On Christmas Eve

No shortage of juxtapositions today!

After a slow and lazy start, and a chat to my sister and my mother in Wales by 'phone, we picked up Faith's parcel waiting for us at the post office, then drove down dry roads to the Flying Club where we waged an almighty battle against our wing-covers. Had we not left the covers off our aeroplane for the last few days because of the torrential rain we've had, when the temperature dropped last night, the wet material would have frozen, the resulting ice sticking to the wings so that we'd never have got them off again. Today, we were in a position to fit them, dry, onto dry wings, but the wind gusting to 25 knots made it impossible for us to hold onto them and tie them down, so wildly did they billow. In the end Kathy Fox most kindly offered to be a third person in our ground crew; then we could just about do it.

I was intending to write another blog post about how to humidify one's basement by (a) leaving one's wing covers to dry all over the floor, and (b) having the melt water flood the carpeted area at the bottom of the stairs where George is about to sleep, but I never got round to it, so you'll just have to imagine. Here's a picture of Chris trying in vain to prevent the flood in our basement.

It was Kathy's birthday today and she managed to treat herself to a celebratory flight before the wind picked up too much and the blizzard (sorry, "light flurries") began. We sympathised with her bad luck in being born on December 24th when people are too preoccupied with Christmas preparations to party with her, but she says that as the years go by this seems to matter less and less. We felt more sorry for the African gentleman who'd come to service the coffee machine and who slipped and fell on the ice in the car park as we were leaving, banging the back of his head so badly that blood flowed and he was knocked unconscious, his boxes flying all over the place. Had he fallen a moment later we'd have driven off and been none the wiser, but luckily we saw the accident in the rear view mirror and were able to leap out of the car and hurry over to help. Chris immediately dialled 911 (it's not 999 here) for the ambulance that took a long while to arrive because of the unusual address. Meanwhile the gentleman on the ground had come round and was all for getting up and driving away, but we insisted he stay where he was, lying on his side. We used Chris' pullover as a pillow for him, before the flying club staff came to help with a real pillow and a blanket. Then we witnessed a little more drama as the ambulance men had to work hard to persuade the man to go with them. He had no health card, it transpired, perhaps because he is a recent immigrant, probably very alarmed at the thought of having to pay for all this medical intervention. His English wasn't too good, so I'd tried to reassure him in French, but hadn't thought to ask where he came from. I did establish that he lived alone at home so there was apparently nobody who cared that he'd fallen over. I hope he is all right; we are still thinking of him.

Late for lunch, we ate some soup at Piccolo Grande on MacKay Street, now run by a very nice Indian lady from Kenya who always recognises us when we stop there, and read the papers to calm ourselves down. On the way home we bought a floor mat to mitigate muddy wet footprints round our kitchen door and some of Chris' favourite Ambrosia apples from the healthfood shop, Nature's Buzz.

As we were doing all this, George and his friend Jonathan (three hours behind us) were coming through customs and immigration at Vancouver airport after their long, long flight from Sydney, and checking into their hotel, so when we came in, we had a conversation with them over the Skype link. Simultaneously, on the other virtual line, we were watching Emma and Peter with little Alexander in London, who was toddling round his other grandparents' house! What would we do without the Internet? When those calls were done, I clicked on the BBC website to hear the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols from Kings College, Cambridge. Chris ventured out into the snow again, to go running at the gym.

This evening I've contrived to dry the basement carpet, catch up with my washing and make some mini trifles for tomorrow, that entailed peeling a pomegranate and removing the lovely seeds. We practised four Schubert songs and a movement from a clarinet sonata by Vanhal. And I have sent some more e-messages to my friends and relations.