I’ve been giggling over this for a few days. When we went to Greece last spring we met a great couple from the UK and shared a lot of laughs, and some less than sober moments. Both vessels carried mascots, ours had a small bear and a Canadian Mountie Moose. I think they had a monkey. We took ours along for photography fun, but they sort of became mascots. The moose was clipped to a line and hung out (literally) with us along the way. Guarding the boat while we were off exploring.
When we passed through the UK for a few days we thought it would be funny to leave the moose (along with a bottle of black sambuca) on their doorstep, but we didn’t have an address. Later, when we received their address, we realized that we had literally driven right by their house on one of our drives.
Then in September I was poking around in Flickr and saw a photo I really liked. When I visited the photographers stream I saw he was from the UK and most of his photos were from there, New Zealand, etc. Then all of a sudden I stumbled on one of the Grouse Mountain tram…right up the road from where we live. I commented on the photo and asked when he had been here to visit. Turned out that he and his wife had moved to Vancouver recently! And that they were going home for three weeks in mid-October. And to top it off, his sister was a woman we had met through Flickr and stopped to have a few pints and sightsee with in Poole in June! (Frightening how small the world really is…)
And a plan was hatched!
I bought a bottle of black sambuca and met up with him for the hand off. He then flew home and dropped it off with his sister. It languished for a couple of months, and then on Christmas Eve she stopped by on her way to her Christmas dinner with family and knocked on the door. Apparently it was quite a surprise.
And now, the other day, I stop by Flickr only to see Constable Moose hanging on their Christmas tree. I couldn’t help it, I had to snatch the photo and have some fun with it and post it back here. I hope they take him back to the Mediterranean on their next trip, I think it would be great fun to see photos of him guarding another sailboat!
Photo re-developed in Poladroid and edited in Photoshop CS4