Just in time for Canada Day, I thought I’d let you in on Fiona’s Canadian homes.

Once upon a time, I thought I’d like to live in north Toronto. I loved the old houses, the shade from the huge maple trees and the idea of walking to the local greengrocer and butcher shop. So when I wanted Another Glass of Tea‘s Fiona to live my dream, I invented her a house I would never have been able to afford, with room for her entire brood.

Fiona and her husband Sam start their family there, close to his brother’s place. They make close friends in the neighbourhood. There’s a church nearby, local support groups where new mums can gather, and a favourite coffee shop just up the road. I imagine Fiona walking up the road for fresh vegetables for dinner, or bringing home a choice cut of meat for Sam to barbecue in the summer.

Fiona thrives in the city, finding her place as a new bride, an entrepreneur, a young mother, a friend and a sister-in-law. But there’s a part of her that longs for the lake of her childhood, where she grew up and where she married Sam.

Unlike some of the locales in Another Glass of Tea, I never settled on one particular lake for Fiona’s hometown. I’ve pictured it as one of the hundreds of small likes in Ontario’s Kawartha region or perhaps near Huntsville. Or even up on Georgian Bay. A peaceful place, surrounded by nature, where she recharges her batteries and lives a less rushed existence than the one she has in the city.

I don’t have a place of my own like that, but I do retreat to my parents’ lakeside home from time to time and enjoy my own slower pace of life. A friend’s cottage offers another perspective, with rugged rocks immortalized by the Group of Seven. Last year, a winter retreat to the frozen (but melting) shores of Golden Lake gave me a new view.

Do you prefer the excitement of the city or the quiet of small towns? Let me know in the comments below.