SPCA Tea Time

mainly sunny, warm, temps 24

Well, phew. Yesterday was the SPCA Tea. It was wonderful - thanks, as always, to a huge amount of work by a huge number of volunteers. Congratulations to everyone who helped! And wow, did they work hard! I have to say, My Assistant Lise and her wonderful husband Del saved the day more than once. We needed elecricity out by the pond where the two tents were placed. We needed it for the tea and coffee. Well, most of the plugs didn't work, and the one that did blew a fuse. So everything was tepid, people were pouring up the drive way, and we had no electricity, by the pond or in the refrigerator in the mudroom.

Del!

Del kept plugging extension cords in and finally found one that worked, just in time. Phew.

Lise spent much of the tea up to her elbows in suds, washing tea cups because we were going through them so fast.

But there were really three stars at the event: Lise and her gardens, Trudy - who was fun, and gentle and welcoming - and the four dogs the SPCA brought, most of them saved from puppy mills.

We were all exhausted at the end of the day...just wrung out. And then came the total. We were all hoping to raise 10,000 dollars for medical equipment for the local SPCA Monteregie, a no-kill shelter. We all ended up making more than 12-thousand!!!

A couple of friends, Sharman and Walter, came down from Montreal and stayed the night. We went out to a local italian restaurant, Il Duetto, for dinner. And nose down in the pillows by 10am.

This morning people began arriving to take things away. Oh, did I tell you, we got to talking to the fellow who delivered the Port-a-Potty and it turns out he spent 30 years as a pilot for private corporate jets. And now he drives toilets all over the townships, and loves it.

You just never know who you're going to meet, and what people's backgrounds are.

We spent a couple of lovely, peaceful hours on the porch this morning with Sharman and Walter, drinking coffee and having breakfast - then into Brome Lake Books in Knowlton and lunch at the Cafe Inn with the two of them. Then waved goodbye, and headed home in the beetle, top down. And now doing laundry and preparing to leave on the mini-tour.

Our friend in Granby is very ill. Now in palliative care. Had a call at 6 this morning from his wife and we chatted. Then she called back a few minutes later and we chatted some more.

We're going to see him Tuesday morning. Louise, our friend, said they stayed up all night talking - and she had a chance to tell him all the things she wanted to say, and to thank him. And he had a chance to tell her how grateful he is to have spent his life with her. How sorry he is to be leaving her so soon. And that he's a peace.

Remarkable people. We're also at peace, losing a precious friend. How lucky we are to have him now. And to have known him for as long as we did.