A Day of Momentousness

Today is my family's last full day living in Canada. We have to wake up at around 4:45 tomorrow morning, and leave our house by 5:40; our suitcases, adds Papa, should be packed by 6:00 this evening. We'll take the ferry over to Vancouver, drive to the airport in a rented car (even though I should have liked to ride the buses one last time), then take off at 2:05 in a flight directly to Duesseldorf. Fun stuff.

Anyway, not only is it a lovely sunny day, but it is also Canada Day! We have no specific plans to celebrate it, but we do have a bottle of red wine left, and a handful of sparklers, so . . .

Yesterday our aunt and uncle came with two helpers to pick up some of the furniture that was left after we packed the container. My older brothers helped too, while my sister and I relaxed in the little house and played the violin and recorder. I must admit to being bored now and then . . . It was also bothersome to lose our cable internet, since I've found that I can't bear the thought of being without the internet even for a day -- but Papa has shown me how to use the dial-up connection from my laptop. Since the fridges went too, we have a sad array of condiments (teriyaki sauce, cream cheese, salsa, soy sauce, plum sauce, and mustard, as well as capers and sliced jalapeno peppers) waiting to be used up. We've used up most of the milk by having cereal.

In the evening we watched Miss Marple (4.15 from Paddington) with Joan Hickson, a documentary entitled Canadian Guitar that I found most boring though nice, the Sherlock Holmes (played by Jeremy Brett) adventure at Reichenbach Falls, and finally several talk shows. We children all slept in the living room, like uncomfortable islands in the hard sea that is the living room carpet. My sister and I had been able to occupy the two sofas the last few nights, but now they're gone; fortunately I was so sleepy it didn't make much difference that I was now basically sleeping on the floor and that I was chilly. At some point in the morning my sister rose from her sleeping bag and hauled it off with her into our car, so that she could sleep more comfortably. I didn't take out my sleeping bag because it took so much trouble to pack it in my suitcase to begin with.

Anyway, I'll go off and enjoy my last day (though I intend to come back some time) in this country now!