Dull, cloudy and cool, a bit of rain, enough to discourage us from going for a walk. It feels like we are getting close to the end of summer.

Best wishes for a speedy recovery to Merv Miller, our good friend from Greenwater. He is recovering from surgery at St. Paul ’s Hospital here in Saskatoon , but should be home by the time you read this. Not so nice for him, but a great opportunity for us to visit with him and Shirley. We were up there a short time ago and are happy to report he is looking very good, and his sense of humor is intact.

We ran into Darrel and Cheryl Zenuk outside Merv’s room. Darrel (Zeke to you) spent a lot of time at St. Paul ’s last spring and they were revisiting some of the rooms he spent time in. Zeke is looking good, and says he is feeling good. Zeke spent a lot of time in an induced coma while in the hospital; he had a lot of very detailed dreams which he recalls clearly. Makes quite a story.

They tell me Ronnie Hirtle is undergoing hip surgery in Saskatoon this coming week, so will likely get to visit him and Gwyn as well. Old home week!

We were sorry to see Bea Olafson’s obituary in the Wynyard Advance. She apparently died while visiting family at Emma Lake . We got to meet Bea and Carl when we moved to Wynyard in 1958. They were just starting to raise turkeys and we were giving them some pointers. They remained our good friends ever since. Carl died several years ago. Our condolences to Larry and Marilyn and their families.

Our grandson, Aaron, is finishing up his welding course at SIAST starting Tuesday, and will be staying at our place until late October. He will then have his journeyman’s qualifications. He and Nicole and little Logan will be arriving tomorrow; we will be on baby-sitting duty while they do some shopping. I can’t remember how to change diapers, but luckily Doreen can.

Our Good Sam chapter, the Sunseekers, will be camping at Manitou Lake next weekend, and that will be the last outing of the year. We will drain the motorhome and take it to Mr. RV for winterizing and a bit of repair, then stow it away for the winter. We have a spot rented in a storage yard not far away. I had hoped to spend a little time at Greenwater again but it isn’t going to happen.

We made an offer, and it has been accepted, on a bungalow townhouse not far from where we presently live. We take possession on October 15^th, and hope to move before the end of October. Even though we just moved a year ago, we seem to have accumulated a lot more junk that has to be moved or ditched. We are going to be lots busy in the meantime as we want to do some renovations, and have to fit in a three-week bus tour to New York .

I have no plans to bust my butt on this move, and we are not going to call on family. We are going to hire a contractor to do the renovations, and a mover to do the moving. Doreen does the organizing, and I try to stay out of sight and out of mind. The coffee shops are going to get a workout.

It’s funny how things work out. After we moved to Saskatoon , I started looking for a group to have coffee and visit with. Ran into Joyce and Ron Weber early on, and they introduced me to a group who coffee at Reggie’s. I usually get together with them once or twice a week. Then one day I was in the Co-op coffee shop; there were eight men talking and laughing at a nearby table so I picked up my coffee and joined them, and have been having coffee with them Tuesday mornings ever since.

One of that group introduced us to Sunseekers, which we have since joined, and we have breakfast with them every Saturday morning. We heard of a group of Wynyard and Foam Lake people who meet on Wednesday mornings at Market Mall, so started joining them. Then I find out that some of them, some of the Sunseekers, and some of the Tuesday group get together at McDonald’s on 8^th Street most days of the week. I have joined them on occasion.