Packing, Puppies and Plague

-
Life continues apace. Clarissa moved in two weeks earlier than expected. This is a good thing. She had the opportunity to rent her house mid-December, so she grabbed it. She only had a couple of days to finish moving out of her home and into ours, which was done with good friends and hard work. We were not quite ready for her to move in so for a while our downstairs looked like a poorly organized warehouse, but with patience all was handled.

Clarissa moving in means we are now a household with a dog. She is a playful pup, fiercely loyal to those she likes and very excitable to all others (lots of barking and growling, but not biting—so far)

We had also planned a "trial pack" to ensure that we had enough suitcases of the right size etc.

Then we were struck by the plague!!
Actually Richard was struck right after Thanksgiving with a nasty cold (yes we have all had flu shots--this was a cold.) Richard, Louise and Clarissa took turns feeling sick and sorry for themselves in overlapping cycles. Whoever was healthiest tried to be upbeat and cheerful for the others. It culminated in a cancelled Christmas. On Christmas day we huddled on the couches and watched mediocre Christmas movies and Muppet Treasure Island (well why not?)
So our final days of prep for mission were filled with chaos, coughing, scurrying and dog. About the trial pack? it happened (sort-of) on 30th December. 

Christmas happened after all. We all gathered on Friday the 29th, and had our usual happy gathering with food, wrapping paper, and three generations of cheerful people. We got away to the MTC as scheduled on the 1st. (Still coughing a bit). 

Fortunately we were close to the MTC and were able to pop back home to drop off things we actually didn't need, and add things we did need (and borrow one more case). We did several trail packs in the MTC, and used their scale to check weights. Imagine, if you will a caravan of suitcases being trundled down the hallway from our room to the weigh scale, back for adjustments, repacking and reweighing.

A happy ending to finish off. The packing is done, the pup is happy and the plague is over.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Tragic history but with a happy-ish ending

-
Image
Today I climbed the Radical road. Radical Road, climbing Salisbury Crag, Holyrood You could easily be pardoned for assuming the name comes from the radical steepness of its slopes but that would not be correct. The road, and its name, is the semi-good ending to a quite tragic piece of Scottish history. After the Napoleonic wars things were rough in Scotland--and in much of the British Empire. War is always expensive and after the euphoria of winning wears off the munitions and damages must be paid for. So wages were dropping while the wealthy were looking for ways to recoup and increase their wealth. Many traditional shepherds and other agricultural workers were moved off their lands and skilled artisans, notably weavers, found that their semi-independent lifestyle was converted into working for a boss for declining wages. By the early 1800's weavers wages were half what they had been just a few years before and trouble came in the form of strikes, and uprisings. The Scotti...
Read more

Welcome to Scotland

-
Welcome to Scotland We arrived! We stumbled into Edinburgh airport about 8 a.m. on Saturday January 13. Our flight had left Newark an hour-an-a-half late, to the tune of profuse apologies from the pilot and assurances that he would do his level best to make up the time. (The weather was bad in the Eastern US and many flights had been delayed. We spent an hour sitting in the plane waiting for passengers from delayed connecting flights) Anyway, the pilot kept his promise and we landed in Edinburgh only 30 minutes late. We had an interesting time getting through border control. (Lengthy explanation follows; skip if you like – Louise has tried on several occasions to set up touch ID on her Apple phone. The system recognizes her fingerprints for one, or at most two days, and then claims that it has never met her before. This would be great for her embarking on a life of crime, but is a bit of a nuisance for a normal, law-abiding existence.) Our fingerprints were recorded as part of our v...
Read more

Just the same, although better - some ruminations on food

-
We have been in Scotland for a year and a bit. It is cold and dark and damp, just as when we arrived, and last week we attended the delightful Robbie Burns' birthday celebration at the Livingston Ward. It is, we are told, the most attended activity the ward has all year. Attendance was somewhat down from last year, but this was to be expected, as the night was bitterly cold, and many older more frail folk would have preferred to stay safely at home.  The tables were laid out in the gym, just the same as last year. The music was the same or similar. The men wore the same kilts and jackets, the program was almost the same, with the Selkirk Grace, the Ode to the Haggis, one other poem which was a repeat from the last year, and an additional/different poem or two. The menu was the same - we started with a choice between Scotch broth and butternut soup, with little rounds of French bread. This was followed by haggis and neeps and tatties, just the same as last year, only - the food tast...
Read more