The Old and the Restless

July 27 2018... The evening before... ...we had an after-the-rehearsal dinner with the bridesmaids and Paul's family Paul's brother Stephen, Shoba, Margot and J.J. The next morning, July 28 2018... Ready to begin the journey... Since the wedding was to be at St. Andrew's church on Toronto island, a novel method of transport was used. Early morning on College St. Guests took the ferry. Here Dieder and Yuko who came from Vancouver are leaving the ferry. Margot, Ella, Mark and Joshua brought their bikes. It was a nice early morning walk to the church. We caught the first ferry to Centre Island at 8:00 AM Members of the band had their instruments as well as food for the pot luck luncheon afterwards. We gathered at the boathouse dock to watch for the canoe. The minister, Mother Jennifer arrived before us by taking an earlier ferry that went to Ward's island. She had a longer walk to the church. While waiting for the canoe, ...

A week after the storm, Sandra and I walked a mile south from Hiles Avenue to look at the damage to the dunes protecting the expensive houses on Van Kleek Drive (New Smyrna's "millionaires row"). Paul is standing in front of the first house south of the Hiles ramp (in the background). The dune has been eroded back about 15 feet closer to the house forming a "sand cliff" about 8 feet high. Sandra is standing in front of the eroded dune sand cliff (?12 feet high?) that protects a huge house. Sandra is standing in front of a damaged beach stairway very close to another Van Kleek house. The dune just south of a sea wall has eroded 20 feet right back to the swimming pool foundation. While the municipal beach walkways were better built and withstood the storm better than private walkways, our "favourite" municipal walkway to the south end of Van Kleek lost its side railings in the storm. The huge house in the background is under co...

At the end of the first week of January 2018, the authorities declared a "double red flag" alert for 3 full days. This level of alert, which prohibits all driving and walking on the beach, because of strong undertows and very high waves, has apparently only been declared during hurricanes before. After spending 3 days strengthening off of New Smyrna Beach, the storm "bomb" continued to strengthen as it moved northwards leaving inches of snow in Savannah and even more snow in Charleston SC. Since neither city has snow removal or salting equipment, their streets and airports were closed for a couple of days. Then, the storm strengthened to about the same level as Hurricane Sandy as it moved north up the coast creating blizzards from Chesapeake Bay to Canada's Maritime provinces. On January 5, Daryl's 70th birthday, the winds dropped enough that Sandra and I decided to go for a "beach inspection" walk north from Castle Reef to the 27th Avenue park...

This year Paul and I flew back from Florida for the Christmas celebrations. Megan hosted a birthday dinner on December 24th at her house. Ella is almost as tall as Margot Megan preparing the ham Paul N. and Tom made airplanes. This time Tom let me try to fly one. It flew like a boomerang. Birthday dinner. Ella did not want to sit at the boy's table because they were too noisy. Christmas dinner at Mark and Margot's. Mark's parents, Bob and Dolores were there. Under the table were two of the three dogs snoozing. After dinner Ella in her sweet voice sang one song while Margot accompanied her.  Then she played the piano. Joshua played Rio, a jazzy piece pn the piano. Then he played Home on the Range on his guitar.

After the two weeks of cycling we visited Bryn and family in Wavre, Switzerland. Alicia was performing in a voltige demonstration. Before Alicia's group, there was a "musical ride" in which Bryn was participating. Alicia mounting the horse, while it was cantering. Next there were two, and another girl was preparing to join. Three on the horse, Alicia at the bottom. A gymnastics display at the end. After the performance there was a barbeque. Upper picture from the left: Gisele, Jean-Louis, Hervé with Brandon opposite. Lower right: Hervé. Bryn and Alicia on a Sunday ride. I rode a bike. We met Paul and Zucco. This weekend it was Bryn and Alicia's turn to muck out the stables in the morning and to take the horses in at night. A final bike ride the day before we flew home. It was beautiful, clear weather.