Still Kicking

We are surviving the winter! We are not doing much, Norma is glued to her curling and figure skating on TV and I am reading on my KOBO. Aside from that and keeping the drains on the back slope clear, not much is happening.

It is raining as usual and when I checked my workshop I noticed the floor was wet! I quickly determined the back wall was leaking at a few places where the old plywood sheeting joins together. I built that 12 X 12 foot workshop when we bought the house back in 1989 and the wall that faces the prevailing wind and rain is giving up.

I checked Craigslist and found a handyman who claims to be capable of such repairs and sent him a message and a photo. He charges $25 per hour and estimates the job will take three to six hours. I called Brooks and he confirmed that was a bargain. He would do it but it would cost him $100 in gas just to get here.

I messaged the guy back and booked him for next Thursday. I will meet him outside Home Depot with four sheets of 3/8 inch plywood and some 1 X 4 trim boards on a dolly. In the meantime I will move everything away from that back wall. Total cost should be no more than $300, all in. About as much as it cost me to build the entire shop back in 1989.

The wall:

Imagine

"Imagine"

Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today... Aha-ah...

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion, too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace... You...

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world... You...

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one

- John Lennon

Christmas Day

We had a very quiet Christmas Day with a visit from our former neighbor Dave and his dad, Jerry, a pleasant surprise! We had not made any plans for dinner so we kept it simple with a nice batch of fish & chips in our Fry Daddy. I used some frozen New Zealand Blue Cod I had bought to experiment with and it was delicious, a sustainable species that was mild tasting and the perfect texture for deep frying.

It stayed cold all day so the snow we got on Christmas Eve stayed and we even got a nice ice display on our Rain Chain!

Merry Christmas!

We are having a White Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all our Friends and Family, far and wide! We are thinking of all of you and wishing you the very best for the coming year! - Croft & Norma

Disappointing Change Of Plans

We had intended to drive down to Shawnigan Lake to visit Brooks and LindaLee for a few days over Christmas but we have both been fighting bad colds. Yesterday I was hit really hard and was up all night sneezing, coughing and running to the bathroom. Not good conditions for visiting anyone and I certainly do not feel like driving, specially through probable snow conditions.

We are really disappointed as we had bought a couple of salmon to take with us and had been looking forward to the visit which would have been our first Christmas together in many years as we have always been down south this time of year.

We will see them soon, just not at Christmas. Like I say, disappointing.

Meanwhile In Mexico...

Our friends Brian and Sue crossed at Laredo, Texas this morning heading into Mexico and after seven hours of crawling along in in a traffic jam they are spending the night in their motorhome, pulled off on the side of the road north of Monterrey in a snowstorm. No concerns, they have lots of food, propane, blankets, Internet, rum...

They are trying to get to San Miguel de Allende but the highway south of Monterrey is closed due to snow as well. It is going to be a frustrating couple of days for them.

There is snow in Brownsville and Corpus Christi, Texas as well as along the Big Bend Highway in Texas. I have to say I thought this winter might get off to a cold start this year.

"Mike" The Viagra Salesman!

Somehow "Mike" knows both our first names and is relentless in his calls to our house phone trying to sell me Viagra from "USA Pharmacy". The calls start about 8:00 AM and continue three or four times every single day until about 9:00 at night. He will not take no for an answer and being rude has no effect either.

Norma's standard answer is, "He is 72 years old and doesn't need it". I have no idea what she means by that.

Time Machine

A friend found this old photo in the BC Tel / Telus Radio Shop and sent me a copy. It goes back to shortly after I transferred to Campbell River from Terrace, BC in 1989. It appears to be Dave Shaw, Gord Aikman and myself in back walking down to the helicopter pad at one of our remote VHF radio sites. Gord is the only one carrying tools. LOL. It looks like one of Okanagan Helicopters old Bell Jet Ranger 205's painted in their old colours. The 205 is the civilian version of the Huey used in the Vietnam War.

Grocery Shopping

Norma has been dropping hints that our freezer is pretty bare of seafood and Christmas is coming. So today we went down to the docks and paid a visit to Crabby Bob's Seafood. Not the cheapest in town but you know everything there is as fresh as it can be.

We bought a couple of whole 7 - 8 pound Coho Salmon and a few packages of smoked salmon. That will be a good start on the shopping. It was quite a bit less than I expected, only $144.

I think we have Christmas sorted out. We were going to have Brooks and LindaLee up here for Christmas but now it looks like we will be going down there. Jayde, our oldest granddaughter, quit her Vancouver job and her new one does not start up until January 15 so she will be visiting her dad looking for some work to pay her rent until she gets back to work. Brooks is holding a big painting contract for her, something she is good at and he hates so she should be able to make a couple of thousand doing that. LindaLee's parents might be there as well so it will be a fun Christmas.

It will be our first Christmas at home in about fifteen years!

Job Jar

The motion detector security lights at the back door quit working sometime over the past year or so. It is not something we test often, if ever, but I noticed they were not working when I went out for firewood the other night and they did not come on. I checked the local hardware stores and they do not seem to be something they stock, strangely enough. I found one online at Home Hardware for $45 and ordered it.

It arrived in a couple of days and yesterday I installed it. A pretty simple operation. Take it down, unscrew the wire nuts from the old one, connect the new one, remount it on the wall and operate the "test" switch. Success!

Now we have functioning lighting when I go for wood in the dark. Or when a burglar comes to the back door!