“The RoseBouquet”

My favourite uncle and aunt came to visit on the weekend. They arrived by bus at noon, so I brought them home and served a cold salad and make up your own sandwiches lunch. Then I took them on a tour of my office here, and the whole Western Tract Mission building.

For supper we picked up some Kentucky Fried Chicken and went to the Kinsmen Park beside my brother Tom’s apartment building. He joined us and we had our supper together in a lovely spot for shade and breezes as it was generally quite a hot day. One of the few we’ve had this summer.

We were not far from the merry-go-round and the little train ride, so we could watch kids and families enjoying them.

Suddenly Tom said, “Look! They are going to blow up some hot air balloons over there.” We cleared our table and went off over a grassy hill to watch. None of us had ever seen this before so it was a very pleasant experience. I had forgotten my camera (how could I?) but Uncle Henry had his, so I figured I’d get some from him later.

There were two giant silk balloons blown up with hot air, some people busy with ropes to close up the top, and then let them go upright. We watched as people jumped into the baskets and then suddenly, soundlessly, they lifted off and floated away into the bright western sun.

Unfortunately, when we got home, we discovered that Uncle Henry’s flash must have been set to on, for all those photos were just whited out. Nothing really to see. I tried to put his camera chip into my printer so I could maybe doctor them up on my computer, but then it fell into the printer and for the longest time we couldn’t get it out. Eventually I turned it on it’s back and managed to retrieve that slim little item out with some tweasers.

They went to sleep in the neighbour’s camper and I got to sleep in my own bed. Everything worked out so well.

We didn’t get to many of my work projects because Aunt Freida said they had come to visit, not to work. Uncle Henry phoned some cousins and we all met at the Granada for lunch on Saturday. We lingered for two hours over it and told many stories Afterward we rested a bit at my place and then we had a strawberry cheese cake I had made, before I took them back to the bus depot to catch the 6 p.m. bus. It was a lovely little visit.

My one big disappointment was that I kept forgetting my camera in my backpack that I take to the office everyday. I have absolutely NO photos to show for this visit!