Introducing Mrs. Ottawacker to the kitchen

The days till his departure are getting crossed off with increasing rapidity. Only three-and-a-bit and he is gone… I think Ottawacker Jr. is trying to cross all of the buses off his list before he goes – as he was up early and out before I had even started my translation this morning. But, he was soon back again (i.e., within three hours), and then spent the rest of the morning reading. Very smart. What wouldn’t I give to be able to do that.
 
In the afternoon, he sent me off to do some errands (gifts, etc.) and then decided he wanted to go to Navan on the bus. Why? Good question. Equally good question is why would I agree to drive 45 minutes to pick him up? That really is the problem with the outlying communities here. There may be a bus taking you from Navan to Ottawa in the morning, and from Ottawa back to Navan in the late afternoon – but there is no other way of getting back. Say, for example, you had to go and sign some documents in Ottawa in the morning. You can get into Ottawa (via a long and complicated interconnection of buses), but you can’t get back until the late afternoon commuter bus is ready to run. It is such a mess.
 
Anyway, while he was on the bus, I drove out and did some shopping at the excellent Navan Little Market and the equally excellent Lavergne butchers. It was very nice to get out – the weather was perfect (around 25°) and I had been struggling enormously with the translation I had to do. Normally I can race through them (well, I can do them reasonably quickly), but this time I couldn’t even understand the English. In the end, I had to sit down, translate the English into English, and then translate the translated English into French. Lengthy, time-consuming, and bloody annoying.
 
Anyway, I got it done, and then once Ottawacker Jr. had shown up, we had a nice ride back home. Then Mrs. Ottawacker and  made dinner, sat down, and I, for once, didn’t fall asleep.