The last two days were family days for John.  I grew up with 25 cousins, most of whom lived in town and we saw regularly.  And the five American ones came up to visit almost every year.  The only ones I never knew in my youth were the three Scottish cousins.  John, on the other hand had – in total – three cousins. Three.  Two are left now and they both live near Ottawa so we spent time visiting each of them. Tom is the eldest and lives in Smiths Falls.  We drove from Peterborough to Smiths Falls in about three hours including a short lunch stop. Smiths Falls is half way along the Rideau Canal Waterway.Tom and his wife Pat have always been very involved in their community, especially since they moved to Smiths Falls.  Pat, sadly, passed away just over a year ago from pancreatic cancer and there are memorials to her all over town.  Tom gave us the tour of their house which has been in the family for over 100 years and a tour of the town; after which we drove 20 minutes to his cabin at Otty Lake where we spent the night.  A lovely bright moon. We spent the morning with Tom at the cabin and then drove about50 km to Nepean, a suburb of Ottawa (in the pouring rain – again)
to  visit Tom’s brother David and his wife Dale.  We all went out for dinner, including David and Dale’s daughter Amy.   Since they have always lived in Ontario John has not had many visits with these cousins in his lifetime so he was very happy to be able to spend some time with them.