THE TIME/SPACE CONTINUUM

I’ve seen travel guides that tell you it’s possible to do a trip on X amount of dollars per day.  Is there equivalent advice on how to do – let’s say a city like Amsterdam – on X amount of sleep hours per day?  This is not about a lack of things to see or do.  Like any world renown city Amsterdam offers beauty and history and culture in endless supply.  You could literally sightsee 24 hours a day, seven days a week.  The trick is to be conscious and aware while you’re doing it.  For that to happen a person requires sleep.  That’s the tricky part.

Day one of our adventure began at 5:00 because we live three hours from the airport and we are catching an international flight which requires travellers be there three hours before takeoff.  That’s six hours of up-and-at’em before liftoff.  The extra hours are to give you time to trouble shoot the fallout of snow storms in other provinces (see previous post).  I don’t begrudge them as much as I used to.

If you’re lucky (and we were very lucky) there’s another plane that will take you east instead of west and still get you where you want to go so that ten or so hours later it’s 8:30 in the morning the next day when you get there.  At best you managed two hours of fitful sleep on the plane, it is midnight in the time zone you woke up in, and you have all of Holiday Day # 1 ahead of you on an empty tank.  Welcome to jet lag.

As I mentioned before, travel agents are invaluable and we were lucky enough to have one in our group.  Our baby sister always bemoans how she missed out on the green thumb gene but she makes up for it with her detailed planner DNA.  From the moment we booked this trip she stepped up with research on where, when, and how to get the most out of our dime.  The core of our adventure was a week long cruise down the Rhein River but we had two days in Amsterdam first and with her organizational skills we made every minute count.  She even put together a book so that she could stay on top of every element. 

She was the reason our airport to hotel shuttle wasn’t allowed to leave without us when our plane took extra long to park.  She had done the research into what was close to our hotel so we could explore on our own without fear of getting lost.  She was the one who booked the canal boat tour on our second night.  The only one of us she didn’t worry about was Sandy, come to join us from South Africa, saying that “She is a strong independent woman!”  That way she had more time to keep tabs on her older sisters whom she didn’t seem to have the same confidence in.

Day one we checked into our hotel, explored the immediate area, found a tulip market, watched furniture being delivered through a third story window, marvelled at the pretty buildings and trees leafing out, picturesquely mirrored in the canals, and found a restaurant that served Argentinian beef for our evening meal.  By 7:30 we called it a day, only to wake up a few hours later because it was wake up time at home.  The South African girl had it the easiest – she flew farther than we did but never left her time zone.

Day two was breakfast and then a walking tour; lots of history, cobble stones, photo ops, tipsy houses, trees in bloom, and our guide reminding us constantly to watch for bikes.  There are thousands of them and they have the right of way.  Also, they are every bit as deadly silent as the electric cars.  We all survived.  

After a quick street lunch of fish and chips we took a taxi to an open street market confident in the promise that our scheduled canal ride was only 12 minutes walk away.  That’s what Amy’s book said.  But, whether Google Maps let us down or minutes go faster in The Netherlands, we did not make that date on time.  We are pretty sure we saw our boat chugging away as we approached but it didn’t matter – we had missed it.

There’s no keeping that girl down though.  She worked her way through feelings of frustration and disappointment (in herself – she felt that she had let us down) but then came up swinging!  She would get our money back!  This led to being offered an after dark tour (After all, who needs sleep anyway?).  It was a cold, wet wait but our tour guide made it worth it so all was good in the end.

All that was left to do was to get to the river cruise ship the next morning.  There were a few hiccoughs … the transfer shuttle thought we would have the address of where were going.  We thought he would have it.  Amy’s book only had a very unhelpful phone number but GPS saved the day and finally we were aboard the Emerald Luna – Home Sweet Home for the next seven days. 

And shortly after that two of us were in a taxi headed back to the hotel for a wallet left in a safe.  If things happen in threes we sure hoped that the kerfuffles were all behind us.

This was night number three and I slept almost the whole night.

 

 

GETTING THERE IS HALF THE FUN

Remember the last line of my previous post?  It was a rhetorical question actually … “I can sleep on the plane, right?”

Wrong.  The answer is ‘wrong’.  Hard no.  I am not able to sleep on a plane.  Glad I’ve got that cleared up.

And also, you might recall on my airport adventure I misplaced a passport and nearly had to abandon my husband to the grumpy guy at Customs?  Well, that didn’t happen this time but I seem to enjoy extra adventure so we did something different, you know, just for fun.

Our departure date was for the end of March – definite ‘lamb or lion’ territory so as the day crept closer we watched carefully what Mother Nature was doing in southern Saskatchewan. We were quite pleased that she seemed to be keeping busy further west.  Seasoned travellers would not have been so reassured, but we were pure innocents in how a part day shutdown of an airport 1000 km away the day before your departure can turn the whole system upside down.  We are much wiser now.

West Jet warned us our flight to Calgary was delayed before we left home.  Halfway to Regina we were told it would be even later.  As we entered the city we were told there was no way to make our connecting flight and we should talk to a West Jet representative about other options.  The text sounded so matter-of-fact that all still seemed well with the world until we went up to the gal just opening up her work station for the day.  We told her our problem and she smiled and told us she would take a look at what she could do for us.  It might have been the only smile she managed all day.  She logged on and her eyes flew open wide, she made a valiant effort not to bite her lip, and she began to scroll.  When her co-worker arrived a few minutes later and told her “good morning!” she merely said “Is it? Take a look.”  He literally jumped back from his computer and cried “Oh my god!” like he was faced with a backed-up, overflowing toilet bowl.  Come to think of it, that’s probably a pretty good comparison.

The bottom line was that air travel in western Canada was at least six hours behind because Calgary had a snowstorm yesterday.  Our WJ gal couldn’t help us.  We left her to deal with growing lines of people desperate to get where they were supposed to be going.

I always feel a little inadequate when other people do all their own booking flights.  I have managed it for single domestic flights but I just feel so much more secure if I get a professional to take care of anything more technical … and this is the perfect example of why.  We called our friend and savior, Jaime, at McPhail Travel in Moosomin, told her our dilemma and she was on it instantly.  Within a half hour we were booked to fly east instead of west and get to Amsterdam almost the exact same time as our first flight was to arrive.  It was a little scary because we had to make another connection in Minneapolis but we survived and made it to The Netherlands before the tulips were done blooming!  One of the first things we did when we got home was buy Jaime flowers.

The way time zones and travel work is we were up at 5:00 to drive to Regina to catch a flight to Europe.  We left the prairies shortly after noon March 26 and landed in Amsterdam at breakfast time on March 27 but it’s only a ten hour flight.   The airlines provide meals(?) and attempt to control the lighting in the cabin so that humans can better manage the adjustment to the new time zone they will be landing in but really, there’s no saving humans from their folly.  We evolved as walkers and it’s pretty hard to hop time zones at a walking pace.  We are not built for this.

Long story short, we had a few days of sightseeing before our cruise started and if I hadn’t made notes of what happened those days they would be lost forever.  A sleep-deprived brain can barely function on a minute-to-minute basis, let alone recall events in any kind of order. 

I’ll check my notes and tell you all about it next time.

 

 

 

JOURNEY BEFORE THE JOURNEY

This trip has been in the works for a year.  That’s right, if one of your bucket list items is to float down a river in Europe while watching castles and cathedrals and vineyards go by in 2026 you need to start looking into the different options of which cruise company/river/and time of the year might suit you best in 2025.  Believe me, there is a lot of deciding to do.

If I got into all the details I’d have to write a book.  This trip was originally supposed to be the tail end of a trip to South Africa and only the two of us.  As the year ticked by the adventure has evolved into putting South Africa on the back burner, two other couples joining us, stretching the timeline later into the spring, and swapping out my husband for my daughter.  It’s a long story but I think it will still have a happy ending.  European river cruises are way more my kind of thing than his.

The past four months have been focussed on fine tuning the details and wrapping up loose ends.  The cruise is one week long but we arrive in Amsterdam a couple days early and get to do some touring of that fair city – first with a walking tour and then an evening canal cruise so there are airport to hotel shuttles and check in times and meeting places to nail down … and added fees for all of these goodies.

And once we got all that settled we asked the travel agent to tweak it all and switch who would be traveling with me.

On the third morning we move on to our cruise ship and begin our trip which takes us from Amsterdam to Basel, Switzerland over the next week.  Being as it is spring the itinerary covers a lot of tulips, hyacinths, and daffodils.  Thankfully there are other attractions for the less ‘flower friendly’ folks in our group.  The brochures speak of how wonderful it all smells when everything is in bloom so this is a trip for one’s sense of smell too.  I’m not normally allergic to pollen but it might be a good idea to throw in some Reactin.  Too much of a good thing might be bad.

There will also be a palace, some churches, many vineyards, a market or two and lots of amazing architecture.  If my Croatian yacht cruise is any predictor of this trip it will be a lovely experience meeting our fellow travellers.  The real bonus is that this time I will also have two of my sisters and one daughter along.  Win, win, win.

It’s down to the nitty gritty now … the packing part.  For three weeks there has been a suitcase open on the guest bed and a few pieces of clothing laying across it.  Two weeks ago it was decided amongst the sisters that for our last night we get separated from our checked luggage so if we want pyjamas and a tooth brush we need to pack such things in a carry on.  I’ve decided that a small back pack is the way to go because I might want one on our walking tours anyway so one of those took its place on the bed too.  It already holds my pyjamas – the one and only thing I have formally packed so far.

With the back pack able to hole a fair amount I’m not so sure I need the bigger suitcase so now the little one has joined the jumble on the bed.  Sometime very soon I will need to sort through all the ‘maybes’ and decide what is actually going to Europe with me.

In the meanwhile somehow this last week’s calendar has filled with a bunch of appointments and commitments that can’t be ignored and I kind of promised to cook a few things to keep people alive while I’m gone.  It makes me tired just to think about it.

Oh well … I can sleep on the plane!  Right? 

 

 

 

EARLY MORNING THOUGHTS

Many many years ago, back in the days of the Redvers Optimist, one of the contributors wrote a column called Early Morning Thoughts.  I remember that she blamed her being awake way too early in the day on menopause and what that does to sleep patterns.  Being as I am just a few years younger than she is this gave me something to look forward to.  Thank you Joanne; anticipation always adds to the experience!  

I liked reading what she had to say.  I can’t remember what she talked about now, but it was interesting at the time.  Maybe I acknowledged the situation as “okay, I will get less sleep but potentially I will think interesting thoughts”.  That time in my life came.  And went.  I survived.  All is good.

These days I have moved on to full blown Old Lady Mode.  I don’t know if menopause ruined my sleep patterns forever? Or does this happen to everyone?  Or is my brain so powerful it just can’t shut off?

Yeah, that’s probably it.  How would you power down a super computer?

Anyway, long story short, most of my early mornings feature at least an hour of solitude, coffee, and thinking about stuff.  It’s probably my favourite time of the day.

My mother used to tell me a similar story.  I was a teenager at the time and totally thought she was nuts.  In a perfect (teenaged) world we should be able to stay up till whenever suits us and then sleep in until noon.  She said “no”.  That her walk before 6:00 in the morning to fetch the cows in for milking was her best time of the day.  I dismissed this as the lunatic ramblings of a demented old lady (she would have been in her mid forties at the time).  This is yet another example of how my mother was right.  At this point in my life I could fill a book with the times my mother was right. 

I don’t have cows to bring in for milking (thank goodness, milking is a lot of work).  I have no doubt, though, that I would enjoy an early morning walk.  My version, in the summer time, is to wander around my yard in dew-wet grass to check out my gardens.  The warm sun, the scents of the flowers, the promise of veggies, even the cat following me around complaining about its empty food dish – it’s the perfect way to start the day.

I also have a daily adventure in the winter.  We heat our shop with a wood-burning stove that needs to be stoked on a regular basis.  We call this job ‘feeding the dragon’ and right after pushing the button on the coffee maker and feeding the dog his breakfast I suit up for the frigid walk to the shop to go feed our pet dragon.  No doubt my teenaged self would have considered this cruelty and possibly worth a report to Social Services, but for me (and I suspect my mother) it’s just a refreshing introduction to the day, and beautiful in its own right.

Sometimes the stars are brilliant in the predawn sky.  Sometimes it’s so foggy I can barely see out of the yard.  Sometimes the rime frost gives a breath-taking display of white crystals on dark trees.  Sometimes the wind is blowing at 60 mph and the snow is two feet deep.  I tend to walk faster on those days.

The satisfaction of keeping the dragon fed is just a bonus.  I like that I am doing a necessary job, I like that the fresh air is head-clearing, and I love the smell of wood smoke that follows me back to the house. 

The best part though, is that I will still have about an hour with just me, my mug of coffee, and my dog laying at my feet. 

And on a shelf across the room sits a photo of my mother, a smile on her face and an expression that I can’t help but feel says “See?  Didn’t I tell you so?”

 

WHAT DAY IS IT?

I seem to be lost in the What-the-heck-day-is-it? land of midwinter.  Life is just a series of identical days marching in some kind of a circular pattern passing an endless array of familiar landmarks like we’re trapped inside Fred and Wilma Flintstone’s house with no end in sight. 

Why am I here?  What am I supposed to be doing?  Was I doing something important?  If so, where was I doing it? 

I’ve often joked about being solar powered, but even with the lengthening of sunlit hours to our days my brain remains foggy and unfocussed.  Facebook has studied my algorithms and has suggested everything from vitamin supplements to possible parasite purges.  I used to like 80% of what Facebook had to offer and be annoyed with the other 20%.  Now it’s more like 5% to 95%, and ‘annoyed’ isn’t a strong enough word.

This syndrome happens every winter, I think.  I’m not sure – it’s that fuzzy thinking thing again.  I prefer outside work to inside housework so my aimlessly wandering from window to window looking out at the frozen white landscape in February is a form of slow-motion torture.  I long for grass to mow and weeds to pull and flowers to enjoy, but all there is out there is ice and snow and 40 below temperatures. 

I want to do laundry and hang it out on the line.

At this point I would even take an afternoon of cleaning up dog ‘residue’ over this endless imprisonment.

One would think that since we have a teenager living with us and going to school and hockey there would be a bit more structure to our retirement time.  It is true that we have more social commitments because of this but I still seem to have trouble keeping my days straight.  Tuesdays and Thursdays are hockey practice … except when changes are made.  School days should be pretty predictable … except for days the buses don’t run because it’s 40 below, or there are admin days (I think that’s what they are called).  We’ve also had a fair few sick days. And dentist days.  And storm days.  

Actually, any little thing can throw a person off: this year – 2026 – our church’s Shrove Tuesday pancake supper landed on a Thursday.  It’s kinks like that in the time/space continuum that can really mess things up.

If I didn’t have everything written on my old-fashioned wall calendar we would be totally lost.

I sincerely hope I have everything written up on my old-fashioned wall calendar.

Probably the worst component of this mind-numbing mundane-ness is having to come up with a menu for supper.  Every.  Single.  Night.

I’m 70 years old, for Pete’s sake.  When does this ever end? 

But, enough crying already.  As long as winter is, I’m not the only one who has to endure it.  I can’t do anything about it being February 21^st today but I can turn my eyes toward the future.  Spring will surely arrive in all its muddy glory just like it has all the other years.  The sun will shine and wrap me in a big, warm hug of welcome as I work in the yard, and hang out the laundry, and clean up dog ‘residue’.

In the shorter term I have a trip to Europe to look forward to … the tulips in Holland, castles and vineyards along the Rhine.  This is a bucket list item for me in the plans have been in the works for over a year.  I just have to make it through one more month …

 

SO FAR SO GOOD?

Well so far, exactly two weeks into this new year, I’m not so sure I like 2026.

We started out just fine.  Off to Mexico for a week on a beach, in the warn sunshine.  And the best part about an all-inclusive resort – plenty of food, all varieties, all the time – and I didn’t have to menu plan or cook once.

The wedding was pretty.  The party was fun.  The people we were with were a happy bunch; it was all good.

Until our teenager came down with a fever.  We have no idea where it came from but eventually I convinced him to take some Tylenol and the fever broke.  We had insurance, but who really wants to play that game in a foreign country?

Then he broke out in a rash.  Was it an after effect of the fever?  Was it something else?  He said don’t worry about it, but it kept getting worse.  The next morning, as we got ready to head back to the airport, I again offered him some antihistamines just in case it was an allergic reaction (at this point it sure looked like hives).  It took less than ten minutes for the Reactin to kick in and the rash disappeared before our very eyes.  Don’t know what set it off, but an allergy it definitely was.

The trip home went as per usual: wait in a line for the bus to the airport to wait in line to check our luggage to wait in line for airport food to wait in line to board the plane … and then finally that five hour flight we all enjoy so much.  Mission accomplished.

There was even a bit of a bonus – we arrived back in Regina 15 minutes early.  We might get home before midnight after all. 

Except … when you are trying to get three people back through Customs you require three passports.  I kept coming up one short, no matter how many times I checked my purse.  This is not a good thing, believe me.

I don’t know if there is such a thing as a pleasant, patient, or understanding Customs Officer, but if there is he’s not the one we got.  Someone had definitely peed in his cornflakes that morning.  I dug through my purse three times, obvious panic setting in and all he said is “go over there”.  We did, and I dumped the contents out on a bench – passport #3 was not there.  Pockets? No.  Other carry on?  Also no.  It had to have fallen out on the plane!  Which was about to leave for Saskatoon! 

Let me tell you an old lady can sprint up stairs pretty fast when she needs to … only to be stopped by an airport security lady who dashed forward, pointed to the floor, and excitedly insisted I couldn’t cross THE RED LINE.  I hadn’t even seen THE RED LINE ten minutes earlier when I had entered *Canada* and now she was pulling a plastic curtain across to make sure I couldn’t go back.  I told her what my problem was; she wasn’t nearly concerned enough to suit me. 

I said I just wanted to go find it … row 18, middle seat … She said “don’t worry, the plane is here for the night.”  I said “No it’s not!  It’s leaving right away for Saskatoon!”

Realistically the whole double search (they didn’t find it the first time) couldn’t have taken very long, we were picking up our luggage at the same time as our friends, but it sure seemed to take forever.  And, what are the chances? I was joined at the top of the stairs and this side of THE RED LINE by a father/son duo with the same missing passport problem.  The son looking miserable, and the father’s cornflakes had obviously met the same fate as the Customs Officer’s by the looks of things.  I felt sad for the kid – I knew how he felt, and I didn’t have any heavy judgement coming down on my head.  It was Glen’s passport that was missing and he was good-naturedly trying to recall everything that had happened to the guy in the movie Terminal.  He thought maybe he would marry the gal at THE RED LINE if he was stuck there for life.

It all ended well for us.  The passport was found.  We did round two with the Customs agent, his mood had not improved but we all checked out fine so he had to let us go.  Truth to tell, it must have been when I got my pen out to fill out the customs form that the passport fell out of my purse, so it was Customs’ fault in the first place!

(I do want to apologise to Bev, seated across the aisle from me, trying to keep her toddler asleep while the Regina passengers were deplaning.  I’m betting that two searches of the seat next to you wasn’t the best thing that could happen.  I’m so sorry if he woke up!)

And, that was only week #1.  Since we’ve been home we’ve all been sharing some kind of nasty and persistent stomach bug.  I don’t know if Montezuma is to blame, but I’m not enjoying it.

Sure hope 2026 gets better from here.

 

BLIZZARD BLISS

I went to bed last night listening to the roaring prairie wind blasting its way through our shelterbelt trees and throwing loose snow against the side of the house with all its might.  It made me snuggle further under the covers and smile.  I love nights like this.

Now, before you call up the nice people with straight jackets and have me hauled away, hear me out.  Don’t question my sanity just for a silly little thing like enjoying a good, old-fashioned blizzard every once in a while.  I’m prairie, born and raised.  We’re kind of an extreme life form.

First of all, please note that my embracing of the storm was done from the inside of my house.  A house with central heating and excellent insulation.  Furthermore, I was tucked into my toasty warm bed and under a down-filled duvet.  And, most important of all, I knew that everyone I loved was home, safe, and warm, as well.  I didn’t need to worry about a single person or thing.  I could relax and listen to the wind howl its one, long song, feeling its power pushing against the walls but trusting that my shelter was up to the task of protecting me and those I care about.  The louder the wind, the cozier I feel.

 This morning dawned with bright blue skies, dazzling fresh white snow and the wind still blowing, it kind of looks like a Christmas card picture out there – very pretty, but nasty cold.  We were at the southern edge of the storm so we got a major part of our precipitation in freezing rain throughout the day yesterday.  Although the videos of kids skating on city streets and other people throwing curling rocks down stretches of pebbled highway are fun for the novelty of it all, the potential for concussions and broken hips are important factors to consider before a person ventures outside.  So far today I’ve made it across the yard once, sticking to where the snow is deep so that if I do slip on the ice underneath there will be that fresh powder to cushion my fall.  You gotta think ahead, you know.

At the moment we haven’t tried to leave the yard yet.  The man says he figures the 4X4 with the studded tires could probably make it but he also is planning on spending the next few hours clearing the driveway out.  There’s lots of light, fluffy snow to push around but the lack of traction underneath might make the job a little more challenging than usual.  This is not my problem; it’s a man thing.  I stay in the house and make soup; that’s my job.

As much as I enjoy the fierceness of prairie weather; the wondering of ‘how bad will it get?’, the photographing the aftermath, a blizzard also likes to rearrange schedules.  School buses don’t run, hockey practises and games are juggled to new times, Christmas concerts are cancelled.  Hair appointments are rescheduled (thank the Lord, and halleluiah!  No one wants to go through the holidays looking like a haystack).  It looks like the two Australians’ flight will be landing in Regina this afternoon as has been planned for weeks.  Sure glad their reservations weren’t for yesterday.  I’m pretty sure they would rather witness the Northern Lights than participate in a blizzard although both have a bragging rights quality to them, don’t they?

The next week is going to be full of company and food and visiting and family gatherings and a hockey game or two.  I have several lists of jobs to do and groceries to buy on the go.  Most of my baking is done, all of my cards and letters are sent, by tonight the guest beds will all be made up.  Once I’m completely ready Mother Nature can send another storm our way.  As long as everyone is safe and inside I really do love a good blizzard.