Tuesday, December 18th - one week till Christmas!

It's a snow day on PEI!  Lloyd is discovering one of the disadvantages of living in town and being within walking distance of work - no snow days! It started snowing yesterday around lunch time and hasn't stopped since. Most things are pretty much shut down, although my favorite little coffee shop is open. So here I am! 

I determined pretty early on this morning that I'd not be able to get the car out of the parking lot behind our current place of residence. No worries, I can walk to at least one of my stores. Fortunately the Queen Street pharmacy was open so I was able to complete my work there. I needed to go to the Credit Union but unfortunately it was closed. Not sure if it's for the entire day. I'll have to check that online.

So now I'm enjoying a nice hot coffee at Timothy's and watching the cars slipping and sliding along the street. Of course if I was in my own place, I'd be sitting in the window admiring the snow from beside my gaily lit Christmas Tree. Oh well, next year.

Lloyd has discovered his new favorite store - Clover Farm over in Brighton.  It's a little grocery store within walking distance of our place. They sell all kinds of regular items as well as many middle eastern products as well. He was there yesterday and picked up a few things so he made supper last night. They have the very large, very thin wraps and he filled those with a combination of leftover cooked chicken, hummus, feta cheese, really great kalamata olives and I'm not sure what else. Whatever was in them, they were delicious. We still have a bit of chicken left so I suggested if he wants to make the same thing again tonight, he's more than welcome to.

I have a couple of errands I was going to do last night while he was sleeping but the snow put a halt to that. With any luck I can do them tomorrow. The snow is meant to last till supper time, so I think today is a lost cause. The up side is it's not that cold and the wind isn't too bad here in the city but I suspect the country roads may be a different story.



Yesterday we drove up to Purolator and sent Lloyd's log book for his airplane on it's way to it's new owner. When he got back into the car he commented that now his plane is officially gone. I know that wasn't easy for him. 









Once finished I went to Parkdale Pharmacy and Lloyd walked back from there. He's certainly finding lots of opportunities to walk in preparation for his trip in January. He's also been trying to watch what he eats but that's almost a lost cause this time of the year.

Monday, December 17th - little more than a week till Christmas!

It's been a couple of weeks since we last spoke. It's been a pretty busy few days. We have a calendar on our wall and December has been quite a flurry of activity.

We traveled out to Hope River to celebrate our friend Peter's birthday with his wife Geraldine, and our friends Charles and Laura. Lloyd and I went to the movies on Friday night and special coffee after. That's been our Friday night routine for the past two Fridays. One of the advantages of living in town - it's within walking distance.

Saturday morning was an early one. Lloyd has sold his airplane but unfortunately the log book that needs to go with the plane was packed in the trailer with all our belongings. Lloyd's gone out a couple of times to dig through boxes to find it, but to no avail. SO we rented a U-haul truck and took it out to Patti Lane. We moved boxes from one vehicle to another, after carefully sorting through each one. Eventually we came across the much needed item. Many, many thanks to Jens and Frank for their help. Finding that book took a huge amount of stress off Lloyd's shoulders. He's leaving for Vietnam in January and really didn't want to leave before finding it (more on that later). Now all is well with the world, all things considered!

We went out to Island Hill farm on Sunday to see the newest addition to their family - a baby llama. It was only one day old and my gosh it's too cute for words.

After our visit, we went back to town, put a chicken in the oven to roast (before the rush to use the kitchen) and watched some Netflix. After supper I went out to Fort Augustus to meet the girls for our weekly craft night (more of a gab fest) and then I met up with Brenda and Bernie on my way home for tea.

Lloyd is finalizing his plans for his trip. We all knew he was anxious to go back to Vietnam and he's planning to retire on January 15th and leaving for Hanoi on January 16th - not wasting any time. He's planning to be there for 3 months. He has lots of plans so his winter will be much more enjoyable than sitting around a room in downtown Charlottetown. His absence will also make things a little better for me in that our room is adequate for one person, but realistically, a little cramped for two. So it's a win for both of us.

He's planning to keep a blog or something as he goes so I can keep up to date on what he's doing.  His fondest wish is that when he returns he has a home to move into. We'll see how that goes!

December 5th - I guess summer is over!

The last time we connected was in the spring, and I said I'd be back in the fall.

So much has changed since then.

We made the decision in June to put our house up for sale. We have our other piece of property over on Five Houses Road in Fort Augustus. We thought it would be a good idea to downsize and move over there. After searching around and lots of discussion, we came to a final decision to purchase a mini home. We found one we really liked with a layout that will perfectly suit our lifestyle. The nice thing about it, is it's all on one floor so no more stairs. Much easier to take care of and less expensive to maintain.

We didn't really think the place would sell but surprisingly it did, in September. We had one month to pack up everything, and I mean EVERYTHING. That included the commercial kitchen as the purchasers had no interest in it. So we packed it all up and sent it off to auction. I know, only a year after we built it, but we found it was a huge amount of work for not a lot of monetary return. We both decided we're a little old for this job. So sell everything, we did.

We called a local trucking company and they delivered a large trailer to our yard. We packed up all our worldly belongings and put them in the trailer. Our mini home was supposed to get moved right after closing, but unfortunately that didn't happen. We house sat for some friends for three weeks and then we moved in November to an Inn in Charlottetown. It's not ideal, but we have a bedroom and our own bathroom. There's a communal kitchen on the main floor (we're on the second floor). We can cook our meals there and then we bring them up to our room to eat while we watch the news in the evenings.

The only difficult part is Lloyd's working schedule. He gets home at 8:00 in the morning and goes to sleep until around lunch time. Then he goes back to bed at 6:30 so I have to be very quiet again, or find somewhere else to go. He's hoping to retire in January and then we might get into more of a regular routine.  But we have a place to stay so it's all good.

I had the pleasure of going to Halifax last week. Patti had a 24 hour layover there so I got to spend some quality time with both her and James.

We thought about going to Guelph for Christmas but decided against it. Instead we will spend Christmas Eve with Brenda and her family and friends, and then go for dinner on Christmas Day with our friends Jens and Linda.  It won't be the first Christmas that was less than ideal. I worked many a Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day when I worked in Corrections so it's not really that big a deal. I will miss having a tree but we just don't have the space. We'll make up for it next Christmas!

Our internet service here isn't the greatest, but I'm getting a new laptop for Christmas (which should hopefully be here next week). From then on I think I will take my laptop over to the local coffee shop in the mornings and do my work from there. Hopefully it will be much better.

Until then..... stay tuned!