The time on my hands

What do you do with three weeks off?

That’s my conundrum today as I begin the longest summer vacation I have ever taken.

In this period of global pandemic, there’s no place to go.

When I made the decision to take these three weeks off, our plan was to travel as our new group of five – Jackie and her daughter Mackenzie, myself and my two daughters Alannah and Ashley-Rae. Her family in St. John’s Newfoundland had reached out to invite us all and we all agreed to jump at the chance of such an adventure.

An adventure for sure for me and the Brill Girls, but for Jac and Mackenzie it would be a great visit back home.

Jac was telling us all of the great sites we would see – like icebergs floating down past the oceans edge of town – and the beautiful rolling landscapes – and all the great people she loves that we would meet. And we all got excited. The pictures all look so beautiful.

“We’ll drive” explained Jac, “It’s a long drive but it’s all so beautiful. And we will ride the ferry overnight to the island province”.

“How long does the ferry take?” asked Alannah.

“About nine hours, and I hate boats”, laughed Jackie. “But we will be there for St. John’s three weeks of summer”

So I booked my three weeks and two days off from work or the long trip.

And then the pandemic got worse instead of better.

Now we have rules like wearing masks in public places and social distancing of six feet and social bubbles of no more than ten people and washing and sanitizing everything you touch.

Some of the provinces in our path out east instituted rules like if you enter that province you have to self-isolate for ten days before you can carry on with your trip. How would they be able to enforce that? I don’t know. Do I want to find out? No – not with the kids with us anyway.

It would have been adventure though - like the old Smokey and the Bandit movie. Only we would be the illegal cargo instead of Coors beer.

Imagine us driving down the Trans-Canada highway – reaching a roadblock at the Quebec – Nova Scotia border – a Gleeson-like provincial police officer complete with polaroid sunglasses standing in the middle of the highway with a bullhorn for us to pull over, and Jackie swerving to the right to heading for a flatbed trailer parked on the shoulder with its rear end down on the ground – like the perfect jump ramp – and Jackie shouting to us all to “hang on – this is going to be fun”.

“Yeee-Hawww” I would shout as the SUV flew through the air.

After the airborne Dodge Durango landed with a couple of bounces, she would have to lose the RCMP chasing us on horseback she would ride down into the valley of the median and up the other side of the highway that people heading west would use – swerving between the oncoming traffic – and the moose and elk that just naturally wander out on the highway.

That would be an adventure.

“Now that’s just stupid” Jackie will say when she reads this.

“I don’t know”, I’ll reply “you’re a pretty crazy driver”

“But now we will never know” I would say before she had a chance to get mad.

Besides, the police would have caught us at the ferry anyway.

So now I’m trying hard to think of what to do for fun on this three weeks of vacation.

“Work on your house Fred” everyone will say.

Everyone will say that.

And everyone would be right. I have a list so long of all the things I need to do – both inside and out. De-tangling it from the past to open it up to the future. Rooms to clear out and carpets to clean or pull out and replace with other flooring. The garage is a horrible collection of things sat down quickly to get them out of the car or another room in the house. A couple of trees to cut down or pull out on the north side of the house. An old car to clean up and sell. A spare room downstairs to clean out to use as my work-from-home office in three weeks’ time. Painting and multiple trips to the dump.

The list is daunting. Overwhelming in fact.

Well, the problem of what to do is solved.

I wonder if three weeks is enough?