From the front window at The Gallery on Great George, a quick ballpoint pen sketch of a painter at work.

Every now and again I find myself in need of something from the hardware store, and the handiest, Home Hardware, is conveniently a short cycle from home.

The challenge of cycling there from my house is that it means cycling up either Longworth Avenue and St. Peters Road, or up Kensington Road, none of which are particularly cycle-friendly (there are wide cycle lanes on St. Peters Road, but also a lot of sneaky sunken sewer grates).

I discovered a much quieter “back way” to Home Hardware on the weekend:

Take the Confederation Trail from Joe Ghiz Park, then, after you pass Kensington Road and are running in back of the How Bazaar building, veer right onto a dirt trail that connect to a parking lot that connects to the intersection of Belmont Street and Dresden Court.

Take Dresden Court north as it turns into 2nd Street; when you get to J. Frank MacAulay Park, take the paved trail right through the heart of the park, emerging onto Owen Terrace. Take Owen Terrace north to St. Pius X, turn left, and when you reach St. Peters Road it’s a quick jog up to Home Hardware.

Here’s the GeoJSON of the route I took (one of a growing collection of GeoJSON Collectibles).

For the route back, I opted to brave the sneaky sewer grates and fly down St. Peters Road to Euston, Euston to Prince, and Prince to Home.

The cycle out to Home Hardware took 12 minutes; the cycle back home took 9 minutes.

In my early days and weeks on PEI, in the spring of 1993, I sold my Ford F100 pickup and replaced it with an aging Nissan Sentra wagon. I asked around for a good place to have the Sentra inspected, and I was directed across the Hillsborough Bridge to a place that was cheaper and more flexible than what I’d find in Charlottetown.

Which is how I found myself coming across the bridge in a taxi a few hours after dropping off the car to pick it back up. My taxi driver pointed out that just off the bridge to the right was a collection of playful seals.

Every single time I’ve crossed the Hillsborough Bridge in the 28 years since I’ve looked for seals in the river, and since that one time, in the taxi, I’ve never, ever seen them again.

Until Saturday: Olivia and I were out cycling, and on our way back we were stopped by a couple sitting on a park bench in front of Friendly Pharmacy who pointed out a collection of playful seals, in exactly the same spot I’d seen them oh those many years ago.

This time I had a camera in my pocket to document the scene.

My therapist and I were talking about relationships—romantic and otherwise—and she offhandedly mentioned that an important part of the bedrock of relationships is sharing common interests.

This came as something of a surprise to me, and that fact helped explain why I got flummoxed trying to describe the nature of what I quest to Bumble: it never occurred to me that it might be as simple as revealing what it is I like to do, what makes me happy.

(As a side note: if there were as many beach bonfires on PEI as women who list beach bonfires among their favourite things to do in their online dating profiles, there would be a lot more beach bonfires. I have never been to a beach bonfire.)

This revelation led my therapist to ask me to describe what I would do if presented with an unfettered day.

My answer: I would be in a European capital city; there would be a lot of eating; and wandering about so as to cultivate happenstance; the public library would be visited, perhaps an art gallery or a museum; multiple book, magazine and stationery shops; stops for coffee and reading the newspaper; an open-air cinema to close the day. No bonfires.

This, in turn, reminded me that public libraries exist, something I’d all but forgotten (contact tracing at the library entrance, understandable given COVID, rains on a fundamental conceit of public libraries: free and open anonymous access).

So I decided to unforget the public library, and ordered up a copy of Needing to Know for Sure: A CBT-Based Guide to Overcoming Compulsive Checking and Reassurance Seeking, a book possibly recommended to me by my other therapist (she recommended the authors; I guessed at the book).

I picked up the book this week, my first library loan in many many months. It turned out to be one of those books the details of which didn’t scratch my particular itches, but the broad strokes of which were very helpful. Witness these section titles:

• Living in a World of Maybe and Good Enough
• Living Well Although Bad Things Happen and We All Die
• Without Uncertainty, Creativity is Lost
• Excitement and Anxiety are Related
• Certainty is a Feeling, Not a Fact
• Learning Mindful Acceptance of Discomfort

Writing those out, I’m thinking maybe it was the book recommended to me after all. At the very least, “Learning Mindful Acceptance of Discomfort” is a notion that will feed me for some time.

I returned the book this afternoon and, the library die now being cast, I went hog wild and borrowed four more:

• “You’re in the Wrong Bathroom!”: And 20 Other Myths and Misconceptions About Transgender and Gender-Nonconforming People — to help me understand more about the context into which Olivia emerges.
• A Happy Life in an Open Relationship — I’ve never been able to grok open relationships, and don’t find myself drawn to the notion, so an opportunity to learn, unencumbered by an actual relationship as I am.
• The End of Normal: A Wife’s Anguish, A Widow’s New Life — an autobiographical book written by Bernie Madoff’s widowed daughter-in-law.
• Tools of Titans — although The 4 Hour Workweek was an important and helpful book, the expanded Tim Ferris cinematic universe that has followed has been of little interest; borrowing this hefty tome is my attempt to put that to a conclusive test.

In the meantime, what with all the bonfire-loving Island women seeking bonfire-loving soulmates, I’ve decided to try to get better at simply being single, and to that end, I’ve booked myself dinner and a room for one at the Inn at Bay Fortune for the end of the month. I’ve no idea how a romantic seaside dinner for one actually works. But I’ll find out.

Today was the official start of cycling season in our family: we headed out over the Hillsborough Bridge pathway as far as construction allowed (to the Stratford end of the navigation span). It was glorious, and I’m so looking forward to the day—reported to be June 30—when we can cycle all the way across.

“Sex and the Island”: Lives of Single Women in Prince Edward Island, a 2011 Island Studies Journal article by Kristie Collins:

This article considers the significance attributed to Prince Edward Island in managing a marginalized single female identity, as presented by accounts of thirty never-married and previously-married Island women, aged twenty-seven through sixty-five. As popular media and social narratives overwhelmingly position contemporary single women against an urban backdrop, the question arises as to whether unmarried Island women feel “marooned” in ways their urban counterparts may not. In accordance with feminist aims to produce research for, rather than about, women’s lives, the paper focuses on two themes from fieldwork interviews that were of particular interest to participants. The first theme relates to negotiating female singleness within the Island’s family-centered culture, and the second theme presents participants’ talk around advantages and disadvantages of living in Prince Edward Island, Canada, as single women. The paper concludes with a summary of other findings from the study and suggestions for future research on female singleness and island locales.

Every year in May the yellow tulips bloom.

We have rhubarb growing in our front garden. How did it get there? No idea.

But: rhubarb pie!

Did you know rhubarb pie has only three ingredients!? Rhubarb. Flour. Sugar. Presto!

While I was hauling up the summer tires from the basement–one of my least favourite activities of the season–I noticed a roll of copper tucked in a back corner, a vestige of Catherine’s career as a metalsmith that likely got set there when we moved into the house in 2000 and never revisited.

Having no need for a roll of copper, and having acquainted myself with the wonders of A&S Scrap Metals over the winter, I planned an impromptu field trip with Olivia late yesterday afternoon.

The roll of copper turned out to be 30 pounds of copper, and netted us $126 (at $4.20 a pound).

It turns out that, by happenstance, I timed this deal perfectly, as the price of copper reached an all time high yesterday.

A&S is located out by the airport. It can be seem an intimidating place to visit, but the staff are super-helpful, even if you have no idea what you’re talking about.