The Octogenarian.

On Monday I joined the ranks of the octogenarians.

To quote Theodore Roosevelt, ““Old age is like everything else. To make a success of it, you’ve got to start young.”

Like everyone else, I started developing old age at a young time in my life. However, right now my mind which thinks it is still eighteen, is having a harder time dragging my body along with it.

On Monday evening, my family here in the Comox valley laid on a special treat for me. We all went for dinner and drinks at the Church Street Taphouse, the pub which is one third owned by my son Ben.

Left, going clockwise: Jo, (Andi’s mum), my son Tim, me with the birthday hat, grandson Oliver, son Ben, Josée (Ben’s wife), Lise, (Josée’s mum) and Andi, (Tim’s wife) Below are some other magnificent pics of us.

We had a wonderful meal and a drink supplemented by lots of laughter and good fellowship.

Following the meal, we drove back to my home where we all shared birthday cakes, one regular cake and one an ice-cream cake.

I opened my gifts which were super, but one which grabbed my heart was this picture of the local Comox Glacier which Ben and Josée kindly re-gifted to me from Ben’s office. It means a lot to me, for it shows the highest peak, on the right hand side of the picture. This was where my good friend Chris dispersed half of Cynthia’s ashes from his plane. (The other half is now in Wales)

The whole evening was a beauty! I enjoyed having the clan around me. See for yourself below what a fine group they are.

It was a marvellous day! How blessed I am to be surrounded by such a loving, caring group of people. As I leave you now, I’d like to share some profound thoughts from two people much smarter than I.

“Aging seems to be the only available way to live a long life.” Kitty O’Neill Collins

“By the time you’re 80 years old you’ve learned everything. You only have to remember it.” George Burns

The latter in particular strikes home with me. ‘Bye for now and God bless.

A Massive Milestone

In the middle of August 2023 I went to Seattle to visit my family members living there. I went to join in a celebration arranged for the birthdays of my cousins, husband and wife John and Rosaleen. John celebrated his 96th birthday early in August while Rosaleen celebrated her 90th later in the month, hence the party in the middle. Here are the stars below.

John and Rosaleen…bright shining stars!

The whole affair was wonderful, with a lovely celebration at the home of John and Rosaleen. I attended from Vancouver Island, but the most impressive visitor was Des, Rosaleen’s brother who flew from Toronto to Vancouver, rented a car and drove to Seattle all on the same day…and at a considerable age himself!

Des carefully editing his video

The weather was kind to us and we were able to eat in the garden, as tables and chairs had been arranged there.

image

During my four day visit I was treated to evenings spent on Kieron and Stephanie’s boat. We went cruising on Lake Washington and had the best of times.

If you would like to see a short video of the time spent in Seattle, which also included a trip to see a professional soccer game, then click the link below.

linkhttps://youtu.be/PsMfyV5W7NU

The whole visit was a wonderful time of family being together. I’d like to thank all the members, young and older for making me feel so welcome during my stay. I hope it won’t be too long before we can spend time together once more.

Goodbye for now and God bless.

A Tragic Event

By now we are all fully aware of the tragic events surrounding the OceanGate Titan implosion. Below you can see the now familiar image of the Titan submersible used in the dive

(Credit: (Computer model rendering by By Madelgarius – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=133558088)

On June 18th, the vessel began its descent with five passengers on board. The five were descending to view the wreck of the Titanic. For the first ninety minutes of the dive, the Titan was communicating every fifteen minutes with its mother ship Polar Prince on the surface above. At approximately the two hour mark, all communication with the submersible was lost.

From June 18th onwards a search for the vessel began and now we know the terrible ending to the descent. As efforts to recover parts of the Titan from the ocean bottom continue, my heart goes out to the families of those on board.

As we reached Friday the twenty third of June during this week, I was still very much interested in the news of the Titan, but my heart also automatically moved to memories of my mother, for her birthday was on that day, June 23. Like those on the Titan, she also had a connection to the Titanic, for she was born in the same year as that great vessel went down and so many lives were lost in 1912. While I felt moved to write this short post about the Titan, and to perhaps convey my thoughts of compassion to the families, I thought a quick note about my Mum would provide a more serene and peaceful ending to this little blog entry.

My mum, Eunice, was a great woman. She worked hard alongside my dad as he delivered milk to customers on his round. She maintained the round when dad was called up to serve in the army along with other family members. She was a great mum to me, and though we sometimes had our differences, she showed me endless love. She visited us many times with dad, and following his death, she came with some of her friends and neighbours from her street.

Here she is in the green shirt, with Joyce, her neighbour of 50 years, tucking into a dessert on one of her many trips to visit us in Comox.

She loved a drink! This was at her 90th birthday party back in Wales.

Mum would have been 111 on June 23 this year and I’m sure she would still have loved a drink at the pub!

Goodbye for now and God bless.

An Interesting Day

Just a short while ago, on Dec. 07., I had a very interesting day. There were three things which happened on that day. Early on in the day, I went to a physiotherapy session in Comox. Have no fear, I don’t intend to tell you about that. Secondly I was part of a group of people who visited our local hospital to present gifts to various staff-more about that in a moment. Thirdly, I was treated to a dinner-theatre afternoon/evening event with some members of my family.

Following my physiotherapy session, I drove to the hospital to be there by 10.15 am for a 10.30 am presentation.

I met Doug and Jacquie Martin and Jimmy Small (L-R above) at the hospital. We were there to present boxes of popcorn to the staff from the operating room, the intensive care unit and the emergency department of the hospital. The popcorn was sent by the B.C. Transplant Society to all hospitals which had participated in the transplant program in 2022. These staff members participate in the retrieval of organs from donors who recently died in the hospital while being on life support. The people pictured above, along with others unable to be at the presentation, had experience of some kind in the transplant process. Doug and Jacquie were parents of a young son who lost his life nine years ago. His organs were donated to the BC Transplant program and were used to save the lives of other people. Jimmy received a lung transplant 14 years ago. Thanks to a donor, he is alive today.

Here you see Doug and Jacquie presenting the popcorn to staff members from the emergency department. These staff members from the three departments mentioned above, are all participants in the start of an organ transplant. However, they rarely get to see those at the other end who receive the organs and live long, happy lives because of the transplant. Many of the staff members commented how glad they were to see Jimmy, and to learn a little about his life post transplant. I think we made their day, and they certainly made ours. I would encourage you to learn about organ donor registration and then register on the organ donor registry where you live, if you haven’t already done so.

After lunch, Ben, Josée, Lise and I set off south down Vancouver Island to a little town called Chemainus. Chemainus used to depend on a sawmill to provide work for most of the citizens. When the sawmill closed, one of the locals happened upon the idea of painting murals from the town’s history, upon blank walls. Now there are a great number of murals in the town, and hundreds of thousands of people visit the town to see the murals. As you can imagine, many other local industries have developed because of this increase in tourism. However, we were there to visit the theatre and have dinner in its restaurant before the show.

Ben had booked tickets for dinner, followed by the local drama company’s production of A Tiny Christmas Carol. We very much enjoyed the show, but I had some issues because of my hearing difficulties. The staging, costumes and acting were all good and rounded off the evening well. As we left the theatre, I took a few pictures of the place as it looked so resplendent in it’s Christmas trimmings. Lise and Josée cooperated well to have their picture taken on the balcony.

Josée and Lise on the mezzanine at Chemainus Theatre.

We drove home after the production and arrived close to 11.30 pm. It had been a good, full day. Goodbye for now and God bless.