We move to Victoria

In April of 1990 we gathered up Harley,the pets, loaded up the old panel truck I still had possession of, the Jeep and the rest went by moving van.
Mum had once again come to the rescue in finding us a very nice duplex on Fairfield Road who would allow our pets.

We were pleasantly surprised to find it in a very decent neighbourhood not far from my brother's house and not far from the ocean.

My Mum lived only about 20 minutes' walk away too which made visiting very convenient.

The big hurdle was to find a job and I began the daily ritual again of walking down to the Canada Employment Office and following up on any leads I could find.

I responded to a short ad posted in the Times Colonist for an apartment maintenance man and was soon contacted by Mr. Alan Wilson who invited me to meet him at his building-Viscount Manor on Rockland Avenue, only about 15 minutes walk from home.

It was a well kept older 40 suite building overlooking a historic cemetery bordering on downtown.

Al explained my duties were to arrive each morning, (not before nine to avoid disturbing the tenants) and carry out routine cleaning and yard care as well as respond to any requests for repairs to units and was given authority to carry out any work I felt confident in tackling.

At least I had something to do even if it only took a few hours per day.

I developed a liking for the job very quickly and enjoyed helping the various tenants, many of whom were seniors as was the live-in management couple who I saw daily to get my repair requests from.

Al was very pleased with my work and soon raised my pay to whopping $9.00 an hour!
I painted suites when they became vacant which gave me extra hours and Al complimented me on my skill and speed.

The only other extra work there was during the one severe winter when a big snowfall caused leaks in    the flat roof and Al called in a panic one evening asking me to shovel off the roof which I did in a few hours.

He also had me come to the large home he and his wife owned in Oak Bay to help Mrs. Wilson get her large terraced garden into shape every few months.
this was fun for me and I was treated like a family member and fed delicious lunches and cake for coffee breaks.
Mrs. Wilson had a large and  enviable collection of dahlias  and gave me tubers from some for my own garden.

I continued looking for work, but now was trying to find something that would dovetail with my other job and soon saw a listing for evening janitors which I applied for.

I was contacted to report to the offices of Emchuck Janitorial services on Jutland Avenue and upon arriving saw it to be located in the basement of an old house surrounded by commercial buildings.
Chuck Mowbray was seated behind the desk of a dishevelled office surrounded by janitorial equipment that exuded the aroma of stale mops.

Chuck reminded me of Jack Palance and was a large, well built man who looked intimidating, but I was later to learn was a very nice guy to work for.
Chuck seemed eager to put me to work and gave me the choice of graveyard cleaning of a legion building, or 3-10 p.m. doing the cleaning of one floor of the federal government forestry building on Burnside Road.

That suited me better and Chuck arranged for me to report that same afternoon to begin at the short-staffed facility.

I arrived at the large complex and was impressed with the design of the new section(right side of photo) that featured an atrium 4 stories high with naturally lit skylights of glass.

There were janitors to work each floor due to the size of the building, but I soon found the six hour shifts more than enough time to have easily cleaned two floors per man if they were so motivated.

We were required to stay until 10 as we had to sign in and out at a guard desk.

I had several new characters to work with including Tim "Slurpy" Dalman, so named by his habit of noisily drinking his coffee.

I was shown the duties by a thin cowboy-like fellow also named Tim who looked and sounded like Sam Elliott.

Tim was an easy going fellow who had worked in the custodial field for many years and taught me many efficient and time saving methods of work.

We had a very relaxed pace of work and Tim would often poke his head around a corner as he looked for me on my floor to invite me up to the roof while he had a smoke.

The caterers of the coffee shop on the main floor kindly saved the donuts and coffee leftover for us to enjoy at our 6 p.m. first break. These we often took by elevator to the roof on pleasant evenings which seemed frequent on remembering.

I soon had my duties well learned, but due to the very interesting labs and libraries I cleaned I was not often bored by the tedium and with the lenient time allowance I found extra cleaning to do to pass the night.

Again my employer was pleased with my performance and after a few months I was offered a transfer to single-handed maintenance of the Dominion Astrophysical Observatory complex in West Saanich.

Resembling a small town, the group of buildings were nestled in a forested area high up a winding road to the top of a small mountain where the telescope (the world's largest in 1918) overlooked the area.


I had equipment in several locations so I didn't have to haul it around the complex.
Most of the work was done by the staff earlier in the day and late at night when the viewings took place.

There was one large building that was seldom used where large mirrors were polished for the big observatory in Hawaii. It featured heated floors which were left on year round. On the few cold days I experienced it was pleasant to nip into the building to warm up.

Another bonus was that once my work was done I was allowed by Chuck to go home. as long as there were no complaints, he said.

I could usually have everything done within 4 hours and was complemented by the staff how they found everything cleaner than they had ever seen it.
I was able to implement a composting operation by placing covered buckets in the lunchroom with signs asking for organic wastes to be put in them which I hauled home for my garden's compost pile.

Even though I had the two jobs and Shelagh was working full time at a Buy & Sell Newspaper office we were still losing ground due to the high rents.

This time Shelagh's brother, Floyd came to the rescue in 1992.

We had been trying to find a way to relocate up to some small interior area where costs were lower and there was work available.

Floyd and his wife RayAna had fallen in love with Nelson on a holiday visit and were planning a similar move, however after buying a house there they were unable to make the move for over 6 months and offered us the opportunity to rent the house and get established before they came up the next year.
It seemed the right thing for us and we gave notice to our employers and settled on September to make the transition.

Fortunately Chuck was in a position of having to lay off someone due to a lost contract and gave me the layoff which enabled me to collect employment insurance while searching for a new job.

Everything was in order for our next adventure.