Sterling Stratton died this week.

When I landed on Prince Edward Island for a job interview at the PEI Crafts Council in the winter of 1993, one of the first people I met was Sterling. 

Sterling was Secretary of the Council’s board of directors at the time; an active and engaged director, his membership was by virtue of his work as a pyrographer, an avocation he’d taken on with great enthusiasm.

I got the job, and, over the years that followed, Sterling popped in and out of my life at regular intervals.

Our worlds overlapped again when I was President of PEI Home and School Federation: Sterling was an educator through and through, and knew the world of education from the inside out, having worked as a teacher, principal, school superintendent, and union representative (I remember him telling me once that the reason that PEI teachers don’t have the right to strike is because of a deal he and former Premier Alex Campbell worked out when Sterling was tasked with developing a collective agreement at the birth of the PEI Teachers Federation).

Sterling didn’t set aside his deep interest in education after retirement, and he was a frequent source of wise counsel to me at Home and School, offering advice on everything from the right size of a school board (he maintained that the perfect size was small enough to have parents connected to education in their communities, but large enough that individual families couldn’t rally to have a teacher dismissed) to how to cultivate relationships among parents, students, teachers, and administrators. Sterling had very strong ideas about the best way to elect school trustees, and that we returned to elected school boards last year is something that, behind the scenes, he played an important advisory role in.

Outside of education, Sterling was a talented artist, and a skilled pitchman: he transitioned from working in wood burning to working with pen and ink, and he sketched more than his fair share of Prince Edward Island churches, important buildings, and houses (including our own), self-publishing a series of books that will serve history well.

Sterling was a man of great humour, incisive wit, uncommon frankness, bold imagination.

He spoke up.

I will miss him.

In advance of our trip to Europe I ordered three prepaid SIM cards from Orange—the Orange Holiday Europe 20GB package. This included 20GB of data, 1,000 international SMS, and two hours of international voice, and cost €40.

I’ve no doubt we could have done better with a prepaid SIM bought locally once we landed, but knowing we’d be connected as soon as we landed was a comfort, as was having our French telephone numbers in-hand before leaving.

Here at the departure gate, after 14 days travel, where I didn’t give a second thought to my data budget and promiscuously streamed videos and music, I end the trip with 12GB leftover, meaning I used just over ½GB a day on average.

I am left with 996 SMS to my credit, and 90 minutes of talk time. For what it’s worth, the three of us went through one tube of shared toothpaste in the same two weeks and did laundry three times (once in a laundromat and twice in apartments).

My “flights climbed” count went from an average of 17/day to 81/day while on vacation. Yes, climbing the Eiffel Tower bumped up the average, but there’s a lot of stairs climbing in regular everyday city navigation.

We squeezed in an extra day in Lyon over the weekend, which was lovely, as Lyon is a lovely walkable city and our hotel — the Pilo in Croix-Rousse — was in a lovely walkable neighbourhood.

On Sunday afternoon we jetted north on an Italian Frecciarossa train to Paris at 300 km/h, door to door in just over 2 hours.

Sunday evening was a quick supper at the wonderfully chaotic playground that is Ground Control—bars, restaurants, video arcade, bookstore, thrift shop, all to a pulsing backbeat—followed by a walk up the Eiffel Tower at sunset (it was a lot easier to walk up when Olivia and I did it 14 years ago).

Amidst all the epic to and fro, the things I’ll remember the most are those like breakfast with Lisa and L this morning in our tiny apartment, eating muesli with yoghurt and clementine slices and making up combination words (like birdbowl, a new game involving specially trained pigeons, and footcase, an iPhone case with toes).

Our trip comes to an end tomorrow: we fly home via Montréal. This trip has been delightful; being on the road has been a much-delayed, much-needed break.

I left L&L to adventure on my own this afternoon, heading to Bois de Vincennes by bus, and then grabbing a Vélib’ to cycle through the park. The Vélib’ system was very easy to use: I downloaded the app to my iPhone, signed up for a 1 day subscription for €3, entered my ID and PIN on the keypad of an electric bicycle, and I was off. I covered a lot of ground—almost 10 km—and it felt like I had the entire forest to myself most of the time. I love cycling so much: it feels like flying, especially when riding electric-assisted. The weather was perfect for a ride today. I’m so glad I took the time.

Out for a morning walk in Lyon with L&L. Warm. Sunny. Found a market. Had coffee.

La Basilique Notre Dame de Fourvière and La Tour métallique de Fourvière in Lyon, through a passageway that runs through the corner of a building.

Sometimes EV charging exigencies call for drastic measures. To McDonald’s France credit, every single piece of packaging on our tray was compostable or reusable, including the French fry container.

“I hope it’s ok that I checked with Myriam to see if we could go horseback riding in the morning,” said Lisa, as I came into the tiny house. Which is how we found ourselves on horseback yesterday, wending our way through mountain forests and meadows. I was atop Tina, a horse prone to breaking into a trot to catch up to Océane, our host. This was equal parts thrilling and terrifying (especially as I was riding English for the first time).

Having a partner who’s willing and eager to bilaterally yes& with me like this makes travel a delight.