Tuesday, June 14th - a whirlwind visit to Guelph as well as "Mr. Edwards and the 3 little pigs!"

 Okay, go and grab another coffee, and sit down, this could take a few minutes!

I learned from my daughter many years ago, with a bit of planning, you'd be surprised how much can be crammed into just a short time. It went something like this:

I arrived in Toronto at 7:00 on Thursday morning. Picked up my rental car and headed to Brampton where I was to pick up some soap making supplies at 10:00, followed by:.

• Lunch with some old friends
• Tea with Fran and Janet, and construction of a birthday card for our friend, George, who was turning 80  (Happy Birthday, George)
• Visiting with a lady who used to live here on the island and now lives in Guelph
• Drop off and pick up Tristen at Karate for his rehearsal for Friday night

Friday was equally busy:

• Breakfast with the Balnar crew
• Help (briefly) with salad prep for lunch for the band at the highland games on Saturday
• Meeting with our financial advisor
• Lunch with Helen in Fergus

Helen and me on her balcony

• Home in time to change to attend the Black Belt Spectacular - which really was spectacular!
• Leave Black Belt Spectacular in time to catch the evening performance of the recital with Lynn, which totally blew us away again this year. What an amazing group of dancers they have all turned out to be.

Saturday - more of the same

• Up early to help assemble potato salad, cole slaw and pack up with desserts for travel to Georgetown
• Arrive in time for James first competition

Performing for the judge

Critique from the judge

• Head back to Guelph in time to change and meet with Nancy for the afternoon recital. Tristen and Greg met up with Nancy and I and we enjoyed the show together

Nancy and me

Back row- Nancy, Patti, Julianne, Pat, Front row - Meg and Tristen

• Head back to Patti's to make a quick supper.
• Movie night with Patti and the two younger  kids (although to be perfectly honest, she and I missed bits of the movie as we both took turns falling asleep) 

Needless to say it was a very busy few days. Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of Tristen at his peformance and I don't yet have any recital photos. (there will be videos of both coming at a later date)

I was up and out the door by 5:30 on Sunday morning and was grateful to make my early flight, landing me in Charlottetown by 11:20 am.

Mr. Edwards - aka Eddie

I called Lloyd and he drove into town to meet me. I was starving so we stopped in at Boom Burger as it was on our way. We were headed to DeSable to pick up our new goat - Mr. Edwards  (or Eddie for short).  Somehow we missed the turn off and ended up at Bordon-Carlton so had to turn back.  My mood was somewhat less than perfect. I was very tired by this point and the cold wet weather didn't help my disposition. It had been sunny and warm/hot for the entire time I was in Guelph and it was so disappointing to come back to this - still.

The 3 little pigs already enjoying rooting around in the mud

We finally found our destination and loaded Mr. Edwards into the box on the back of the truck. We got home where I was introduced to the three little pigs. They had arrived on Saturday.




The trusses are finished and on the top of the frame for the barn so quite a bit of work was done while I was away.  Once we got the goats all settled in, it was into the house to still more work. I begged off and took a 20 minute nap as I was exhausted.  When I got up, 20 minutes later, it was time to finish the sausages Lloyd had started. The meat mixture was all done and in the fridge but 25 pounds of meat had to be stuffed into casings. And here I was expecting and hoping for a nice quiet, relaxing evening. Lloyd had to go to bed as he was off to work at midnight so we packaged the sausages and we

Sausages, sausages and more sausages!

finished with a quick meal of cheese, pate, crackers, bread and a delight I'd had at Helen's - a Melton Mowbray Pork Pie. I'd never heard of it before but I quite liked it and I knew that Lloyd would probably like it as well. I found out where she got hers and picked one up on my way back to Guelph. It did cause a slight bit of questioning at security on Sunday morning but in the end they decided it didn't pose any threat to crew members (other than a few extra pounds if they ate it!).

All in all, it was a very busy few days but I got to see all three kids in action as well as catch up with some old friends. There were a few that got missed and for that I apologize. There's only so much can be packed into such a short space of time.  Next time!

I finally did get into my nice hot relaxing bath on Sunday evening. I was checking email on my Ipad as I'd been sorely out of touch for three days. Lo and behold, it seems James has discovered another way to utilize his piping talents, at the Guelph Multicultural Festival on Sunday afternoon (these people never stop!)   Some other musician friends have formed a band and invited him to participate as one of the songs requires a piper...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpKER5uIlms&feature=youtu.be#t=76.247097

PS Happy Birthday to Meghan Van Gaal on Wednesday and welcome home Caitlyn and Mike