Hello all

We have made it through another pandemic year, another year that has crawled by remarkably quickly, and one that has been quite eventful for us despite what felt like long periods of restrictions. France's restrictrions were tough. At times we were limited to an hour of outdoor activity, no more than 1 km from home, but fortunately chocolate, wine, flowers, and eventually books, were all deemed essential and many of these shops stayed open. Vive la France! 

After a rough 2020, we were pretty happy with France’s response to the pandemic. Restrictions seemed generally appropriate and timely. We were able to begin getting vaccinated in April and were able to return to a much more normal life with the introduction of the passe sanitaire (health pass) in August. 

As Europe began to (re)re-open in the summer, we were finally able to take the three-week trip to Ireland that we had been rescheduling for over a year.  Ireland opened it’s borders on July 17 and we landed that very morning after an overnight ferry crossing.  Our holiday began with a week of warm sunny weather, unusual for Ireland but very welcome as indoor dining wasn't available for another week and Ireland doesn’t have the same outdoor dining culture as, say, Greece.  For the remaining two weeks, the weather reverted back to the rainier Irish norm, but despite this, we enjoyed hikes around the stunningly beautiful countryside and ancient sites. 

Not long after our trip to Ireland, we enjoyed visits from some of the kids, something we sorely missed in 2020.  Meghan arrived at the end of August and joined us on a weekend trip to Madrid for a christening (family friends).  Not longer after, we climbed into the car and headed for Zagreb where we met Lauren & Collin.  We happily ate and toured our way across Croatia and Italy before sending Meghan home from Milan, returning to Paris with Lauren & Collin who stayed with us until early October.   That naturally brings us to what everyone is doing. 

Meghan & David remain in Montréal.  They were working from home throughout the pandemic and their pandemic jobs seemed to have run their courses.  Meghan was with Keywords Studios, testing software, and has recently resigned to pursue other yet-to-be-discovered options.  David was with with Cerence (in-car voice/AI development), and has now left that to work at Keywords Studios. 

Gosaye continues to work his way up at the PepsiCo warehouse in Ottawa. Work has been steady, even with the pandemic. We need our Pepsi products! He was among those who got himself a pandemic pet, a lovely, lively dog named Lucy. 

Biniyam, a DJ at the country western bar Outlaws in Saskatoon, has been most effected by the pandemic.  He has been in and out of work for months, mostly out, and currently they have recently been closed again, hoping to re-open before Christmas.  We understand he’s been maintaining his health and sanity by running laps around Saskatoon, literally. 

Lauren & Collin continue in Kingston where Collin is working on his Ph.D. in philosophy at Queens.  Lauren, meanwhile, has graduated with her masters in occupational therapy and has just begun a job working to help clients suffering PTSD to get back to their jobs.  In other news, Lauren took advantage of their ‘last trip’ to Paris (while we lived there) to propose to Collin.  They are now officially affianced, but with no immediate wedding plans. 

That brings us around to us…  Andrew finished up his job with the NEA (OECD) on October 15 and is now re-retired.  We had our household goods packed up that very same day and tracked our container as it made its way onto a ship and across the Atlantic to Montréal.  We took a few weeks to travel to Corsica and Sardinia, enjoying the food, wines, rugged landscapes and history of both islands while our shipment was on the move. We were fortunate to have no major delays as shipping has been badly impacted by the pandemic.  So what’s next for Andrew?  Is he really retired?  We will see. And Leslie? Looking forward to getting back to the Valley Artisans' Coop and some of her other Deep River activities.