21st May 2022

I have to say I am enjoying the packing process. Always at my happiest when I am sorting out a box of junk, our camping gear has been sorted, filed, serviced, tested and packed in big plastic boxes AND to complete my joy… labeled! Sigh, it was great. I spent Thursday doing this and making a list of the little things that need to be purchased like mantles for the lantern and wine. (Sorry, wine should not be on that list. Wine is a big and important thing.)
 Mike spent Thursday playing cricket after a long gap away from the sport. Some old teammates heard he was retired and invited him to play at an annual game in Chemainus. He left home at the crack of dawn with a truck full of smelly sports gear, a large mug of tea, a couple of guys from the team and a big smile on is face. As much as I love him, I was excited to indulge myself alone in the garage with a growing mess of gear turning it into neatly organized luggage. The day held as much promise for me as it did for him. In the late afternoon I had one of those text messages that makes time stop for a moment and ones heart miss a beat. Mike had injured his leg whilst bowling his last over. He tends to understate things so when he told me he heard a pop as he went down, I was really worried. Fortunately, there was at least one retired doctor on the team who pulled strapping bandages out of his cricket bag and both he and Mike agreed he had torn a calf muscle. He arrived home much later that night and it was obvious he could not walk unaided. He still can not but after a full day resting in bed, he can at least get to the bathroom in less than 10 minutes using a walking stick.
The injury could have been so much worse, it could have been his heart that mutinied after too long away from the sport, he could have torn an ACL or broken a finger like he has in the past. This is unfortunate and inconvenient, but I still have Mike and we are still heading out on the trip on schedule. Never a docile patient, I was concerned that he stayed in bed without protest and slept most of the day, but he is back to his usual self today. I think the most healing thing was spending the late afternoon with our little granddaughter. Nothing makes you feel better quicker than baby cuddles and she is such a sweet natured child you can feel your heart grow two sizes when you are with her.
So, guess who will be packing the truck, driving, walking the dog, setting up camp, cooking the meals fetching the water, striking the camp and moving on whist himself supervises from his camp chair? He will owe me after this. Let me think…. I don’t think I have any rubies. What? I can dream can’t I! At least Toby-the-dog will help with the washing up, he is a master of the prewash.
I do enjoy a challenge and it seems the fates enjoy a good laugh. I now need to go and get some hiking poles for Mike so he can navigate long walks to campsite bathrooms. I got out his grandfather’s beautiful 100 year old wooden walking stick right away, but I think it makes him feel a bit old. Ah well, at lease the sun is shining…. For now.
 

Wednesday 18th

I woke up in the morning and, still heavy with sleep and significantly short on caffeine. I lay, listening to my body, not in the metaphoric sense but literally. If I move my hips a certain way, it crunches, my knee clicks and my shoulder groans. There are many stiff and sore parts of my body first thing in the morning and with the rapidly approaching prospect of sleeping in a tent in what is increasingly predicting to be a cold and wet passage across Canada, I am very aware of them! I am equal parts excited and terrified at the prospect right now.
We have been planning our gear carefully, adding to and updating our equipment as required. I suspect Mike is feeling much the same after our latest purchase. We had coffee with a friend who had worked in Norther Ontario, and he described the dire consequences of black fly attacks. Neither of us said much about it but I was glad that we had two mosquito nets, small that they were. It was a day or so later that Mike suggested, after what must have been a session of deep thought, that we buy a bug house, one of those mesh tents that covers a BBQ table and more. One more trip to Canadian Tire and with visible relief from both of us, we placed our new bug house on the growing pile of equipment to be packed. I will pull all the stuff out tomorrow whilst Mike is off playing cricket on Vancouver Island.
Yesterday, aware as I am of my creaking body, I was noticing how stiff my hips had become. Instead of sitting on the stairs to pull on my shoes as I set off to visit a good friend, I stooped from the waist to fasten them and realized it was getting much harder to reach my feet. I puffed and grunted to tie my laces when I was interrupted by the buzzing of my cell phone. I pulled it out of my pocket anticipating a cute video of our granddaughter. I did not put it back in the front pocket of my jeans as I bent again to deal with my shoes, and lo!...... I was suddenly way more flexible without the restraining presence of a large flat block at the joint!
Maybe we can do this trip after all.

Saturday May 14th
 
What started out as a half joke, that we would deliver the last of the contents of our son’s closet to him, evolved during Covid to become a firm concept, then a promise, then a plan and now it is a campaign, complete with an Operations Order.
Retirement was eagerly anticipated by me, but Mike was rather reluctant at first. He figured he would retire somewhere in his 70s and keep diagnosing x-rays at the Children’s Hospital until his eyes failed him. I had a different wish! My father had died shortly before retiring, leaving my Mum alone with all the travel ideas and no companion. I wanted to do the traveling, have the adventures and see as much of the world as we could before travel insurance got too much for us. I pointed out to Mike, that I have quashed two careers of my own to allow him to follow his career and I felt it was my turn. Now to be fair, that was my own fault. Early in our marriage when we were deciding about children, we agreed that the one who earned the most stayed at work and the other stayed home to raise children. We had the choice back then. I worked so hard in the next year, but who was I kidding, as job as a medical sales rep was never going to earn as much as a successful doctor! I LOVED raising my children and did some interesting jobs when they were in school. I went back to school my self and graduated from BCIT with a broadcast diploma, just about the time Mike became ‘acting’ head of department. The opportunity for him to take up the slack with three growing boys whilst I took a start up radio job in the interior, was lost. I did however have a great career with 600AM in Vancouver until they decided to take it off air. Meanwhile I had become part of the Air Cadet program, found myself in uniform with a service number and a proud member of the Canadian Armed forces. The job was phenomenal – but this blog is about the after-work life we have both just started. Mike did listen to me and decided I might not be completely mad. He then decided he would beat me to retirement and left work three month ahead of me.
Covid has changed all our travel plans – and as we are not alone in that, I see no point in dwelling on the ‘what ifs’. I keep telling myself that traveling round the South Seas is probably not all is cracked up to be. (Oh, I KNOW it is.) That Europe will not be the same as the last time we went. (As if the Eifel Tower suddenly got moved!) That Australia is full of poisonous things. (Actually, this is right.) So making the best of a whole newly invented world, we are off to Ontario! We have dusted off the tent, re-proofed it and evicted a lot of old pine needles and dead spiders. We have tested the old camping gear, bought new sleeping bags, and put a canopy on the truck so we can take enough stuff to be really, really comfortable! Oh yes, and we are taking our 75lb, rather bouncy dog, Toby. Two wrinkleys and a dog under canvas crossing Canada during bug season in the coldest spring ever with floods in the prairies and snow still falling in BC. What could possibly go wrong!!!!?
 
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