featuring Connor Mockett
Hello, everyone! Welcome back to another Life with Connor the Weatherman column. This week I’d like to talk about what life has been since my move to Moncton/Dieppe with my fiancée, Zoé, and some of the differences in the weather that I’ve noticed in the month and half that we’ve been here.
So, life in Moncton/Dieppe has not been easy on a personal level at times. I quit my job at Foodland on December 30th at the end of 2023 in order to be ready to move on January 3rd. I never imagined how difficult it’d be to find a job here. I’ve applied to many different employers: grocery stores, Pepsi, Frito Lay, Scholastic, Canada Post, you name it. No call backs for the longest time until I finally got something at a Sobeys in Moncton in the first week of February, but only for 20-24 hours a week. Not entirely what I’m looking for hours wise, but better than nothing. My first day was just this past Tuesday, the 20th.
It’s been very challenging being off for so long, a month and a half. I’m the type of person who likes to keep his legs moving for a full day of work. I can’t handle being bored, sitting around at home twiddling my thumbs in a desk chair doing nothing. I need to be busy to keep my mind busy. So it has not been easy at all.
There’ve been good days and not so good days. Some days went quicker than others when sitting around, others went slow and left me wondering “was it really worth it to come”? But I can’t have that mindset. I had to just sit and let whatever happen, happen. Some days I was so frustrated with the process that I’d get straight up mad, and I’d have to just get in the car and go for a drive to burn off some steam.
Funny story actually, I tried to do that near the end of January, go for a drive and burn off some of that steam. I was having a bad day, and left my house without my car keys. That’s fine, right? Just open the door again and grab them. Nope! I locked the door on my way out, didn’t have my car keys, or the key for the door because that key is also on my car keys. So I ended up sitting on the stairs outside the door and hanging around outside for nearly four hours. I was so mad. But it’s funny now!
Another challenge has been the money side. Trying to manage the groceries, gas, rent, etc, while having no money flow coming in is nerve wracking, as I’m sure you all can imagine (and maybe have gone through similarly). I’m excited to finally get to work, even if it’s only a little bit of money every 2 weeks, but anything helps to get things rolling again.
Zoé has been a huge help during this whole process, telling me that good things come to those who wait. She’s so right. I just have to keep waiting and the right job with the right amount of hours will come my way, and I’ll be happy. She’s my biggest supporter, and I love her very much for being that and everything else for me.
For the weather, it’s been interesting! We had about a two and a half or three week stretch where there were two storms per week, including that big one that dumped 180 cm in Cape Breton. Moncton/Dieppe got about 30-40 cm from that one I believe, and it was so windy, so the snow drifts were massive. That was one where I shoveled at least three times, and the snow removal people came two or three times as well just simply to clear the snow drifts in the laneway.
I personally find here that there are many days where it’s quite windy, like 60km/h or more. That doesn’t happen very often at home in Winchester at all, we’d be lucky to get 60km/h ten times a year. It seems like that happens almost once a week here (it’s probably not that often but it definitely feels like it).
It’s also been pretty cloudy regularly here, which is the same as it’s been at home. We need some more sun so that we can get rid of the snow on the ground here. Let’s speed this process up, spring, I’ve got stuff I want to do!
When the time comes to write the next column, hopefully things have continued to get better. Thanks for reading and I’ll see you in a couple weeks!
