I'm afraid the weather hasn't been kind to us. It's not the snow and freezing rain that some had feared yesterday, but I'm typing this at the Charlottetown library after having stepped in from a drenching rainstorm. This has affected attendance somewhat, with only four or so people turning up for Erin's reading.
She did, however, have an excellent interview on CBC Radio's Main Street. Host Matt Rainnie had read the book and asked good questions throughout Erin's ten minutes on the air. We got the full history of Ghost Maps, Erin got to read four poems (very generous) and he plugged our reading tonight. He probably ensured that we didn't play to an empty house.
Ah, well. We're still having fun. In the past three days, I have doubled the number of Canadian provinces that I've visited, and tomorrow, we add number five: Nova Scotia. We arrived on PEI by bridge, we'll be leaving by boat, via the Woods Island/Caribou Island ferry, to be in Halifax that evening.
Being offline for the better part of three days produced the following results: 137 e-mails in my mailbox, another virulent comment spammer that had to be cleaned out (kept from the public eye thanks to Jay Allan's MT Blacklist). A number of well-wishers (thank you!). Geez, you don't realize how wired you are until you step off of the grid.
I've also felt a little disconnected from the news, which is just as well. I did have to wonder if I'd come back from this trip to discover that Canada had switched prime ministers when I wasn't looking. From what I can tell, it's a lot more up-in-the-air than it seemed earlier this week, but with Jean Chretien leaving early to take this miraculously appearing UN position and Sheila Copps supposedly pulling out and backing Martin at the convention, I smelt a deal. The Liberals appeared to be closing ranks, ending this drawn-out power dance before it does any real damage to the party and the country. If this thing had been true (and it might still be), I wish I'd been a fly on the wall when the negotiations for that deal were completed.
Either way, it looks like it's going to be an interesting November.