Back to the High Commission for 9:30 now we’re better informed. Paperwork looks ok. J signs away $240. No doubt only the beginning, as we have to apply for new passports when we get home. Trickiest bit probably J’s citizenship card. Replacement apparently running at five to seven months. Sumira, herself from Ontario, is positive and sympathetic, though. Do we have other possible references? They needn’t be Canadian but could be from anywhere in the world. Slowly grasp the point - Canadians are asleep. Central daylight savings time is four AM. Text Alexander, in Cambridgeshire and ask if he is available if the consulate phones. Yes indeed. So reference number one is done. Sumira says she’ll get a second reference in the afternoon.
We’re free to use the computer and are given the password. Realise how long it is since I’ve used anything other than a tablet. Also realise that this computer is less secure than anything I would normally be prepared to use, and limit it to checking a couple of addresses. Explorer with no VPN.
What hasn’t been stolen are the matinee tickets for this afternoon. We’re booked to see Come From Away. It has won an award for best new musical, but even so is much better than I am expecting. Runs for about an hour and forty minutes with no intermission and holds the audience for the whole time with a mixture of humour, poignancy, and sheer energy. And it’s not an easy mixture to maintain, a balance between the utter catastrophe of the events of 911 and the warmth and wit and generosity of the people of Gander, Newfoundland. And the characters are all pretty closely based on the real people who were there and their stories - quirky, romantic, funny, and sometimes tragic.
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