It’s a grey rainy Monday morning in Gold Canyon. Perfect for sleeping in. When I finally rolled out of bed at around eight o’clock and put the coffee on, Sue had already sorted the laundry into several big piles on the bedroom floor.

After reading the Steinbach news online just to make sure the universe was still unfolding as it should, it was time to start up the vacuum cleaner. While I dragged the Dirt Devil around Sue followed with the wet mop. It’s cleaning day at the Nikkel’s’ today. Well, why not? Can’t go golfing in this weather!

Once we had the house clean it was time to take care of our personal appearance — haircut time. Sue exchanged her maid outfit for comb and scissors and soon had me looking presentable.

After lunch Sue got busy in the kitchen, preparing tonight’s supper and baking a blackberry crisp. I stretched out on the couch and started reading the big book Ed H left here for us to read. I may have drifted off a bit as well.

At 4 o’clock our guests arrived. Jim and Bonny left Albuquerque this morning and drove “cross country” through Show-Low to get to our place. They are on their way to Palm Springs for a couple of weeks, and will stay with us for a few days before continuing on to California.

We had a little snack and sat around the table and talked for a while. Then Sue got supper going and we moved to the living room. After we’d eaten we tuned in the curling game on TSN and watched TV and visited. Sue served that crisp she’d made earlier with a scoop of ice cream.

A little after 10 we retired to bed.