After retirement, my husband and I started looking for our ‘Forever-Home’; a place to settle down and enjoy our remaining years.
We chose Napanee. We both grew up in small towns and quickly experienced that welcome feeling of being home.
An important reason for choosing Napanee was the clean air. I suffer from asthma and since we moved here I have been breathing freely for the first time in decades. We gave up the indoor gym, David bought a bicycle and I a tricycle. We go for long strolls down the clean, quiet streets most days or evenings. We turn off the air conditioning; instead opening the windows at night and closing up the house during the day. David stopped washing the cars every week and they are clean while being parked in the driveway. We collect rainwater for the plants. With warmer weather, we let the laundry dry outside in the fresh breeze. On cooler evenings, we relax in the hot tub and star gaze. We eat tomatoes and berries directly from the plants and never wash the fresh herbs from the garden.
Yesterday while tending my roses and inhaling their sweet scent, I contemplated how things would change with a permanent hot asphalt plant just down the street:
● So much for breathing freely. It’s back to wheezing and coughing for me.
● Re-join a gym. Riding a bike would definitely bring on an asthma attack.
● We’ll be in isolation in the house. Neither we nor the dog will be visiting and chatting with neighbours on evening strolls.
● On goes the air conditioning and up goes the electricity bills.
● If we want fresh smelling laundry, it will be chemically induced. It would get dirty on the line.
● Garage the cars and go back to weekly washing… Water the gardens from a hose… All that wasted water.
● Put a roof over the hot tub to protect it from acid rain and sooty fall-out.
● If the garden attempts to again burst with edible goodies, start washing the berries, tomatoes and herbs before consuming.
● Won’t smell anything sweet, even in the rose garden. Since the international standard for a safe distance to live from an asphalt plant is over 3km, we could never have even contemplated when we moved to Napanee, that here in the heart of town we might end up just over one kilometre away from one.
Anybody wanna buy a trike?
Carolyn Archibald