Getting older stuff

Mary's first step towards being a bionic woman. Her knees and hips have not been good the past few years. This week she had her left knee replaced. The other knee will likely follow and maybe also her hips, but one step at a time. Recovering for one night in the Welland hospital, a sudden surprise visitor walked in her room next morning. Hilary came over for a week!

Later that day, I had the pleasure to pick up Mary for the six weeks recovery period at home. She was dressed and ready to go about six hours before the hospital staff could let her go...

Next to it always being nice to have Hilary over for a visit, it is also convenient that she has her nursing experience. Even more so, because I ended up in the ER of the Welland Hospital the next day after a tough night during which my enlarged prostate was having a dispute with my bladder. Also excellent assistance of the hospital staff and what a relief when they relieved my bladder. Now walking around with a "baggie" for a bit till my urologist can look at what happened. Nevertheless, that evening I did attend a Welland Rotary Paul Harris Awards event at the Flatwater Center. It was nice to see a variety of people being recognized for their amazing community volunteer activities. I decided to "retire" from the Rotary club, district and foundation work after 27 years of active membership in July this year.

A day at NC

The international projects team at Niagara College hosted a group of colleagues from the Caribbean region (Jamaica, Dominica and Guyana) and invited me to attend. They manage this project - funded by the Canadian government through Colleges and Institutes Canada - together with the projects team of Seneca College. So I got to see both my previous teams in action. Holly led a good session on inclusion and curriculum development.

The focus of the project is on eco-tourism program delivery. Two of the NC teachers explained how they developed new curriculum for "learn to camp". I was happily surprised how innovative and creative the teachers are with their new course delivery. The students - more than half of them coming from around the world where camping in many places is not very common - get real hands-on experience and need to make one minute Instagram videos of their work. The tents and camping materials are stored in the college's "sustainability office". So many new positive developments!

After lunch, Sean had to show me his new car. Something that was twenty something years on his bucket list. Afterwards I joined the group on a walk through the NC wetlands, a living laboratory for students. The Daniel J. Patterson campus is a unique place in a beautiful setting.

It was a very nice day for me. Sweet memories, fun to participate in some of the conversations again, learning about a small country such as Dominica (population 70,000), great to see some of the former colleagues again and nice weather for the cycling back home afterwards.