Visit Friday June 10th.

Friends of Ed;

          I visited father late in the afternoon today and while I was there Maciek Mentlak and his daughter Norah visited.  They are one of Father's neighbours on Tweed Avenue.  Father then had dinner in the dining room and shortly after he finished Davina Pearl arrived for a visit.

          We visited with father for a while and since it was such a nice evening decided to take him out for a stroll in his wheelchair.  I know of some walking paths that go through the green spaces nearby so we headed over to one of them that starts at the intersection of Roger Guindon Ave. and Smyth Rd.  The path extends from there to Walkley road, a distance of about 2.5 Km.  The first hundred metres of the path winds through some trees and we had just started when Davina spotted a family of three foxes.  From their sizes we thought them to be a male, female and a kit, about half grown. We stayed in one spot and watched them for about 10 minutes.  It was one of those magic moment that you will remember for a lifetime.

          Eventually the foxes went off into the woods and we carried on along the path. After crossing over Pleasant Park Rd. we entered the area of the City of Ottawa allotment gardens.  At this point father decided  he wanted to do a bit of walking on his own so he got out of the wheelchair and walked on the grass through the gardens for about 50 metres.  We then turned around and made our way back towards Alta Vista Manor.  Some time ago Joan Paris had quoted the opening stanza of AA Milne's poem "Teddy Bear" (see below) to Davina and this had intrigued her to the point of looking up the whole poem and printing out a copy. We had brought it along so we concluded the trip with her pushing the wheelchair and me reading the poem.  All in all we have a very nice evening and certainly got enough exercise to prevent us from becoming "tubby" like Winnie the Pooh!

Teddy Bear  (A.A. Milne)

A bear, however hard he tries,
Grows tubby without exercise.
Our Teddy Bear is short and fat,
Which is not to be wondered at;
He gets what exercise he can
By falling off the ottoman,
But generally seems to lack
The energy to clamber back.

You can see the entire poem at this link:
http://www.poetryconnection.net/poets/A.A._Milne/14277


          Vince