The Arrival

I was awake before six which was fine, not a big rush to get myself moving right away. I got cleaned up and dressed and did my French lesson immediately, not sure when I’ll get another chance. I ventured out and got the truck filled up with my new fuel card, it works. I went to another Esso, my favourite Petro is blocked by construction. I got myself a McBreakfast (again) and then went to finally get groceries. I put it off for almost a week and survived off my core foodstuffs. That meant they’d have to be replenished. I was also buying a lot of extra food this time for my guests. My parents, my Sudbury sister and her partner were coming to stay with me for a few days to explore the south and get out of their own little worlds for a bit. I was happy to host, my sister has never been here before. When asked to donate money I tried to donate a fiver plus whatever brought my total to the next nearest dollar. The lady misheard my fifty three as sixty three so the total wasn’t perfect. I didn’t care for that. I got my haul home, took longer to bring it in and to stow it, here is what I got, probably can’t see it all.

That left one major task to tackle, the lawns. But it was still pretty early in the day to fire up an annoying mower. I instead took to Musings, I was nearly a week behind in posting my drafts but hammered away and got a few days up for you to enjoy, they are loaded with fun tales. Some other yahoo mowed their lawn at half nine so I figured I’d go at ten. I was out there with workboots and gloves on, should have had safety glasses to complete the PPE picture. I mowed the side lawns before the lady next door popped out. She wanted me to let her swap the free plant she planted in my front garden for something else. Apparently she didn’t like the seeds off the existing one, they get everywhere and grow in the lawn. Uh, sure. Not sure how that counts as me doing her a favour but either way. She put in a dwarf bleeding heart, I had the non-dwarf version before so this should work nicely. We chatted for a bit, we’re both double dosed now, her brother is dying, I shouldn’t have filled in under my steps with gravel. You know, neighbour stuff. I moved to the back lawn and buzzed it off before using my big scissors to trim out the stuff the mower couldn’t reach. It’s not perfect but it’s much less the mess I was looking at before.

After cleaning the mower and myself up, had to let the sweat dry, I had a bunch of water and a single drumstick for lunch. I got back on the computer machine and finished updating Musings while I wanted for my family to arrive. They appeared around just ahead of two in the afternoon and after a chaotic dropping off of the stuff we embarked on a tour of the Harbour for my sister. We ended up in the living room and then started to workshop plans for the next few days. Unfortunately the weather was not cooperating, rain is forecasted for every day they are here except today so we decided to get some miniature golf in while the weather was nice. We took a tour across downtown first to show the girls and then the battle was on. It appeared to be no masks while you were playing assuming you could maintain distance from other parties. We played the Coast to Coast Miniature Golf course like we usually do when my parents visit, it’s a unique venue.

There were a lot more photos taken, I think Mother got one of every hole. Each hole is themed for a different attraction in each province and has a brief description of each. I squeezed us all on to the same score card. It took me a hole to get warmed up. Apparently I was a bad host and didn’t let my guests win. They had a chance but had a couple of collapse holes each. Both the girls had aces to offset some other rougher holes. The important part is that we all had fun and the weather was great.

It was ten to five when we wrapped things up and headed back to the Harbour. Drinks and chips were served and Mother started to thaw her sauce. She whipped up some tasty rigatoni with the frozen sauce she had. After some recovery we had tasty drumsticks. It was a delightful meal to start the trip.

The girls went upstairs to work on homework for school and relax and I took my parents to the basement to watch some movies. We started off watching The Kid Detective, primarily because it was filmed in North Bay but also because Rek had said it was good. We did enjoy it and Sudbury sister joined us partway through while her partner wrote an essay. She went back upstairs and we watched American Assassin. I’d already seen it but neither parent had. Everyone enjoyed it. It was after ten by the time it wrapped so we called it a night. I’m confident that my parents will sleep well in the basement but I’m worried the guest room will be too hot for the girls, they don’t have AC so maybe there is a chance.