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I’ve started a new little volunteer job of writing weekly articles for the local Farmers’ Market. It’s interesting interviewing various vendors and writing about them and their products. So far I’ve written about a young lady who makes French pastries, a middle-aged man & wife who raise sheep, pigs and chickens and run a meat processing plant, and a middle-aged Korean man who makes traditional kimchi in the natural process he learned from his grandma.

It’s great to have a local community of cottage industries with such diversity. Here is the link to our Farmers’ Market, which is officially called the Island Roots Market Cooperative: Island Roots Market

There are lots more interesting vendors as well, and I look forward to writing about them.

My Dad would be 110 years old today. He was born in Alliston Ontario, on a family farm, the first of six children.  Being the oldest son, Dad was expected to do a lot of the farm work.  School was considered secondary. He went when he wasn’t required to work, and made it through grade three. It was enough that he learned to read and write and do arithmetic, and learned about the various countries and whatever else he needed to know to do well in life.

In his early 30s he left home and ventured out to make a life for himself. With a quarter in his pocket, he went to other farms to ask for work. He had sadly realized that if he didn’t leave home he could end up spending his life working for his father and never having a life of his own. Unfortunately his father had taken to drinking. He would get angry and mean to his mother and sisters, for example ripping the phone off the wall when he thought the women were talking too long on it. My father stayed home a long time to protect his mother, but finally decided that if he ever wanted to get a wife of his own he had better get out of there.

Eventually he made his way to Saskatchewan, where he got a job in Moose Jaw delivering blocks of ice to homes for their ice boxes. It was there that he met my mother.

She was working as a maid in one of the homes on Dad’s route. She used to tell the story, jokingly, that she trapped him behind the ironing board!

They were both Christians, and started trying different churches together, eventually settling on the Christian and Missionary Alliance. They got married outside in a park. Dad had ordered sandwiches and ice cream, and some of Mom’s relatives made the cake, bringing it all the way from Herbert in the car on bumpy roads. A wonderful time was had by all!

Eight years later I was born, when Dad was turning 47. Mom was 11 years younger than him. By this time my parents had moved to Vancouver, and Dad had started his own business as a roofer. He liked the name “Stanley”, and called his business “Stanley Roofing”, later naming my brother Stanley.

Dad had chosen a good business for Vancouver, where much rain makes for many roof repairs and replacements! He was kept very busy, but always took Sundays off, and a week or two or more for a family holiday in the summer. Every second summer he drove us to Saskatchewan to visit my mother’s relatives who lived in and around the little town of Herbert. Dad loved to go at harvest time and pitch in with the farm work with my uncles.

Twice he took us all to Ontario to visit his relatives. Sadly his mother had died before I was born, so I never got to meet her. The first time we went it was winter, and we traveled by train. I was three and my brother was one, just old enough to get into a bit of mischief! We had found chocolate, a rare treat, in Mom’s purse. Little did we know it was actually exlax! Then we got so thirsty and kept going to the water cooler for many paper cups of cold water!

A highlight of that trip for me was getting snowed in at Aunt Mossy and uncle Wilfred’s farm and after several days, being taken out of this remote area by horse and sleigh.

My sister, who was 5 1/2 years younger than me, was always good and never got into mischief. I think she was my dad’s favourite.

We had a happy family life. My father bought a new house in South Vancouver when I was eight. He continued to work as a roofer until he was 68. Twice he had fallen and broken ribs.

At the age of 89, he had been outside shoveling snow for the next door neighbours as well as their own, when he came in to the kitchen and collapsed on the floor. He had suffered a major stroke. It caused him to lose all his memory and ability to speak, other than a few words. However, his cheerful spirit was still there! For the next five years the two phrases he kept repeating were, “Apple pie!” and “Rejoice and rejoice!”

After Dad was moved into a nursing home we realized that Mom had become quite weak. We hadn’t realized how much Dad had been caring for her. She was able to get into the same nursing home, and she died a year later.

Dad lived on to the age of 94. He’s been gone for over 15 years now. What a wonderful father he was!

Christmas is coming.  Hallowe’en is over; about 60 trick-or-treaters knocked on our door.  It was fun!  Our two Japanese homestay students took turns answering the door and giving out the candy.  Their glowing jack-o-lanterns welcomed the kids to the porch.

Here in Nanaimo we have had a long beautiful fall, with yellow and red leaves lasting on the trees for two months now.  But today there was lots of snow mixed in with the rain, and leaves mixed in with it blowing around in the yard.  Nice to be inside looking out!

When I was young, in the 50s and 60s, at this time of year I used to pour through the Sears Christmas Catalogue, a long-time Canadian tradition for many.  I loved to choose my favourite doll to wish for, for Christmas.  Then my mother would take me downtown window shopping in the department stores.  There was Simpsons Sears, Eaton’s, Woodward’s, and The Bay.  We looked at the big display windows with animated toys and animals and Christmas scenes.  So magical!  Then we went upstairs to the big toy floor at Eaton’s.  I got to sit on Santa’s knee and tell him what I wanted for Christmas, and he gave me a candy cane.  We looked at the animated displays, and mom let me look at the toys and dolls and tell her which ones I liked the best.  We didn’t buy anything that day, but later she would go back and try to get something I liked to surprise me with on Christmas morning.

Nowadays those big old department stores are all closing down.  Nanaimo has Sears and The Bay, but Sears is currently in the process of selling everything off in order to close for good.  The end of an era.

The new way is to shop online, and have the goods delivered to your door.  A bit like going back to the old Sears catalogue, except instead of holding a book and flipping through pages, we scroll on the internet.

Amazon seems to be the new Sears.  I have decided I might as well go with the flow, and get in on the new ways.  I always thought it would be fun to have my own little gift shop, and now I actually can do that online.  I can find items that I would like to carry in my shop, which I think my readers might like to buy, and set up a link to that item on Amazon.  A virtual store!  I hope you will like it!  Try the link below for starters.

Click Here!  http://amzn.to/2FNihup

This summer I had two surgeries. First in July a couple of suspicious areas were removed and a D & C was done. They discovered that I had the beginnings of endometrial cancer, so I had to go back to the hospital for a hysterectomy in August. Just when I was starting to recover from the first surgery! It is now two months since the second surgery and I do feel pretty much mended up, although the laporoscopic scars are still red and itchy. . .

I returned to my part time job a few weeks ago because I was feeling pretty good and the Pregnancy Centre where I work is chronically short staffed. The gynecologist had told me that most people don’t go back to work for two months. It didn’t seem like the work was too much for me but perhaps I shouldn’t have pushed myself because last week I came down with a bladder infection, and now I’ve come down with a bad cold 😤. Agh! I’ve been on the mend for months now!

However I made good use of my time at home by completing an online course through the University of Tazmania, called Understanding Dementia. A free MOOC program available to anyone interested, it covered the basics of what dementia really is, who is affected by it, the symptoms and general prognosis, how to best handle it in a loved one, and treatment options. It was a very thorough course lasting from July to October, several hours a week. There is the option to continue with further courses once satisfactorily completing this one. It would be a great program for anyone interested in working with the elderly. I loved the flexibility of working online at my own pace, and the course was made appealing to visual and auditory learners by sketches and interviews. This free introductory course will be offered again in 2018. I would recommend it for anyone who has aging family members or friends! Glad to be finished it now though, and back to my own writing.

Our patio overlooking a small lake is my favourite quiet place to relax and contemplate life, and remember all the other favourite places I have been to.  What makes a favourite place to me is usually the memories of the people I was with in those places.

One of my favourite cities is Hong Kong, because I have happy memories of spending time there with my oldest son.  It’s wonderful to have an adult son who takes you all around, showing you his favourite places!

Another favourite city is Vancouver, because it is my home town.  It has grown and changed greatly over the years, but still gives me a feeling of home.  The blue mountains, blue sky (when it’s not raining), and sandy beaches are some of my favourite features of Vancouver.

What are some of your favourite places?  Let me know in the reply section below.