Start of Vacation & a death in the family

Man, felt good to get up around 9am this morning. Not sure what I'll do on this vacation. I've kinda got it in my head to catch up on things I've left for too long. Things like cleaning up the basement, some gardening, getting some excercise... also I'll try and head downtown for a day one day. Mark wants me to go planespotting with him on Tuesday when a real variety of planes and airlines come into Montreal. I'm thinking about going to Mont Tremblant for a day too, just to get out of the city. Perhaps Quebec City a city which is really beautiful actually.

Next week..humm.. I have it in my head to go to a travel agent this week to see if there are any last minute deals to someplace. I've always wanted to go to Spain, Portugal or Morocco. I'll bet there are good deals to Cuba and Florida now that Dennis has wiped them clean :(.. same for London after the terrorist attacks. But then again it would be neat to go to some place exotic like Africa but...$$ I guess and I'd probably need all sorts of medical shots. Egypt perhaps to see the pyramids. Wish I was loaded with money.. oh well, Quebec City would be nice. I do have a ton of Aeroplan (Air Canada) points so theoretically I could fly to anywhere in their network.. but now at peak summer time it would be a miracle if I could work something out. I Don't need an expensive fancy hotel so long as I'm in a nice place to tour around.

Anyone out there with any non-traditional suggestions?

I just got a call from my cousin Pat in England. My aunt Rene passed away last Friday. My father was from London and he had several brothers and sisters. His brother Bill married Rene 64 years ago. Imagine. She was 83 and died of pancreatitis. She also had alzhimer's apparently although that was the first I had heard of that. I'm not really in touch with my family in the UK. My first line aunts and uncles were the ones I was closest to. Most have passed on now. Their offspring, my second cousins I suppose you call them, I don't know very well. Pat, my cousin who called me is Rene's daughter and the one person I stayed with on my last trip to London about 5 years ago. I guess she is the only one I really speak to. I tried calling my Aunt Becky, my father's sister, the only other sibling still living, had a 20 minute conversation with her before I realized she had no clue who she was talking to... I kinda gave up after that although looking back now it was kinda funny.

Anyways, Rene was a character... short and shall we say larger than life and full of fun and energy. I remember her coming to Montreal and going to some exhibit on Ile Notre Dame.. we stayed very later and had to leave after the parc had closed. We climbed over a fence and she got stuck... she sat there and laughed and laughed until someone could finally get her down. Her laugh and good nature is what I'll always remember about her. My uncle Bill will miss her a whole lot. She had a long and good life and Pat says she died peacefully at a time she chose. It's amazing when people face death how they wait to the right moment to let go.

One other thing, Pat went into detail about about the bombings in London. I was concerned about them and ironically I was going to call to see if everyone was ok. I checked a London website this morning just to see the list of names of the missing in case I recognized anyone but given a lot of the women in my family there may have married I still wasn't too sure everyone was fine. Anyways they are although my cousin Yvonne still lives in East end London and works in the financial district ironically in a building near the Algate Underground, one of the stations that had a bombing.. so she was in the middle of it but wasn't affected. Apparently she also works for a taxi company and said that they worked a 10 hour shift trying to get everyone back home since the transit system shut down. The double deckker bus that exploded did so right in the heart of a Middle Eastern neighbourhood full of Muslims... so that's interesting. If it was caused by Al Qaeda or Muslim terrorists why would it explode in the heart of a Muslim district? This story might have a more interesting conclusion than what most people think. She also said the tunnel holding the last train rescue workers are still trying to get to is the deepest of the entire London underground and is below two other levels of track. Engineers are trying to prop up the tunnel for support to prevent further collapse. It's a really awful situation.