The red eye flight from Kelowna to Calgary to London,
Ontario was harder on my system than the much longer one from Kelowna to
Vancouver to Incheon. Jay thinks
Koreans wax too eloquent about Korean Air, but I can testify to the fact that
they do have a point. When
compared with West Jet, their stewardesses are more beautiful and elegantly
dressed (which I know that I, as a woman, should not even mention) but more
importantly, their seats have more leg room and recline much farther, they
serve half decent food with wine and they give you eye masks, blankets and
pillows. West Jet has wonderfully,
almost excessively, cheery employees, but the seats recline so little it’s
hardly worth having the passengers put them in the upright position prior to
take off, the drink and tiny package of snacks is not worth opening your eyes
for and the blanket which you pay $3.00 for is made of some hyper synthetic
material that sheds so much you have most of it on your clothes by the time the
flight is over. I’m sure many people
were pleased that both in Kelowna and in Calgary we waited for West Jet
passengers who had been delayed by lightening in Vancouver, but for the rest of
us this only added to the three hours we were already going to lose by heading
east. We arrived in London at
about 7:30, and I dragged my bags to the Tim Horton’s. The coffee gave me enough of a kick to
get me to the ‘Arrivals’ door and outside to wait for Kathy on a bench.
Approaching
Walkerton, I began to experience a sensation of hollowness and a constricting
in my throat that I now recognize as the first physical manifestations of the
sadness I feel when I visit places or do things that remind me of Jim. This happened to me this trip in Ottawa
and Wakefield too, more than it did last year when I went east for Blake’s
wedding. But being with Cathy was
good as usual, and I soon felt fine.
The whole area was visibly less lush than usual. Much of the corn was stunted beyond the
point of recovery, but some things were slowly returning to green after the
rains that had recently fallen.
Now it’s the Okanagan’s turn to be hot and dry. I’m glad I’m missing it, but I wonder
what’s happening to the cedars. Mo
and John checked the house, and she e-mailed that my neighbor was watering the
lawn, that’s what interests her, but I wonder if she’s also done the trees.
I’ve enjoyed this trip because I’ve stayed long enough with
friends to be able to do everyday things with them. I went with Cathy to watch her unintentionally hilarious
niece Nicole try on wedding dresses.
I can still see her stumbling out of the change room, mumbling for help,
stuck inside a too-small sample dress.
She’s gorgeous but quite large, so most of the dresses were too
small. On top of that they were
uninspiring designs, not at all what she envisioned herself in. Within 20 minutes her cheeks were
flushed with heat and laughter, she gave up and we left. I also had time to see more of Mark and
David and their families, collect eggs, pick vegetables, eat well as usual and
even attend Nicole’s memorial party for her mom, Cathy’s sister Karen. I rode the bike out to the barn
with Kathy when she tended David’s pigs, but being in there almost made me gag. Joining her to swim with the
grandchildren and eat Hanover pizza on the other hand was easy to swallow.
Micheline picked me up on Monday in her VW Westfalia, and we
took our time camping in style on the way to Ottawa. We spent Monday night in a campground on Georgian Bay dining
on filet mignon, fresh vegetables from Cathy’s garden and wine and breakfasting
on Micheline’s fine coffee and Cathy’s orange and date muffins. Sticking to side roads, we slowly made
our way to Port McNicoll where I had landed with my family when we took the
Keewatin there from Thunder Bay.
It was the summer I was in grade nine, and I still have glowing memories
of a dress I wore and a boy I met who was working on the boat and who gave me
my first real kiss one night on deck near the smoke stack. There were two
passenger boats that traveled that route at the time, the Assiniboia and the
Keewatin, and I’m not sure which one we took. I thought the ship was luxurious and remember that the chefs
made Boston cream pie especially for a group of Scouts from Boston that was on
the boat. The waiters were
university students, and one of them tripped coming through a swinging door
into the dining room with a full tray.
Plates, cake, custard and chocolate flew everywhere. As Miche and I drove to the port, I
spotted what turned out to be the Keewatin. What luck! They
had just brought it back this June.
The Assiniboia burned some years ago. I was surprised to learn that the Keewatin had actually been
one of 5 ships built in Scotland and brought to Canada around 1912. The Assiniboia and Keewatin were built
to be taken apart when they arrived and separated into two parts to be moved
into Lake Superior. The
Kewatin was a coal burning ship, so I had my first kiss beside a smokestack
that belched coal smoke. Since I
also remember a horse-drawn vehicle delivering our bread on Empire Ave. and an
icehouse at Loon Lake, I must be old.
One of the pamphlets in the museum that is next to the Keewatin states
that it is the last of the Edwardian era passenger steamships. We spent our second night camping on
the shore of Lake Simcoe and had a
leisurely drive to Ottawa the next day.
Miche left me at Don and Mela’s where I stayed for about a
week in comfort, with good friends, two very different dogs and a cat. Mela and Don had a party on Saturday
night. We sat outside, ate, drank,
talked and laughed. I was happily surrounded by many of the old gang. For the first time in ages, I was in a
group that consisted mostly of men.
Sadly, Tina’s mom had died recently, so she wasn’t there because it was
the day of the funeral, and Connie was feeling too ill to come to a party. I missed them. I drove one day to Wakefield and saw
Barb and Rod. I had a great kayak
with Barb past our old houses and some new ones. Then I swam with Faye and ate lunch with the two women and
Rod. That day I also visited the
Smiths. We sat on the dock, swam
and I saw Heather. The Baughans
had me for dinner one night with Danbrook and Geoff and Megan, so I was able to
keep in touch with their lives and again eat well and enjoy wine and
conversation. We had a gathering
of the WWW at Paul’s place in the country. Again some weren’t there, but those of us who were walked,
swam, ate well, drank wine, even smoked, laughed a lot and made felt pins for
the Grannies to take to the Grannies in Africa. The group is getting increasingly crafty, but fortunately
the unskilled job of sewing on pins was not beyond me. Miche introduced the game of ‘Treize’,
which had us screaming at the improbability of randomly turning up the card you
call. Although, we readily admitted
we knew nothing about the laws of probability, it did amaze us how often the
number that was called was turned up.
This fun kept us up until it was nearly midnight, so we still have a
tenuous hold on the adjective ‘wild’.
I spent my last days with Caroline and Albert, visiting with them,
eating in the garden and having dinner with Mara and Ella and Sadie. We had lunch at Gabe’s restaurant and
shopped for an I-pad and stove at Future Shop, so I got a true slice of their
life too. That’s what I enjoyed
about this trip.
The train ride back to Guelph was fine until we pulled into
Union Station in Toronto just as the train for Guelph was leaving. We were herded into Alcove D in
the windowless, low-ceilinged basement of Union Station where we stood around,
clueless, for about 15 minutes until a woman in an ill kempt uniform finally
wandered in. When we complained
that some of us had seen our train pull out, she proudly stated that VIA had a
new CEO whose policy was that their trains waited for nobody. And I had cursed West Jet for
having exactly the opposite policy.
Where is the happy mean?
She then stated that she would be back in 15 minutes with pizza and that
we would be taking a bus to Guelph.
Half an hour later she returned with the most thick crusted and
tasteless slice of pizza I’ve ever seen and said the bus would be arriving
soon. It was another 20 minutes
before she returned and told us to follow her. The bus was caught in traffic because there was a festival
going on, so we would be walking to where it was parked. Dragging our baggage, we walked in a
sad sack line up a wide ramp, out of the basement and into the bright,
high-vaulted main station, out the big doors, down the street, across an
intersection, past people, mainly young, some dressed in the fashionable gear
of urban dwellers and some in outrageous costumes, along the side of The Royal
York Hotel, across another intersection and on about two more blocks to where a
white bus with nothing written on it awaited us. I was no sooner seated then it became clear to me from
the sounds of confusion at the front of the bus that the driver had no clue
where the train station was in Guelph. The woman who had led our sad parade was trying to
help him program his GPS.
Fortunately, a woman in one of the front seats said that she was from
Guelph and would guide him in, which she did. By the time we arrived, Brian and Cathy had been waiting for
a couple of hours. I will never
subject them to such an ill- conceived trip again. They spent hours driving and waiting for me this time.
The last days in Walkerton were eventful. Not only did I see the whole gang again
but also a ‘coydog’ invaded the barn. Cathy was almost attacked by it. As she opened the door one morning to
feed the pigs, it ran past her and out.
I was first aware of it when I opened the screen door to see her
entering the garage on the ATV looking pop-eyed and disheveled. She phoned Dana who arrived soon after
with the baby and a big gun. She
left Alex with us and went out on the ATV to look for the creature. She didn’t see it, so we kept an uneasy
eye out for it all the rest of that day and night. The next day she got a shot at it but missed and it ran
across the field. It’s not been
seen since.
Another flight was delayed on my way home as West Jet waited
for customers to arrive, so more Van de Vyveres had to wait. They’re not famous for being in good
moods at such times, but they were all admirably understanding this trip. I hope I don’t ask so much of them ever
again. This time it was Bert, Rob
and Joanna who met me in Kelowna.
I said goodbye to Rob and Joanna because they were returning to Dubai
the next day. I drove home to
Vernon at around midnight local time, around 3:00am Walkerton time, took a
Gravol and slept for eight hours.
I’m back to new friends, biking and working in the garden. Life goes on.
Brian, David and Mark tasting the soju I brought from Korea for Brian. They liked the soju but not the dried squid that is on the plate in front of Brian.
With Miche alongside the Keewatin
With Mela outside the National Gallery
Joe Fafard's horses that are running through tufts of prairie grass and Russian Sage beside the National Gallery and along Sussex Street.
On the shores of Mud Lake with Mela and Don's lab. Wizard and Blake and Margaux's min pin Earnest
Megan and Geoff Baughan enjoying some rare beef
With some of the Wild Women of Wakefield at Paul's place
Don and Mela and Caroline and Albert at Gabe's restaurant in Ottawa
