My friends and family cross-country tour

As I said in my previous post it was my intention to write about my trip, but so much time has passed that I feel like it is almost ancient history now. I'm also now uninterested in sifting through all the photos I took to post any here. However, here goes.

I dislike flying however it seemed like the only thing I could do to make this trip happen, so I flew. Halifax to Vancouver (with brief stopover in the Edmonton airport), Vancouver to Castlegar, Kelowna to Grande Prairie (another stopover in the Edmonton airport), Grande Prairie to Toronto (stopping over in the Calgary airport this time), and Toronto to Halifax. There were also ferry trips (from Vancouver to Victoria to Hornby Island and back again, also to the Sunshine Coast), a train trip (Toronto to Barrie), and a couple of long distance bus rides (Nelson to Kelowna and Barrie to Toronto). Every single one of them uneventful and on time, which I consider a great stroke of good fortune.

An airport is an airport is an airport, but one of the most striking things for me was my second stopover in the Edmonton airport (en route to Grande Prairie). It was evening and the lights in this part of the airport were dimmed. In the centre of a large rotunda was a grand piano and a very talented pianist-singer. I don't know her name but she was amazing. It was welcome diversion from the typical waiting-in-an-airport. Kudos to Edmonton International Airport.

In Toronto and Vancouver the mass transit has evolved to a new level of sophistication and with the use of a card that one preloads with money for transit fares (Presto in Toronto and Compass in Vancouver) and Google Maps, you can travel effortlessly and without lengthy wait times at bus stops. I  bought a Compass card (refundable) in Vancouver and used it a lot; it would have been nice if I could have used it again in Toronto but instead one must buy another card for that city. I had some leftover subway tokens from when I lived there so I used them instead, and my stay in Toronto was only a few days so that was enough. Google Maps was amazing, not only does it tell you which bus or buses to take to get to your destination, it also tells you when to leave your home and whether the bus is running late and if so by how much time. So in theory one should never have to wait more than a few minutes at a bus stop.

In those cities everyone is on their cell phone. If they are not wearing earbuds, then their phones are in their hands and they are either busy texting or holding the phone handy in case they might need to text. Once I was trying to get from a bus stop to a museum and someone on the bus suggested I just ask anyone at the bus stop how to get to the museum because everyone knows and can tell me. But when I got to the bus stop and looked around for someone to ask directions from, all I could see were people wearing earbuds and I didn't like to interrupt whatever they were listening to. I finally found someone not wearing earbuds and he pulled his cellphone from his pocket to look up the location of the museum. Then I felt silly, I had my own cellphone and could easily have looked it up myself. I am just not in the habit of relying on my cellphone for direction.

The other places I visited were a little more "primitive", they either lacked cell phone coverage or internet signal or bus systems. The flight to Castlegar was to visit a friend in a small town an hour's drive away. Silverton is an old mining town now mainly home to summer residents only. It is on a lovely lake surrounded by mountains, the mining operations long since abandoned. The highway that runs through it is a favourite of motorcyclists who love its curvy new pavement through a narrow valley. My friend lives on the main street of the town and the traffic is predominantly motorcycles in the daytime and trucks by night. It is a broad street with homes on one side and store fronts on the other side, and walking down the middle of the road is easily done provided one keeps an ear out for motorcycles. My friend had two inflatable kayaks which were light enough that we could carry both of them at once the few blocks down to the lakeside. And the water was warm enough in early September to go swimming every day.

The impetus for the trip was the birth of a grandchild in Alberta; the secondary purpose was to visit friends and family across the country. Over the entire five weeks I stayed at either friends or family places so it was a huge social occasion for me. I enjoyed that very much. I think my timing was such that no one felt particularly burdened by my presence, or I hope so at any rate.

I had good conversations with all of my sons (and grandchildren) and very much enjoyed the company of old friends. I also got to see an aunt, uncle and cousin in Ontario that I rarely see. My uncle Bill has been in a nursing home for over 14 years after an unfortunate stroke when he was 70 that left him physically incapacitated. He had recently had one leg amputated and they were considering amputating the other due to pain. He was on morphine but clearly still in pain. However he was moved almost to tears when five of us, all family relations, arrived at his bedside. He is my Dad's "kid brother", the last of that generation of the family alive.

The grandchild, Coen, was six weeks old when I arrived there. His seven year old older sister is---as one person put it---a real firecracker. Intelligent and sassy, used to being the centre of attention. Coen almost did not survive his birth so his parents are understandably attentive to his every cry or fidget. The family dynamic is somewhat tense due to lack of sleep and adjustments to a new family member.  But it was the first time I interacted with my granddaughter, she does not like to talk on the phone (or Skype) with people she doesn't know. I think we established a bit of a relationship, but four days is not really a long time to do so.

There was a lot more but I'm going to leave it at that. While visiting friends in BC I was nostalgic for the days when I lived there and was being encouraged to move back. I definitely considered it, and who knows it might happen in the future. However coming home to Nova Scotia was very good, despite the sewage emergency. I have to say that I am grateful that I live here. Moving away is the furthest thing from my mind right now. But ask me again in the spring, I may change my tune after a hard winter (some folks are forecasting such already).

Hapi's brother Hiro, in Victoria

Home again

Well, I'm back home. Had a great time, saw a lot of friends and family, learned a few things. I'm trying to hold onto those thoughts because around early September I came down with a cold and each flight thereafter (nine take-offs and landings in total, four after acquiring the cold) made things worse. I am still dealing with the consequences--a serious cough and deafness in one ear.

Also, I came home to a bit of a homeowner's nightmare: a sewage backup.

The house sitter said it happened earlier that day, but I think he only noticed it earlier that day. It was in the basement bathroom. I suspect he had no reason to go down there so he didn't until the day I was due home. He thought he'd do a laundry to cleanup for me and since the washing machine was in that bathroom he then discovered the mess. I got home around 4.30pm and it was fortunate that my plumber came out right away to deal with it. Cost a bunch though. The plumber says more work is needed and we are looking at bills in the thousands. In the meantime I can continue to use the water (and drains) with caution, but the pervasive smell is a bit off-putting.

The well-meaning house sitter attempted to use an air freshener whose odour I now have firmly linked in my mind with sewage. I guess the fact that my cold affects my sense of smell as well as my hearing is a small blessing.

The main purpose of the house sitter was to look after Hapi and that he did admirably. I knew he wasn't the cleanest guy around so I did expect to come home to a bit of a mess. I can't really blame him for the sewage backup, that is more due to tree roots than lack of cleanliness. Considering that I am paying the guy less than what it would have cost to put Hapi in a kennel and she was visibly happy with the care she received from him, I don't begrudge him the money, but it was quite depressing to come home to the sewage disaster.

He never mowed the lawn so it looks like a very healthy hayfield now, however he says he can get a guy to come in with a better lawnmower than I have to deal with it. Also he has a line on a dog groomer for Hapi who looks like she needs a serious trimming now. Her old groomer has retired and moved away so I am in the market for a new one. He spent a good amount of time brushing and combing her so her coat looks shaggy but decent.

My financial advisor lives on the west coast and while I was there I visited him for our annual in depth discussion of the state of the world and a brief synopsis of the state of my finances. It takes about three hours for the former (only slightly less if we're doing it by phone) and fifteen minutes for the latter. He suggested that I could loosen my purse strings and spend a little more on myself. I was allowing myself to think about a bathroom reno on the way home, but it never occurred to me that it meant I should clean up sewage. I might still do the reno, it depends entirely on how badly the tree has mangled my sewer connection.

I am all travelled out now, don't want to go anywhere or see anything. I'll write about my trip some other time. Overall it was great, and in light of the current situation I am clinging to the memories.

Going on vacation

Halifax Public Gardens (I visited after the hospital which is nearby)

This will be my last post for a while, I am going away and not taking the computer with me so I will probably not be posting anything until some time after I get back. I'd like to say "as soon as I get back" but invariably I have to hit the ground running when I return home with various things left undone while I was away, not to mention putting away travel things and such.

Hapi will stay here, I have a young friend who will house- and dog-sit for the duration. He says he is grateful for a whole house for a whole month all to himself (and Hapi). Not something he is used to.

I've been very busy getting ready to go. One last visit with my friend in the hospital yesterday. She is much better than she was the last time I saw her, not loopy at all but quite lucid and present. Since the last time I saw her she had all of her family visiting which was quite a treat for her. She's in isolation because of the antibiotic-resistant infection, so she can only see her grandchildren via FaceTime on her iPad. Adults can visit provided they gown up and wear gloves.

I called my friend before going into the city to see her. She asked for a sandwich wrap and a pound of butter. I picked up those things before going to the hospital; I also brought a container to store the butter in. She has no appetite for hospital food, the sandwich wrap came in two parts, one she ate while I was there and the other she saved for supper. Not sure what she wanted the butter for, maybe because the hospital gives her margarine with bread.

We yakked about the great visit she had with her family and about grandchildren. Then we FaceTimed her sister in Toronto, who was in the midst of cleaning behind her frigerator on a very hot humid day; she was in her underwear. She said she was doing this because a friend told her that she (the friend) did it every two weeks, and since she (the sister) had never done it she was feeling guilty and thought she ought to be doing this. On a hot humid day. I've never cleaned behind my fridge either and I'm not going to start now, it's probably totally disgusting back there.

So my friend in the hospital may or may not be there when I get back. She may or may not get out of the hospital and into the nursing home bed reserved for her when the infection is deemed cured.

My trip involves five flights, stopping in two places in British Columbia, one in Alberta and one in Ontario. I will be seeing my new grandchild, three sons, multiple old friends and one or two brothers, depending on whether one of the brothers can find the time. I was able to schedule myself for the family and friends out west but closer to me (Ontario) not so much. The theory being that the ones in Ontario could always try to visit me here. The trip is complicated enough, it would be impossible to do it to everyone else's schedule.

Since last I posted I went on a little road trip with a friend to a rock concert and someone's cottage in Pictou County. We camped out the night of the concert. The concert was great, the headliners that night were Matt Andersen and Alan Doyle.

Matt Andersen (there was a screen as well as the stage)

Alan whipped up the audience something fierce. The concert was outdoors and most people were standing (my friend and I had bleacher seats). Most all of them knew all the words from when Alan was with Great Big Sea, so there was a lot of singing along and waving of arms and cell phone flash lights. According to Alan, Great Big Sea got their first exposure to mainland Canada in Pictou County so for him it was like a second home.

Alan Doyle and the Beautiful Gypsies, stirring up the crowd

The friend's cottage was an amazing place, but so infested with (really aggressive vicious) mosquitoes that you could not step outdoors. We could look at the waterfront but not actually go to it. So we sat inside and had a great supper and lots of gin and tonics. Would have been nicer without the mosquitoes.

My friend's dog loves me because he knows I own Hapi, his favourite female dog. He followed me everywhere. When I went outside to back the car closer to the cottage he came too and I had to pick him up and put him in the car so I wouldn't back over him; he's not a bright dog.

Public Gardens commemorative bed