Thursday, Dec 29th.

This year is fading fast.  Time passes so quickly it seems and so this week there seems to be a lot of focus on life's bounty or the events of the past year.  Into every life a little rain must fall, but these next few days I will be reflecting on the great things in my life.
  The day started out much warmer than we have seen for a while.  The daytime high temp was 76F, a beautiful day indeed.  I went for coffee and donuts.  A few new folks in the park, well not new, but just getting in for the winter season.  There were the usual announcements on activities and information sharing.  They were talking about the information appearing on the tenants FB site and mentioned all the pictures on it.  I think they said no one is anonymous down here any more when I am in the room, LOL.  It's not quite that bad, but we are starting to get lots on the site.  They also want some of the prior year pictures on a DVD so they can play it in the rec hall to share with everyone.  We'll see.
  I went riding with Patrick & Larry and we went out east a ways to see the donkey this morning.  Patrick had some carrots that he fed it and that happens quite a bit.  When anyone comes up to the fence he trots right over, sometimes quietly like to day.  We made about 2 1/2 miles and it was nice to get out riding again.  On our way back into the park we rode by a site where they are pulling the trailer out.  These park models really are trailers and all have axles even if there are no wheels under them.  The owners were just getting rid of it so they could park their motorhome on the lot as there were lots of problems with it.  The guys towing it were having problems as they couldn't raise the hitch enough to get it pinned on, so a bunch of us climbed into the truck box, so that it sat down enough to back under the hitch..
  Marg got out with the gamblin' gals early this morning to go up to the Fort.  It was  a disappointing day as they ran out of cookie jars, so were given a draw entry for a cash prize for a future draw.  Marg had give away the previous 3 cookie jars, so now is without, while the other gals still have the first 3 and are only out the 4th to make a set.  Why anyone needs even 3 escapes me, but I think Marg was planning on keeping this one.  Should have kept the first one I guess.  They had a couple of winners in the group, but unfortunately Marg was the one who was close.  She had a couple of those almost wins, where her winning number was shown on the monitor, just waiting to be called next.  It's kind of a good news/bad news feeling, you know your number is in the bucket, but not out in time.
  I went out and washed the truck.  It doesn't really get dirty, but there was a bit of wet roads in the past while and a bit of spray and some dust kind of builds on it.  It only took $5 at the spray wash and that includes washing the mats and spraying it twice over with spot free rinse.  When I got back the neighbour was doing some plumbing and came over to borrow my pipe cutters.  He was trying to make do with a hacksaw and judging from the amount of water on the ground, not having much luck, so knowing I had these came to borrow.  It's really a common thing here as most of us don't have all the tools we do back home.
  A bite of lunch, had to make my own sandwich today, and off to the pool room.  There were a couple of guys waiting there to see if I showed up, kind of like lions hiding in the bushes waiting for an innocent victim, LOL.  I played for close to 2 hours and have to admit the vultures waiting to play didn't get as many wins as they thought.  It was fun today, but even when I lose, it's usually fun.
  When Marg got back happy hour had already started, but we never went.  It's good to take a break sometimes.  Supper was dining in tonight, a nice stir fry with shrimp and mini-penne with lots of other good stuff in it.  We were kind of tired after, so just sat around.  One of the guys from the animal races stopped by to see if we were OK as we almost never miss.