Hergest Ridge

A hundred little things to do, here I am posting an entry instead.

The active weekend will be felt for a couple of days in the form of sore muscles, mainly a result of landscaping. The hole in the foot - courtesy of a dry branch meeting the foot bare - will make its presence felt for a few days longer. Good timing. The other foot just healed from another incident.

Friday, along with part of the family, we drove out to light candles on Tom’s grave in celebration of his birthday. Since his sudden health decline and subsequent passing away in 2003, the tradition has been established by my mom as a way of honouring his memory. He in turn has given the family a chance to do something together, a gift of sorts from the other side. After lighting the candles, the celebration of life continued with a picnic lunch on the beach side and a good hour of swimming.

I find the practice of celebrating life favourable over mourning the dead, and want my friends and family to throw a party when I’m gone. If I had a tombstone, it would read ‘Here lies an atheist. All dressed up, and nowhere to go’, but instead I’d prefer to be cremated, and my ashes returned to a lake. Any lake that is special to those dispersing of my physical remains.

Moving onto other celebrations, Folklorama concluded on Saturday. I managed to squeeze in a couple of pavilions on the final day, and an ethnic beer at each. I much prefer the European beers to North American, for they come in larger containers. Sure, there are other reasons, but it’s difficult to look beyond the most obvious. Prost!

This year we had no trouble getting into any of the pavilions. Lineups were non-existent, and I finally figured out why. I have not seen a single tour bus visiting the pavilions, and gather that with the majority of the buses in the past originating in the US and the exchange rate as it stands, there had been virtually none. I bet that if the dollar stays the same, next year we’ll see less pavilions, a casualty of the exchange rate.

Sunday evening I took a walk through the Stone Wall quarries. I can’t believe how few bugs we had all summer long, and today was no exception. I can’t recall such nuisance free evenings in my entire 15 years living in the Canadian prairies. I love fall and winter, but this summer having been so nice, it’s hard watching it draw to an end.

The coming weeks will be busy, as I prep for a tour of Europe. A bit of extra work to help pay for the expense, as well as ensuring that I have nothing to worry about when I am away. It looks like the fun will start on September 17th, but final confirmations are still pending. So yes, it will be busy for a while yet, and since my schedule is changing again this week, I’ll need to find a new rhythm. Just when you find your groove, something bumps the playing field and your familiar track is nowhere to be found, but I’ve no complaints. Not even about the pain in the foot.