The Past Weekend
Did you ever have one of those weekends when your feet never seemed to touch the ground? To me, the past weekend seemed just such a time. It seemed that a lot got packed into the Friday to Sunday period.
To begin with, Ben, Josée, Cynthia and I went out for dinner on Friday evening. Tim and Andi were meant to come but had to decline as Tim had hurt his back and wouldn’t have been able to sit long enough for a meal. We promised to celebrate with them and the children at a later date, when Tim was feeling better
The principal reason for going out was to celebrate the sale of my mother’s house in Wales. Following my mother’s death in November of 2007, the house was placed on the market. The house remained on the housing market for almost two and a half years until the end of May. The second reason for going was to celebrate Cynthia’s birthday which was to happen the next day.We visited the Avenue Bistro here in Comox and had a fine meal.
Saturday began with a glorious start to the day. The sun shone and it was warm right from the start, quite a change from the lousy May we’d experienced. It was Cynthia’s birthday! However, we were like ships that pass in the night as she was out the front door and down the drive in a flurry of papers and exhaust fumes. She was headed to the A.G. M. of African Community Technical Services (A.C.T.S.) of which she is a board member. The day actually starts with a board meeting at St. Peter’s Church here in Comox, and from which this brilliant organization operates. A.C.T.S. has a tiny office on the top floor of what was the rectory of the church before the building became the church office. Several volunteers man the office which is the heart of A.C.T.S. The whole organization is overseen by David Moore who is the C.E.O., a dear friend and a wonderful man. David is also one of the very few salaried people in the organization. (To learn more of A.C.T.S. and the wonderful work it is doing in Africa and Uganda in particular, take a peek at the slideshow below and the link to the right of this page)
I had only begun my household chores when Tim arrived, dropped off by Andi. He wanted to hit the hot tub to see if he could get any relief for his very twisted and painful back. Tim’s now heading into his third week of being unable to work. The phone rang…it was Ben. He was wondering if I could help him with a project at the farm. I told him to pick me up in just over an hour and got on with the chores, leaving Tim to soak in the tub. I buzzed through the household duties just in time, for Ben arrived with three coffees. We sat and enjoyed them and had a brief chat until it was time to leave. As we left the house, Andi re-appeared to pick up Tim as she’d finished at the local farmer’s market. Ben and I said brief goodbyes to Andi, Tim and the children and headed out to begin the project, a fencing one. We headed to a supplier, got what Ben needed and grabbed a sub for lunch on the run. By early afternoon we were out at the farm, digging holes for post around the new corn patch Ben and Josée had developed and readied. By 18.30 we had done the lot…we’d done the fence to keep out the deer. Guess how we felt when minutes after we’d finished, Monty the mini-pig squeezed his pot belly under the fence and started rooting through the site. It was a blessing no corn had been planted yet, for Monty the Destroyer would have pig-dozed his way through it. When I left, Ben was wracking his brains for a way to keep out the pig. It seems that a lot of the rocks we removed might come in useful any way to weigh down the bottom of the fencing.
When I got home, I showered and got myself a bite to eat. Around 21.00 Cynthia came in from her day at A.C.T.S.. I offered to make her tea, but she felt she wanted to have something a little stronger, so we headed to the Blackfin Pub and had a Spanish coffee and shared a slab of New York cheesecake to round off the day.
Sunday morning I was up at 04.00 after getting to sleep at 00.00. I was wide awake, so rolled downstairs to make a cup of tea. It was just light enough for me to see the resident herd of deer stripping the leaves from the lower branches of both fruit trees. Joy of joys! The tea was fine and I checked email. After answering a few, I rolled back into bed around 06.00 dreading the sound of the alarm at 07.30. When it came, I was already awake and waiting for it. As a matter of fact, I don’t know why I let it ring.
We were soon off to church to help set up equipment there. Others came to help and within fifteen minutes all was done. The service went well and Fr. Bill Hedges, our guest speaker, delivered a fine sermon. We spent time afterwards with the rest of the congregation over coffee and then headed home.
We had promised to drive to Qualicum Bay to meet Ben and Josée there. They had left their Honda Element in our drive and cycled to Parksville then turned back on themselves and riddden to Qualicum Bay. I believe they did about 110 Km in all. (See map of route here)
This was their final training ride before they head off to Vancouver on Friday and participate in the Ride To Conquer Cancer on Saturday. That ride takes them from Vancouver to Seattle with an overnight stay in tents. If you want to learn more of that you can watch a video of the 2009 ride on the previous post, Trivia Night. I drove their Element and Cynthia took her car . Ben and Josée had packed a picnic lunch in their vehicle for all of us, so when we’d made the rendezvous, we went down a beach access and had a bite to eat. The drive home took 30 minutes.
As we entered Comox, Cynth swung down to Tim and Andi’s home where we found the four of them in the back garden. They’d invited Cynthia, (and me by association) to go for a gelato ice-cream as their birthday gift to her. We all piled into their van and headed down to the shop in Comox which produces this heavenly ice-cream. It’s run by a Swiss woman who makes an absolute killing in the summer months. Of course, the winter is lean, so it all balances out over the year. We had our ice-creams in the warm afternoon sunshine and after we were done we headed home.
What a weekend! It seemed as if we were always on the run, but it was great fun and I hope to have another action packed weekend soon as possible.
Best wishes to all of you out there who read this.
