Happy Canada Day to you all, well, most of you

Canada Day. Ah, national holidays, how I hate them. I especially dislike holidays that have a nationalistic bent to them – it all feels very much like a pissing competition, to be honest – but I might, for once, make an exception this year. Yes, in 2025, I’ll beat my chest and say “Thank God I’m Canadian”. It’s by choice, too – I chose to be Canadian. I didn’t choose to be English or British, but I did choose to be Canadian. So, today, I stand up, give the bras d’honneur to Trump and his acolytes down south, and then turn my back to the States, bend over as far as I can, and let out a resounding pet in a high C. C as in “caved” and C as in what I think you all are.
 
There, that feels better.
 
Now, we’ve decided to avoid crowds this year – not for the fear of what happens or might happen, but because Ottawacker Jr. has his operation scheduled for nine days’ time and if he is sick, i.e., the slightest sniffle, he cannot have it. We were told this in no uncertain terms by the nurse/anesthesiologist, so we are going to be wrapping him up in cotton wool. At least, that was the idea. But, it turns out that all buses and trains are free today, or to put that in the way Ottawacker Jr. would put it, “all buses and trains are free today,” and there was no way we could tell him that his lifelong dream of riding the bus from Ottawa to Wakefield for free could be denied. Besides, what’s another 12 hours? And it isn’t as if the bus will be full.
 
So, off they went, and I decided to consecrate my time to doing the prep work for the translation I had just received, which involved a word count and highlighting all the bits I had to do, and then doing some photos or something. The time fairly flew by. They were out for a good six hours – Wakefield was where we had been last weekend with Jamie, so I had an idea of where they were heading – so I got everything done I wanted to do, plus a whole pile more.
 
Around three, Mitch came over with his chocolate lab Luna(tic). Then the family came back. We sat in the back garden, in the sun, sharing a few drinks and chasing Luna whenever she escaped through the fence. After they left, we made dinner – ribs and potatoes, salad and an increasingly small piece of strawberry shortcake – and then had a videocall with Iwona, Gienek and Michas out in BC. Finally, to satisfy Ottawacker Jr.’s wanderlust, we watched an episode of Alan Cummings’ surprisingly good trip around Scotland on a luxury train.
 
A final toot in the direction of the O.T., and then, to bed.
 
Thought of the day: “How can I relax when every aspect of my physical and mental state is governed by something called a nervous system?”