February 22nd, 2009: -13° this morning, and overcast, when we finally crawled out of bed about 9:00 AM. The week has been near normal as far as temperature is concerned, with quite a bit of sunshine. Good to see. I notice a bit of drifted snow on some of the overpasses, so there must have been some windy spells. We didn’t notice them, though, in our snug little house.
I realised when we drove to the Field House the other morning that I hadn’t turned on the headlights. The days are getting noticeably longer, which is also nice to see.
One of President Obama’s promises has already been kept – a visit to Canada. I think you could say he took the country by storm, without a shot being fired. I’m not sure how substantive his agreements with Prime Minister Harper were – those kinds of agreements are not made during brief, personal meetings between heads of state – but as far as public relations are concerned, it was a real coup. What a personality! Can he follow through with solid management?
I thought I would be able to report that our renovations are complete and that we are enjoying them, but that’s not the case. Our men are supposed to be here tomorrow morning, and if they spend one good day at it, they should be pretty well done. It’s mostly stuff like putting up medicine cabinets and towel bars, installing baseboards, and installing one toilet. They should be able to do that in a day, then the painter can come in and put a coat of varnish on the woodwork, and we’ll be done. What a relief that will be. At least, until we see the bill.
We had breakfast with our Sunseeker friends on Saturday, as usual. Some of the snowbirds are back and seem to have had a good winter. Now we are all looking forward to our outings, which begin with the long weekend in May. Our Wagonmasters work a year in advance, booking blocks of sites at Regional Parks, so we can draw up a list of times and places early in the year.
We have been over to visit our motor home; the batteries were well up so I started it up and let it run until the temperature came up. That recharges the batteries and splashes some oil around, recommended practice when a vehicle sits idle for a long time.
My sister, Cathy, belongs to the Prince Albert Good Sams chapter. They get together weekly for coffee but since she broke her wrist and can’t drive, she hasn’t met with them recently. She had tried to find out what their outing plans were for this year and was told that that had not been arranged yet. I wonder if they will have problems booking spaces this late? There is a national outing at Nipawin in June which we will be going to, and likely the Prince Albert group will be attending as well. Also, we have some time in July and August for a longer trip, if Cathy’s wrist is healed well enough for her to be able to drive long distances. We wouldn’t mind a tour down into Idaho and eastern Washington if all goes well. Does it sound as if we will be spending most of the summer in our motor home?
I talked to Cathy on the phone today and she says she has Freckles home again. He has been staying at Cathy’s daughter’s place in Prince Albert while Cathy’s wrist healed. Cathy isn’t trying to take him for walks, though; she lets him in and lets him out, and he gets his exercise running back and forth with the neighbuors’ dogs. There is a gate between the two yards, and the dogs run back and forth at will. I gather all were happy to see Freckles again.
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