WHAT'S NEXT?

You can almost feel the difference in the air. That slight touch of cool in the morning and the slightly warmer temperature in the afternoon.

I woke up this morning, Sunday, 2 October, feeling autumn wasn’t just around the corner; it was here. Coming with a coolish early bright sunshine morning.

As a kid I loved this time of the year, bringing us The Woodbridge Fall Fair. It’s an annual event, a full three days this coming weekend, having its beginning 175-odd years ago on Thanksgiving Weekend.

We owe a debt of thanks to those earlier village citizens who nailed down the fair on this special weekend.

We lived in Toronto and came out weekends to the cottage. There had been a smaller barn on the 250 odd-acre farm. My mother helped a local carpenter tear it down and build a one-storey home. It became known locally as ‘The Barn’. It kept that name for years to come.

My dad, a clergyman, was someone to be proud of. If fighting in the first World War wasn’t enough, he took on WW2 as a padre to Canadian Second Division stationed in London England.

My friends and I would spend the weekend crawling under the fair’s wire fence using the same hole we cleaned out each year. We thought we were so clever, never getting caught.

Author’s comment: It wasn’t until years later I discovered the day after the fair, my mom slipped up to the fair office and paid the full amount for those of us who had sneaked in. That was my mom. No one ever pulled the wool over her eyes.