"It was Remembrance Day, 1987 when I came out to look at the house. I still had not contacted the owners, but I wanted to get a sense of the place. It was dismal and frightening. Rambling old cottage, colour yellow with splashes of other colours, built in the 1930's. The grounds, about one acre, were completely overgrown and worse than untidy, and there were also three dilapidated sheds and outbuildings. There was tremendous natural beauty, but so neglected and untended, with huge piles of rubbish everywhere overgrown by blackberry vines, ivy and weeds. I looked in the windows and it was such a jumbled and cluttered and filthy mess that I didn't know how anyone could ever have lived in there. But I knew that this house was going to be my next stop. I somehow could see how this place could look once I had worked on it for a while. Perhaps a great long while.
"I came out again a few evenings later, where I met the owners, a couple in their thirties. It turned out that the husband, Derek, I had known when we were both high school students in Richmond, though we went to different schools. but we did have a friend in common, for me, an acquaintance. His wife was German, older, very beautiful, and looked like Marlene Dietrich would have looked had she been a hippy. I agreed to rent the house, and the rent did promise to be very affordable, and almost immediately I began to work on the place. I spent weeks with a crowbar and hammer, just clearing out junk, scrap wood and detritus from inside the house. In the meantime, I began building a trail through the thick salal and birch wood in the back. Then I painted, and put up palm mats on the walls. Other venues of supply opened up. My father had several rugs and carpets for me, and miracle of miracles, a month later, it was ready for occupancy. I had never worked so hard in my life. I had something to be proud of: I with zero carpentry skills, had single handedly transformed a decrepit shack into an inviting and homey cottage...
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