I have been skiving by taking a two week holiday in Canada, half the time in and around Edmonton and the second half on Vancouver Island and Saltspring Island. My son made sure every day was packed with new experiences from looking at dinosaur bones, a mere 65 million years old, just lying around in the Alberta Provincial Dinosaur Park to seeing a host of wildlife including blue whales, sea lions, sea otters, migrating warblers, bison, bears, small brown birds, big brown bears and so on.
I was struck by the fact that Canada is so clean and tidy with rubbish buns with lids everywhere and how everyone is up for a chat. I got to eat my very first taco and tried elk carpaccio, bison and sweetgrass ice cream The trip involved a lot of hiking and as I have an iffy knee I acquired a hiking pole and a knee brace to make sure I made it through some very difficult terrain indeed. In fact I only fell over three times, once in the Dinosaur Park and twice on Meares Island where there was a lot of over and under some massive fallen trees.
Happily for the ancient there are clean loos absolutely everywhere and many benches. I have come to love a bench!