November 9th 1981

I managed to crawl out of bed respectably early today, giving Brent + Robbie a shock.  Robbie left shortly afterwards – he was going back to Campbell River.  It had been good having him around.  As Liz said, he thought about what he said, + didn’t try to bullshit, which certainly makes a refreshing change from many people that one meets.  On the debit side, he can be fussy about things, + so be rather annoying.  After he’d gone + we finished breakfast, we looked around a thrift shore down by the beach.  It was a good one too, packed with all sorts of stuff, tho’ not all of the best quality, eg leaky teapots, pine cones.  However, Val + I didn’t find anything that was of use to us – L + B bought some clothes, + I persuaded Brent to buy a bottle-cutter – it was something that fascinated me, + it turned out he felt the same way.

Next job was some exercise – they needed a good-sized chopping block to split logs on, so we strolled up + down the washed-up logs on the beach until we found a decent specimen – then set to work with the cross-saw.  It was quite hard work, but we divided into two teams (male + female) + really it was good fun.  We rewarded ourselves with fish + chips, but unfortunately the good shop was shut, + the café we made do with served greasy food.  Ho hum.

Back to the house, where Val + I sawed logs for Brent to split on his new chopping block.  In the evening, we played cards, but for once we didn’t drink – we must’ve ended up drunk virtually every night for the past two weeks.  First of all we played euchre, which Brent didn’t like (tho’ partly I would think because Val + I beat Liz + him pretty comfortably.)  Then we switched to contract whist, which just about took us to bed-time.  Somewhere along the way we ate a sort of macaroni cheese concoction that Brent made – it was good.

Robbie first – I am pleased that the final comment about Robbie was positive, (and provided by Liz), as I don’t think I have done him justice, for he really was a gentle, kind man. This was to be the last time we met him; though we have continued our relationship with Brent and Liz, they lost touch – or ended the relationship – with Robbie, shortly after this point.

The bottle-cutter was interesting – like Brent, I was intrigued by the adverts I had seen on TV (my memory suggests K-Tel or Ronco as the purveyors of such gadgets) and the possibilities it provided of unlimited glassware. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a very dubious product, mostly providing unusable glasses that would cut your mouth open.