The New Year 2015 Advances

December 2, 2016 by Let's CUT the Crap! 67 Comments

The house Michael’s widowed mother lives in on Thetis Island is the house she and her husband built after they married. She has a woodstove in the kitchen. Wonderful. There are a mess of bedrooms  though I didn’t get a tour (they were a large family). Her living room has a brick fireplace along the whole of one end wall, as well as a sofa and numerous comfy chairs and a piano. This is the view this room faces. Don’t you want to park yourself and dream here for a while? I do.

Jean had brought sheet music but could not find it. The only music, Lucy, her mother-in-law had were hymnbooks. We sat around the piano and sang everyone’s favorites. By midnight, worn out and ready for a soft pillow. I have no idea whose suggestion sent us to bed.

Morning brought a huge and satisfying late breakfast: steel-cut oats with raisins and homemade stewed apples, yoghurt, granola, sticky buns, pork pie, coffee and tea. Oh, my.

The next ferry to Chemainus left at 1:10. We lined up early and found a spot on board–another open air ferry. A heartwarming part of our departure is Lucy has a direct view of the departure from her deck and waves all her children goodbye when they leave. Michael waved to his mother this day, too. The air too crisp to stand outside on the ferry, Mary and I stayed in the van while Jean and Michael caught up with friends. Our had no stops and passed without incident.

Off the ferry, traffic was not busy to Nanaimo, but before we reached the next ferry, overhead road billboards announced the 3:00 o’clock ferry was full. What? How long need we wait?

Thank goodness, Jean had brought along a container of crackers, cheese, and kielbasa. We purchased drinks and wandered around to kill time in the terminal. Inside, tourist trap shops surrounded us. Less mindboggling were coffee shops (Starbucks), Frankies (a Chinese food kiosk, a pizza place and a couple others. We bought nothing except drinks.

The call to board came. We crossed our fingers on our way to the van for the hour-and-a- half crossing on the Queen of Coquitlam. Luck smiled. Once we settled and around half-way into the crossing, a ferry employee announced 1,028 passengers were on board. “Thank you for sailing with us.”

Ha ha. The Queen is the only means of crossing to Vancouver. I think it’s nice to be appreciated in this way, though don’t you? We disembarked at 6:35 pm.

Highway traffic was crazy. Dusk fell unnoticed. Headlights come in the opposite direction and backup lights of the cars ahead became obvious. Bumper-to-bumper. Stop-start. We arrived at Jean and Michael’s house by 7:45 much longer than the usual time.

Jean’s a wizard in the kitchen, though thr second youngest sister (out of five). We sat down to an amazing late, but light supper around nine: leftover-salmon (from the party) and a salad. After a seven-hour day of traveling, a quick clean-up and off to bed

Next time on December 9^th – Recuperation and Shopping

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I have been entertaining all day, Catch up with you tomorrow.