I’ve surfaced here in Montréal after a very short weekend in Napanee, Ontario visiting with Catherine’s family.

My Air Canada experience up was phenomenal — flight attendant Dale should win Employee of the Year for his grace and humour — and arrived 7 minutes later after departing 32 minutes late (I didn’t know you could “make it up in the air” in a Dash 8).

Once I hit the ground things took a slight turn for the worse: luggage took 30 minutes to make its way to the carousel, and I got an extremely high pressure insurance up-sell from the Thrifty clerk (including all sorts of “you know that if you get into an accident you’ll have to buy the car from us right away” and so on). I made my way through all that unscathed, although I noticed that he “helpfully” included a fuel pre-sale on my invoice for me.

The rental car — a brand new Toyota Yaris hatchback — is a thing of beauty and I zipped down the 401 to Napanee and back on one tank of gas exactly, which means I got about 6 litre/100 km.

It was about 3 and a half hours to Napanee from Dorval, getting me there just after 11:00 p.m. Oliver was surprised, to say the least, to see me there when he woke up in the morning.

Sunday night in Napanee we were off to Catherine’s grandparents’ 40th wedding anniversary, a celebration all the more celebratory as it is the second marriage for both.

And then, almost before I arrived I was back on the 401. Arrived here in Montreal at Noon exactly, and have spent the afternoon fomenting organizational revolution with Bill.

Back to the Island Wednesday; more revolution tomorrow.