Hi, James!  This is a retitled continuation of a previous message to you:

AH>  It's a long story, but I am beginning to see the
AH>  humour in it....  :-)

JB>  Well, that's the first dose of medicine.


          Agreed....  :-)



JB>  


          Not to worry!  IIRC I've already expressed my opinion that a singing
Mommy is a happy Mommy.  As a former band teacher, I can belt out a tenor part
so the guys in the back row can hear me.  Tone quality is another issue.  :-))



JB>  Did this summer find you too digging in the dirt?


          I learned some time ago, when I had chronic lower back pain, to pace
myself while digging.  Eventually my back got better.  Then Nora came along...
meaning I had less opportunity to work solo in the garden.  Nowadays I'm still
using kitchen scraps & whatnot to make compost.  Much of the gardening I do is
on a smaller scale, though, and is more indicative of her preferences....  :-)


          What happened in this case relates to a camping/kayaking trip.

 1)  A fair amount of stuff needed to be organized beforehand:  kayaking gear,
firewood, groceries, spare clothing, etc.  I started well in advance because I
didn't want Bum Shoulder #1 to fail me while we were kayaking & because we had
some extra packing to do this time.  We'd heard there was to be a bicycle race
involving the same stretch of road we'd have to use to get to kayaking camp...
so we left a day earlier than usual & stayed in a public campground overnight.

 2)  I made it safely through the first afternoon of kayaking.  Once we arrive
at the camp there is no shortage of young, energetic, able-bodied SP's willing
to help carry stuff down to the lake & back.  But there are still a few things
we prefer to do for ourselves... one of which is climbing onto the roof of the
RV & stowing things in a box added by the previous owner.  While Dallas was up
there I heard an ominous cracking sound.  I wasn't particularly worried at the
time, but the significance of this little detail became apparent the next day.

 3)  A light rain began just as we were packing up.  By the time we'd returned
to camp, a few miles down the road, the rain was torrential.  But once again I
wasn't particularly worried.  This *is* the Wet Coast, after all... and I have
been in the same area on other occasions when a downpour didn't last more than
ten minutes.  We ate dinner, sat around the campfire, and went to bed.  But as
Robbie Burns observed... the best laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft agley.

 4)  It rained heavily from 4:00 PM until 8:00 AM, when we had to get up if we
wanted somebody else to cook breakfast for us.  Nora was soaked.  Her bunk was
soaked.  The upper bunk (where we keep extra blankets & whatnot) was soaked...
and I've heard from people who should know that in this climate anything which
absorbs water & has not seriously started to dry within forty-eight hours will
probably be a writeoff!  I believe them because we lost a canvas tent that way
years ago.  The rain was still quite torrential after breakfast... so we drove
home, threw a tarp over the roof, and hauled everything out of the bunks ASAP.

 5)  As far as the RV is concerned "all's well that ends well".  We managed to
salvage everything, except for the toilet paper!  Apparently it absorbed a lot
of the water which landed in the upper bunk.  And the roof repair was actually
quite straightforward because we realized what was going on before any serious
structural damage had occurred.  While Dallas was standing next to the storage
box on the roof, one of the screws by which it was attached to the roof let go
... leaving a hole which wasn't too hard to find.  That was the sound I heard.

 6)  As far as I'm concerned... I had to put all this stuff back where it came
from, and while the bunks were empty I thought I should remove the mildew from
around the window sashes.  This *is* the Wet Coast & Nora had recently noticed
a musty smell in her bunk.  I had already cleaned what I could reach while the
bunks were in use, but there's more working space in the absence of mattresses
& we didn't want the mildew to spread any further.  Then, as we were preparing
for the next trip, Bum Shoulder #2 began to object vociferously.  It no longer
felt better within a couple of days after I'd exceeded my limit... [wry grin].


          I still have to be careful about what I do & how I do it, but as you
may have already guessed I can type a lot more comfortably now....  ;-)




--- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+
 * Origin: Wits' End, Vancouver CANADA (1:153/716)