The snows that greeted us at our Ottawa house continued through most of our time there. It felt like a good old Ottawa winter from my childhood memories, except instead of snow forts and snowball fights, it was all about shovelling and de-icing.
Can’t complain (much) though, the house and the area is beautiful, and we had a lovely and relaxing time in the Glebe. And once again we were able to play host to Mom and Sis on the weekends, which was great. And of course we stayed connected to our Alberta family as well.
Our days were spent (when not shovelling), mostly relaxing, and exploring the surrounds. I grew up in the Glebe, so I’m surrounded by memories from the past. All my schools are within walking distance (two elementary, one jr. high, and high school). The church, where I spent so much time singing and avoiding sermons. The Rideau Canal, Landsdowne Park. Even the old house, although it’s been completely renovated, so looks way more impressive than the one I grew up in. But it’s still here.
Everything looks so… familiar — but different. It’s always weird coming back.
I spent most of my days in the office, which had a direct view of the house across the street. I became enthralled with the neighbours walking their new puppy. Too cute!
While our time at the Glebe house was relaxing and easy, events around us were somewhat less so. Russia invaded Ukraine, and Freedum truckers invaded Ottawa. The so-called Trucker Convoy occupied the downtown area of the city through much of our time. We were outside what became known as the “Red Zone,” but not far outside.
From our place we could hear the occasional horn blast, and the sound of emergency vehicle sirens was pretty common. Pickup trucks flying the black “F🍁CK Trudeau” flag could be seen parading around. One day I was in our local postal outlet and a “trucker” came in. He loudly flaunted the mask requirement, telling everyone why it was dumb, and generally abusing and bullying the staff and customers. Needless to say, this did not endear me to his cause.
This whole event is a black eye on our democracy, and on civility in this country. I know the occupiers are expressing real frustration, but they are being used and bamboozled by purveyors of mis/disinformation. The whole event was sad, and pretty pathetic, but it had a huge negative impact on lots of people in this city. The reverberations are still being felt.
Eventually, the whole thing came to an end, and sadly so did our time in Ottawa. We’ve loved our time here in the Glebe, and our hosts (Micki and Larry) have been great, but it was time to move on. Happily, our next house involved big water, and a kitty!
This final house sit of the season had us over near Grand Bend, ON. The house is located next to Lake Huron, in a rural area outside the town. We’d actually met our new hosts two years earlier, just prior to the coming of the Covid plague. We had originally agreed to house sit for them in 2020, but then the world fell apart, and so did all our plans. But Kerry & Ed kept in touch, and we were finally able to make it all work.
One little twist was that our dates overlapped slightly with the Ottawa house sit, so I (Mike) moved over to Grand Bend a few days ahead of Ann. It was tough leaving Ann to do all the final cleaning and sorting of the Glebe house, while I was stuck entertaining Jake the kitty and revelling in this new, wonderful place — but somehow I persevered. I’m such a trooper 😇😁.
Happily, our separation was only a few short days. Soon Ann arrived via train from Ottawa, and we settled in for our stay at this wonderful home, and with The Master, Sir Jake the cat. Jake is a very vocal cat, who always makes it clear what he wants, which usually involved either food, coming in or out, or getting pets. He was soooo sweet!
This house was built by the owners, and includes both an older and newer part. The original section is a beautiful square-log cabin, while the newer section is equally lovely and comfortable. The house is in a rural area, with a beautiful garden, and lots of wildlife such as fox and turkey, rabbits (galore) and tons of birds — there were multiple feeders that needed refilling every couple of days!
One of the more unique critters resident in the area is the mysterious white squirrel. It’s not an albino, just white. It wasn’t long before the neighbours were asking: “Have you seen the white squirrel yet?” At first I thought they were kidding. Then I assumed what they were seeing was a pale version of a grey squirrel. But then we spotted it on a walk.
During our stay, we spent a fair bit of time walking the area, and exploring the beach and using their bikes. The first time I ventured down onto the shore I couldn’t even see the water due to the height of the ice ridges. But after a few good storms, and some warmer weather, they slowly started to break up, revealing a gravelly, sandy beach as far as the eye could see.
In addition to the beach walks and bike rides there was music. Ed is an accomplished musician so there is a music room in the house, full of great song books, along with Ed’s banjo and mandolin. I’d never played either, but Ed told me to give a whirl, so I did:
A couple of weeks into our stay we got to play host ourselves; Mom and Kathy came for a visit! Kathy had a week off work, and we had the perfect place for a holiday. Ed & Kerry had already met Mom two years ago when we had first made contact, so were thrilled to hear that my family was coming for a visit. We prepared for the visit in the perfect way, finding the perfect local beer for Kathy:
It was a nice, relaxing week. Kathy & Mom did a lot of exploring of the area, checking out the local wineries, towns and parks. They visited Strathroy, the town Mom grew up in, and said hi to all the dead relatives in a local grave. But mostly we just relaxed and enjoyed good company, good food, and good local beer/wine.
Of course, through it all, the real centre of attention was not us, but Jake the cat. Everyone loves Jakie!
Days rolled by in our little Shangri la. The weather, which had remained unseasonably cool and wet, started to bend to more normal — warmer and drier — conditions. This meant more beach walks, more bike rides, but also more garden work and lawn cutting.
And of course, there was more ukeing (for Mike):
Sadly, our time here came to an end. Part of the joy of this vagabond life is all the new places, people and pets we get to experience. But part of the sorrow is that we’re constantly saying goodbye. But I suspect we’ll be back to this place, and this kittie, sometime in the future.
In the meantime, we packed our little red car, and once more headed back to Ottawa to hang with Mom & Sis & Hammi for a couple of weeks. Ann even got Mom doing her online workouts. Very cute…
We have our ferry booked for Newfoundland, so unless the world collapses again, we’ll finally get to see our boat. It will be over 2 1/2 years since we’ve been sailors. We know our boat will need extra work to get her back up to snuff. We just hope it isn’t too bad. Either way, the time is getting closer 😬😳😁.
Addendum: A few days into our Ottawa stay a vicious storm blew through the city. I managed to get a view of the radar just before it struck. And when it did, it was like being hit by a brick wall of wind and rain. Everything went black, and of course we lost power.
This video was taken after the worst had blew through:
Later, the weather dudes/dudets said the winds hit 190 km, which is over 100 knots! This makes it the equivalent of a Category III hurricane, or an EF2 on the tornado scale. This derecho, as it was called, was the result of extremely powerful downdrafts.
The aftermath was pretty devastating. The side image shows the outage map for Ottawa. Nearly half the city was affected. And These photos where taken in the parking lot of Kathy’s condo, and on the nearby walking trail:
The storm hit Saturday at 3:50 pm, and it took until Wednesday at 12-midnight for workers to restore power to our place. So we lived without electricity for nearly five days. Luckily the weather was benign (not too cold, not too hot), so we managed quite well. We pulled out our flashlights and battery packs to keep all our doodads charged, and we were able to get minimal Internet access via cell service. But it sure makes you appreciate electricity.
We spent a lot of time reading and chatting and playing poker. The tequila bottle, which had been bought for Mom’s birthday, somehow drained away. All in all, it was pretty good. But again… it makes you appreciate the wonders of electricity.