Beautiful service

 Yesterday's service yesterday was quite beautiful, the chorister's chanting of the Psalm particularly well done (and it is wonderful to have that musical support all summer long whilst the choirs are taking a break) and the baptismal service always welcomed in the Church. Being a downtown Church there are few children in the congregation (although I am just looking in online) but that is usual not to find so many small children in a large cathedral Church (although the children's choirs are a good size but they draw from all over the city).  It was a beautiful start to a day that was meant to see us at a hockey game in the evening. But events came together that prevented that lovely family meeting. My daughter had to suddenly cover Emergency because someone else did not arrive to do their time not unusual for her to cover as she was Chief of Emergency in a northern Hospital for ten years plus and did step in because of weather, illness or whatever to cover when a shift was not being covered. Her hospital never closed their emergency and still she does cover emergency there on occasion which is nice for her former patients but the need for a more efficient education for her youngest necessitated the move. But I distract, a shipment not expected until today was listed as arriving and it could not sit out in the hot sun so we waited for it and then by the time it arrived it was just too late to go. I hate to miss events like that; they come to me just sometimes until I move closer to family. At 80 those days are truly numbered but I enjoy the pictures and our infrequent times together. But it was a lovely Sunday anyway with two Church services. We had actually had a planned outing Saturday with family that did happen but the road was so busy that it took us twice as long to get there). We took the long way home around the city but certainly the traffic jam was not in the way. One's time with family always very limited in our busy world; my fault many times as I work away on the books that I want to get written and I do not drive the car on the highway. I can but I have decided to limit myself in my driving. My refresher of going through all the rules of the road actually unnecessary as I was not tested but still it was good to review the rules of the road and it did encourage me somewhat to do highway driving. Perhaps I will go out on the highways once again time will tell. Once the train is in that will be helpful but we are looking at a few years for that to be complete. But we keep in touch daily with notes back and forth; the wonder of the internet. 

Staying away from the news feed for a bit; I can do nothing about the events that swirl around us. I can have opinions because we all can that is our right; this is a democracy. In particular people who march up and down claiming wrong against them (spouting hate language which is a crime in this country) need to be corrected if they are telling lies to our children or threatening children/adults in their rampages. Then there are the truly wronged people the Rohingyas who still  are without a home of their own greatly desiring to grow their own food and build a life but no place to do it. I feel sad for them actually; they have suffered attack after attack on their people with many deaths but very little support. The United Nations does need to re-evaluate their usage of money that supports failing societies and encourage them to do more for themselves (put timelines on support) so that truly needy people like the Rohingyas get proper support. The world's people are not a big piggy bank - available support money is limited. 

But moving on in my work getting the matches done and I have worked through another dozen or so adding them to my databases. A couple were significant as I did not have matches in that particular area before and having matches in an area where 100% of my family lines originated makes a big difference increasing the likelihood of a match one hundred fold. Still wondering if 23 and Me will provide chromosomal information in the near future; their imagery was particularly good as they provided charts that showed with a siblings result the matches on both parental chromosomes adding that extra dimension to the result. 

Today is the first cleaning day and it is the upstairs and will get to that in a couple of hours. The last few days have been extremely warm for this part of the world - temperatures soaring into the high 30s celsius and the Humidex in the 40s. The smoke has dissipated somewhat but the forest fires still rage across Canada (and some in the United States now). But the land is tinder dry here and no fires permitted but still people just cast away a cigarette butt in areas where smoking is not permitted. How foolish and ignorant of them. We saw some when we were last kayaking on the  stones in the parking lot just a couple of feet away from the forested area - the roots of the trees stretch for miles and a root fire is the worst of all and hardest to put out. Pay attention people to what you are doing.