This came out of the blue! But not really, because a few years ago I got an email from someone who had just bought my childhood home on 20 Victoria Avenue, Chatham, Ontario, Canada (and I used to like to rhyme off the whole address because I loved the rhythm of it!). He had found my several blog posts about growing up in Chatham (I'll try to find a link to some of them), followed the trail and got in touch with me. The house had been converted into offices after we sold it in the early '70s, which made me sad, so to see that it had been converted back into a home and that people were going to live in it (including young children) filled me with gladness.
But now the house is on the market again, and the fellow actually sent me a link to a YouTube video made by the realtor. So I get to see what the inside is like today (virtually ALL different, except for the gorgeous outside, and the layout of the living room and bathrooms). This was a very strange feeling indeed, and it could only happen via the internet. To see a tiny little thumbnail picture of my ancestral home was an odd, wondrous feeling. The place looks well-kept and well-loved, with its magnificent hardwood floors bared at last (we stuck grotty wall-to-wall carpeting down on it back then, because hardwood floors were for poor people and wall-to-wall was the height of luxury). My goodness, this is like me re-discovering my long-dyed, natural grey hair and actually loving it. There MUST be some good surprises in life.
