Mrs Thomson and I just returned from our annual Easter vacation, where we practiced two of our favourite hobbies: scuba diving and photography. This year, we traveled with friends old and new – eight of them in fact – something we hadn’t done in over ten years. You don’t realize what you’ve been missing until you get it back, and in this case, while vacations as a couple, or with a pair of old friends were nice, moving as a pack of middle-aged, semi-feral divers was superb. We were of disparate backgrounds, widely varying political views and in some cases sharing nothing more than an age range and a passion for scuba diving, yet we had a lot of fun, be it around the dinner table or on the dive boat heading out to another fine reef under a blue sky.
While it was only for a week, it was enough to recharge the batteries, change one’s outlook on the vagaries of life and lift one’s spirits, though I will likely see that good feeling drain away all too quickly when the every day drudgery of work returns on Monday. I may regain some of it as I sift through my many pictures, but judging by the fact that I haven’t yet looked at the ones from the previous trip, that may take a while. In this, I can blame writing: time I would have spent deciding which handful of photos among the hundreds were worthy of retention, then developing and printing them, has been taken over by Siobhan Dunmoore and her crew. That I managed to complete the first draft of The Path of Duty before the vacation may give me the time for the more mundane chores surrounding my photography, though it might not give me the desire.
Suffice to say, this author feels well rested for now, perhaps too well, and gets to deal with reality again, starting by recovering the family mutts from the boarding kennel later this morning. The littlest one apparently needed a visit with the vet and some antibiotics while we were gone, and our long-time boarding kennel owner took care of him just as well as we would have. It’s a testimony to the quality of veterinary care that the boarding kennel’s house vet had already sent all the details back to our dog’s regular vet, and a message was waiting on our answering machine, suggesting we book a follow-up once the antibiotic course had been completed. Would that some of our human care be so efficient and fast. Mind you, we have yet to see the bill, which will be tacked onto the regular boarding fees.
I’ll likely start work on the first re-write of The Path of Duty within the next day or so, though with my schedule for the work week coming up, I may not have the energy or motivation to put in the kind of hours I did in past weeks. My mind might still be wanting to be wallow in the unreality of a small Caribbean Isle where scuba diving is the only activity that involves movement, and where sitting around the open air bar swapping tall tales is the normal after-dinner thing to do.
Back to the reality of an unreasonably cold Canadian spring. Unpacking awaits, as do the chores attendant on the return to the real world.
Leave a Reply