Heart Is In Port Moody Home
Last year I got to work with an eminent Port Moody resident, fellow senior and close friend, Ann Kitching.
When Ann isn’t volunteering in our community, you might find her at her April Road home working on an art project while she takes in her beautiful view of the Inlet, or enjoying her sloping, cottage style, front and back gardens that for forty years she has enabled to thrive in their natural glory. 
Looking south out over the back garden and water view from her conservatory while tending plants on a lovely spring day in 2014, eighty-something Ann was thinking about getting older, and how a few challenges she was having with her health were hindering her. She had always done her own gardening, and was beginning to question her ability to continue.
Ann had started to think about having to sell her house so someone else could look after the garden, and that’s when I got the call. She had already spoken with her family, and decided to explore what condo living close to amenities might be like in Port Moody. Based on our conversations, four different Inlet Centre hi-rise buildings were selected for viewing.
Ann brought Barb, a longtime friend with her, and that allowed them to compare notes as they scrutinized everything. With her house as a benchmark, comparisons were easy, as she asked, “Where would the plants go?” “Those kitchen cabinets are rather small aren’t they?”
When we talked about amenities such as a swimming pool, gym, spa, etc., the strata fees of $450 to $650 monthly, provided little value to Ann.
We finished looking in Suter Brook and went back to Newport Village for a pub lunch at the St.James Well. In my mind it already seemed apparent that Ann wasn’t ready for such a drastic change of lifestyle, but over lunch we discussed the ins and outs anyway.
Ann later told me how, once home and feeling comfortable in her surroundings, she sat down, gazing out the panoramic view from her living room, over the garden into the Inlet, and thought intensely about her options.
She is home most days and uses every inch of her home, and wondered how she’d be able to manage in a condo? Ann was also surrounded by wonderful longtime friends who check on her regularly, and had just seen her through an illness.
Then I got the next call, one of joy, because she had decided that for less than the monthly condo fees she could cover most of her house maintenance, cleaning, and now have a gardener.
“It worked out that I could have everything” she later emailed me with great delight.
I’m really pleased to have had the chance to help Ann explore her options, and sometimes the best decision is to stay put. For Ann, her heart is in her Port Moody home.