From the safety of home...

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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