First sentence I learned while in French Immersion at Dalhousie was … J’ai besoin de cendrier. (I need an ashtray). My first attempts failed when my new Québécois friends couldn’t understand why I kept asking for Cinderella. (Cendrillon)… I was nineteen and haven’t smoked since I was twenty two.

I dove into the pool yesterday and was quite delighted/surprised to discover that the shoulder replacement surgery I had in 2017 is a success. My arm works. I can swim again. The pools are huge and I had one of them all to myself for hours. Sure, there were guests in the chairs suntanning but no one was swimming.. Honestly, at one point I floated on my back staring up at the sun imagining this is what heaven must feel like.

Everything you could want or need is included at this all inclusive resort…. Every imaginable type of drink and all the house wines you want… But I drink enough cheap red at home. I want something special and there is a cost if you order decent wine. We have made friends with the sommelier we met the first night at the Italian a la carte restaurant and have been getting nice bottles of red with our dinners. But over two weeks it could be expensive.

We decided this morning to take a cab into town for a few bottles of wine for our room. We brought back four bottles and still made it to the pool by noon. But we are idiots and didn’t get screw tops.

I phoned the front desk and asked two different people for a sacacorchos. (Cork screw). They had no idea what we wanted. So we went to the in house store and they said they didn’t have one either. So we went to the front desk in person.. He assured me there would be one sent to our room right away.. We came back to our room at 4 pm cause Mama needs her 4 pm wine. But no cork screw had arrived.

So we went to an early dinner at the Spanish a la carte and who should be the sommelier but our guy from the Italian restaurant. We told him our problem and he happily gave us his corkscrew to take back to our room.

There is something pretty awesome in life when your only problem is the lack of a corkscrew.

I’m still kinda worried about what or who for that matter, they thought we wanted sent

to our room