Back in lockdown

The Niagara Region - like most of Ontario - is back in the "red zone" which means nursing and retirement homes are back in lockdown. Poor Opa is not allowed to leave the place where he stays; so I stopped by while he was downstairs for lunch to take this photo as I did a few times earlier in 2020. My walk today was the one with the hills. Good workout...

And I enjoyed working on the puzzle received from Hilary for my birthday. Another one completed

Winter wonderland

Christmas was white again after a big snowfall. The area around the canal is then truly magical in its views. But the walking was pretty slippery.....
 

Started a new puzzle; the one Hilary sent me for my birthday recently. Scenery from the old canal streets in the center of Amsterdam. Ian, our friend in Ottawa, is looking good with a new kidney...

Christmas 2020

 It has been a different holiday season this year of course because of the COVID pandemic. My sisters Ger (and husband Bert) en Han in Holland did get together in the apartment of Han in Soest. They are doing well and have stayed healthy. Here in Fonthill, Mary and I had a Christmas Eve dinner with Opa.

Hilary did send Opa a very nice homemade card for Christmas. She lives in a place where you can sit on one day at the beach watching a summer-like sunset and the next day snowboard down the hill (with the city of Vancouver in the background).

Mark and Carly came over for a coffee, and we wore again our facemasks to be careful. They enjoyed their first Christmas in their new home. We had a lunch at Susan & Ralph while doing Facetime conversations with the gang in Sarnia. Life continues at the end of a very challenging year for so many people around the world. Mary and I are very lucky with the easy street situation we have; blessed. On we go towards the year 2021. We'll see how that one will work out.....

Officially a pensioner

Today we made a brief visit (with masks and some social distancing) to Mark & Carly in their new house. They did a good job renovating it.

Nice FaceTime conversation with Hilary who had sent me a well selected puzzle. 

Sue & Ralph hosted us for lunch and also gifted me a few challenging puzzles (maps from Amsterdam, Rome, Paris and London). All set for the next few months with respect to puzzles. The past week I have been busy with my garbage pick up along the streets in our small town. One day a short stretch of about 200 meters along a shopping mall resulted in 8 garbage bags full.... 

Snowboarder Hilary

Hilary lives &works in Vancouver, a short drive from Whistler, one of Canada's prime ski resorts (the Winter Olympics were hosted there a decade or so ago). This weekend Hilary & Shayd went to Whistler to try out snowboarding (new for Hilary). They had a wonderful view - see above. Lucky couple...

Old friends in Holland

Today old University friends in Holland organized a Microsoft Teams meeting with 14 of us; 11 in Holland, one in South Africa, one in Mexico and me here in Canada. We all started our studies together in 1974 at the University of Technology in Delft. It was as if we had just seen each other recently. The communication technology now offers these amazing connection opportunities. It was really nice to get short updates from them all. One of them - see the photo - is undergoing treatments for terminal cancer and he told us that he is probably in his last year of life. We all knew this but it was still very powerful and emotional. One of the others is writing his 3rd novel and one is almost finished with his first. When I hear them talk about that, I am not sure if I have what it takes to make it to the finish line with my writing, but heck; I will enjoy trying to do it....

 

It's Christmas time again...

We put a few lights out again despite the fact that this year the Christmas holidays will be very quietly celebrated because of the COVID pandemic. Both outside and inside.

I started another puzzle last week; probably the toughest one so far. One thousand pieces and very challenging to distinguish between them. Today I made a nice salmon lunch just before completing this puzzle. It was a second-hand puzzle and there were 36 pieces missing. An extra challenge factor...

Street garbage

This afternoon I went for my walk with a few garbage bags to pick up some stuff I had seen along the route I regularly walk in our neighborhood. I do this every now and then because it never stops to amaze me what people leave behind in our public places. And it is a small effort to clean some of it up as much as it is sad to see this kind of pollution. Today I had to get the car to pick up the collected garbage and bring it afterwards to the landfill. Way too much plastics among what I picked up. The most amazing for me are dog-poop plastic bags thrown in the bushes. It would be better to scoop up the poop and throw that in the bushes (nature to nature). Why on earth put it in plastic bags and then throw that in the bushes? 

And this is what I left for another day....

 

Talking to NL

Mary helped her Dad getting on his IPad again to be able to FaceTime with others. That resulted in a chat with the son of one of his sisters in Holland. It was fun to witness that conversation. In the meantime I have completed another puzzle, do my daily walks (although it was nicer with warmer weather) and exercises + continue to read books. The retired life has suited me quite easily. I do every now and then work on a possible novel but that requires being in the right mood.
 

Puzzles... the winter of...

The seasonal weather gives us colder days again, so more hours spend on our new table putting together jigsaw puzzles. This one took just a few days, but the one I am working on now is a lot harder...

Pick-nick along the canal

Today was again a beautiful sunny day. Susan mobilized us all and brought a lunch out to "lock 3" where Ralph and Mary cycled, Sue brought the food and I brought Opa Vandenboom. 

Opa enjoyed watching one of the "Great Lakes" cargo ships enter the lock on its way to Fort Erie. I took the e-bike back with Ralph while Mary drove Opa back. We both got our exercise for the day. At home we still enjoyed some of the Fall sunshine.....

Nice Fall days

While the counting of election ballots continues in the USA, we have a few very nice Fall days. Along the Welland canal it is always nice cycling and walking, especially during these nice weather days. One of my stops today was at the South Niagara Rowing Club (see photo below). I had nice days there doing volunteer work during the years that Hilary did her rowing practices and races, now already 13-14 years ago. Time flies...

Another puzzle bites the dust

Mary found a 1,000 pieces puzzle in one of the local second hand stores. We started on it early last week and it was a challenging self-inflicted task. Sorting the pieces in the beginning makes the finding of fitting color by color easier.....

Mary joined the puzzling and I did most of the work while listening to the USA elections. What a crazy process it is this time in the middle of a country wide severe Corona pandemic. I am impressed by the details required to make the counting a transparent, fair and diligent process. It takes time this time, of course also because the race is again very close. 

Continuing the puzzling while following the USA election counting process now during three days. It is an amazingly complicated process, and people have to be asked to be very patient. Hopefully the folks will manage to keep their calm and accept whatever the outcome will be. Today we completed the new puzzle: mission accomplished on this one....