Friday, Dec. 28 - The year is fast winding down, amid much uncertainty in the economic and political spheres here in the U.S. As you may gather, we're able to access t.v. programming again, after a very pleasant hiatus for most of the time we've been away. Now we're watching CNN, local news and MSNBC, and finding out how crazy things are. Troops out of Syria and Afghanistan by order of his Exalted Craziness. Close the entire southern border, or give me 5 Billion samoles for the wall. The pundits think the madness has increased exponentially, and wonder if the Republicans will finally see the light and do something. And the stock market bounces up and down as though on a trampoline.

Meanwhile, here we are in Schalamar Creek, looking after an 18 year old cat named Bailey while her parents are off to Costa Rica. There's a big storm whacking the whole eastern half of the country, except here, where it'll be 80F today. Lots of airport departure delays. Hopefully that's not the case in Toronto, where Dave and Evi have joined their family for the journey south. They had to go north to go south, because it's much cheaper to fly to Toronto, then to Costa Rica, than it is to fly directly from Florida. Go figure that.

We had a lovely Christmas dinner here, and enjoyed a nice Boxing Day with Dave and Evie before they had to leave early yesterday morning. Dave and I played golf, (Evie loaned me her clubs, which worked well...84 with 5 three putt greens), while the ladies did some shopping and park orientation. Yesterday, Gail and I did a big walk around part of the park, then rode our bikes another 11 kms around the rest of the park. It's quite sizable, as those distances would indicate, and has all the facilities the residents could ask for: two pools, hot tub, golf course, tennis courts, pickleball courts, library, crafts room, restaurant. A really active community of mostly northern Americans and a lot of Canadians, mostly from Ontario.

So this week will give us some insight into life in such a facility. Not that we're at a point of wanting to do anything but ramble in our r.v., but it does provide food for thought for future planning.

We hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas Day. From contacts we've had to date, looks like everyone had great times and will continue to do so for the rest of the holidays. Hopefully sister Marilyn will find a way to get over this infection that is knocking her back. We think of you all, friends and family, and wish you all the best for the rest of these quieter times. Let's hope sanity somehow returns to this part of the world, as the rest of the world needs more stability than we're experiencing at this time.

That's it for now. We will go exploring outside the park today, probably over to Lakeland. More later. Stay tuned.