Tue Feb 1
Since we landed in Canada I have wondered when I should end this journal. It already only occasionally refers to 'our girls' or our mission work in South Africa, though our love for them isn't fading. So if they and that is your interest, today would be a good time to free up some time. After 4 years I have become attached to the process of journalling, and with my decaying memory, it often allows me to pinpoint dates and events in the past. Even though it is time consuming, I think it would stress me if I ceased the daily process. So I will continue for the time being. If I have any readers they may be interested in how well we are able to watch over a 92 year old dear man, or even my own health journey.
As we busied ourselves with the packing that couldn't be done yesterday, I turned on the final batch of my favourite songs 1975 - present, featured on the Copples and Friends Cassette Club, and played on CWCP radio, and easy to access on the red disk. I enjoy these songs so much, and the Leak speaker sounds extra good in the corner of the carpeted room. I don't know when I will next be able to listen to our music in a good situation.
I wasn't able to get everything in the cases, but thanks to the many plastic bags that had come with our Sobeys grocery delivery last week, we found the additional capacity.
The taxi arrived a little early but called me so we knew. We had moved all the cases to the lobby, which fatigued me, and when the driver saw how many there were he told me he would add $20 to the fare. Quite soon we had Laurie-Ann and all our things into the taxi and were on our way to Alanmeade Crescent. It was a beautiful day. We knew that Tara was taking Steve to Dr Judah, and other errands and wouldn't be there when we arrived, but L-A had had her own key since 2015. This actually helped us because we could concentrate on ourselves when we got there. After L-A was in I brought in the rest of our stuff to our bedroom for the next x months. The first thing I noticed in the house was that there was no tobacco smell. Could it be that Steve was no longer smoking? That would be good news for my lungs. Next I saw that the whole house was neat and tidy. Tara had essentially lived here since October and she had been busy and skillfull. Our bedroom had been Carol's. I got lunch for us - tuna sandwiches, and a boiled egg from the hotel - so that Tara wouldn't have to take us into account when she got back,
which was about 2:30. It was a special moment to see them after so long, and Steve looked really quite well and handsome as he walked into the house. Tara had grown to look more like her daughter Kennedy (to my mind). They had the great reunion with Laurie-Ann. Tara got lunch for Steve. Laurie-Ann badly needed a walker; she had managed on a cane for 2 weeks. Carol had had more than one. Tara showed me they were in the garage, and I brought in one with four wheels. In the afternoon I started unpacking. Most of the draws in our bedroom were full, but a few were empty. My strategy was to take out from each suitcase things we would need in the near future, and leave there all the rest. A challenge with unpacking is that there are things you need NOW, and can't find. I got three suitcases done and over the next couple of hours found somewhere to put their contents. The only place for many of them was the floor, and any spare surfaces not already taken. I had planned to set up my computer in the bedroom on top of the chest of drawers, and even had it there ready to plug in when I noticed a showstopper. The power sockets in the room were old-style 2-pin. They hadn't been changed when the house was re-wired. So we needed to compute in another room.
Tara had bought some salmon and mashed potatoes, and around 6 I started to prepare dinner. At 6:30 I needed something from the bedroom. I was very distubed to find Steve lying partly on the walker I had brought in and partly off it, on the floor. How long had he been there? I called Tara and L-A and we tried to lift him onto his feet, but his legs appeared to have lost their strength. His (new) teeth had fallen out, so I put them into the bathroom. The walker wasn't helping us, so as Tara and I held him, L-A pulled it out from under him, and we then lowered him so he was stretched out on the floor. I took off his shoes. I wondered how Steve had got here and why he had used Carol's old walker? It seemed he just saw it, and decided to use it to go to his bedroom.
By now Tara had called 911, and two fire vehicles were on their way. I rolled Steve onto his side, and then he got into a crawling position. I had him crawl into the living roomn and get his front onto the couch. Then in a burst of flashing lights that must have got the neighbours talking, three burley firemen came in and they easily lifted him into a sitting position on the couch, and started testing him, first with questions and then with their measuring instruments. They were mainly concerned that he was slurring his speech, more than could be accounted for by the fact that his teeth were out. They built rapport with him very fast. They decided to call an ambulance. The salmon I had put in the oven 25 minutes ago would be ready in 5 mintes. I microwaved the mashed potatoes and the green beans, and turned off the oven. When two nurses arrived he had stopped slurring speech and seemed to be recovering generally. The nurses checked all his vital signs, which were normal.
Steve didn't want to go back into hospital so he was
quite co-operative and even humerous. After a while the nurses felt he was as well off right here with us three family members than moving him to a place he didn't want to go
which had lost his previous dentures. TIA1. So the nurses departed in their ambulance and I got on with serving supper. I re-heated the meals and we ate first. I had anticipated having to feed him, but when he was ready he 'had no intention of being fed like a baby,' and walked (!) into the kitchen. He was clearly in a far better state than 45 minutes ago, and enjoyed his dinner. He ate most of it, and the rest I put in the fridge.
Our bed was still partly filled with unpacked items, so I somehow found places for them, including in two emply drawers. We went to bed around 11, very tired, and slept well.
Mon Jan 31
First thing after breakfast I checked Messenger to see if any of the girls had been in touch. I finally worked out how to to check all recent messages efficiently. I should have figured this out four years ago instead of being an intermittent-at-best Messenger correspondent with anyone. Laurie-Ann ordered a Beck taxi with room for our suitcases etc tomorrow at 11:30.
At 11 I joined a Prison Networking Group monthly Zoom conference. There were about 20 folk on line and all of them gave details of their current ministry activity. I told them I was no longer officially a missionary and was now back in Canada.
Mid morning L-A received a text message and a call from TD Visa querying whether a recent large charge was legitimate. I tried to view her account on-line but was stopped by 2-stage verification; they still had our South African phone numbers on file, even though a week ago we had called and given L-A's new Canadian number. L-A called them and sorted out all the problems. Nothing serious, but they asked us to pick up an access card for her from any TD Bank to allow us to access her account on line in future.
Around 4 I started packing some of the cases. I should be good at this by now. The worry is always can everything go into the same four cases? L-A was sleeping and looked like she would be till dinner time. I had completed and closed the 'cardboard case' and almost filled another. We were having the same meal as last night: chicken, perogies, baby potatoes and sautéed vegetables. I tried my best to recall how she had done it, but I ran out of saucepans. So the perogies had to go in with the baby potatoes, which had been cooking 25 minutes by then. Would it be a disaster? I woke her about 8 and served the food. It was just fine and we enjoyed our last dinner together in the Residence Inn. We went to bed after an episode of Murdoch Mysteries.
Sun Jan 30
I took photos of the hotel rooms including our watching Catch the Fire's 9am service this morning. Darren's FaceBook live yesterday has been blocked, and that annoys me.
L-A read me a news item that other artists were following Neil Young in removing their catalogs from Spotify in protest against Joe Rogan's publicising of More harm than good with its criticism of Ffizer over cutting corners in its development of their vaccine. Neil (like me) is not keen on fighting the governments' and medical experts' Covid strategies. (In this particular case however he may have not backed a winner - read the aforementioned study of Pfizer's own documentation.)
Anyway, another artist we like, Danny Michel, announced that he was leaving Spotify, but not for the same reason as Neil, and joining Tidal. So I checked out Tidal and this morning listened to the playlist it created based on about 10 genres I ticked. Tidal prides itself on audio quality, and pays more to artists.
I have felt somewhat lethargic today, having to push myself to get on with each task. I thought it was part of one of my illnesses. In the afternoon I decided to send an update of our situation to my brother, sisters and James, as I have periodically since the beginning of lock down. I had the detailed list of my medical afflictions but till now hadn't felt I should burden them with it. I now realised that such a burden would be better than them saying later that I had hidden important things. So I included it in the email. Here's the full message:
'Hello dear family
Something tells me it's time to update you with what's going on here in our little spot in Toronto. But as I write I think of you all and wonder what you are doing on this Sunday afternoon (here). I hope you are relaxed and not stressed over anything. Have you had Covid yet or are we the only two? Have you heard about the massive truck convoys that converged on Ottawa yesterday? Canada seldom makes the international news but this did it. We were very relieved it didn't turn violent or news stations everywhere would have reported it.
We will leave our quarantine hotel near the Toronto Airport on Tuesday and a taxi will take us to L-A's father's house, not far from here. Why we were in quarantine is interesting. On arrival in Canada some people are picked to take a Covid test, even though they had to have one on the day they flew out to Canada. Everyone has to have a quarantine plan for arrival in case they are picked. There were no relatives or friends here with self-contained areas where we might have stayed, so we had to come to a hotel, at our expense for 2 weeks. The hotel had to be booked and paid for. We weren't picked. One of the reasons was that in the past month we had got Covid and recovered from it, making us pretty immune. We recovered in the mountain cottage home of a good friend, and for the first 2 weeks (Christmas) he was away staying with his mother. That was quite a gift!
Over the past few months our biggest concern was getting some illness that might stop us leaving and cost a ton of money in medical bills. So when we tested negative on 17 Jan we were extremely relieved. Our second major concern was being well enough to withstand the rigours of the flight. L-A is more disabled than when we came, and that journey was very hard. My lungs were now not in good condition. James coached me on asking for oxygen if my breathing got difficult. We decided that both of us should ask for wheelchair assistance.
In the event, these fears proved groundless. Every challenge was manageable. The 16 hour flight to Newark we took in our stride. Even though there was only 90 minutes between arriving at Newark and leaving for Toronto, the wonderful staff of wheelchair assistance got us there with time to spare. And so we arrived in Toronto on time and were driven to our hotel by L-A's cousin Cathy. If you want to read the detained story of those two days, it's in my journal, starting here.
The Residence Inn Marriott has been good. Breakfast is included but we ordered the rest of food we needed on line. The first things we ordered were SIM cards for our phones, so we could order other things. I was astounded by the price of comprehensive plans for the phones, so we just have talk and text.
Then we got down to planning how we could see medical specialists as soon as possible. We found that the specialists required referrals from Canadian doctors, so we worked on finding one, and are still working on it. L-A needs an oncologist check up every six months, and an MLD therapist quite soon to work on her lymphedema. This is the only way she can hope to walk unaided. She has used a walker for the last 2 years and will need one here. My list of medical conditions is more extensive, and sometimes I forget one or more of them when talking to doctors. Here it is. Scary! I hadn't planned to share this but finally decided that you, my nearest and dearest deserve the details.
We have all the X-rays, MRI's, CT Scans, Pet scan on disks, We have reports from South African doctors.
I am not looking forward to hearing what the specialists will be telling me after they study the scans and have some more of their own done. But, the interesting thing is I am in less pain and discomfort from the lung problem than I was from three pleural effusions I had in the last six months. I have little pain now from anything! So we'll just have to wait and see.
Tomorrow we pack our 4 suitcases again and a week after that I'll be collecting our freight from Toronto airport.
I'll let you know how things develop.
Love, Tony
Some recent pictures'
Around 5 we took an hour's nap, and when I woke I had recovered my normal 'get up and go.' The earlier lethargy had left. In this better state I helped L-A with the chicken and perogies dinner for tonight. Unfortunately I also cut my left thumb with the small serrated knife, which would prove troublesome for the next few days.
After dinner we watched the final episode of 'Alias Grace,' and were not sure what happened, but I am sure other felt the same. Was she guilty or innocent? It was quite a film.
Sat Jan 29
We are hopeful about finding a doctor, since a walk-in clinic doctor will meet our requirements for prescriptions and referrals to specialists. I have listed my medical issues in urgency order to help me to explain them when I am talking to a doctor, hopefully soon. I am finding it difficult to decide whether to share my medical conditions list with family, not wanting to scare them.
This is the day a massive numbers of truckers arrived in Ottawa (where they will park I can't imagine). Darren Canning is out and about broadcasting on Facebook live and capturing the atmosphere. Mainstream media may be less enthusiastic about reporting anti-government protests that to my mind damage the integrity of the only methods we have to fight the pandemic, though I don't dispute those methods have their drawbacks.
On the CRA-MyAccount site I set up multi-factor authentication for L-A and then updated her address and phone number. Chantelle tried to video call me on WhatsApp and we saw each other's faces before it ran out of resource. Then she audio called and we had a good talk. She was in good spirits. She is going to be attending the college she has mentioned, which has some connection with Boland College, and she needed R300 for school fees.
She also told me that Lottie wasn't receiving her disability grant and therefore has no income. She asked if I would add another R100 for her. After the call I sent the R400. Then I brought the sponsor expenses spreadsheet up to date with the recent amounts sent to the girls. When producing tomorrow's GNiTM with Brian Wilkie I was getting very low volume on his recording, and I thought this might have something to do with listening in mono
on the Leak speaker, and some sound cancellation from the left and right channels. In previous recent productions of Brian's sermons I hadn't noticed it just listening on the computer speakers or earbuds; it just sounded out of phase. But now turning it into mono had seriously reduced the volume. I couldn't do anything about it, but Brian could if he used the microphone that he had used before last October during lockdown. I sent him an email to see if this were feasible.
For a couple of days I have been feeling somewhat listless. I think it is from quarantining. There is plenty of computer work to do here with changing our home addresses and similar stuff, but it doesn't give any particular satisfaction. I am also aprehensive about next week.
We had pizza for dinner, and watched an episode of Alias Grace; very dark but fascinating.
Fri Jan 28
By morning the Priv's battery was 100%, suggesting it is a good battery, even though not manufactured by Blackberry. It stopped trying to reboot after a few minutes, displaying the green text options I had seen yesterday. One of the options was 'shut down,' which I selected, and it did. So I don't need to deplete the battery to shut down the device. Next week I will take it to BlackBerry Repair Mississauga, assuming Steve is OK with my driving his car.
I drew up a list of my medical conditions in urgency order to facilitate my recall of the four years of health turbulence when we find ourselves with a doctor. To complete this I found relevant doctors reports, X-ray images and CT scans amongst our records.
I called Dr Judah's office again, and the assistant told us he wouldn't be able to take us on as regular patients, but might be able to help with urgent prescriptions or referrals to specialists. They said we would get a call back when this was confirmed but it's now 3:30 and we haven't had one. (We finally got one at 5 to say Dr Judah wasn't interested in taking us on, even temporarily.) So I signed on with
Health Care Connect, which will search for local doctors and nurse practitioners. Meantime L-A had sourced a local clinic with patient availability, the Lindholm Medical Centre, 9-460 Renforth Dr. Etobicoke. I called them and a doctor took our details and said someone would call us.
I updated our address and my phone number on the CRA-MyAccount site and was quite pleased with myself for getting through the multi-factor authentication which I set up in South Africa
This evening we watched and were most impressed by the final episode of 'Countdown,' detailing the September 2021 all-civilian 3-day SpaceX mission. This mission points towards a new era in space travel.
Thu Jan 27
I forgot to reset my alarm for 8 am after taking my pills at 6. I finally woke at 8:40 so had to skip shaving etc to get our breakfast before 9. As I brought the breakfast back, L-A told me that there was a message from Nicole at U-Bag to say our credit card had been declined for possible fraudulent reasons. As soon as I finished breakfast I got on the phone to MasterCard which took a while to connect. While that was happening, L-A's phone rang. It was Visa, but she couldn't get to the phone. It turned out that I had given U-Bag the Visa number, not the MasterCard. L-A called Visa, which had indeed blocked the card because of the unexpected South African transaction after we had returned. They unblocked it. I then emailed Nicole to tell her she could repeat the trasaction to pay for the freight forwarding.
Next bank call was to Simplii to say that L-A didn't have a record of her 5 digit telephone banking code, so couldn't get in to change her address and phone number. They asked me to pass the phone to her, and then dealt with everything most efficiently including sending her a new bank card since the previous one had expired.
Then I called Mastercard and reported the apparent fraud over the past 4 months when companies with names like kngdfe.com had charged me small amounts unauthorised. Elizabeth, the lady in the disputes department was very professional and helpful, opening disputes with all of them. Within a couple of weeks I will be refunded the full amount of the fraudulent charges, and investigations will be conducted by Mastercard when the companies would have the opportunity to prove the charges were legitimate. My card will now be blocked and a new card issued. The reason I hadn't done this from SA was that my Mastercard was in daily use, and issuing a new card could have taken weeks if not months to arrive, whereas here it will take about one week.
Getting the Priv's back off was scary, and took me about 45 minutes even with the help of several 'How to' YouTubes. The part I found difficult they all described as easy. I was petrified of damaging the phone. I have put many batteries in many phones, but this one seems to be designed to make it hard for non professionals. Eventually, after prayer, and much to my surprise, the back popped off.
Getting the old battery out was a piece of work, requiring tiny screws to be removed. Fortunately my jeweler's screwdriver managed it, with the help of a magnifying glass and extra light from my Q10, though it was still hard on my good eye with no depth of vision.
It was recommended I warm up the old battery so that it didn't rip out some ribbon cables. I used a hair dryer, and I didn't break the cables, but the old battery bent itself with the heat.
Getting the cover back on was another serous challenge, because the volume control control buttons wouldn't stay in place, but eventually they did and the phone clicked together. This triggered a boot up, and soon I saw that the screen was working well, so the old battery had indeed caused the green screen problem. But then another issue arose. The boot up sequence never completed, but returned to its start, over and over. At one stage it stopped rebooting and displayed four options in green text, selectable with the volume buttons. I selected 'continue reboot,' which it did, proving the volume buttons were working. So I let it continue until the battery depleted several hours later, as you are meant to with new phone batteries. Then I plugged it into the power, and we'll see what happens. I searched for Blackberry service shops and found one 20 minutes drive away at 1252 Eglinton Avenue West, Blackberry Repair Mississauga.
They answered my call and recommended I bring in the phone.
We had been looking forward to an Internet concert by Dar Williams at 7pm tonight. After dinner we tuned in and really enjoyed one of our favourite singers in an intimate setting - just one mic and one camera, and us. It was a mixture of old and new and very pleasurable. We donated S10; worth much more. There were about 1000 tuned in on YouTube alone; more on other platforms.
Wed Jan 26
I completed the customs forms that we had been asked to bring to the airport, listing the goods we were importing, both when we arrived, and those to follow with our freight consignment. If I had done so accurately it would have taken many many hours of work, and would have been only slightly less innacurate, since they asked for the value of everything, but not proof of that value, like a receipt. So I just guessed the values, making each suitcase $200 except the smaller cardboard one at $150.
How does one state the value of a pair of socks bought 10 years ago? The concept behind customs, or Canadian Border Services Agency, as they are now called, is to charge duty on some goods bought abroad which are cheaper than in Canada. So why would they want details of the goods we 'exported' four years ago and are importing now. We bought less than $40 of new goods in South Africa.
For the freight forwarding I had gone through a similar exercise before we left Da Vinci, but the purpose of that was for insurance. So I included a modified version of the lists I had done for U-Bag.
Nicole had replied with the infomation I had asked for. Bella sent L-A a message saying she had been to the school. They assured her that the fact that CPUT didn't have her ID listed was just a small glitch that they would sort out over the next 2 weeks. (Why it would take 2 weeks is worrisome). They would phone her with any news. A second message from Bella said her phone had stopped working. She had taken it to a cell repair shop and they quoted her R400 to get it going. It probably needed a new battery, or maybe it was short of memory. She didn't have money for this (not a surprise). We sent it to her. Without a working phone on the same number, her university entrance could be scuppered.
At about 11 L-A called Uber for me; she has the app on her laptop but we don't have it on any of our working phones. It arrived within 5 minutes. It was a Lexus and the driver wasn't talking much, but he took me to the airport for $17. It was a beautiful sunny day in Toronto. I soon found the CBSA near where we had met up with Brian and Cathy. The clerk was efficient if not particularly friendly. However, he accepted my forms without complaint. Glad I didn't spend hours on them. At the end he told me I wouldn't have any duty, but there probably would be an admin fee. I took an airport cab to Service Ontario at 250 Wincott Drive. Once I was at the head of the queue it took the lady about a minute to renew my licence, at a cost of $36 for this year and last year! In the process she confirmed my address on file is now 28 Alanmeade. I have to wait a few weeks to receive the licence, but I have a paper from her as a temporary licence. It was really important to have done this before my birthday next month.
If we had been forced to stay another month in South Africa I would have lost the licence, not easy to reinstate at age 80+. I sat at a cold table outside a bakery waiting 15 minutes for a Beck cab. The driver of this one wanted to talk about the difficulties of Covid life. The Covid rules in Canada seem somewhat more restrictive than SA. Carl and Wendy Wake called us on Skype at 4 and we had a spirited and enjoyable conversation. He was looking good, and happy with the way the Prison Network Group is moving towards potential multiple groups. They asked us questions about our ministry and the transition back to Canada. Such warm hearted and faithful friends.
Late afternoon the front desk called to say a package had been delivered for us. It was the new battery for the Priv. I had given up being able to fit it because I didn't have the special tool to remove the SIM and SD memory in order to take the back off, but I had a wild idea and tried to do it with a paperclip. It worked! Tomorrow I will put the battery in and see if that was the Priv problem.
Every evening usually after a Netflix episode L-A reads a Bible chapter and we discuss how it touched us. We have been in Isiah for weeks and much moved. Then we pray for a while, raising up our God in his glory and attempting to align our plans with his for us. Tonight was no exception.
Tue Jan 25
Don Pruner died 10 January aged 96, and his funeral will be streamed 29 January at 2pm. I posted a tribute on the funeral page.
Mary Macedo called and explaind that she needed the CT scan disk, (and I'll also send the X-Ray showing pleural effusion), and a referral from a Canadian doctor. This makes it even more urgent to hear back from Dr Judah's office.
A box of Earl Grey tea arrived at the front desk for Laurie-Ann. I emailed Nicole at U-Bag that they could now send our freight consignment from Cape Town to Toronto. It will probably take a week, but there may be delays due to flight cancellations. Our plan now is to have Beck Taxis take me in a van to the air port to collect the freight.
I posted to the My Father's House FaceBook and the WhatsApp group a goodbye from us, with links to the story in pictures of our four years with them.
By mid afternoon, Dr Judah's office hadn't hot back to me, so I called again and spoke to another assistant who said she would speak to Dr Judah and get back to me.
I finished editing the January newsletter around then, and started work on the personal effects accounting document for customs at the airport. I found the forms on line, as .pdfs. I introduced myself to a Guesttek computer in the business centre, but it wouldn't print a .pdf file. It had no problem with other formats. In the middle of this I needed a pee and went to the hotel loo. For the next hour or so I seemed to need to pee every 15 minutes. This was quite new and sudden.
Back in our room I called the Guesttek customer service line, reaching someone who was extremely unclear. She did manage to explain that it was nothing to do with them, but the local hotel's set up. I called reception, who hadn't had the problem reported before, but they offered to print my files in their office, which they did.
For dinner tonight, L-A cooked perogies and cabbage rolls. She did it all herself rather than giving me instructions. They were delicious.
Mon Jan 24
A new working week - starting with high level activity in Room 101 of the Residence Inn. I have heard people say that they needed board games and lots of TV to occupy them during quarantine, but our experience after a week of it has been the opposite. We were pretty tired out at the end of each day. L-A blocked Chantelle from Messenger after she continued repeated messages this morning.
I tried to find information on line about prepaid phone calling in Canada, discovering a Philippines-based company, Recharge.com, that offers air time in 142 countries. Then I called Rogers customer service and discovered that they have no capability for either adding prepaid data to an existing plan, or allowing one of their numbers without a plan to use prepaid data or air time. But they did tell me they had created a company called Chatter that focusses on the pre-paid market.
I had a frustrating time attempting to call FNB customer service to ask about changing our cell number on file to a Canadian number, but (because it is very dry in here?) the iPad refused to co-operate, and L-A's computer Skype wouldn't allow them to hear my voice when I finally got through without a SA ID. After giving up however I read an email from FNB saying that they were investigating my problem and would get back to me.
Now we have finished the chinese food (after three nights), L-A prepared and cooked chicken stew. She was worried that we had no veloutine or flour to thicken it, but an idea came to her to use mashed potatoes for the purpose. I called Steve's doctor, Juda's Judah, and reached an assistant. I explained that we would like to sign on with Dr Judah for about 6 months. She asked how Steve was doing, and said she would talk to Dr Judah when he returned tomorrow, and get back to me.
I then called Mary Macedo, assistant to Dr De Perrot, thoracic surgeon. L-A had reached out to him in November after identifying him as a specialist in mesothelioma. Mary had replied, inviting me to contact her when we returned to Canada. She wasn't in but I left a message.
I sent a goodbye email to Erik Van Dijk, with brief description of our apparent seemingly good health after a week in Canada, and thanking him and his staff and colleagues for four years of medical care as our GP. We had kept him busy. I sent James the 40 years old recording of Penny's experience with coxsackie when she had returned from Hong Kong via China. He thought she might like to listen if he sent it to her. I also sent the last 8mm video I ever took, 'From Dartmouth to Aviemore,' including our holiday in Barbados courtesy of Data General, suggesting that he forward the link to Penny.
Our chicken stew was our first meal cooked from scratch here, and with L-A's cooking skills, she managed not to need to thicken it with flour or anything else. We enjoyed our dinner.
Sun Jan 23
We watched the from Catch the Fire Toronto, for which I connected up the Pyle amplifier and the Leak speaker. The sermon by Dr Gordon Harris was on unity, and not just in the church, and was excellent. He had trained CTF leaders for decades.
There was a deluge of messages to L-A from Chantelle, even asking for a laptop computer! I replied on Messenger:
'Chantelle, I am very sorry you are sick in hospital. I think the marks on your shoulder and face will heal. No, we won't be sending you R400. You told Laurie-Ann you were going to a college, but we can't buy you a laptop. Even if you buy a laptop, someone would steal it. It is very expensive in Canada, and we must be very careful with our money. We may send you a little money occasionally, but not all the time. We love you and pray for you that you will get what you need, and will know that Jesus is your true friend and provider. Talk to Marco and get food from the soup kitchens he is running for My Father's House. I attach a photo of the building where we are in quarantine in Toronto, Canada. Blessings, Tony.'
During the day we listened to some music through the Leak speaker - Making God Smile, and Sweet Blossom Dearie - and the acoustic in the room was excellent compared with the Dixons in Da Vinci.
We both rested in the afternoon for 90 minutes or so. I experimented, putting back the SA SIM card into my phone to see if FNB would send a OTP to us here, but they didn't. In the evening we watched the first episode of 'Countdown' on Netflix, the very human story of SpaceX's project to fly four remarkable civilians into space last year. Excellent.
Sat Jan 22
I searched on line for replacement batteries for a Blackberry Priv, soon arriving at Best Buy, which has followed Amazon's practice of allowing multiple independent suppliers on to their e-commerce pages. Prices for the battery from different suppliers varied greatly and I didn't want the cheapest, I settled on one that cost us about $25, and would be shipped within a few days. I gave them the hotel address but not the room number. I don't want to give it away to the next occupant if the shipping takes longer.
Unfortunately I don't have the small tool needed to take the back off the Priv, so I will have to go to a cell phone repair shop.
If we get the Priv working, L-A will have a more reliable phone, but instead of upgrading her plan with Rogers I hope we can achieve the same result by buying data when needed.
The delivery of groceries from Sobeys arrive about 11:30, and I went to the front door to pick it up. I used a hotel trolley to get it all to our room. There was lots of it. We spent quite a while decididng where to store everything. The quality of vegetables was very good.
Fri Jan 21
After dressing I put on my sandals, hoping for less foot pain. The way things were going I might have difficulty driving.
L-A called her dad, and although not quite as chipper as on her last call, he was managing, although alone more of the time. We think he knows we are in Canada now.
L-A ordered chinese dinner from China Palace, through Uber-Eats, since the groceries wouldn't arrive till tomorrow. It was expensive, but when it arrived we could see there was enough for three days, and after that we would order restaurant food far less often. Once we tucked in, we discovered the food was really good - amazing for takaway. Maybe that is the benefit of Uber delivery. We started watching Alias Grace on Netflix on the room TV. Her existing Netflix account worked fine. Unfortunately Chesapeake Shores isn't on Canadian Netflix, which is strange considering it was filmed in Qualicum Beach.
When we went to bed, my feet were definitely less painful than last night. It seems that skipping the orthotics had been the problem.
Thurs Jan 20
We again enjoyed the hotel breakfast, and again I had walked there in Sydney's socks. Mid morning there was a ring from reception. We had two packages. They were our SIM cards, here already! I put one in my phone and the other in L-A's Mobicel. Everything worked. Now we could get on with other urgent actions. L-A got busy with on line grocery delivery, settling on Sobeys (which now includes Farmboy). She ordered about $200 worth of food, which should last all our time here and the first stage of our time at 28 Alanmeade with Steve, which begins on 1 February. I tried calling the white phone again, without success. Maybe I must buy airtime for it. I wonder if I can buy it on line, like Powertime.
One reason I am fine with wearing a mask in public covering my nose is that for months I have had a skin cancer on the nose which was unsightly. I had used Efudix cream on it for a month, which had ended about 10 days ago. I also had another basal cell carcinoma on my right ear which had been there since Masterpeace Academy days, and the kids used to tell me sometimes that it was bleeding. I had no idea then that it was skin cancer. It had also responded to Efudix. Recently the sore on my nose had grown a scab, making it even less pleasant to look at, but today the scab came off, and there was no resulting bleeding as had happened before at this stage. In fact the nose looked more normal and less red over the next day or so. This was good news, if only for my vanity!
Before my WhatsApp had disappeared I had messaged quite a few of my contacts to tell them we were safely here, and show them pictures of the flight path to Newark and our hotel in the snow. I needed to send the same message to many more contacts, so I tried again to resurrect WhatsApp. Maybe it was favour from the Lord, which I certainly prayed for, but now I was able to confirm my Google password, and shortly after I did something else - can't remember what - and Whatsapp was back. I freed up more space by deleting for me the photos I had sent out, and then was able to reach all my other contacts with a need to know, deleting the photos for me as soon as they had gone out. The joys of a phone with just 4 Gb of memory!
I had many responses, happy that we were in Canada. One from L was particularly interesting: 'Tony, please smarten up and stop taking photos but instead, get yourself to a doctor if you believe you're eligible. If you're not, then do what needs to be done, even if you have to pay for it. NOTHING is more important, NOTHING.' I replied 'I love you too. I promise not to send any more photos.' Although at first this took me aback, I now believe it was an extreme expression of care about my health, and love.
It was a great relief to have Whatsapp back, and I still don't know how it happened. I of course use WhatsApp Web rather than the phone keypad.
The two of us had agreed after prayer that we wanted to send a donation to Kevin for his ministry, since he wouldn't accept rent. He had given me his bank account number, so I added him to my list of payments. But this procedure needed an OTP (one time pin) to complete, and FNB still had my South African phone number on file for texting OTPs. I attempted to change my phone number on their site to the new Canadian number, but was unable to complete the process, so I sent them a help message.
During the day I noticed that my feet had become more and more painful, and when I took off the decorative socks to go to bed, the right one in particular felt as if I had trodden on thorns that had pierced my skin. As I had last night I put on some of L-A's Simply Bee body butter, but I doubted it would solve the problem. Then L-A reminded me I hadn't worn orthotics for the two days while wearing Sydney's socks. Tomorrow I would return to sandals with orthotics. Hard sharp skin was beginning to collect on the floor beside my bed.
Wed Jan 19
We both slept long and deeply as our bodies started to adjust to travelling seven time zones. I got up at 8 so I could pick up the complimentary breakfast before 9. Instead of my sandals or shoes with orthotics, I wore one of the pairs of warm decorative socks that Sydney had sent. Breakfast was better than we expected: cereal, bread, eggs, bagels, juice, milk, coffee, and breakfast time became one of our favourite times of day. I posted on Facebook that we were safely here, and spent time responding to the many warm and loving comments. I tried to WhatsApp, but there wasn't enough room on the phone, but I discovered it had been receiving my emails in the past. There weren't many but I deleted them. Then I wasn't able to get into Whatsapp at all. I thought I might have to download it and reinstall, but when I went to the Playstore it wanted to verify my Google password. I gave up for the day.
It was really urgent to get working phones, so I contacted the customer service department of Rogers using Skype, and was served very well. The end result was that they would courier two SIM cards to us at the hotel, to arrive between 2 - 5 business days, and they set up basic unlimited talk and text accounts across Canada for us for $25 a month each. To have full internet access (the equivalent of data in SA) was a small fortune. They also checked the number of the white phone and discovered that it had not been reallocated. They said that if I use the phone it would click back to life. I tried calling it on Skype without success. I worked on my journal reconstructing the 17th when we left South Africa. It was a long entry.
Throughout the day we enjoyed our new room, and found the front desk staff helpful. Of course we obeyed the Covid protcols strictly, as did all the staff. For tonight's dinner, L-A had ordered from Pizza Pizza - a large one to last us two days.
Tue Jan 18
1am SA time. My tailbone was beginning to hurt, as I moved various cushions onto my seat, and moved my backside into different positions between periods of sleep. It got sorer as the journey progressed. I have become very thin and there was little flesh over the tail bone. Around 2am after watching 1/3 of No Time to Die I disturbed L-A and walked to the toilet and then round the circular route back to my chair. My prostate wasn't giving any trouble.
I stopped watching films and tried to get sleep, or at least rest. When you know its a 16 hour flight, its not as bad as a 4 hour flight that takes 6 hours. The lady in the window seat wanted a pee about 3 am EST so I took the opportunity for another walkabout. The sky was lightening a little when they brought us breakfast, 90 minutes before the ETA. The lady in the window seat defrosted and became quite friendly. We got in a little earlier than scheduled at about 5:15 EST. L-A and I waited till the other passengers had left, and then followed, finding our wheelchair assistants waiting for us.
This was where they really proved their worth, because the flight to Toronto was in 90 minutes, and we had to collect our suitcases, go through customs and then re-check them. They knew all the short cuts and jumped all the queues. They even helped push our 4 cases through customs, though this was not their responsibility. They refused the tips I had ready for them - they aren't officially allowed to accept tips. It all meant that we were in good time for boarding the smallish Bombardier. Once inside we weren't so happy. The overhead luggage rack was too narrow for the guitar, or for that matter most of the cases the passengers had with them. The guitar was taken to a stowage place near the cockpit. L-A and I weren't seated together. However, it was a short flight and we put up with minor problems because we were still elated to have got this far.
As we came down on the approach to Toronto, we saw snow like we hadn't in four years. South Africans love snow and I took a few photos just for them, which brought comments like 'great photo.' Soon we were on the ground, but our journey of favour wasn't yet over. Our wheelchair assistance team pushed us and our carry on bags through deserted hallways to the baggage carousel. Soon we had our four cases, and we left my wheelchair there. The lady assisting me pushed them as long as I was also pushing them. At immigration the officer seemed friendly. L-A answered his questions. I offered my phone with the ArriveCAN QR code, but the officer didn't need it; he already had it on his screen! From this he knew we had had Covid. He stuck green stickers on our passports, indicating that (a) we wouldn't need the Covid test on arrival and (b) we wouldn't need quarantining in government approved accommodation.
We were through every hurdle! TKOG.
The wheelchair assistance team leader, Bo, had been chatting to L-A and he offered to call Cathy. We had no way of phoning anyone at that point so this was extremely helpful. He got through right away and suggested she arrive in half an hour. I asked him if it were possible to buy a disposable phone in the airport and he said no. I was glad that he and the lady accepted thank you tips from me, even though they were in rand. I took the rest of our rands to a nearby currency exchange and got $26.10 for them at a buy rate of .068206 less commission $5.95. Cathy and Brian arrived on cue to the right place after Bo's instructions. It was so good to see them, and they would make the final leg of our journey a pleasure.
Soon we were out in the snow, with Bo still in attendance to make sure his customers were definitely on their way, and L-A was (with some difficulty) in the back seat of the van. I gave Bo a further $5 which I now had from the currency conversion. L-A told me later he was military on secondment to the airport. Brian did all the lifting of our cases and bags. Next, they asked if we were hungry and we said we would love the traditional 'getting home to Canada' custom of Tim Hortons. We had bagels and coffee and a donut for me. It was all delicious. Brian refused to accept my cash to pay for it. As we ate we had a feel-good conversation. Then we were off to the Residence Inn Toronto Airport, a Marriott hotel. Brian had the box of warm coats that Sydney Swanson had mailed to Tara weeks ago. He picked two coats for us to wear for the short walk into the hotel lobby. We were very early for check in, but after I handed the clerk our reservation letter (that Carlo had printed for us),
she got busy and found a room we could move into in half an hour. Brian brought in our cases and we thanked him for everything and said goodbye. Our room was not far, and on the ground floor. It was ideal for the purpose, with stove, fridge-freezer, dishwasher, microwave, work table space, power sockets with device charging USB sockets. The only part of it I wasn't too keen on was what I found when I took a shower the next morning: confusing and poorly designed North American bath pumbing, disappointing after the superior and simple South African shower design.
We looked in the box of coats from Sydney. It was not just coats that belonged to us. She had bought an additional puffer coat for me, plus 2 beautiful shirts, long johns, luxury decorative socks, toothpaste, pears soap and a box of Kind almond sea salt and dark chocolate bars - amazing. After I had spent a couple of hours unpacking 75% of the suitcases, and L-A had got to grips with ordering dinner on line. Most restaurants demanded a Canadian phone number. Eventually she settled on Swiss Chalet. We ate and enjoyed the meal. By the time we had finished and cleared up we were very ready for bed. As I took off my compression stockings, I realised I had not had leg cramps in the plane and had left my shoes on throughout without my feet swelling.
Mon Jan 17 Fly day
We woke at 6 to be ready for Marius at 8. Kevin got up shortly after to be of any help he could. I wore my compression stockings. After I had brought up L-A's breakfast (which she needs to take her meds) including coffee made by Kevin, I finished the packing. Kevin had offered yesterday to carry our cases down, and today I accepted after realizing my back was sore from the one 50 lb case I did take down last night.
Marius arrived at 8; he has a largish SUV, but he and Marius filled it with our stuff. After our goodbyes to Kevin, we were on our way. We stopped at Checkers for some Terbodore Great Dane coffee, and the ATM for another R50 note for tips to the wheelchair assistance staff.
There wasn't a lot of traffic and we arrived at Indalo Bio Lab about 9:45. There were just a few in the line up so we went straight in and I filled out the paperwork. We were offered the choice of nose or throat for the swab; I chose throat and L-A stuck with nose. Next time I would also choose throat if offered. We drove to the N2 and then towards the airport, and stopped at a mall where we hoped to get lunch and find an Internet Café.
Then L-A received a text notification. When she looked at her texts from Indalo Bio,
we gasped when it said Covid had been detected. Then Marius, with cool head, noticed there were two messages, and she had clicked on the one from a month ago. Next to it was today's: 'Covid not detected.' Huge sighs of relief all round but hearts still beating fast. The result had come within an hour of being tested! My result came through about an hour later by email, also negative.
We lunched in Spur and I had steak, my second in 24 hours! L-A had the Spur burger. The Internet Café turned out to be a poky 'business centre' which wasn't equipped to allow us to use their wifi; all their machines were connected by wire. So we left and returned to the car which Marius drove to the entrance we were nearest to.
I called Sons, and told her the good news that we were negative for Covid, and asked if we might come to her house now to complete our pre-flight data entry forms, since searching for an Internet café had proved so hard.
It wasn't far to her house and soon we were in her living room, L-A on her laptop while Sons told her story to Marius. L-A needed the email version of her test result for uploading, and although I called the lab, it didn't come through. L-A was in touch with Lise Lourens and told her this. Using her initiative, she called the lab and persuaded them to email her the result! She then forwarded it to L-A. At one point L-A got very frustrated with the United Airlines early check-in, which required the uploading of documents such as Covid test results. It kept on asking for them over and over, even though she was sending them. Eventually it agreed it had the documents, but when she tried to check in, it refused. I was pretty sure this wasn't a show stopper since we would be checking in personally.
She had far less difficulty uploading our results to ArriveCAN. L-A emailed the key documents - test results and ArriveCAN report with QR code to me. I received them on my Blackberry and saved the files. We needed to get to the airport soon, so said our good byes to Sons. Although she didn't have a working printer, her wifi had been what we needed. We drove to the airport and the drop and go area. We knew from dropping off Janey that Marius would have to leave, with the walker and the purple chair, as soon as we were inside. A porter appeared with a trolley for our cases. L-A was now reliant on her walking stick, and valiantly used it to move towards the gate, while I and the porter followed with our baggage.
As we neared the gate a security lady saw our situation and took over. She showed us where the waiting area was for wheelchair assistance - not far - and came with us. Then she photographed L-A's face so she could stay there and I could handle the check-in. She and and the security lady returned to the check-in jumping the complete queue, and the security lady told the check-in clerk that I would be able to speak for Laurie-Ann. Check-in went smoothly since L-A had uploaded all the necessary documents. We were not overweight. I showed the test results and the ArriveCAN QR code to the clerk on my phone. I returned to the wheelchair assistance area and waited with L-A.
After a while we were on our way, pushed by two friendly staff through the immigration stages, and to our gate where we became the first in line to board, and I gladly gave them R50 each for their help. We had asked for wheelchair assistance for both of us. At the time we bought the tickets I was less mobile than I am now, but problems with my bunions had got worse since then, making it harder to walk longer distances. L-A and I got busy on Whatsapp and email messaging key people that we were on our way. Soon we were making our final short move in South Africa. The first thing I noticed on the plane was that the aisles were narrower than ever as I followed L-A to our seats. I was pulling the wheely bag and often had to turn it on its side to get through, particularly through the first class areas. But we did reach our seats, she did have an aisle seat, and I was next to her and we stashed the guitar and the rucksack in the appropriate spots with no trouble.
Nothing would stop us now leaving for Canada and I was immensely relieved that we had made it. TKOG. It was about 9pm local time when we took off, a full load, no social distancing, and after continual reminders to wear our masks covering noses and mouths. I turned on the map on my personal screen and the plane seemed to be stuck above Cape Town, not making any headway. I realised that to get the complete journey onto the screen, it would appear that we were going very slowly. We had a lady in the window seat who made it clear she wasn't interested in chatting and didn't need any help. Three hours later the plane had moved on the map and we had eaten dinner. The narrower aisles were really tough on the flight attendants in their roles as waiters since they couldn't use the regular trolleys holding large numbers of meals, but had to deliver much of the food and drinks with much smaller trolleys. Under the circumstances they worked hard and looked after their customers well.
We availed ourselves of the library of films and other video, though I never actually completed most of those I started. My first choice was a rare film of one of Bob Dylan's tours as an outspoken Christian back in the 80s. I enjoyed an extreme surfing documentary called 100 Foot Wave.
Sun Jan 16
After breakfast I took the final load of washing to Kevin's machine, including the sheet and pillow cases, and the bath towel. It was a good drying day and they were done by 2:30. I watched the first 45 minutes of Worcester Christian Church livestream, up to start of the Afrikaans sermon.
I updated our total net worth spreadsheet to see if there had been significant losses to add to our recent redemption for the Poulin special assessment. It wasn't pretty, but it wasn't a disaster yet.
L-A completed the editing and uploading of the two Ways to Grow in God programs she had recorded yesterday. Then she got back to the art piece she had started recently.
I spent some time on Google Maps searching for Internet Cafés that actually existed, and not just on Google Maps. Eventually I gave up looking and called Marius to give him a feel for our program with him tomorrow.
About 2:30 I started packing, putting heavier stuff into the two cases that had been underweight on my trial run a few days ago. I succeeded in finalising the green case and took it down to the garage - exactly 50 lb.
By dinner time I had the other three cases in an almost-done state other than what we needed to use tomorrow morning. Dinner was very special. We were Kevin's guests for a great steak meal with baby potatoes and green beens. He added to the experience with a good shiraz.
Dessert was a fresh mango and yoghurt delight (L-A had a non dairy topping). This was Kevin's celebration with us at the end of our month with him. It will give us wonderful memories.
Sat Jan 15
Kevin had a group of 8 including 3 girls for the day. When they started eating lunch, they were completely quiet, and I had just heated water and made coffee, so I took the opportunity to explain to them why they should only put the amount of water into a kettle that they would need, saving kilowatts of electricity over time.
I sent Bella her R500 allowance. We will continue doing this from Canada for a season. I also succeeded in communcating with her on Messenger, and she confirmed she would visit her old school as soon as it opens for the new term, and find out why CPUT has no record of her. The new term at CPUT starts 2 February, and to hear that she joins them would gladden our hearts greatly, since we invested a lot into that objective.
I found a memory stick amoung our stock, the contents of which had been saved on the red disk, and loaded up a selection of music (about 2.5 GB) that Kevin might like based on what he has told me about his tastes. I added the exec file for Foubar so he can play tunes one after the other or from any playlist he wants to set up.
I took the guitar from its case and played for about 20 minutes. I hadn't played for weeks since the last Mailbox Club 6 December and expected my fingers not to cooperate at all, but they actually worked fine. When I put it away I stuck a note on the case to remind me to loosen the strings before flying.
I emailed Sons Dericks that we were hoping to fly home on Monday, but should the unthinkable happen, and we are not be allowed on the plane, could we stay with her that night while we work on a plan. She replied with a resounding "Yes!" saying she would love to see us, and gave me her address, which is in Parow. We have visited her there once before.
Dinner tonight was fish cakes and roast vegatables which I prepared without L-A having to be downstairs! Dessert was the rest of the bread and butter pudding. I gave Kevin the memory stick of music that I had prepared earlier.
Fri Jan 14
It's getting very close to 'go' time and L-A has some kind of medical condition that gives her a chill one day and a fever the next. One hopes that having presented a negative Covid test on the day of the flight, she can't be stopped with a simple temperature test as she is about to board. Surely it is realized that a fever can be caused by many conditions. However, I feel for her as she tries to sleep, sweating in the heat. Admitedly it has been hot the last few days.
We got up early to go one last time to Riana's 7:30 prayer group and it was very good to be there with her, Santjie and Yolanda, who were all happy to see us and pray us on our way. Carlo had gone to a farm they have connections with to pick peaches, and we were given four of them - beautiful and three times the normal size.
We drove on to Pick n Pay for the final groceries we'll need, and then to Fairbain Pharmacy where Ria supplied me with additonal boxes of the four medications that are vital to keep me standing. One of them was a generic form of Tramacet, Tamoltra. Maybe I should have been on that all along, and maybe I can get it in Canada. All these medications are on prescription, and I wanted to avoid a situation where I couldn't get more uromax, for example, without seeing a urologist, and specialist appointments had a long lead time. A GP may not be prepared to issue a prescription just on the evidence of my having had one in SA.
Next stop Salon Joan, and I was lucky that she was able to take me immediately. I also had a thorough hair wash. It was good to see her again, hopefully for the last time. Like several others have done, she asked me to let her know when we were safely in Canada.
We rounded off our morning drive with a visit to McDonalds for egg mcmuffins with hash browns and coffee. Back home we had noodles for lunch. I wanted to be sure that SABC's TV Licence organization were't continuing to bill us even though our TV is in a warehouse in Cape Town. They don't answer questions. But I realised that if I went to their site and see what my current amount owing was, it would tell me the answer. There was zero owing.
At about 4:15 L-A announced that we should go downstairs and start preparing dinner. It would be chicken curry followed by bread and butter pudding. We got started in the normal way, she as the conductor and I as all the intruments of the orchestra. Everything went according to plan, but it's time-consuming. The bread and butter pudding allowed us to use most of the oat milk I had bought recently, and would be litle use to Kevin. The food was ready to eat about 7:30. I had been on my feet for more than 3 hours and I was physically and mentally drained. We started the meal with a Friday night shabat morphed into communion. The food was all excellent. I began the clear up and remembered everything except coffee, which Kevin then made in his special piece of equipment that always reminds me of a small bluetooth speaker.
Still very tired, the only thing I felt up to after dinner was watching Chesapeak Shores. We are into season 4 and once we leave I doubt we'll have the chance to watch the rest.
Thu Jan 13
Kevin collected 7 boys from Roodeval, took them swimming, introduced me to them and asked me to ask them some quiz questions, and then he gave them lunch. They tried making ice cream, but Kevin's machine didn't fully work for them, and they ended up with chocolate milk shakes. At this point three more boys arrived, having walked from Avian Park with the excuse that one of them had a birthday today. Kevin delivered a Bible study, and then took them all swimming, most for the second time today. Here they are returning from the dam with life jackets. The life jackets were the result of merging Kevin's ministry into the revamped My Father's House. They have made an amazing difference already, giving non swimmers the chance to leave the close confines of the shore.
I went shopping, including for coconut creme powder, and I took the opportunity to say goodbye to Saffran's owner, a very sweet Muslim. I also bought fish cakes. I had an item on my 'do' list to make sure there were no videos on Vimeo that were not listed on the 'Home Movies' page. I found two, including the Lake District film, and corrected some typos.
I phoned the Cape Town Peninsular University of Technology (CPUT, 0219596767) and got through rapidly to a lady who told me that they had no record of Bella's ID (0203161128088-) on file. This is concerning. I tried to call Bella without success, so I used Messenger to give her this information, suggesting she contact Esselyn Park Secondary School and find our if they had processed her application. For reasons I don't understand, she is using a Facebook called Itz Chante Brown, which makes connecting with her on Messenger more complex. I don't know why she doesn't use the FaceBook under her own name that I set up for her when I bought her laptop.
Kevin took the boys back, and told us he would be out until after his Bible study. When I started gathering the ingredients for tonight's dinner I couldn't find the fish cakes. I searched high and low, far and wide, to no avail. The roast vegetables had been cooking for nearly half an hour. I considered driving to OK Foods but Kevin was out with the gate contoller. In the end we substitued the chicken breasts which were intended for tomorrow's dinner. We ate at about 7:45, and were finished some time before Kevin returned. Once he was eating I apologised to him for having chicken instead of fish cakes and told him the story. After he'd finished, he double checked the freezer, including parts of it I had never used, and found the fish cakes. He had moved them there from the drawer where I had put them! Mystery solved.
Wed Jan 12
My goal for the last 6 weeks had been to avoid either of us being hauled into hospital for an emergency proceedure, with no control over the costs. So far we had had no such situations, either caused by forced errors or by health situations beyoind our control. We have five more days for this goal to be reached. After that I am expecting to need medical treatment, possibly urgent, but it won't bankrupt us.
We were visited in the morning by our close and valued friend, Carica, with her daughter Meghan. Though she's close she still calls me Mr Copple when serving me in the Fairbairn Pharmacy. She brought meds and other items. There is a social event this Saturday for the participants in Legacy Relay, but we won't be attending so close to our departure, with even the slightest chance of a re-infection. She will be selling the colouring books, which if people respond, will be a useful fundraiser for Legacy Relay.
Laurie-Ann got the muse to want to draw for the first time since we have lived here, and she created the structure for the view of the mountains from the balcony at our end of the house.
Kevin was out all day with a group of his boys from Roodeval. He didn't return till dinner time, which was spaghetti bolognaise followed by apple crumble, with two varieties of wine to choose from. A good time of stimulating conversation was had by all three.
Tue Jan 11
Woke at 8 after another good night. I dressed and went down to the kitchen to clear pans I'd left soaking. Kevin was preparing for the re-start for the new year of his regular Bible study at Change Makers. Attendance is compulsory. Change Makers has a record of helping recoveries from drug and alcohol addiction of around 50%. This is unheard of in secular rehabs, which have a figure of about 4%. What a difference the Lord makes in peoples' lives.
After breakfast I completed my Coppleblog which looks at whether we did the right thing handing out food and money to our four families during lock down, or was the effect when we left and stopped paying (except for one) a disaster. We won't know the answer for a while yet, but early indications are that once we had made it crystal clear that our help would be coming to an end, extended families rallied round to cushion the blow.
Next job was to set the washing machine going with our penultimate wash. After 4 years of taking our washing to a laundry, it's a special pleasure to use a washing machine. Although it was after lunch when the clothes went on the frame to dry, they had all done so by bed time, when I remembered them.
Kevin cooked the main course at dinner - tomato pasta - and for dessert we had L-A's apple crumble with fresh cream.
Mon Jan 10
I slept almost right through the night, with one pee break. This indicates (to my mind) that my enlarged prostate is relatively stable.
During the morning I edited a number of the 'B' tapes, including Penny's reminiscences of her coxsackie illness after her epic journey returning from Hong Kong by rail via the Trans-Siberian Railway.
We were concerned about the possibility of having overweight cases, so after checking the weight limit on the United Airlines site - 50 lb - I packed all four suitcases and weighed them. Two were at 45 lb, and two 30 or less, so no worries.
L-A decided that next Monday when we leave, and have had our jabs and lunch, we should go to an Internet Café (with printing facilities) and upload our Covid result to ArriveCAN from there, rather than struggle with airport wifi and finding places to sit. I passed this on to Marius.
I had thought I had bought fish steaklets, but when I got them out of the freezer they were (of course) chicken steaklets. Luckily the roast vegetables L-A had prepared would go well with either. We had a very pleasant meal with Kevin.
Sun Jan 9
We had really wanted to go to church today, and we did. There was our previous Mercedes in the parking lot, so Lovejoy and family were here. We were relieved that Chantelle and Lottie weren't.
Hanlie led the music. Livestream was back for the first time after Christmas. The sermon about the Kingdoms of Light (eternal) and darkness (will end) were delivered by a medical doctor in the congregation. Here's the YouTube of the Livestream. This was our final visit to WCC.
I had been expecting to rendezvous with Kevin to pick up the girls now down from the mountain, but as we drove home he messaged us to say he had already dropped off half of them, and had gone back for the rest. The descent had been somewhat earlier than planned. I did however take three of them back to Worcester.
He told me that two of the girls didn't make it to the top. I am hoping he will send me some photos from the summit. I told him the news of our departure date, and that he was off the hook for taking us to the airport.
For dinner we had roast pork shanks (like tenderloan on the bone). For dessert Kevin had strawberries and cream, L-A had strawberries and sorbet, and I had banana custard.
Kevin asked where Maxie has slept for the last two nights, since his bedding was outside. I said 'outside,' and it turned out Kevin had always had him inside.
Sat Jan 8
We slept long, and it was going to be warmer than our first day or so here. I spent what was left of the morning uploading recent photos to Flickr and adding links to some of them to this journal. I also edited some digitised audio files of LPs. I was sweating but I was enjoying doing it.
I produced tomorrow's GNiTM.
When I was ready to upload the journal and GNiTM I hit a problem with the Classic FTP program. Partly the wifi strength, and partly my forgetting the set-up. I even tried to get the previous FTP program working on Pink Dell. Eventually I did it right and all was well.
When it was dark we went out onto the stoep and L-A looked for constellations and stars with the help of 'Night Sky' on her iPad. It was a lovely interlude.
By end of the day I was feeling extra weary, maybe because of the heat, and we skipped Chesapeake Shores and Isaiah. My temperature was 98.7°.
Bed however didn't immediately bring rest. Unlike any other day here there were bugs and mosquitos determined to get their evening meals from our flesh. We considered deploying the mosquito net hanging above the bed, but didn't. After about half an hour the bugs grew weary and left us alone.
Fri Jan 7
First thing, I checked email and Vanessa had sent our tickets for 17 January! She had even put both flights in my Google calendar. So now we can plan. I posted it to FaceBook and L-A got busy telling our WhatsApp friends. A result of this was that we had offers from both Carlo and Marius to drive us to the airport, eliminating our second concern.
At 10:30 Kevin brought a group of 7 girls and a male fitness instructor to the house from Roodeval. They were bound on a hike to a peak in the Brandwachts. This was arranged by a separate group from Kevin's, so they were new to him and vice versa. They were all dressed appropriately and keenly looking forward to their 3 days on the mountain. After they had sandwiches, some got into Kevin's Audi, and the others into his Mercedes, which I would be driving. We drove to the entrance of the Fairy Glen Game Reserve, five minutes away, which has a big sign on the N1, but may now be essentially defunct. There are however three lions in a wooden building which presumably are fed by the staff. Kevin made a call to a South African Mountain Club supervisor, who opened the gate remotely for us. We drove on and were soon under the huge white tarpauline which is visible for many kilometers. I never had thought it would have roads underneath it,
but it clearly must need an army of farmworkers to
service it. We drove a couple of Km through to the other side. We passed the lions house, and on through a series of gates. The final gate had a combination lock, but Kevin's information from Erica had failed to mention it. He called her and she didn't know the combination. He noticed that the chain holding the lock was held together by a plastic tie. He decided that under the circumstances brute force was the answer, and broke the tie, enabling us to drive through. The road got quite narrow, and soon came to an end, which was the jumping off point for hikers. So they jumped out, and onto a wooden structure where they were briefed by Kevin for the gentle climb ahead. I saw them on their way, and then headed back through all the gates, calling Erica to open the final one for me. I WhatsApped Kevin when I was home, and he replied, so we have contact in case of emergency.
The main difference for us compared with when he stayed with his mom is that we now have Maxie. When feeding time came, I knew that Kevin had been giving him some bacon scraps to get him to eat the rest. When looking for the bacon, I found smoke salmon, but thought it might be an unusual cut of bacon, so I put small amounts in his dish. It didn't work; he only ate 2/3 of it, and was following me around clearly expecting more. I went back to the fridge and found the bacon. That solved the problem. It was almost dark when I had time for Maxie to take me for a walk, so it was a short one. I didn't know whether he had been sleeping inside or outside, but he seemed happy to sleep outside in front of his kennel when I put his bedding down, and the temperature was rising.
Thu Jan 6
Kevin had sent me links to the Canadian Covid Care Alliance and the video 'More Harm than Good,' and I watched it this afternoon, in shock. I have always followed and recommended others follow the official medical advice, avoiding anything that looked even slightly like a conspiracy theory. But here was irrefutable evidence of disregard for scientific methods and practices in the desire to make money and beat others to market, regardless of human life. I decided to tweet the .pdf version of the video. My faith in government has taken a beating. And I have taken the vaccine. Twice. However, even knowing this I would still take the vaccine. The vast majority of people admitted to hospital
have not been vaccinated, and that is a good enough statistic for me, even if the development of the vaccine was flawed.
A very large tortoise arrived in the garden just below the front door. He/she was working his way towards the celery plant with irrigation points, which he might have damaged, so I picked him up and pointed him in the opposite direction. Then he arrived in the tomato plants area and was doing damage. Kevin decided he needed a complete change of scenery so he put him in the back of his car and drove him down to a small dam about a kilometer away. He was heavy for me to pick up, but Kevin lifted him with no problem.
Kevin went to a prayer meeting in the evening and wasn't back till about 8:30, so when he arrived I heated his green chile pasta, which we had eaten earlier.
Wed Jan 5
I had responses from all the suspicious companies I had emailed yesterday, with all three of those who had billed me ~$50 saying they could not refund the money because they had been unable to reach my Mastercad. This may have been because those incidents were all back in October and they had since deleted the details. Other companies said they had cancelled my membership and would make refunds within 10 days.
I found a company called Scamvoid (https://www.scamvoid.net/) which monitors suspicious websites, and posted my experience against dstnfd.com. This is what I said:
dstnfd.com billed my Mastercard for $CAD50.80 on 16 Oct 2021. I never made any purchase that might have been for this. I contacted them via dstnfd.com and received a polite message telling me they had removed my membership but were unable to refund the money for technical reasons. They are part of Suregrowth Ltd of Dunstable UK. Over the past 3 months I have been billed by kngdfe.com, fltlve.com, wysndrve.com, tshpfy.com, hfeeve.com, and rdhwfv.com, with small amount, and when I contacted them most removed my membership (which I had never applied for) and refunded the money, but rdhwfv.com and hfeeve.com also said they were unable to refund due to technical issues, and they were for about $CAD 50 each. This smells to me like a sophisticated skimming scam masquerading under what looks like a legitimate company, Suregrowth Ltd. If you notice something like this on a credit card statement I recommend reporting to your credit card fraud department and they will replace your card.
Kevin had a group of boys up to the house. He told us about one of them, Eldrin, who lives with a foster mother. He had failed in every single school subject, but he is intelligent. Kevin spent time with him one-on-one but just couldn't get through to him. Later in the day he met with him again and explained that there are are two primary influences at work in our minds, God, and the devil. It is up to us to choose which we will listen to. He had been skipping school regularly which accounted for his poor marks. At the end of their conversation he agreed that he would listen to what God was saying (through his conscience).
We slept in the afternoon. Chantelle had been trying to get our attention today over and over. I felt I must call her. She is very much alone. Her mother had disappeared, leaving her bank card with Chantelle. This might have been so she could collect her own child benefit. Her father had a job out of town, and returned at weekends. Neither were giving her any money for food. I asked what she needed and she said R300. I explained at length that this wasn't something I would necessarily do again. I also said that if her parents know I have given her money, they will not give. I strongly recommended she make more frequent contact with Child Welfare. It was their responsibility to take action in such a situation. She said they saw her every 2 weeks, and I said she should go every week and make a fuss. For dinner we ate the rest of the curry, augmented with vegetables, and followed by bread and butter pudding. Our conversation, as at yesterday's dinner was fascinating and instructive.
Hr had been watching a video called 'More Harm than Good' about the pathetic and illegal process that Pfizer conducted to get their vaccine accepted after a ridiculously short an inadequat trial.
We discussed the frightening
level of evil in high places in the world, often drven by greed, and reminding us that it is an irrelevance
compared with our raising up of God in his glory. This is similar to what Rolland Baker has taught (see Zoom link on 24 July below), but few pastors seem to want to touch it.
Tue Jan 4
Before breakfast I finished a job that was long overdue - consolidating about 25 unfinished 'do' lists going back more than a year onto one sheet. I was relieved not to find any showstoppers among the new list. I will work steadily though them. Kevin was having a spring clean downstairs, and Brian had finally turned up to do some gardening. About 10 I brought up L-A's breakfast and had my own. At 10:30 Kevin left, Bible in hand, to pick up the boys whom he would be working with for the day. I am so impressed by his dedication to his mission. He is single-handedly raising a small generation of Christian believers at a key age with significant life skills.
The boys arrived, all between 9 and 12, and very well behaved. Soon they went off for a swim in the dam, which allowed me to get our breakfasts. When they returned, Kevin had them prepare their lunch of an open cheese and tomato sandwich, and I was given one. He brought them upstairs and introduced each one to us. Some were a charmingly shy. He took them back to Roodewal about 2:45 and I got lunch for Laurie-Ann. I could have got it earlier but I just didn't want to interupt in any way the ministry that Kevin was giving.
This morning I had seen a suspicious payment on my credit card to a company called wysndrve.com. When I keyed that in as a URL I knew immediately it was the same scam(?) as Mastercard themselves had noticed with kngdfe.com on 30 November, and put my card on hold to get my attention. So I searched my M/C statements for the last 3 months and found 5 more similarly named companies that had billed us for mainly small amounts around $15, but three instances of $50. It was too early to call Solutions Banking so I emailed all of them saying I hadn't ordered anything from them and asking for money back.
At 3:30 I did call, but the upshot was that if they were to take any action, the first thing they would do would be to cancel my M/C and send me another. Credit cards don't have passwords that can be changed. I didn't want to do that till we were home, so I said I would remain vigilant.
Kevin had prepared a pasta dinner into which many of the garden tomatoes had gone, and tonight he served it. He also set the table and made the evening seem extra-special. The pasta was very good and healthy. We got into some great conversation. He had picked strawberries yesterday, and I had made a jelly, so I made a dessert of the combination. I asked him about the possible uniqueness of his ministry to boys, and he said one difference was that he always brought them up to his house, differentiating himself from the majority of ministries which go into the townships and minister there. Coming to someone's house is huge for the boys. We continued our conversation for some time, touching on his father's dramatic conversion a few weeks before he died, during which time he was a fiery evangelist for anyone around. I brought materialism into the discussion in connection with James' hangups. It was all valuable insite to me.
Mon Jan 3
We got up about 9:30 by which time Kevin had started a mini spring clean on the kitchen. I got breakfasts for us, but he is on the Keto diet that prohibits starch and sugar in the morning so he was catered for. Same with lunch.
I worked on my computer till lunch. In the afternoon I drove to try and get a Covid test at the hospital, and then to get some groceries. A very friendly doctor at the Covid test centre at the hospital explained to me that it may not be a good idea to be tested now. Some Covid residue can hang around after one is negative and spook the test into a false positive. That could further delay our departure. To minimise the chance of this he recommended being tested at the last possible time before flying. This seemed good advice to me. My next main task was to buy coconut cream powder from Safraan, but Safraan was closed for the week. I tried various stores, ending up with coconut cream in a can from Woolworths and dessicated coconut from the Holywood supermarket. When I got home I was relieved that L-A thought she could use these.
She did. Around 6 we went downstairs and started preparing the curry. We worked as a team, but with all the cullinary skills provided by her, and the fetching and carrying by me. Toward the end of curry preparation she started on the bread and butter pudding. Meanwhile Kevin made a salad of basil and tomatoes, which turned out delicious when we sat down to eat about 7:45. The whole meal was excellent and much enjoyed, and the combination of alternative coconut products was just fine. By 10 I was all in. I had been on my feet for much of the time between 2 and 9:30.
Sun Jan 2
With Kevin returning tonight I moved our computers and peripherals out of the end bedroom where he'll sleep. My computer went on a side table in the lounge, and Laurie-Ann's,
(which still has its SA power cable) went on a tea trolley near my bed. I also moved our pantry foods to the top of his wood stove. Chantelle was trying to reach us, and I finally answered. She had received my EFT, via Danwill William's bank account, but said the banks had withheld R35 because it came from Canada. This was nonsense of course; the transfer was from my FNB account, and the banks don't withhold portions of EFTs. Clearly Danwill isn't honest, and had claimed an unauthorized tip of R35 before giving the rest to Chantelle. It's dog eat dog even within family circles.
Chantelle wants us to send her a further R200. She has somehow survived the last 2 weeks. My guess is that her father will help her, but absolutely not if we start sending her money. So, at least for the time being I am not sending anything more to her.
Each day I am progressing a future Coppleblog about this very subject, and whether we should ever have started supporting the girls with food and money. I drove to Checkers for groceries. Actually I drove twice because I forgot my wallet the first time. Among other purchases I was very surprized to find Terbodore coffee there, and bought two Great Danes. That saves us asking our driver, when we finally leave again for the airport, to detour into Paarl, a request I for one was not comfortable with.
Kevin phoned about 8:15 to say he was 2 minutes from the gate, so I pushed the button on the controller to open it. It was dark, and I couldn't see if it actually opened. However, when he arrived he drove straight through. I pushed the button again. It was a joy to see him, and a subliminal pleasure that we hadn't broken anything in his house. I had cooked ostrich burgers and we had eaten ours a little earlier after he had called to say he would be an hour later than intended. I served him his, and L-A came downstairs to join us. He ate, we drank Windhoek lager, and we all had a good conversation. He suggested we might get a Covid test soon, so that we don't worry about whether we'll be negative on flight day. He had also managed to get tested at the Worcester Hospital without paying. That interested me. He walked down to the gate to check it was closed, since it was so dark and no moon. It was.
Sat Jan 1
I slept well with no prostate problem! We stopped using the duvet shortly after we arrived, but yesterday's wind had cooled things down. I considered it (the duvet) but decided against because I had carefully rolled it up.
After breakfast I posted a New Year message on FaceBook with a link to the firework sites from last night, and we both particularly enjoyed the British one. I walked up the hill behind the house to see less common views, and to take photos. I managed it without falling, though the possibility was there and the rocky ground was agressive. The view of the bakery is unusual.
L-A rested while I was up there, and I woke her with ham and potato salad, and tomatoes. We can't keep up with the tomatoes. Sadly their weight means the plants can't keep themselves up, and several are lying dejectedly on the ground, but still producing fruit.
I read some more about Bram Fischer. I am learning important things about South African history as it transitioned towards democracy. I started going through the sheets of my long term do lists, ensuring that all is done that needs to be before we leave.
Kevin confirmed he would be home about 7pm tomorrow, and we invited him to join us for ostrich burgers. We both worked on our computers instead of the normal Netflix routine; it seems that even in quarantine the Copples have plenty to get on with.
Copples in Western Cape