That was a week-end that was.

I've been camping....sort of.."I slept in a bed at a resort. Spent the days on the beach and nights around the  camp fire.

As  a Social Assistance Review Board member I visited  much of Ontario .  By plane and car and once on a train to Windsor.

Mostly  in pairs,  members drove hundreds of thousands of miles al over  the Province.

Members were  from all parts of the province.

Hours  of  wheels  turning beneath us brought forth surprising confidences. Everybody  has a story to tell.  Some more than one.

Former  MLAs. Were among the members. . One was a  Speaker if the House. Another the Party Whip. Both in the Davis government. I'm a good listener and they had lots to tell.

I amused myself by pondering  where in this beautiful Province , I would choose to live.
providing I   won a lottery and could take all of my family along . I don't buy lottery tickets. So, it was  pretty much an idle fantasy.

Except for one aspect. Prince Edward County.  The Town of Picton. The Bay of Quinte. The Village of Wellington. Sandbanks Provincial Park.

My children Heather and Andy and  my grandchildren ,My son Stephen and his wife Mary and  their three children have spent most summers at Sandbanks.

Now my grand-daughter Vanessa, her three children ,the twins and Lane from Tacoma, Washington,U.S.A. also make it a summer pilgrimage.

This year  Maria was  there with  my grand-daughter Robyn. My son  Frank came for theAugust week-end to bring his new adopted daughter home.

My grand-daughter Stephanie, and great grand-daughters Cheyanne, Abigail and Emma had also been there but had to leave before I arrived.

Stephanie was playing the role  of Grace O'Malley  opposite Blackbeard in a Pirate Festival in the Town of Milton during the August week-end.

I got home last night before nine. Stephanie has just  arrived.

For the next several days I will hear  about the Festival where Stephanie did the thing she loves most  in all of life.

Her hair was dyed  several shades of red at the Sandbanks. Maria did it.

At the festival she crossed swords and lunged and parried with Blackbeard  to entertain starry-eyed children and their parents for the entire week-end.

Eight year old Abigail had to go home with grandparents on Saturday night.

She sobbed.  Nothing would comfort  her from being  removed from the  sheer joy of magic.