Comments made at a recent memorial service remind us about the importance of family – not necessarily the family still living north of the border with whom we share DNA, but the one most expatriates form in the community they are living outside their native culture. Sometimes these chosen or collected families become more important to us on a daily basis than the ones into which we were born.

Frankly, 70 years doesn’t seem all that long. I’m not really sure how I got here even though the signs are all there in the mirror (even though I have long since insisted that only pink light is cast on the mirror in front of which I carry on my daily ablutions).

It’s amazing! Waking up this morning to a total black-out clearly induced by the wild electrical storm that passed this way during the night, I figured I’d be in trouble for missing the deadline.