So, here we are: three weeks on from all the drama of the end of June, and a week away from the Garden Party. I’m doing OK, thank you. I got the all-clear from my family doctor, and am driving again, and managing to walk around a bit. I’m still a bit restricted in that I can’t lift heavy things or make strange reaching motions with my left arm, but on the plus side I’ve been able to further exercise my supervisory skills. Much to the joy of my wife and daughter. 😊

The garden is starting to look nice and I’m really looking forward to this year’s party. In case you’ve missed the invitation, the 8th Annual Garden Party is this coming weekend, Sunday 28 July (1.00 to 5.00 pm). If you haven’t received an invitation but would like to join us, please drop me a line (via the comments) and I’ll send you the details.

This year we have music by three talented sets of musicians (Gary, Marcus and Shannon; Jorge and Luis; Gordon and Todd) plus a Strawberry Social courtesy of the Uigg-Kinross-Grandview Women’s Institute. And tents. And porta-potties! It’s all free, of course, but we will gladly accept donations.

This is all a bit more up-market than usual, but for a reason. The 2024 Garden Party marks 50 years since a couple of important things happened. First, Sally took 33 young people from remote fishing villages on the north shore of the St. Lawrence across Canada, by bus. A few weeks ago, we were in a place called St. Paul’s River, on the Lower North Shore of Labrador, where we met with some of those students. It was wonderful to hear them talking about the trip, their memories, and the myriads of ways in which it changed their lives. From Vancouver the kids were flown home, and Sally flew out to Papua New Guinea to start a two-year contract with CUSO.

The same year, 1974, I graduated from Teachers’ College and taught for a year in England before joining friends on the traditional “Kathmandu for Christmas’ odyssey in an old VW van purchased from Australians in Earls Court. Don’t roll your eyes like that; it’s what you did, in the Seventies! I left my friends in Turkey, travelled alone to glorious Isfahan, hitchhiked home from Tehran, and went out to teach in Papua New Guinea, where I met Sally.

Our work has taken us around the world where we’ve had all sorts of grand adventures from Australasia to the Arctic, on four continents, and from coast to coast to coast across Canada. We’re honoured that friends and colleagues from around the globe and from all five decades are coming to Grandview for the Garden Party, and we hope that many others will join us for what promises to be a weekend of tall tales and epic sagas, some of them with a modicum of truth.

I’ll let them introduce themselves to you at the party, but I’m looking forward to reminiscing with so many people who have impacted our lives in so many ways. The friend who attended college with me, actually bought the van, and then allowed me to join the group, a man I’ve not seen for 40 years; a friend we knew in the Sepik, and others we taught with in the highlands of Papua New Guinea, who we visited in Queensland last year; people with whom I worked on a six year CIDA-funded education development project in Kosovo, retired now and coming from Alberta, New Brunswick, and Newfoundland; friends, colleagues, ex-colleagues and ex-students from universities in England and across Canada; and others who’ve said “I’ll try to surprise you”, people from Antigonish and Calgary, from all over the place.

It’s going to go incredibly fast, this next week, as we delve into memories and argue the details of what constitutes ‘truth’. On the one hand, I know what I remember, and that’s truth enough for me! On the other hand, I am not oblivious to the fact that people remember things in different ways, and that there is no absolute truth in anything except the moment. In some instances, I have home court advantage, boxes of memorabilia waiting for that quiet time in my life when I can cobble together a memoir. I have photographs, diaries, even letters, that I can pull out and present as ‘evidence’ should that be needed. But that takes a lot of fun out of reminiscing, the person who insists on their reality and shouts down all alternatives.

Most times I shall probably smile, agree, and know in my heart that I’m right. That’s the beauty of a weekend like this; I’m really looking forward to spending a few days looking back.