Right some home.

Sunday evening - singing along to Carole King on Randy Bachman's program in my own kitchen. John came over when I got home after an easy flight, and we pruned, cleaned and brought in all the plants from the deck - so the deck is desolate and the kitchen and bedroom are stuffed with greenery. It's getting cold out there. The city is concrete and roads, not forests and lakes - but there are beautiful red and yellow trees here too, and a key to my own front door.

It's at times like this that I most miss my mother, the first person I'd have called to tell all the news and gossip from our old home town. She'd have loved to hear it all. Such a big hole in my life.

However, her sister is still going strong. One of the few messages on my answering machine was from a friend of my aunt Do's in Ottawa, saying Do had gone deaf and was being taken to Emerg. Panic. But when I called, she was playing Scrabble with her friends. She'd sneezed and somehow blocked her ears with wax, was deaf for days, but had her ears blown out and now can hear. Onward.

Much newspaper to read, unpacking to do, groceries to buy for the empty fridge. Memories to process. A woman who works at the Grammar School wrote about my talk: The students and the teachers were delighted. I must say again, I was amazed how you captivated an audience with an average age of 13 yesterday at the assembly (as I am sure all of the teachers were as well!)

This just came from Peter - me wearing his sweater during a brief moment of sunshine: