Dec 11 - delays, delays

The advantage of having a secretary is that you never get annoyed when plans change because you don't know that plans change -- you just move onto the next thing on your calendar. I, however, don't have a secretary. Arlene and Margaret are long gone from me ... before Arlene, in memorable terms, there were Diane and Rosemarie ... before that, at TA Associates, Stella ... I never had a male secretary. No, I take that back. In later years I had a male secretary -- myself !

Plans have changed. We're leaving on Tuesday now. We'll stay somewhere in between Tuesday night; at Stef's Wednesday night; Sandy's hair Thursday a.m. ... and then onward.

I should have gone biking. We haven't had a drop here, but there has been rain all around, so no doubt I'd have been caught out there. Without biking, I cleaned the kind of "balcony" area in the living room, on which a huge number of hanging plants had roosted when we bought the house. I put down a coat of primer, to clean it up and put up the lighted masks that we got in Mexico. Actually they had candle holders that I converted "to the new electric light" to quote Phantom of the Opera referring to the chandelier.

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We haven't had a drop ... no, shortly after I wrote that bit of blog, the dam broke and it's been raining ever since. BIG RAIN, roads awash ... what was the line from Ghostbusters ? don't remember; it will come to me.

This morning it's still raining and there's big rain between us and our eventual destination. It's just as well that we're leaving tomorrow !

I'm back from the gym, it will be a month before we're back. I'll have to use the equipment at the cottage and likely the stationary bike; can't go for 5 weeks without getting on the saddle !

The house is mostly put together or at least as much as it's going to be put together before we leave. I expect that Sandy will do some cleaning today; she went Christmas shopping yesterday. We have a parcel to mail to Arlene's kids today. We ordered one of the things on Lauren's list from the only supplier that we could find ... in Hong Kong. It was mailed yesterday (Sunday ?) and the delivery estimate is 10-21 days. It's going to the cottage so who knows whether we'll see it before we exchange gifts with Stef.

There's no snow up north at this point and no ice. It's getting quite cold at the end of the week -- welcome ! -- so perhaps we'll soon have ice. No ice means no ice fishing ... but then again I could always put the Whaler in the water, good thing that it's in the boathouse vs the barn !

Today ... the rain is supposed to continue. If clears, I'll go for a bike ride but that doesn't look promising. I do have to pack the car, which won't take too long. I drained the fountain yesterday. There are a few other close-up activities but nothing too strenuous or time consuming.

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David has been trying to fix a problem with his dishwasher. The impeller broke on his circulation pump and he's trying to replace that separately, vs buying the entire unit. He'll save a bundle if he can. He and I went back and forth a few times yesterday as I helped him troubleshoot and then do a parts search. He thinks that he's located the impeller from a site in Mississauga and if that works out, I might be bringing it up to Barrie on our way north.

Onward ...