An update on Old Stone House and plan alterations

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It's 12.42 on the 8th of April. We've got a couple changes to our plans that I will go through in this blog, but first I'll briefly go through the last couple of days.
We've been sticking to the usual routine since my last blog. Ted has been cutting down some big trees so we've had our work cut out (no pun intended) to keep up with shifting the logs to the path, splitting an sawing them, then stacking them up. This is good though - we felt a little bit that last week we got off a little too lightly in terms of workload and especially since Judy and Ted have been excellent hosts we want to do our bit. The 4 of us work like a well oiled machine now, and since my last post I think we've got through another three large trees.
The rest of the days are spent reading, writing, watching TV and going for walks or runs. It's incredible how fast the hours, days and now weeks fly with a good proportion of hard work and free time - combined with regular, plentiful an delicious good food of course. I've made a promise to myself that I won't spend my free time sitting on my phone, so I have started learning the skeletal system (I'm up to the clavicle) and reading more of the novels I've brought (I've finished Orwell and have moved onto Wilde).
Nothing exceptional has really happened over the last couple of days so I won't bore you with the details of our routine, I'm sure there's enough of that in previous posts. The snow here is finally starting to melt now, with paths and roads being pretty much clear and the banks having gone down by 20cm or more. What's more, the forecast looks as if it's going to get really quite warm (by our standards at least) over the next week, but bringing a little rain with it. My optimistic weather app on my phone tells me Monday will be 20•C in Portneuf - but I'll believe that when I see it. In any case, the snow is dissapearing pretty fast - of course leaving behind sodden earth and a mass of muddy puddles that prove considerably harder to drag a sled of logs over...
I also said I'd give a little more information on Ted and Judie. As I've said before, Judie grew up in the Old Stone House before moving back here a 3-4 years ago, while Ted, a "card carrying native" lived on a reservation as a child. Both are now around 60, and at first impression seem a regular, quiet couple spending their retirement in the beautiful Quebec countryside - which of course they are. Judie loves telling us stories about her childhood and the area, and is a veritable fountain of knowledge when it comes to local history. Ted is quieter, but incredibly easy going and genial, always with a amusing anecdote to add to the conversation at a quiet moment.
The two of the them met when they worked for the government in Ottawa, with Judie, having briefly been a car mechanic previously, working in the infrastructure department which seemed to involve all sorts of interesting jobs. At one point she was looking after the natural history museum, and at another point government labs that housed lab animals - including monkeys that flooded an entire floor on one occasion.
Ted worked for a short while as a carpenter, and all Judie has said about his work for the government was "he just worked at the spy place" which is apparently the Canadian version of MI5. So, both seem to have clearly had an interesting working life, and remain very interesting people. Judie has hundreds of books around the house, some on witchcraft, astronomy, astrology, feng shui, medicine, anatomy, runes and a whole host of other topics, while Ted is somewhat inexplicably a pro with a chainsaw considering his chosen career.
Anyway, there's a little more on Ted and Judie. Oh and I just remembered - apparently there's been a moose and possibly a bear in the area too, so we're on bear watch when out in the yard. They're only black bears around here, but still not something you want to have a face off with I'm sure.
In terms of plans, we've had a couple breakthroughs. Firstly our Ottawa host has confirmed we can change the dates we are to stay with here so we only have 4 days in Montreal to fill. As well as this, Judie said to me today that a friend of hers who lives in Montreal has said, very kindly, we can use her spare apartment in the city if we like. This beats paying $25 a night to share with 6 other people in hostel. So we're now to leave here on the Tuesday or Wednesday and spend 5 or 6 days in Montreal before moving on to Ottawa. Also, as people have probably already seen from facebook, we've booked to run the colour run in Sacramento in August, so we will now stay 5 nights in San Fran and two in Sacramento before travelling down to LA - so we're all very excited about that!
The next few days we will spend getting as much work done as possible as, sadly, our stay at the Old Stone House is beginning to come to a close. Also, just a quick note to say apologies for any grammatical or spelling mistakes in these blogs - by the time I've written them I can rarely be bothered to read back through them....

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Comments

[Dr John HW]

Spring marches on
Have enjoyed reading your last 3 blogs which continue to give a really vivid and direct account of your time in Pontneuf. Have a really good sense of it now. Not sure that a meal consisting of the 'leftovers from the week' would be particularly palatable though - er, from the WEEK? It certainly sounds like Ted and Julie have been excellent hosts and I guess that you will all miss them when you move on - clearly a really good experience for the first weeks of your travels. A month ago you had not met them and did not know them - amazing. You are just about to see the rapid transition from winter into spring which will be dramatic, but probably overdue now.We now have temperatures of about 19 degrees and sunny skies, although it is due to cool down this weekend. Here the General Election campaign is really getting into gear, although what we have heard and seen so far is pretty unedifying - 'dog whistle' stuff from the Tories about how Labour ruined the economy before and will ruin it again if the idiotic voters put them into power (OK, I made up the last bit but you get the picture). Ed Miliband is standing up to it so far and is coming through quite well. 4 weeks to go however. Looking forward to hearing about your last days in Quebec and your moves on to new places. Keep up the powerful descriptions and I have not picked up many errors/mistakes in your writings.