home... for the moment

We got home yesterday afternoon, and not a moment too soon, in fact half a day earlier would have been better.

Tearing down camp in a light drizzle was not fun, but the unpleasant conditions eased our departure somewhat - I didn't cry. The drive down the 401 was uneventful despite heavy traffic - not transport trucks (we thought of you Tom), but cars, lots of cars, cars driving like maniacs. We got into the laneway without any problem (we seem to have that problem licked - touch wood). We were home.

One of the first things I did after emptying what I had to from the trailer was get some pork neck bones out of the freezer for the dogs. When I opened the freezer a giant whoosh of water came out of the lid. Huh? I stood there like a moron for a moment while I processed the situation. Poke - turkey at top of freezer was partially thawed. Oh oh… I moved over to the next freezer, the one full of dog meat. The top layer was slightly thawed, further down it was frozen solid. What was going on? Had the house been without power for a few days? We puzzled for a few minutes then Carm tested the GFCI outlet that is part of the circuit and voila, power to the freezers again. CLICK. GFCI tripped again. No water lying around anywhere. Unplug one freezer; seems to work; open door; click. The GFCI had failed.  Within 10 minutes, Carm ('if you don't find them handsome you should at least find them handy') had performed the necessary repair.

Now came the horrible job of throwing perfectly good food into the garbage. Everything was very cold, and things further down were frozen solid. I threw out lots and cooked some other things. As usual, there is a silver lining in everything: my freezer got cleaned out!

So, here we are back in our giant home - it seems so strange after living in 375 sf (Carm just did the math - wow, that seems huge, no wonder the camper is a behemoth to drag around). The grass is long - it didn't rain at Presquile, but clearly rained regularly here. Carm couldn't start the reaping until mid-afternoon - it rained last night and was grey with a threat of rain until noon - the grass was still wet when he started the mower.

I've been reprovisioning the villetta in preparation for our next trip - we leave on Wednesday, but are back home for the day on Thursday to have a few new windows installed. So much for a relaxing day at the camp for my birthday! However, a nice birthday treat is the start of writing group on Thursday which means I'll have an escape from the mess of window installation.

With the new day comes new strength and new thoughts.  ~Eleanor Roosevelt