Though my sister Linda and her husband Marion have very kindly and generously kept in touch with us regularly during our winter sojourn on Key Largo for the past six months, it was nonetheless an especial pleasure to reunite with them in the flesh this afternoon at their lovely home on Downing Street in Ottawa. The time flew by! At times there appeared to be a competition to interject the burgeoning intelligence each of us wished to impart to the other. In the end however we abandoned further discourse in order to set up the antique wooden dining table and matching chairs they offered us for our new small apartment. The additions complete the outstanding obstacle to fulfilling our amateur interior decorating schemes.

The four of us today were predominantly “of an age” though I have the doubtful distinction to exceed the majority. We animated what might otherwise have been a discourse confined to painkillers and physical ailments by hearkening to accounts of family youth and French bulldog puppies. The conversation awakened in us all a hidden affection for pets – though subdued by the well placed rationale of uncommon obligation especially for old fogeys.

The day has rapidly widened to an unaccustomed circumference. It is now past 8:30 pm and we have yet to set aside our restorative late afternoon coffee for the nourishment of the evening meal (though I confess the aroma is beginning to make the postponement difficult to endure much longer). The prolongation does however give us the opportunity to listen to some schmaltz grâce à Apple Music. The lingering settlement of decorating the apartment will have to await another day. I will say that the continued accumulation of things out of their boxes and packages, arrayed upon the walls or set upon the floors, has incrementally diluted the initial frustration of the project.  We have yet to commit ourselves fully to the hammering of nails for all the art work so there is yet the opportunity for amendment should be feel so inclined or otherwise compelled. The overriding necessity is nothing more than comfort. Pretending to adopt a picture perfect assembly of our Nomadic cartage is beyond conception.