For those of you from south of the 45th parallel and who might not have any idea what Boxing Day is, no, it has nothing to do with getting into a ring and beating the daylights out of someone, rather it is something from the UK in which Boxing Day was traditionally the day that parcels would be sent and that you would normally give the postman a tip or present for his or her hard work on your behalf all the previous yesr. Of course all that went into the dumpster when the post office became unionized, service waned and there would definitely be no postman coming around on the day after Christmas. Still, Boxing Day in Canada is a statutory holiday and is usually spent sitting is an easy chair in a warm and comfortable living room try9ing to digest the dinner from the night before. Today was no exception for us. Barb did a superb job yesterday with dinner and the Turneys and the Olsens feasted on excellent crab cakes as a started provided by Eric and turkey with all the trimmings, mashed potatoes, carrots, Brussels sprouts and squash, followed by mince meat tarts and all washed down with two bottles of very fine wine that Eric and Cori had also thoughtfully provided.

Today we discovered that the handover of the marina to the private interests will take place on the 15th of January. At that time a private firm who has the management of over 75 other marinas from as far away as Hawaii will take over and who knows what the situation here will be then. I am sure that it will be as well run as it is now but probably will do so at much higher dockage rates. Perhaps when Screech comes down in January, if they don't beat the handover date, they could report on this situation and post it in a comment to the blog.

Kayt and Chris' last Christmas parcel to us arrived today and included some small but very meaningful items that would have gone in our stockings: some photos of her and her boyfriends and his kids over Christmas, some really nice soap, a new Nelleke baseball hat for me and two long sleeved shirts, one for each of us. It was very nice to get it and the photos in particular made it seem more like we were sharing their Christmas.

I am getting things ready for boat projects starting tomorrow and other than some switches (which I may actually have in my electrics tool box) I think that I am good to go. None of them seem too involved, even the creation of a more stable attachment for the autohelm isn't technically a big deal; I just want to make sure that I do it right so that it will be the last time that I have to do it.

Eric and Cori likewise are getting ready for an install of their wind generator and solar panels that I have promised to give them a hand doing. Looks like they might be staying a little longer than theis coming Monday too.

This evening we will be treating ourselves to a movie in the theatre, we just haven't decided whether we will be going to see Avatar or the new Sherlock Holmes movie as yet. I'll let you know tomorrow.