Remembrance Day

I know I’m painfully behind on blogging but I unexpectedly have three days off, so I’m going to do my best to catch up. How do I have three days off, you may ask? Let me explain.

Not all holidays are recognized as statutory holidays in all the provinces in Canada. In Nova Scotia Remembrance Day is a holiday, meaning most people get the day off and services/retail stores are closed. In Ontario, Remembrance Day is a holiday only for civil servants, meaning most people go to work and all non-government services/stores are open. Now, I am working in a provincial building, so the surprise wasn’t getting today (Friday) off. The Archives is also closed on Saturday, which is normally a work day for me. So combined with my regular day off Sunday, I get a long weekend.

I typically do one of two things on Remembrance Day. I either go to whatever service is being held locally or I watch the national service on CBC from Ottawa. I was planning on going to the Halifax Cenotaph, but then I looked at the weather forecast, which came to fruition and looked like this from my apartment this morning.

 That would be strong winds and a rather large rainstorm. It has been raining all day. It sounded like it briefly let up while I had my dinner but as I write this I can hear rain drops again. Most other places in the province did the logical thing and moved their service inside a legion or similar building, but the powers-that-be thought it wiser to leave it outside... in the pouring rain and wind.

So instead I watched the service from Ottawa, although this time I streamed it on my laptop instead of watching it on TV (because I have no TV). The ceremony was wonderful as usual, despite the fact that it was quite cold in Ottawa. I looked in hope to see my Great Uncle in the crowd of veterans (he lives in Ottawa) but I have a feeling that my Great Aunt did her best to make sure that he didn't go (she worries about him standing outside in the cold for so long, which is understandable). Normally she achieves this by hiding his cane.

The other issue I had was when to honour the troops with a moment of silence. While it is tradition to stop what you’re doing at 11 am and reflect on the sacrifice Canadians have made for their country that moment for me normally occurs during the event I am watching. But 11 am in Ontario is noon in Nova Scotia. So I decided to do what made the most sense. I did briefly pause at 11 am Atlantic Time (which happened to fall near the end of my yoga workout) but waited until the Ottawa service to stop and have a moment of reflection.

I’m not the only one who had this quandary today. On Twitter yesterday, British racing driver Dan Clarke (who lives in the States) posted “Which Brits on EST time want a 6am wakeup call for the 2min silence in UK to remember those gave their lives in World Wars for our freedom?” Yet another issue when work causes you to live away from home.