Yesterday, I delivered the Indian rug and a laundry basket full of bed linen to the niblings in London and braved the opening day frenzy at Fanshawe College to pay the last installment of Logan’s residence fees.

Their mother, Niece No. 1, pinged me in despair at 0800 hr asking for an e-transfer of twice as much as one is allowed to send by e-transfer so she could pay the outstanding balance. She had previously told me that this lump wasn’t due until October, but what the hell — it’s hard to get details from a panicked person who communicates by Facebook Messenger. I was going to London anyhow for a choir meeting and the linen delivery to Logan’s sister Faith at Western, so I added Fanshawe to the itinerary and prepared for a trying day.

The Fanshawe campus was just nuts, crowded with wandering packs of students and half the streets blocked for an outdoor rally that had its epicentre less than 100 metres from the bursar’s office. Finding a legal parking spot required a bolt of sheer luck, but I paid for that by having to deal with the B team at the bursar’s office, a sweet young woman with a whispering voice who did not know how to persuade her computer to churn out a receipt. I flatly refused to walk away without a receipt after forking over several thousand dollars, so she had to sit there and damned well figure it out in all the noisy turmoil while I stood at the wicket and glared.

I was 15 minutes late to the meeting after getting stuck in a tailback on Fanshawe Park Road. It was so bad that drivers desperate to turn right resorted to the bike lane, where no cyclist with the brains God gave a goose would be. After looking around for cops, I followed suit. Yet another reason to drive a sub-compact car.

Young Faith met me bang on time at the rendez-vous and we hauled the rug and basket of linen up to her room. The residence was strongly reminiscent of a barrack I lived in forty-five years ago. There was an elevator and each room had its own bathroom and closet, but the way our voices bounced off the blank institutional walls and the whiff of hospital-strength floor cleaner were just the same.

Home again to the cats and a supper of cold chicken and an enormous field tomato, then a couple of hours with Stephen King’s new book before hitting the sack.

Pool class today, and an afternoon of hauling music out of the choir’s storage area in the basement of an architect’s office. Lots of stairs — good for the legs.