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The
Squamidian Report – Oct. 18 / 25
Online
Versions
Of This And Past Issues Issue
#1221 Including:
Gale ****
From Gale
Little Things. My final blurb about our trip is just a list if of little differences or quirky things we noticed. 1. Some of the different birds we found interesting were the wood pigeons and magpies. 2. The socket shapes are now rectangular instead of round so our adaptor no longer works in the UK. 3. It was extremely cold for June so most people on the Scottish leg of our of our journey were wearing winter coats. 4. Lots of dog friendly restaurants and even the malls had watering stations for them. Also cat friendly places such as the "Purrple Cafe". 5. The only places that included air conditioner were the two airport hotels. The Queen Mary 2 offered it but for a price which kind of ticked me off. 6. I couldn't get used to the weak coffee served with skimmed milk. 7. Literally hordes and hordes of tourists in Edinburg and apparently that is year round and not just during the tattoo in August. The upside is that the face of the inner city is kept in its' past form. 8. On the plane home, that left at 8:30 in the morning, we were asked to pull down the window shades so people could use there devices but my "device" was a pen on paper. 9. The latest fad in the UK is square shaped toilets. To me, that was the weirdest thing of all and no butts about it ! That's it for me :) Gale ****
From Gary
Another week gone by in a flash. End of season garden. Not calling for frost for another week. Might just keep a few plants going. Have to prepare some of the garden for garlic though. Hope to plant 50 each of 3 different varieties. Stay safe everyone.
Gary ****
From Carol
Because of the hot dry weather in June and July our tomatoes were very slow to grow and ripen. We did end up with a nice crop but it started later. The ones we planted in Wiarton were finished a month ago but the ones in our back yard still have many green tomatoes on the vine, especially the one I just took a picture of. Until we get a frost warning I will leave the fruit on the vine in the hopes of them ripening. With the first frost warning we will pick what is left and wrap them in paper and hope they ripen and not rot. Beth has had a bumper crop of everything she planted at the Homestead. She didn’t plant brussel sprouts Rosemary but my parents used to. I just picked the last of the apples from their tree and made another batch of applesauce. Jamie cooked all the side dishes at our Thanksgiving feast last Monday using some of their bountiful harvest. Even though Tim is in TO for the next while waiting for his lung transplant and Sylvia is suffering many side effects to her chemo treatments, the recent passing of Dennis, Al loosing a good friend of many years this week, I feel there was still much to be thankful for. One of those things is this weekly newsletter. Doug, I don’t know how you’ve kept up writing all these years but I’m very glad you did. You have kept us all connected and we get to see and hear what is happening to those who write or do a reply all. I’m thankful for all my fellow readers and wish you all health, happiness and the strength to face all those challenges that come to us in this last chapter in our lives.
Carol ****
From Doug
One of the problems with care giving is that you tend to put off or even ignore your own issues until they can’t be ignored any longer. And yes, I have issues. I wouldn’t if I were perfect but apparently I’m not perfect. Who knew! In the early days of our current situation I had reacted to the overwhelming stress by clenching my jaws so hard that I ended up doing damage to my teeth. I would be awoken in the middle of the night by my jaws paining and teeth crunching. At one point I actually snapped a couple of big old back molars, as well as doing damage to some front bridge work. The molars, or what was left of them had to come out and once that couldn't be ignored any longer, my dentist sent me to an oral surgeon to have them removed. I’ve had teeth removed before and to be honest, the worst part is the freezing. In this case, because they were at the back of the lower jaw, it took 7 needles of freezing stuff to freeze the area. The oral surgeon then started working on getting them out, one of them being a 4-rooter. It took so much pressure and yanking etc that they had to hold my jaw so it wouldn’t get dislocated. The broken teeth were next to each other so at least the war zone was in one location. Did you know that when a tooth is broken horizontally it can often be fixed but it the break is vertically, it can’t be fixed and as luck would have it, all my breads are vertical. Bummer. Anyway, I’m down 2 more teeth with more work needed but I’ll cross that bridge at some later point in the future. * Over the past few weeks I’ve started to get back into enjoying my flight simulator. Over the summer there had not been time available for doing that, for many reasons. However now that the days are getting shorter (at an alarming rate) the late evenings have become available to me as I tend to do my music in the afternoons if I can, and Sue tends to go to bed as the sun goes down so I have those evenings to myself. Flying in the sim when its dark out of course means flying in the dark, night flying, my favorite kind. Night flying takes more skill and knowledge and is very challenging which is perfect for diverting your mind from the day to day realities. A few evenings ago I decided to fly from Pit Meadows to Abbotsford, then on to Boundary Bay. Nice flights, lots of city lights and no big hills in the way and so on. Once landed at Boundary, I checked the ‘map’ that you can toggle, to check and see if there were any aircraft carriers sitting out in the Straight of Georgia, and there was one. I like to land one them and then take off from them as they are ‘US’ territory (even though that is Canadian waters) and I seem to get some sort of perverse pleasure out of violating US airspace. I’d done several carrier landings over the past week or so but this time is was fully night, and dark as a coal mine out over the Straight making for a real challenge. I couldn’t resist so I worked out a flight heading and then I took off from Boundary to find the carrier. That wasn’t easy given the fact that visually there was nothing but a big black hole ahead and around me. Basically instrument flying due to zero visual clues. A fun challenge. I managed to find the carrier and then set myself up for the approach, again, not easy as the ship is moving quite fast and its landing deck is on an angle to direction of travel, and looking like it was floating in a sea of black nothing. That approach was more challenging than any I’ve ever done, real or simulated, but by working the rudders, the flaps, and the ailerons, and the throttle, I managed to kiss that simulated Cessna down on the flight deck beautifully. I was rather proud of myself. I then took this screen shot, taxied to the stern and took back off to fly over the YVR where I landed and parked. Of course, none of that would have been legal in real life but that too is part of the fun. Oh, I forgot to mention, on a previous carrier landing, not this one, I had landed and then saw the blast deflectors come up. They are the things that deflect the jet blast from the jets as they take off from a carrier deck. Then, my little Cessna started to shake and was flipped right over and off the deck and into the water where ‘I sank to the bottom of the sea’. That was different, and unexpected. In the simulator, when you crash or ‘sink’ etc, the program sets you back, intact, on the airport that you had taken off from so only my pride was hurt.
Doug ****
Have
a
Good One
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