This is the story of my life so far: 68 years and counting.
Prequel: A Brief History of my Family in France

The story starts here
Previous episode: Part 61

New Furniture

When we arrived in Halifax, we did not bring any furniture. As the apartment we rented was unfurnished, we had to by some furniture, at least a bed, a table and some chairs.

We discovered a Swedish store named IKEA. We had never heard of IKEA, because in 1979, IKEA had not yet open any store in France. The first French IKEA store opened in 1981. These days, there are 32 IKEA stores in France.

We bought a queen size bed at IKEA. This bed is still in one of the bedrooms at the Abbey.

We did not want to buy cheap furniture, so we looked for quality furniture store.
We discovered a French guy that was selling European furniture and household items.
From his store, we bought a table and six chairs, manufactured in Denmark, if I remember correctly. The chairs lasted for 25 years, and the table is still somewhere in my week-end house, but it is not used anymore.

We also bought there a rather large bookcase, that is still in use in my week-end house in Harrison Hot Springs.

Bookcase bought in Halifax in 1979

New Friends

My predecessor introduced us to their circle of French speaking friends, that quickly became our friends.

I remember two couples from Quebec.
I don't remember the names of the first couple. The husband had been a building contractor and the family had lived for at least seven years in trailers, moving where he found work. He was starting most of his sentences with the phrase "autrement dit" (in other words), and I found that funny.

The other couple was François Delisle and his wife. François was an officer in the Canadian Navy, but he was also an amateur painter. I remember his name, because I bought several of his paintings, including this one that is hung in our bedroom and that I like very much.

As a NATO exchange officer, every month I was allowed to buy free of taxes 12 bottles of wine or 6 bottles of spirit.

For my birthday, in October 1979, we had invited our new friends for dinner Sunday night. I had bought 12 bottles of French champagne for this occasion. The invitation was for 7PM.

We had cooked all afternoon. At 7:30PM, nobody had arrived yet.
As we knew that in Canada when you are invited for dinner, everybody arrives on time, which is not always the case in France.
So, we called one of our friends to ask what was happening, and we were told that the night before was the end of daylight saving time. Nobody was late, we just did not know what time it was!

In any case, we had a good time during this dinner.
And we had many more dinners with our francophone friends during the three years we stayed in Halifax.

Continue to Part 63

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Summary
Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5 - Part 6 - Part 7 - Part 8
Part 9 - Part 10 - Part 11 - Part 12 - Part 13 - Part 14 - Part 15 - Part 16
Part 17 - Part 18 - Part 19 - Part 20 - Part 21 - Part 22 - Part 23 - Part 24
Part 25 - Part 26 - Part 27 - Part 28 - Part 29 - Part 30 - Part 31 - Part 32
Part 33 - Part 34 - Part 35 - Part 36 - Part 37 - Part 38 - Part 39 - Part 40
Part 41 - Part 42 - Part 43 - Part 44 - Part 45 - Part 46 - Part 47 - Part 48
Part 49 - Part 50 - Part 51 - Part 52 - Part 53 - Part 54 - Part 55 - Part 56
Part 57 - Part 58 - Part 59 - Part 60 - Part 61