We’ve found ourselves in a travel turmoil. Our formerly scheduled 5-month winter sojourn on Key Largo has been overtaken by fortune; in our case, misfortune.  The landlord of the place we had rented has decided to sell and, presumably as a result, not to extend our contract for another year. This stunning (though admittedly not entirely unanticipated) reversal of plans has caused more than one precipitous action on our part. In our haste to reconfigure this once palatable hibernation we may have moved more quickly than judicious. Whatever the appropriate dance steps attending this particular waltz, we’ve somehow landed back upon what for us has always been reliable territory; viz., Hilton Head Island. I don’t however think we were prepared for what evolved. Unimaginably the upcoming season there appears to be largely (if indeed not exclusively) already booked. We therefore chose to proceed with accommodation (if I may characterize our abrupt consolation as such). I congratulate Mrs. Gail Edmonds, Estate Agent of Destination Vacation for her unsurpassable assistance.

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Serendipitously my erstwhile physician telephoned mid-morning today just as we were returning from a nearby grocery shopping expedition. We three rallied at the apartment shortly thereafter for a brief visit (his first) and tour (sic).  My erstwhile physician, like so many others approaching advanced age, is on the cusp of considering alternatives to the perpetual maintenance of one’s existing real property holdings, whether a country estate, house, cottage or vacation rental. It is an arduous contemplation. Having just moved into this new apartment building (where the predominant demographic is seniors) I am familiar with the variety of surrogates encircling what is for some people a quelling and moderately unsettling scutiny of downsizing to an apartment.  Fortunately for me I haven’t a disturbing love of lakes or fishing which might be at risk of contaminating my purity of thought or reversing preconceived notions. Nor am I consumed by anything but the most pragmatic ingredients of personal accessories and furnishings. Size is not an issue! As I have always quipped (hearkening to my boarding school days), I was raised a cave dweller.

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It’s a grey and misty Saturday afternoon, a subdued and mixed atmosphere of fluctuating clarity and whimsical obscurity. An air of uncertainty prevails. Will the clouds clear?  Will the rain stop? I am just now awakening from an especially somniferous afternoon nap.  On the right, the river is a darkened bluish-grey; on the left the sunshine pierces the cloudy skies with broad bands of sunlight.

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Yesterday as we briefly chatted about the evolving and now inflamed subject of winter sojourning we touched lightly upon its distinguishing elements and predictable prospects for the future. Today at the golf club over breakfast we mused further upon these details. I won’t say we settled things with any degree of accuracy or precision. Winter travel is a weighty and complicated subject not to be outdone by bacon, eggs and pancakes. But we did at least exchange current opinions about whatever factors we suggest have a bearing upon the delicate and now moderately controversial subject of spending time and money away from home. In other words it was predominantly idle chatter more expressive of knee-jerk sentiment than of insightful wisdom or intelligence. Such indeed was the peculiar nature this morning of our breakfast colloquy with my erstwhle physician at the golf club overlooking the first tee.

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The quiescent afternoon river is a mixture of superficial confusion and glassy seemingly motionless smears elongating from the far weedy shoreline towards the opposite side then disseminating into the predominant disturbance. In the meadow the tiny yellow birds flit among the flowers and the weeds. It is the perfect mid-summer day in July.

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At the commencement of our companionship 27 years ago (and until as recently as about ten years ago when I retired) we traveled primarily by plane for what limited vacations we then snared. We went for example for condensed visits to places like New York City, Dominican Republic, Mexico, the Caribbean, Italy and Sardegna. It was probably a decade ago when we altered our travel experiences to those limited to travel by car within North America (which for the record I confirm encompasses the east coast of Canada along the North Atlantic Ocean adjacent magnificent places like Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland all of which we frequented).

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The height of news today is that our friends Jay and Alana are moving to Nova Scotia. This heartfelt headline is the casual – and entirely unpredicted – release arising from my otherwise unaccountable notion to connect with them following their recent sojourn on the east coast.  It isn’t often that one encounters those such as they who have proven themselves so exotically and delightfully mobile!

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It’s all connected.  The plummeting real estate prices, the rising interest rates and now the upward-spiralling cost of vacation rentals.  While sitting in the car at the grocery store earlier today I recevied an unexpected telephone call from our estate agent on Key Largo, Florida.  The place we’ve contracted to rent this coming season is going to be listed for sale by the owner; and as a result our impending dalliance there is exposed to rebuttal. We risk being thrown onto a sandy beach and left to our own devices, an extremely unsolicitous alternative.

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On a summer evening in mid-June 1976 (when I was 28 years old, fresh out of law school and the Bar Admission course at Osgoode Hall, relatively thin and clad in a bespoke dark blue woollen suit (made by Palette Taylor on Sparks Street) with a gold watch and chain (formerly belonging to my paternal grandfather) hanging from my waistcoat, I ventured into the then unknown and starkly unfamiliar County of Lanark. I had initiated my temporary dislocation from downtown Ottawa (where I resided in the Mayfair Apartments on Metcalfe Street under the auspices of the infamous Mrs. Edith Cotterill) to the county seat at the behest and recommendation of Senator George McIlraith who was then Counsel to the law firm where I articled on Sparks Street. I had arranged to meet my future employers Messrs. Galligan & Sheffield, Barrs. &c. at the golf club for dinner.

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About 44 years ago (1980), not long after being called to the Bar at Osgoode Hall in Toronto in 1975, I remember thinking how devious it was of bankers to lubricate the sale of money by doubling the capital value of a house then cutting the current lending rate by 50%. You will for example note that from the banker’s perspective the calculation of interest (Principal x Rate x Time) is the same whether the principal (loan) were $100,000 and the rate 10% per annum or whether the principal (loan) were $200,000 and the rate were 5% per annum; namely, $10,000 in either case. The unquestionable difference however is the reflex attitude that getting something for less makes the product more worthy.

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