Photos ... Oh, God, so many photos. Yet another of the jobs I should have been doing for an hour a day but neglected so I could read instead. I must have forty years worth of negatives to scan, all carefully jumbled up in an accordion file where they will most certainly stay for the foreseeable future.

The carpenters are hard at work here on Old St. Patrick Street, and our third floor -- one study, two bedrooms and two bathrooms -- is chaos. Arie and Ron, the carpenters, are neat and careful, but everything does have to be pulled away from the walls, and they do have to patch and sand and patch and sand again before even the first coat of paint can be laid. It all takes time, and I hate every minute of it -- not least because I know that every completed room takes us that much closer to putting the house on the market and getting ready to leave Ottawa. The carpenters are amazingly tolerant. I think they've been through this before.

Himself is now two months out from his last day in uniform, and his agenda is filling up with pre-release obligations. Yesterday it was the dental unit, where he was told to use an incredibly expensive fluoride-intense toothpaste because he has "exposed roots". Long in the tooth, are we? Gettit? I hope he makes a date with Clothing Stores soon, for I would love to get the last barrack box out of the cellar, with its contents of desert-pattern combat clothing and winter warfare snugglies. At least the sleeping bag suitable for nuclear winter has gone back, along with the Kevlar helmet, flak jacket and load-carrying equipment. Now, if only he could be persuaded to re-home the accumulation of combat boots. Imelda Marcos had nothing on your typical old soldier.