April 11, at 3:30 p.m., the Borden Fire Department and the volunteer firefighters took out their trucks and formed a parade around Borden with sirens and horns blasting to salute all the front-line workers out there saving lives in these troubling times with COVID-19. Everyone would join them in saying thanks to all those are still out there working and thank you to the Borden firefighters for brightening up the day of all those shut in at home in Borden.
My granddaughter Rachel Sutherland and her friend Abby from Saskatoon were in New Zealand for three months, leaving Canada on Feb. 27 and were not to return home until May 22. They managed to tour the north island by bus and took the ferry down to the south island where, they are staying with my oldest son Bryan Pidwerbesky in Christchurch. They arrived there just when COVID-19 started to hit the country.
They had tickets to fly home on April 1,but they were not able to fly up to Auckland to catch the last New Zealand flight to Vancouver. They didn't find out until they got to the airport. They were able to exchange their tickets and are now supposed to fly home April 16, via Air New Zealand to Los Angeles, Air Canada to Vancouver, arriving at 11:00 p.m. The next morning they will fly via WestJet to Calgary and Saskatoon, then Rachel will drive right out to the farm at Borden and self-isolate in the former house of Helen Sutherland in the Sutherland's yard.
They are not getting their hopes up too high after what happened April 1. Bryan, Helen and Nikolai live on an acreage at Lincoln, outside Christchurch, so they have lots of room to walk, bike and keep busy.
Jim, my son Todd and I are staying at home as much as possible. We watch a lot of TV. I have done jigsaw puzzles and for Easter cooked a turkey, with Glenn and Sheri bringing in ham and scalloped potatoes and half of the turkey went to their place, with all of us eating at our homes separately, just like everyone else is doing.
In Borden only the Gas Plus, post office and co-op are open. At the co-op grocery only tow people at a time are let into the store and those must maintain a distance of six feet from others. There is plus plexiglass around the till.
It was strange not being able to go to church for all the special services over Easter but we managed to watch some of them on the computer.
