Paul’s presentation to the Restorative Justice conference in Parksville yesterday went off without a hitch. I had advised him to run short rather than long on his presentation. The other two panel presenters work professionally as criminologists, one on the Island and the other in Lower Mainland, and their presentations were much more academically oriented, so Paul’s stark and brief words elicited a lot of questions. This allowed Paul to shine, as he speaks with assurance and smoothness when he’s not reading off a tiny glass screen. To ease the times he had to consult his notes on the tablet the version I sent him had a simply monstrous type face, and he was grateful for that.
I don’t know much about anything, but I know that middle aged men want a damn big serif font.
Paul picked me up at 7:30 am (I’d been up since 2:30, sigh), I drove us to the Horseshoe Bay Ferry, we broke fast on the ferry, we got into Nanaimo and drove right to Parksville in the glorious sunshine, got oriented and parked at the hotel, went for an amazing walk along the spectacular boardwalk fronting the hotel, found (and walked) the painted and decorated labyrinth on the concrete end of the boardwalk (which I had researched more than ten years ago but forgotten about – I put together a list of all the labyrinths in BC as part of a service yonks ago), came back and had a wonderful lunch in a quiet restaurant overlooking the water, listened to the end of their Annual General Meeting, and then Paul made his presentation. He tried to call me up and I just laughed and said I was there to take notes. As expected lots of people approached Paul afterward for further comments, but we’d built that into the schedule.
Then we drove to his Cousin Ruth’s place where she and Garry fed us the fresh wild caught spring salmon of wisdom, the taters of sustenance, the homebrewed beer of amber glory, the carrots of nom, the salad of little bits of things from the garden including nasturtium and borage flowers, the last corn of the season and unsweetened gluten free pie with whipped cream which I didn’t eat because at the point all I could think about was “the tragic and explosive death of Mr. Creosote”. This meal was served to us on less than two hours’ notice, so there’s that to add to the pile of amazeballs it truly was. The garden tour yielded a bag of heritage apples and a pocketful of fresh basil.
Then a quick and easy 20 minute drive back to the ferry, where our reservation awaited and we had an uneventful trip home and I was in bed by 10 although I was too buzzed to sleep right away.
It truly was a glorious day, and I’m glad I was there. I am so proud of Paul I could burst. And doesn’t he have the nicest relatives??
