We moved into our neighborhood around 10 months ago. It’s a nice quiet place in the suburbs outside of Toronto. We have a nice yard, garden, our very own trees and an amazing house. Lucky for us the previous owners did all the upgrades and renovations and we were able to move right in without having to change much at all.
Although we LOVE the house, gourmet kitchen, fireplace, loads of space…even for all my tons of business stuff, by far the greatest thing has to be our neighbors. These are the type you read about but normally never meet. The kind that make you say, "geez, I want to be grow up to be just like him/her".
We’ve lived in plenty of fancy neighborhoods, Montreal, Victoria, Quebec City, Edmonton, France, Nice, Toronto etc, but never have I had a neighbor come over and actually help me offer to move over 100 35 lb boxes into my basement. Normally I have to pay $150/hr to a moving crew for that. Nope, my neighbor actually saw I just had this massive delivery of 4 palettes to my garage and OFFERED to come over and help move them into the basement. The husband and the wife came over and helped together! When I think about it I’m still stunned. Who does that nowadays? Actually offers to help you move stuff? I thought I’d won the lottery.
Their generosity doesn’t end there. I had my girlfriend come for a visit a couple weeks ago. She accidentally locked us out of my house. Just so happened my neighbor was outside and I asked him if he might be able to lend us a hand. Well not only did he manage to jimmy one of the windows in the back open without breaking anything, he actually lifted himself up through the tiny little hole and got in the house and came around and opened the door. Like he was from Cirque du Soleil or something. It was amazing! The guy is STRONG! Needless to say, they now have endless supplies of scrapbooking products whenever they like.
My other neighbors cut our grass in the front yard every 10 days and have offered up all of their yard tools to me whenever I want.
Apparently there will be a block party and fireworks celebration on Canada Day and another party in August for the people in our crescent.
This has opened my eyes. People are still friendly, open, caring and nice. I know now that we can all make each day a little better for everyone, one neighbor at a time.
