we wonder. What's it like to abandon the well-known and wake up to different windows, different neighbours, a new location?

John's cousin Janice and her husband Jim have given us a glimpse of a more transient world, with their rentals in three different Vancouver apartment towers in the last few years. After they sold their house in Victoria, they bought a house in Palm Springs for the winters, but in summer,  they like to experiment  in Vancouver.

There was the light-filled apartment on the English Bay waterfront, with views of the ocean and an ever-changing scene of  walkers, swimmers, bikers, tightrope performers and buskers. There was the smaller apartment with peek-a-boo views of the waters of Lost Lagoon, and the seaplanes flitting in and out of Coal Harbour. And now there's a spacious penthouse with 180-degree views over the University of B.C. campus -- buildings, trees, clouds, and in the distance, the ocean and the blue shapes of Vancouver Island.

For John and me, rooted as we are in our Dunbar home, it's been a fun journey: From English Bay to Lost Lagoon to the University of B.C. without packing or unpacking a single box.

The master bedroom is big enough to accommodate Janice's painting studio too.

From the window, beautiful fall foliage.

Richard, Janice and Jim's son, is their personal IT department. After the pizza, he brought their tech devices up to scratch. Richard is in the foreground; his dad in the background. Photo by John.

Richard finds answers to his mother's questions about the ever-mystifying world of technology. Photo by John.