Every once in awhile, I get flashbacks to our life in Canada before we left. More specifically, much-missed friends and family aside, I flash back to the options and choices we had available to us there that are just simply non-existent here. There were options for what to do on a Friday night. There were more than two movies to choose from at the more than two theatres. We could choose to buy groceries at one of seven local grocery stores, all of which were sure to have an excellent selection of fruits and vegetables, all of which would be reasonably fresh.

It's the grocery stores I lament over the most.

In Orleans, soon-to-be-home (again) to the Forgetfuls and arguably the most pleasant part of Ottawa to park a young family (in my humble opinion...which is not at all trying to firm up the Forgetful's decision), our grocery shopping options were, in a word, awesome. We had at least three instances of Loeb, a Superstore that had to be a kilometre long, a brand spankin' new Sobey's (now the owner of my West Coast fave, Thrifty's, I believe), a somewhat mysterious Food Basics and, of course, a Farm Boy. This was the 'burbs, after all.

Farm Boy, for those of you unfortunate enough to not have one within a 10K radius, sells what every other grocery store sells around their perimeters...meaning, produce, deli, baked goods, meat, fish and dairy, with the occasional jar of salad dressing or fancy canned vegetables. For those of you in Victoria, think Market on Yates, without the ego. We'd go there occasionally, spend (what we thought at the time) a fortune on fresh fruits and veggies, and then head to Superstore or Sobey's for the cereal, etc. It was a tad more expensive than some other stores, but their produce was always excellent and neatly arranged. I like it when the eggplants are symmetrical. Anyways, I never really realized just how great it was. I did remember being annoyed by the creepy singing doll (who I presume is the "Farm Boy") and the hoards of people crowding the produce if we happened to stop by on a Saturday afternoon, but really...we could have planned better and avoided the crowds.

To say that our grocery options on the island are limited is a gross understatement. We have two grocery stores near our house. One is marginally better than the other, but neither is great. One displays its entire line of produce on a single wooden shelf, the apples mingling with the onions, and the potatoes next to packets of dried fish. Yes, fish. In the "produce section".

It's a little disheartening.

As I stood in line preparing to pay $6.00 for a sub-par eggplant, I took a moment to miss what we left behind and thought, just for a split second, that I even miss that gorilla swinging over the bananas, and that creepy doll singing about how nothing rhymes with oranges.

I'm going to go buy an apple in the summer, just for fun. I'm looking forward to getting change from my loonie AND having it not taste like sawdust. Awesome!