In Victoria

I came down to Victoria a couple of days early to get my bearings and to pick up some clothes to wear on Saturday to Norma's presentation of her Honorary Life Membership (posthumous) in the New Democratic Party of British Columbia. This is in recognition of her decades of dedicated work with the Party.

My friend Penny, who lives in Victoria, offered to help me choose some clothes and I was surprised to find that I had dropped yet another size of pants. A few years ago I was size 42, then 40, then 38 and now I am 36! Mark's had a buy one, get one for half price sale on so we chose two spiffy shirts and two pair of chino pants. I am going to look pretty sharp at the ceremony but will have to work to keep my weight stable. I do not want to lose any more and nor do I want to gain any back! I will try to find someone to take my photo at the Convention.

I passed the clothes over the change room wall for Penny to hold while I got dressed and when I got out I found she had already paid for everything! An early Christmas gift she had been secretly planing since she heard about the award ceremony for Norma during our trip to the Okanagan and Alberta when I would not let her pay for anything. It was too much although very much appreciated. I will have to work on a Christmas gift for her. I have a couple of ideas.

Hopefully the work on the house repairs will be completed by the time I get back on Tuesday. The concrete guy has promised to have the sidewalk done by Friday. The plumber's bill turned out higher than the estimate because of the difficulty burying the water line down the driveway. They could not use the backhoe very much because of the proximity of the gas line, sewer, bank drainage pipe and the old water line in the tiny strip of land they had to work in. A lot of digging had to be done by hand and this was very time consuming. I hope the insurance company is understanding. Right from the start they told me they has a limit of $10,000 for this job and the total will be just under $6,000. Fingers crossed as the original estimate was for just over $4,000.

The weather has been "OK" for mid November with days around 10 C and nights around 2 C (35 F - 50 F). there has been no rain in Victoria but Campbell River has had some rain.

I am sitting in the Victoria Cancer Centre's visitor's lounge waiting for Penny to complete her once a week volunteer shift, something she enjoys doing after being a patient here herself seven years ago. They have excellent WIFI here. We will be going back to her place for a dinner of Wild Sockeye Salmon over pasta! Portion size designed to keep my waist at 36"!