Happy Holidays!

In lieu of the usual Christmas round-robin letter, I am making a year-end blog post. This allows me to include a lot of pictures.

Hopefully, by Christmas, there will be a full page here with details of the past year so that I can remember what happened and anyone interested can read the details.

As I work on this, it makes me very grateful for all the activities and travel I was able to participate in this year. I have been blessed with another year of good health and have the time and resources to be able to travel extensively. I have been able to do things with my family, with my Port Hope hiking cub, with Toronto Nature Stewards, and to continue my advocacy for safer nicotine products by working with PMI and BAT. So, what did I do?

Let’s begin with some pictures of a snowfall in March, walking from home to the Evergreen Brickworks where I sometimes volunteer.

I took a winter break in St Lucia with Meg, Kate, and one of her friends. We ended having dinner on Valentine,s Day at the Smugglers’ Cove beach, the site of our first vacation together.

In early spring, we took a road trip through Pennsylvania to the E-Cigarette Summit in Washington, DC.

With three friends, I went on a fantastic one-day spring canoe outing to paddle through a flooded forest.

In spring, I went hiking in the Azores with friends from my Port Hope hiking club. We hiked both along the coast and in the volcanic mountains.

A long summer European vacation including the Global Forum on Nicotine in Warsaw, Northern Italy (Venice, Padua, Florence, Milan and Como) and Switzerland (Zermatt, Interlaken and Gimmelwald.

Warsaw:

Italy:

Switzerland:

In October, there was the Frontenac Challenge – I led a team of six hikers to complete 117 km of trails in a provincial park near Kingston.

In November, I got a last-minute invitation for a quick trip to the UK for the London for the UK E-Cigarette Summit. I was able to take side trips to Eltahm, Woolich, Reading, Greenham Common and to see my sister in Norwich.

My activities as a Lead Steward for Leaside Park with Toronto Nature Stewards kept me busy when I was in Toronto. This is a group that removes garbage and invasive species from City of Toronto parks, as the City does not have the resources to do so effectively. I was a volunteer with them at my local Roxborough Parkette in 2023, took their training over the winter and have been Lead Steward at the 1-acre Leaside Park this year. My team of volunteers has been very effective at removing buckthorn and other species. We are hoping that in 2024, we will get another acre to look after and be allowed to add some new native plants to the park.

The family is all doing well. Meg got an injection in her arthritic knee that was almost miraculous in its effectiveness, so she walked miles in Europe without any problems. She also attends aqua-fit and walks with various friends.

The kids:

Grant and Kate each survived a bout of Covid, as did I. Grant continues to work for Ada, a company that makes “chat-bots” for websites. He has moved into marketing and survived many layoffs. He wrote the speech that the Chief Product Officer gave in San Fransisco and has also travelled widely, most recently via the Azores, to be MC at a wedding in a Portuguese vineyard. Kate is now the Influencer Marketing Manager for Endy, an online mattress company. She actually enjoys being the boss, hiring people, and managing employees rather than having to wrangle influencers herself. She has got heavily involved in a running club and ran a 5km race in under 30 minutes, which is apparently a landmark achievement for an amateur runner.

Both kids live alone in condominiums (flats owned by the occupant, who pays rent for the common facilities and exterior maintenance) in downtown areas that suit them. Grant lives near two parks and Roncesvalles, a major high street with a good range of shops and restaurants. Kate lives in a huge building in Liberty Village, a former factory area now very popular with young people with lots of bars and a good range of other shops.

As far as plans for 2024 go, we have booked a flight to Los Angeles for January. We will rent a car and visit Santa Barbara, Palm Springs, Joshua Tree and San Diego.

We plan to spend most of the summer in Ontario, enjoying our cottage and the hot, sunny weather.

However, in June, we are planning a trip to Denmark, Sweden and Latvia. We will drive an electric car around Copenhagen, Malmo, and Gothenburg, then take the ferry to Skaagen, Aarhus and Odense. After returning to Copenhagen, we will fly to Riga in Latvia for three days to add a new country to our travels.

In September, I am hoping to hike 450 km in Northern Spain, taking the original “Primitivo” pilgrimage route from Oviedo to Santiago, then the Camino Finisterre to the coast and along the Coast of Death on the Lighthouse Route to Muxia. If anyone wants to join me for part of that route, I would appreciate the company.

Sadly, I am not planning on visiting the UK in 2024. My sister and her husband are coming to visit us in Ontario for a few days, and they are the only close family I have left in the UK.

Best wishes for a great Christmas and all the best for 2024,

John