Hi, James!  This is a retitled continuation of a previous message to you:

AH>  It's a long story, but I am beginning to see the
AH>  humour in it....  :-)

JB>  Well, that's the first dose of medicine.


          Agreed....  :-)



JB>  


          Not to worry!  IIRC I've already expressed my opinion that a
singing Mommy is a happy Mommy.  As a former band teacher, I can belt out a
tenor part so the guys in the back row can hear me.  Tone quality is
another issue.  :-))



JB>  Did this summer find you too digging in the dirt?


          I learned some time ago, when I had chronic lower back pain, to
pace myself while digging.  Eventually my back got better.  Then Nora came
along... meaning I had less opportunity to work solo in the garden. 
Nowadays I'm still using kitchen scraps & whatnot to make compost. 
Much of the gardening I do is on a smaller scale, though, and is more
indicative of her preferences....  :-)


          What happened in this case relates to a camping/kayaking trip.

 1)  A fair amount of stuff needed to be organized beforehand:  kayaking
gear, firewood, groceries, spare clothing, etc.  I started well in advance
because I didn't want Bum Shoulder #1 to fail me while we were kayaking
& because we had some extra packing to do this time.  We'd heard there
was to be a bicycle race involving the same stretch of road we'd have to
use to get to kayaking camp... so we left a day earlier than usual &
stayed in a public campground overnight.

 2)  I made it safely through the first afternoon of kayaking.  Once we
arrive at the camp there is no shortage of young, energetic, able-bodied
SP's willing to help carry stuff down to the lake & back.  But there
are still a few things we prefer to do for ourselves... one of which is
climbing onto the roof of the RV & stowing things in a box added by the
previous owner.  While Dallas was up there I heard an ominous cracking
sound.  I wasn't particularly worried at the time, but the significance of
this little detail became apparent the next day.

 3)  A light rain began just as we were packing up.  By the time we'd
returned to camp, a few miles down the road, the rain was torrential.  But
once again I wasn't particularly worried.  This *is* the Wet Coast, after
all... and I have been in the same area on other occasions when a downpour
didn't last more than ten minutes.  We ate dinner, sat around the campfire,
and went to bed.  But as Robbie Burns observed... the best laid schemes o'
mice an' men gang aft agley.

 4)  It rained heavily from 4:00 PM until 8:00 AM, when we had to get up if
we wanted somebody else to cook breakfast for us.  Nora was soaked.  Her
bunk was soaked.  The upper bunk (where we keep extra blankets &
whatnot) was soaked... and I've heard from people who should know that in
this climate anything which absorbs water & has not seriously started
to dry within forty-eight hours will probably be a writeoff!  I believe
them because we lost a canvas tent that way years ago.  The rain was still
quite torrential after breakfast... so we drove home, threw a tarp over the
roof, and hauled everything out of the bunks ASAP.

 5)  As far as the RV is concerned "all's well that ends well". 
We managed to salvage everything, except for the toilet paper!  Apparently
it absorbed a lot of the water which landed in the upper bunk.  And the
roof repair was actually quite straightforward because we realized what was
going on before any serious structural damage had occurred.  While Dallas
was standing next to the storage box on the roof, one of the screws by
which it was attached to the roof let go
... leaving a hole which wasn't too hard to find.  That was the sound I heard.

 6)  As far as I'm concerned... I had to put all this stuff back where it came
from, and while the bunks were empty I thought I should remove the mildew from
around the window sashes.  This *is* the Wet Coast & Nora had recently noticed
a musty smell in her bunk.  I had already cleaned what I could reach while the
bunks were in use, but there's more working space in the absence of mattresses
& we didn't want the mildew to spread any further.  Then, as we were preparing
for the next trip, Bum Shoulder #2 began to object vociferously.  It no longer
felt better within a couple of days after I'd exceeded my limit... [wry grin].


          I still have to be careful about what I do & how I do it, but
as you may have already guessed I can type a lot more comfortably now.... 
;-)




--- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+