Greetings and salutations, everyone! (Bonus point if you can tell me what movie that is from.) Oh, and “Hälsningar och lyckönskningar, allihopa!” to the reader I have from Sweden. (I didn’t know I knew anyone from Sweden but WordPress says otherwise.)
Happy Victoria Day long weekend, for those of us who can observe it. Which apparently does not include people working in retail. Seriously, the number of places I saw the other day advertising how they would be open on Victoria Day was a little disturbing. I wonder how long before this long weekend is a thing of the past? Personally, if they need to “rebrand” it, so be it, but I still think we need a long weekend in May, one that includes a day off for retail workers.
(You know…with the municipal elections coming up and me with some free time on my hands, maybe I should run for office. I could champion the rights of retail workers. Sure, I’m not even remotely qualified for office but when has that stopped anyone?)
Last but certainly not least…Happy Calithumpian Weekend, everyone! In case you are wondering what exactly a Calithumpian is, I’m not the person to ask. I’ve lived in Thamesford since 2009 and while I have heard a couple of explanations, I’ve never heard the definitive definition, as it were.
Ironically, while I had never heard of a “Calithumpian” before moving to Thamesford, a few years ago, I came across a reference to a similar festival taking place in Glencoe, of all places, in the early part of the 20th century, about the time of the First World War.
In Thamesford, in the 21st century, however, this is the the time of year when the locals hold yard sales and other events to celebrate the May long weekend.
There’s a lot to look forward to including the yard sales, an indoor garage sale at the arena, a rummage sale at the church next door, the library book sale (which I generously donate to), a RC car demonstration, fireworks, the Calithumpian Parade (which goes right by my house) and Hammerlock Wrestling at Brunny’s. These are the events I’ve hoping to partake in but if you want a full list of the festivities, check out the website.
Speaking of community events, I attended the Oxford Local History Day last Saturday. It was great to meet up with other members of the Heroes of Zorra Project for the first time in a couple of years. It gave us a chance to discuss the future of the project, and brainstorm some ideas to grow our membership and raise our profile in the area. At the same, it was a great opportunity to get outside these four walls for a morning and meet some people interested in the history of their communities. I have found, and I said this a couple of times on Saturday, when people can see a connection between themselves and historical events, they become that much more engaged.
While it may not have been a successful week on the job hunt front (a few irons in the fire but radio silence in terms of response), I certainly can’t be accused of not keeping busy. My Mom continued her work on the yard work and I certainly discovered just how old and wimpy I am (not that there was much of a benchmark to start from). However, I am proud to say I was able to help Mom dig up all the stones from around the tree in our front yard and reposition them in our driveway. We’re in the beginning stages of a major renovation of the front yard. We had a local guy come in and uproot the dying trees on the west end of the property and am hoping to get a few evergreens to replace them. I’ve also been keeping up with the lawn mowing. Not as much as at least one guy in our neighbourhood does, but enough to keep my Mom happy.
She and I kept closer to home this week than normal, but did venture over to Ingersoll to get groceries and into London to get the tire looked at (after one local shop deemed themselves “too busy” to even schedule an appointment) and on to Value Village.
A big win for the week was my Mom getting her license renewed. I had been helping her practice for the written test and the cognitive test and was hopeful I had done enough to get her through the test. As it turned out, she had to take a short vision test, draw a clock set to a specific time as the cognitive test, and that was it. When she called to tell me that she had passed, she was soooooooo excited! Guess it’s about time we had two drivers again in the Milner household. ChatGPT has been helping me a lot and I feel pretty confident that I can pass the written test. Wish me luck.
Hope everyone has a great weekend (no matter what it’s labelled) and a great week and I’ll chat at you again in the future. As always, if you want to discuss anything on my blog, feel free to chat me up on Facebook Messenger.
johnmilner.ca 