Whirlwind of a weekend just ending now

It’s Monday, 2:30 in the afternoon and I’m exhausted.

Tea with honey and a post or two will hopefully wake up my mind and body.

I love my two sisters dearly but immediately after my wife and I landed in Bracebridge on Friday afternoon a whirlwind of activity began.

Conversation, updates on projects, big meals, dancing at the Legion Hall, more conversation, card games, leisurely trips on the back roads of Muskoka (through tiny villages time had forgot), haggling over the price of boards at lumber yards and more big meals.


[Checking my cards: "How could I lose that hand?"

In two days I added 10 pounds to my waist but dropped a few from my wallet.

All worth it, however, now that I’m home and have a quiet minute to myself. (Pat is walking Ollie over to The Big Scoop for ice cream. Though sorely tempted I said ‘tea for me.’)

Best deals of the weekend - paid $4 at a church sale for Land Of The Eagle: A natural history of North America (hours of good reading, for sure), and $5 for a trunk load of lumber (including one or two pure gems).

Consequences of hard living - had to stay up way past my bedtime last night to finish my column, had to get up early this morning to stain lumber for the back wall of the house, will have to ride and run hard for the next two evenings so I don’t skate like a slug during Wednesday’s hockey game.

Rewards - laughing with my sisters and their husbands, slow dancing with my wife at the Legion, almost won a card game.

But now, I can hardly move.

More tea, please.

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Zoom w a View: What a difference a week makes

Had the sun been shining last Wednesday I would have said, “Today could be your last chance for a bike ride, Gordie. Go.”

But it wasn’t and I stayed home, finished this or that indoors and shot the photo below from my study.


Today the rains came. Had the rain been snow London would be buried in it.

Snow did come later in the day, knocked the last of the leaves from my neighbour’s tree and covered the tarp on my motorcycle.


Next year, Gordie. Go.

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Left anything too late this year? Regrets?

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London’s roads ‘losing ground’: Is City Hall solely to blame for our potholes?

“Hold on, Martha. There’s another frickin’ big hole ahead. Ouch!”

“Martha, did you survive back there? Martha? Martha?”

Yup, it’s like bumper cars and demolition derby on the streets of Deforest City but the city’s road chief is partly wrong when he says ‘politicians who underfund road work are to blame’ for the terrible conditions of our roads.

Come on, let’s do the math:

First, road chief David Leckie says he needs $20 million smackers per year to keep our streets from becoming worse than they already are (Worse? Insert laugh track here). And he’s not talking about improvements in other areas.


Second, City Hall spent half that amount last year, will spend less this year and well under $20 mill per year in the future.

Sounds like I’ve paved myself into a corner, eh? Not quite.

Third, have politicians and those that vote for them allowed funding for roads and other infrastructure needs to increase at the same pace as city growth to the far reaches of the known universe, as should happen when sprawling subdivisions and poorly planned development widens the borders of Deforest City faster than one can count the SUVs and heavy trucks that pummel roads into bite-sized fragments? (Whew. Take a breath. That was a long one.)

Fourth, how many people who live miles from work in an inappropriately named suburb (Rolling Meadow? Where’s the meadow now?) put pressure on City Hall not to raise taxes for roads because the payments on an over-sized house and car are too high?

Fifth, how many of us will vote for a councillor who says we need to pay more for the petroleum-based macadam that allows us to get smoothly to our lifestyle choices?

Martha, will you? Martha?