Canadialand 4: Horsecarried Kevinage, euhm, drawn.

Just to put everybodies worries at rest, no, nothing happened. I am travelling with older (but massively spry and frighteningly acute) women, who seem to all come equipped with minor but annoying medical issues. And one of those had us trudging to the local medical centre at ten of the o'clock last night.
Woodstock, Ontario being what it is, you don't trudge hither and then shortly fro, no (no no no no), you trudge hither and about three hours later fro. The first hour and a half wasn't that bad, but after Aunty N and N were called in, I was left to my own devices, which consisted of one OK magazine, one People Magazine, one toy train set, three half chewed books about recognizing numbers and certain ducks, and fond but useless memories of the very cute guy that was wheeled out of the waiting room as we entered it.
I had been deeply contemplating the "If you have a stroke"-poster on the wall for twenty minutes by the time we could do the second half of the trudging. Hey, the guy was cute and all, but being in a waiting room under close scrutiny of the lovely people of the nursing staff swiftly exhausts the options your brain provides.

And the day started out so well. We noodled down to the centre of town for a very, euhm, interesting parade in the full Canadian sun (Sunburn? Nah, there has to be combustible material left for something to be called a burn) after which we sojourned to the farm of In and An. The parade, mostly made up of big men in small cars, small women in big cars, clowns (shudder) and various local marching bands did have going for itslef the fact that it had one man so determined to reach heaven that he decided to walk there himself when he died, about three years ago. Somebody gave him a flag to carry. Lush.

Once on the farm, we were being treated to a beautifully chargrilled or deliciously deepfried version of the thing An managed to shoot the previous couple of months. It was glorious. I made my well-received olive bread, which was good, but it really can't hold a candle to a man holding a 6 kilo turkey above a vat (yes, vat) of boiling oil.

After dinner, we all got a chance to ride one of In's horses. The name of the horse I can't remember, but I can say that riding skills disappear over time, and everybody who says otherwise lies. That thing stalled withing seconds of me hoisting myself over it's back, and it wasn't a weight issue. I think I wasn't gentle enough with the clutch. All In's helpful comments (Use your legs, he stops moving when you stop riding, don't let him see the fence (Excuse me?)) in spite, I did not have any sort of feeling for that animal.

My mother, however, did. Which made me proud. My mother, for those who don't know her, is not a large woman. This horse, for those who don't know it, was a large animal. My mum had spent three solid days saying things along the lines of "I've never even touched a horse, they scare me, they are so big, I am not getting on one of those, no, never", which she kept up until about three minutes after she had started leading it around the paddock. In walked with her, but she still did very well. It was a bit shaming, I have to say, so I stuck to petting there incredibly friendly half-Husky half brown Lab.

Today was spent shopping in London, finally netting me my promised birthday present from my mum in the form of a Swarovski crystal bracelet and yet another pair of wicked cool shoes.
Wallets depleted, we spent a while in the house of yet another cousin, B, with his wife T. B and T are flippers, buying house, fixing them up and selling them with a profit. Their current house is in flux, but going to be gorgeous. For today as for the holiday, I'll be posting pictures at a later date.

We closed of our last day here  at the house of Aunty G and Uncle M, and I am currently in the lobby of our hotel writing this. I am also exhausted, sunburned, a little bit hungry and I haven't had more than 13 minutes of straight reading for 5 days. I am looking forward to going hoooome.

See you all soon,

Kevin.