Well how time flies! I had no idea it has been so long since I last blogged, but thanks to Sue, I'm back! Lesley and I just returned from a month in New Zealand visiting family and friends there. I had the good fortune to attend one of the Rugby World Cup matches being played in NZ at the time in person thanks to my dear mother-in-law. What a thrill! I also got in some ocean fishing and surf casting, something I had never done before. Otherwise a good trip with family and friends. A very long flight back, taking off from NZ in the morning and arriving back in the US just at nighttime, then having to cross the country without sleep. Anyway, back home now, and all is well. We left our dogs with a friend now living in a trailer on our property. Neat story, I'll make it short as I can. Years ago my parents and I bought a cabin on a remote lake up here in Northern Minnesota. It happens that Mike also owned land on that lake, and lived in a trailer there year round, even in our severe winters here, unable to even get out from the lake if he had to. During this time, he took very good care of my elderly parents while they spent the summers at the cabin. It made our family most happy that he was there as needed. Well, Mike is older now, has had a couple of strokes and some other health issues. I told Lesley that if we didn't do something, we would find his body in the spring, as I don't think he would be able to survive on his own the entire winter alone anymore. So mike's trailer is now on our property, he has heat, water, TV, and anything else he needs. He insists on paying rent, even though we don't require it. Rather like the movie "Play it forward" for those of you that have seen it. I call it turn about, since he helped my parents first.

Anyway the summer was good, the freezer is full of fish and veggies from the garden. We are all tucked up for winter here, and have started exercising again as we do every winter. We pretty much stop exercising in the summer as I noticed that after exercising I had little energy for the other activities of summer like fishing, etc. Not good. Lesley is enjoying full retirement now, and besides spoiling me is busy with a garden that is the envy of the neighborhood, canoeing, biking, kayaking, making soap, snowshoeing, skiing, etc. I do my Erector Set hobby (a construction toy popular in the US in the '50's). Interesting side story about that. A 10 year old boy has started building with me and loves it. I plan a story one day about the "Old man and the boy". I also have a friend my age that helps me wile away the winter building models. While in NZ, the Auckland Meccanno Guild (also a construction toy) allowed me to attend a meeting where they displayed their models and we generally had a great time discussing such things. Lesley concurrently attended the "Meccanno widows club". A good time was had by all.

Medically all is about as it was, some things don't work as well as I would like, but for a 66 year old stroke survivor, it could be worse!

Cheers!