Another year, and, my apologies for yet another letter
and no Christmas card! The reality for
me at least, is this annual diatribe; just enough to keep you all current on
our address change, and how Chris, I and our critters are.
The big news this year is no news! Hah!
That’s likely not what you thought this was going to be! You probably
thought this was going to be one of those bragging letters, but there is
truthfully nothing to brag about this year.
It has been tight financially, poor weather-wise, and busy with work
commitments. With this little letter
then, we share with you just a sprinkling of our happenings in 2011.
The highlight of the year was that we went to England for 2 weeks this spring. The trip was primarily a mission to take
Chris’s parents ashes back to where they met along the River Lee, to visit
Chris’s cousins in and around London areas, and to see my friends in Old Hastings. A memorable
trip for sure. The thing that
impressed me the most about London was
the omnipresent and almost casual history. You look up from doing something
ordinary and find a bit of history right in front of you. It was a trip down memory lane for Chris, and
he wasn’t disappointed in the least. The
bonus was that it was above normal temperatures, we got a tan, and we have
convinced Chris’s cousin Eve to come visit in June/July 2012! Our good friend Kelli from Dawson Creek came and
house/pet sat for us so we had no worries while we were away.
We had a family gathering for Chris’s birthday this
year on the July long weekend. With almost all the Weyler clan and family, we
had good fun, food, sunshine and memories.
Fortunately, we had enough room to put everyone up ~ thanks to Chris. He had just finished converting our open
carport into a new room which still doesn’t have a name, but is does have 2
double futons so space for an additional 4 people to sleep, and that works for
me! The picture to the left is the new
room addition which for sure is serving many purposes including mudroom,
entranceway, parlour, reading room, and foyer.
It is still a work in progress still.
Jake has a girlfriend now, her name is Cologne. They get on well, but no puppies. Jake turned 7 this fall, and while his muzzle
is grey, he is still behaving like a 3 year old pup. As I write, Cologne is visiting us for a few weeks while her owner is
away. She is a kennel dog, so has much
to learn about living with people, and running free on the property. She will be here until the end of the
year. To-date she has learned to come through
the doggie door, and also shown us how clever and adept she is at opening doors. Amazing what she can do with door knobs!
Chris has been playing in a poker association league
every Thursday night for 46 weeks. He won the “2011 Player of the Year” trophy. He is quite pleased with himself and this
prize. It is a fun men’s night that he
looks forward to each week, and he hosts it in his workshop. He has a big table that fits over the pool
table, and can fit about 16 guys. I look
forward to Thursday nights as well…. it is a night to myself with candles and
music and maybe a glass of wine or a hot bath.
On the work front, Chris is trying to be semi-retired. He has been saying that for a few years now,
but the phone still rings for him to do this or that. As for around the property, 2011 saw him
build 2 wood sheds and a new storage shed.
We have a lot of “out” buildings.
Smoke & Gypsy continue to amaze us with their
contrasting personalities. Smoke has
fully latched onto Chris now – they are inseparable, and Gypsy is just plain
full of attitude. Smoke had a bit of a tail
woe this year. It became separated due
to some unknown mishap and was paralyzed for about 10 days (and $$ later); but
right as rain now. Gypsy already made friends with our house
guest “Cologne”.
Our summer was cool and wet and didn’t help our veggi
garden any. It was a disappointment this
year – with the exception of the raspberries, zucchini and cauliflower. It is amazing to see just how powerful the
climate is on the garden. It rained so
much, our pond never went down. Speaking
of pond, our koi is rally growing he is over a foot now.
As
for me, well it is same-old-same-old.
Work, commute, garden, work commute garden. It has been a another hectic year at work – I
was asked to serve on a steering committee for a new information system for
TRIUMF, and this took up major amounts of time. As a result, I exit the year with
10 days of my annual vacation not taken which I can carry over to next year. This will give me 8 weeks for 2012, so who
knows, I may actually get some getaways. We didn’t get to do the Oregon Coast trip we
wanted to do last summer due to weather and no one to pet sit, so hopefully
that will be on the slate for 2012. I do
make time to update my blog with our activities, so feel free to check it out
from time to time to see what is going on. We don’t do facebook and never will. Just the way it is for us. We are a little
older, a size bigger and some the wiser.
So this sums up just a few highlights of our year. We hope you are well
and in good spirits. We wish you a very
happy Christmas, and all the best for 2012.
Much love
Josie and Chris
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