Local Markets — The Tugboat

Today is the big day, biggest schedule and most travel around the area. I think we spread out the fun evenly over the two days but this day of days has more things geared towards my parents enjoyment. A lot of them are boxes they like to check when they get down this way. We were planning to have a big breakfast to start the day and get away early. We didn’t wake up in time to have that breakfast. Instead mother had a small meal from the fridge and the T and I got McBreakfast. We were late for the opening bell by ten minutes but got to the St Jacob’s market plenty early. We masked up, sanitized where directed and kept our distance from everyone as much as possible. The Big T was indecisive and timid at first, constantly badgering mother with questions about what he should get. She continually told him to get what he’d like, much like a toddler with his first allowance. He took that advice to heart and went wild. He quickly snapped up a supply of his favourite veggies at the first couple of booths then we wandered through the rest, shuffling bags and enjoying the beautiful weather. Next was the indoor meat market. We got a variety of sausages, both frozen and fresh. They got a variety of perogies and hummus, and other things they love to buy at the market. With all the shopping bags full we detoured back to the truck and put everything in the portable fridge and generally in the truck. I had intentions of fielding a work call during this time but we were so engrossed in our activities that I never did call in, I’m on vacation afterall. We wandered into the big covered market and perused the stocks. My parents spent quite awhile at the Tupperware booth. They were far more knowledgeable about the options than I was, I recalled that they hosted the famous parties in the 1980’s so it made sense. I took a photo because the wild colours are quite like the colours my company uses. At this juncture, I convinced mother to buy a sweet little tripod. I’m excited for her to use it while cooking to hold her phone and enable her to read recipes off it instead of having to print everything. After getting our full experience at the market and blowing untold hundreds of dollars on delicious, fresh food and gizmos, we toured the actual town to see what had changed since the last time we visited, two years prior. From there it was a short trip to Picard’s, the peanut place the Big T loves. I couldn’t go in due to group limitations but by all accounts he spent a whopping amount and exited with a large sack of goodies, including a bacon, cheddar, jalapeno popcorn.

We cruised a few minutes down the road to the antique market. This one is the smaller of those that we plan to visit but sometimes has some interesting pieces. It was mask mandatory and had all the right rules in place. We walked the three long aisles and explored the booths for over an hour. We each came away with a few prizes. I was able to find some spoons from places I’d visited but wasn’t able to buy a spoon at the time, the collection grows. I got a little gift for a friend too. Mother got a couple of small items and Big T got another toy car for his growing collection. He loves that crap. The day was beautiful so we decided to shoot over to Stratford for the afternoon. We had to make a couple of stops to try and get some items we were coveting. Mother and I were looking for some soaps and candles from Bath and Body Works, she needed some special face ointment from Winners and we all needed to get our mitts on some Pink Whitney. The last of which is a hot item and we’d have two chances at during this journey. That was good because that first location sold their last bottles that morning, we had one more shot. We drove downtown, into the heart of the beast and found another LCBO location and they had six bottles left. We took four of them. Two for me, two for my parents. They have never tried it but figured if it’s this hot then it must be good. That, and they are going to give a bottle to my sister. With our bags full and our wallets empty we set off on foot to explore old, historic Stratford. We walked past most of the shops, many are still shuttered but the open ones had good requirements in place to limit spread of the dreaded virus.

During our wandering we found a few patios that were open for business and deigned to try out this new/old experience. It took a couple of tries to find one with an open table but eventually, down a side street nearly out of downtown we found Foster’s Inn, a nice spot with a bit of shade even. It was a strange experience, almost like we were doing something wrong. We didn’t have masks on, because eating and drinking with them has proven difficult in the past. The server had one and was sanitizing and cleaning everything frequently. We all ordered the same meal and some drinks and made short work of the lunch. It wasn’t cheap and I’ve been warned by several people in the know that this will be an ongoing trend in the restaurant business. It seems processors are greedier than I thought, but this isn’t the time nor place to rant. After lunch we made our way down to the river to see the park. We figured we’d come this far. Upon arrival, we found a lovely setting with probably close to one hundred ducks, some Canada geese and a lone seagull. There were kids feeding corn and nearly getting swarmed. Mother got many photos of the very tame birds, much to her delight.

After playing with the birds and wandering about near the water we found toilets and started the trip back home. We made a detour to visit my old research farm and borrow a fertilizer spreader. I learned a fun fact when I got home, apparently Ronny had taken his family to the very spot with the ducks less than an hour before we were there. They had gone paddleboating and played with the birds also. We missed each other by mere minutes. Pretty cool to find that out. Anywho, we dropped mother off at the house and returned to Home Depot to procur some additional caulk, the correct tubing for the unnamed project and a board. The board was the first to go into action. We painstakingly cut it to fit across the back of my truck. It was a process chock full of disagreement and second guessing but we got the result. Some additional puttering with the lawn preceded supper which was another beauty meal cooked on the BBQ to perfection. The Big T prepared the starch, mother handled the vegetables and I did the protein. We cooked up the five flavoured pairs of fresh sausages that I bought at the market, you can’t tell from the photo below but there should be two of each kind. The BBQ sauce masks the differences well. It was a guessing game to discern what you were eating when the time came. The complete plate photo that Big T takes at each meal was shared with the family.

After dinner was cleaned up, the parents made plans to go visit the Big T’s cousin. This was done with proper precautions as he and his partner are both healthcare workers. While they did that, I watered the lawn, worked on the unnamed project and did some work emails. There were some substantial announcements that happened and some time sensitive questions that needed answering quickly and I had the means to do so. That aspect only lasted an hour so don’t think I’m failing at my staycation again. I was also able to post week 6 of Theodore Complete’s space bucket journey while I was on the computer. They returned and we had a couple laughs before everyone went to bed, tuckered out from our big adventurous day.