A 12-Hour Trip to London, Great Day!

Paisley, On

When we got up on Friday, Dec. 11^th at 7 it wasn’t to hustle off to work. It was a pleasure day, a long one but still something we were doing for our own good. After filling our thermoses with coffee and tea and packing a few snacks in the cooler, we were out the driveway at 8. The day was mild with an expected temperature in the high single Celcius digits and mid 40’sF so we didn’t need heavy overcoats.

the sun was trying really hard to break through those clouds
making for a pretty sky

Driving through Mildmay where Bill's boss, Mike, lives
Coming home through this town, I give it the prize for the best
Christmas decorations
Pictures didn't turn out though but take my word for it
(well, except for Paisley's cute gingerbread men)

And Pop! it made an appearance

The sun was peaking out at various times and it seems on the drive to London, we totally missed the fog that our friends experienced driving north to Owen Sound. Our first stop after reaching the city limits was on Clarke Road, east end, at Rycor Countertops where my son, Patrick, works. We had pre-texted and upon arrival he came out the door all masked up. We could have gone in but it isn’t as nice standing inside a business. He removed his mask when he came close and I got my hugs!

Rycor Countertops
They do good work

Who is that masked man? 💓

We were happy to be able to fulfill our second wish of giving him an identical amount of $ that we’d given Bridgette last month. It was a small amount but something I wanted to do with my inheritance and something Bill fully supported. 😊 

Before goiing to the flying field, I needed to use a real washroom
so Timmy's it was and Bill got a frosted cinnamon roll

With that done, we drove to the southwest corner of London to meet up with our friend, Keith (who you may remember we traveled with during our last winter to the southwest) and his friend, Steve at Bill’s London flying field.

It was a beautiful day

And a great day for flying too

Keith gets his plane ready for Steve to take up for a flight

Sweet Oreo watches

So good to be together again even for a short time

We hadn’t seen Keith since August so that was a nice reunion. He looks great and oh, so does sweet Oreo. She was so happy to see us. I think she’s happy to see anyone but we like to believe she remembers us. ♥ After about an hour we said goodbye, wished them a Merry Christmas and headed down the highway to CanAm. First a stop at the Flying M truck stop to fuel Ptooties up. Today, the gas price was 98.9/litre, I think, which isn't too bad but not great either.

Steve brings the little plane in beautifully

When we got to CanAm we were pleasantly surprised to hear that the Suite was almost all fixed up! Yay! We chatted briefly with Peggy, they were having their indoor staff luncheon, all safely distanced and masked, so we left them to eat and went out back in the storage area to find our ‘home’. Luckily, we were able to open slides up enough to get in and retrieve a few of the things we’d realized we needed/wanted. Because it was so mild outside, (for Dec. 11) it wasn’t ice cold in the rv as these units can sometimes be.

Arriving at CanAm around 12 noon

Because we had a leak in the roof during the fall/winter of 2018/19
the floor in the hall closet upstairs was damaged and spongy
They pulled out the linoleum and replaced it with laminate
We LOVE it! Great job!

There was something in their store in October that Bill and I had our eye on for a Christmas gift for each other so although not the exact design as we'd seen, we purchased two camping chairs. That’s usually how we do Christmas for each other except for filling stockings. Well, I do most of the ‘filling’, under Santa’s direction, of course. 

this large Canada flag was hardly moving
Such a lovely day (did I say that already?)
It got up to 10C/50F in London

We kind of got a new camera for Christmas too. We stopped at Henry’s Camera Store and they had my other Canon PowerShot returned from the factory. Repaired. Because of a bit of a run around and it/us getting lost in the shuffle, she didn’t charge us the extra $150. Merry Christmas from Sarah!

I'm so sad that this is blurry but in Ingersoll
something terrible has happened!!!!
All these blow up people are dead! Hahaha
Bill and I laughed our fool heads off over this display
When we came back through to go home, they were fully revived again
Phew!

A water tower - George used to point these out for me
in his blog. This one's for you, George!

On our way home from London, we stopped at our friends’ house for a ‘distance’ visit.  Ken and Kim had been out of country in November and therefore, upon their return, had to quarantine for 14 days. 

We almost got stopped by a train
2 engines!!

Arriving at their stately home

They were being very compliant so we stayed down on the sidewalk while they stayed up on their porch. We mimed hugs, wishing the best of the season to each other and caught up on the recent news. It was great to see them even from a distance and for a short time.

There they are, behaving like good kids

And then he turned the lights on
Starting in 1 minute as the lighted display says

It wasn't quite dark enough to get a good view
but we got the drift and it is a really nice display

And as we're driving away, a better view from the street

Ingersoll's A & W was our supper stop. Cheddar Bacon Uncle Burgers and fries with what else? Root Beer. It was good and this little piggy ate the whole thing. 

The burger and fries were so good!!

We arrived home almost exactly 12 hours after leaving and within a few minutes of unloading and packing the food away, we were upstairs in bed. I can’t even remember if I tried to read but it was no use. I was too tired and at 9:15 turned my light off and rolled over. Bill managed to read a few chapters of his book before joining me in the dark. I don't remember how much later, I was asleep.

Today's memory picture is at our friend's former residence
Rose and George opened their home up to us
a few times
this is Dec. 11, 2017
Clemson stands guard 💓
good night!

It was a great day. A lot of things, everything actually, went in our favour so we were very happy about that. Another busy day tomorrow so blog postings are and will be late.

Thank you for checking in!