August 12, 2019

I've been somewhat absent from posting lately. It's mid August, a bitter sweet time for me. I feel like summer is slipping away, I'm thinking / not wanting to think about returning to the classroom (we go back in early September here), the nights are cooling off, the summer flowers have faded and look bedraggled.

A big part of our time has been taken up with pool issues. Last year, at the end of the season, it became painfully clear that we would need a new liner. We had some significant tears that had been repaired, but were beyond that now. We had such a cold, wet spring this year, and other factors, and it prevented us from getting to the point of getting things ready to order a new liner (we do the installing - we do not have a pool company that does the work for us). The pool was completely drained (not an easy task when it rains nonstop in the spring), detailed measurements were sent away to the company with which we were dealing to order the new liner, frogs were saved.

A pump can only do so much, after that you are working by hand - shop vacs are a beautiful thing!

'Twas a tag team effort, husband pushing the full shop vac up the slope and emptying it into buckets, me carrying full buckets of hideous swamp water up and out of the pool area to dump elsewhere. I got my workout that day!

What's the expression - as mad as a box of frogs? Well, here is a box of frogs. It was sooo hot that day. We managed to save quite a few frogs. A couple made their way back later.

The old liner was pulled out and eventually the new liner was shipped to us. Putting in a pool liner yourself is terrifying the first time you do it. There isn't a lot of room for error. It is slightly less terrifying the second time you do it, as you know which errors to avoid. Last time, I assisted husband. This time, son was available (he was 11 years old the first time - now much more of a help!).

Spiderman son clinging to the sides at the deep end.

There's a whole lot of lying on one's stomach in this part.

Gorgeous new liner being sucked into place by a shop vac (you can't see it in this picture), with water being added to the bottom. Bottom main drain cover has now been put in place by husband. As the water level rises, other intakes and skimmer holes, etc get cut out and re-installed.

Yes, this is all very late to be doing this now, in Ontario, where the main time for pools is June and July, but it could not have been left empty and undealt with through the winter. We will get a few swims out of it before the water becomes too cold and it will be time to "put it to bed" in the fall.

It was husband's birthday two days ago. We went to the drive-in! Drive in movie theatres are going the way of the dinosaur, but we are very fortunate to have one in the little town close to us. It was always a summer tradition to go to the drive-in with the kids when they were little. They would be dressed in their jammies, snacks would be brought, drinks in a cooler, and the van would be backed into place, so the back could be opened up. The kids would snuggle up with blankets and pillows in the back, watching the big screen, husband and I on lawn chairs. Sometimes we would just stay inside the vehicle because it was too cool, or buggy.

When we went two nights ago, very little had changed, there were young (and old) kids running around on the grassy area in front of the screen before the movie started, tossing a football around. Little ones were in their pajamas, ready for when they nodded off before the movie ended. Some people were in the backs of their pick up trucks, with air mattresses and pillows. It's a nice tradition. In the "olden days", of course, you pulled up and attached a speaker to your partially rolled down window.

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Now, you tune your radio in to a particular station and listen to the movie over your vehicle speakers.
We saw both features, making it a late night! Son was able to join us when he was done work, missing only a little bit of the first movie. Daughter was there for both. Much older, and not dressed in their jammies, but still a nice bit of tradition. We saw "Shaw and Hobbs" with Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham and "Yesterday", the movie about the Beatles' music. Both were good. The first was action adventure, but funny, which is necessary for me because I have little patience for violent good guy, bad buy movies, and the second one was also funny but sweet and I loved the music. I know the Beatles were not my generation's music, but I did go through a phase in university where I bought up tons of their old albums from a used record shop in the city and spent a lot of time listening to my favourites. Do you have a drive-in movie theatre near you?