The beginning of November saw lovely sunshine and clear skies so we decided to take a trip back to Port Credit for lunch at Snug Harbour. We really like the restaurant there since it had nice views of boats on the water and people doing lots of interesting activities.
To build up an appetite, we went for a walk along the break water and for the first time noticed to lovely views across the lake to Toronto. You start to realise how crowded it is hear when there are 2.5 million in Toronto and 750000 here in Mississuaga and they are right next to each other.
You can see from the picture above, that it was still very cold. It is funny that we now consider a sunny day as warm and pleasant. It was most probably about 5°C at the time, but everyone was out walking and enjoying what we thought could be the last sunshine for a few months.
The restaurant still had it's Halloween decorations out, but they will all come down now and people will start to put up their Christmas decorations (so early, but I think they are trying to beat the snow).
All the grade 6's went away for a three day camp to Mansfield education centre where they did lots of activities relating to the land and the environment.
You may ask why I called this a Unique Month and the main reason is that it is the first November in recorded history where they have had no snow in November. Last year they had the largest snow fall in decades and the school closed for a Snow Day.
People are taking advantage of the nice weather and going for walks and bike rides while they still can. The main thing we are also noticing is that people are now starting to get really organised with their Christmas decorations. After each Sunday, more and more houses are getting all lit up. We took a drive around the other night to take a look and were very impressed. We then went out for dinner at "East Side Mario's" which is one the few chains that we really enjoy.
Most of the street leading up to our house is now decorated and it is very enjoyable to look out over it.
As you can see from the picture on the right, there is always a downside to going to see a doctor and in Bruce's case it was that she found a couple of things in the tests that were done that she didn't like. His blood pressure was a little high again and his cholesterol was high. These two were expected but strangely the EKG gave a heart rate reading of 47 beats/minute and when you combine the three, she wasn't happy so she sent him off to get a Heart Rate monitor attached for 48hrs to see what happens. He looked like the bionic man with all these wires hanging off him. We will get these results just before Christmas (unless something is really wrong). When he got his blood pressure checked again a few days after doubling his medication, the readings were normal, but the heart rate was 48 this time, which is a bit low.
Will be interested to see what the 48 hr monitoring comes up with.
A very sad event happened in November. Mike Elrick, after being diagnosed in August, with lung cancer, Michael's journey ended when he died of complications from his illness on November 23, 2009.
In Bruce's first semester in Canada, Mike went our of his way to make him feel at home, helping to organise a night at the Woolidge Arms for a beer tasting with the staff. Mike also was part of Bruce's golf team at the end of the semester school social golf event. Unfortunately, this was the last time Bruce got to see Mike since he was diagnosed over the holidays and never returned to school.
It was devastatingly fast and a sad reminder of Gratten and his fight with cancer. Mike was a fit and healthy young man, who left behind a wife and two lovely children.