The first of the grandchildren trips before the winter escape. And organisational skills need honing. The second carboy of wine is on, but only just, wrapped up in a quilt against the chill September nights while we're gone. Reading is easier in the car - books jammed under the passenger seat of the Smart to be read aloud as we drive rather than hauled about knocking the bottoms out of suitcases. The first is The Ordeal of John Gyles, the account of a nine year old New England pilgrim boy captured by the Indians and held as a slave in the Saint John River area of what is now New Brunswick. He was taken prisoner in 1689 and finally released nine years later, now fluent in French and two Native languages as well as English, and accomplished in many of the arts of survival. Politically incorrect - endless references by the editor to savages - but utterly fascinating.
We have two tasks on this trip - to present our applications for new passports and to apply for special mail-in ballots for the federal election as we will be away from home for the advance polls as well as the actual election day. With some difficulty, we have obtained the address for the electoral office in Kenora:
EC: What's your postal code?
Me: P8T 1L5
Me: P8T 1L5
EC: And your street address?
Me: Well, I can tell you that but it doesn't seem helpful since what I want to know is where the Kenora Electoral Office is.
C: How do you spell Kenora?
Me: K E N O R A
EC: And what province is that?
Me: Ontario
EC: That's K E N O R A ?
Me: That's right
EC: Ontario?
Me: Yes.
Well anyway, it's a slow process. But eventually I wrest a phone number and street address from them, the address apparently about the location of City Hall in Kenora. Seems simple enough until we're there, and they're tearing up the street with heavy equipment, and there's lots of mud and nowhere to stop and traffic behind. But there must be other electoral offices.
Night in Winnipeg with Ian and Susan. They're gearing up for a week at the lake, leaving tomorrow. S with amazing and discreetly anonymous stories from the job front - executing wills.
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