April 27th, 2008: Finally, a spring-like day! Temperatures got up to about +8, the sun shone all day, and the wind was light. The forecast is good, too, for some more nice days next week. We can use all they will send us.
We had several snows and freezing rains during the week, but there’s not much of it left. There are still some old snowbanks on the shaded side of the river but they are gradually breaking down and being washed away.
 After our dramatic down-sizing of last fall, we still found a carful of stuff for a garage sale. Louise is going to have one sometime between now and the May long weekend so we hauled our junk over to their place. If we are real lucky, they will hold the sale while we are away in Alberta, and when we get back it will be all over. If not, then we will go over and help, which usually means sitting around having coffee and visiting. That’s fine, too.
We went to a flea market at St. Paul’s United Church yesterday; it was the last day of their sale and there wasn’t much left, but we mostly go to look and visit anyway. We did have lunch and a nice visit with Marj Jarvis, formerly of Porcupine Plain and Greenwater and now living in Saskatoon.
Cathy came down from Prince Albert on Thursday. We took her to Dutch Growers for lunch, then picked up Lucille and we all went shopping – the girls for clothes, me for coffee. The girls didn’t find much, but I found all the coffee I could handle. Nobody to visit with, though.
Thursday evening we went to a dinner theater at Off Broadway, Cathy’s main reason for coming to town. A delightful and well-done farce about a man who is writing women’s novels under a woman’s name and has to emerge as a woman in order to win a prize and further his career. Lots of fun.
 We stopped at the weir today to take photos of pelicans. Unfortunately, I didn’t have my good camera along so the pics of the pelicans aren’t much good. I did take some shots of a young couple sitting on the apron by the weir, with their feet almost in the water. I hope they were aware of the danger of getting too close. I suspect the wet cement would be very slippery, and if one slips into the water by the weir, one stands a very good chance of not making it out alive. The undertow catches things and tumbles them immediately below the weir; hard to swim when you are being tumbled, and hard to breathe, too.
The Ontario government passed legislation today ordering Toronto transit workers to end their illegal surprise strike that paralyzed the city on the weekend. Good for them, but too bad they had to go through the exercise again. Why not make it permanent? If the two sides can’t come to an agreement before the end of a contract, binding arbitration should be imposed to avoid any job action that will impact on the public. Not just for “essential” services, either, but for all labour contracts. Any actions such as strikes, or lockouts should make the offending party subject to being sued by the injured parties.
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