Dear Jean:

My Sundays seem to have been interrupted lately, and here it is Monday again. The mail continues to be very skimpy, but the news over the week-end and the last 24 hours explains it I think, no doubt a great deal of shipping had to be diverted from routine trips here, with mail etc, to the big show in North Africa. And although your letters are my chiefest happiness, I am glad to wait cheerfully for them a bit longer than usual when I realize that the reason is so fundamental to the big events now in progress for the Allies. However, your airletter of 4 Oct arrived on the 7 Nov, pretty slow, but no doubt the transatlantic bomber traffic has been affected by the same events. No more news from you in Calif since the airmail of 10 Oct which arrived two weeks ago. I hope these are not taking too long to reach you. Am just a bit puzzled about when you intend going North again, and when it would be wise to address my letters to Victoria. However, no doubt you will be keeping me posted on your plans.

Mr Colin Williamson, head of the firm who make the Eagle air cameras phoned up on Friday inviting me to come up to his home at Bourne End, a beautiful part of the upper Thames valley, just a few miles from the hospital where I had my tonsils taken out a year ago, for lunch and the afternoon Sunday. He thought it would be a good chance to talk over more leisurely some rather important and intricate business. I got there just at lunch time, travelling by train, and it was a lovely fall day, many of the trees still in fall leaf, after lunch we went for a walk along the river and through the fields and over a hill. His daughter who is in the WAAFs was home on leave, and she came along. She must have thought me a very dull gentleman, because Mr Williamson and I were talking shop most of the time. We got back to the house for afternoon tea, and as we still had a few items of business to clear up, they pressed me to stay over night and come down this morning. Am afraid I yielded rather easily. Their home is right on the river, and made me think a lot of our future home at 10-mile point. His grounds are just an acre in size too. Am afraid I had to tell them about Victoria, and our lot on the Point. It will be a proud day for me when I can entertain so many of the wonderful friends I have made here, at our home in Victoria, and have them learn the charm of my lovely wife and the sweetness of our baby. If your little husband has been favoured with a personality which commands the esteem and affection of good people, he cherishes the knowledge that his greatest attribute and honour remains unknown to them until they have had the good fortune to meet his wife and family.

Had to go back to town this pm to the meeting of the Royal Geographical Society to hear Dick Farrow give his paper on Snow Surveys in BC. It was an interesting lecture, and he gave it very well. It was a disappointing attendance, but the paper will appear in the Journal, and thereby reach a much wider audience. he and I had dinner together afterwards, and then I caught the train back here, as I wanted to get this letter off before too late. It was a lovely crisp fall day again, and tonight the stars are in full force overhead. The shortage of petrol has greatly reduced the traffic on the roads, especially after dark, which makes it much safer getting about the streets in the blackout. I am actually getting quite used to the blackout, and yet everything Mrs Roosevelt said about it on the radio Sunday night is all too true. Even so, the darkness has probably for the first time in their lives, caused city folk to notice and appreciate the grandeur of the Heavens on a clear dark night.

Lieutenant Axel Kinnear phoned me today while I was away. He finished his OCTU on Saturday, and I gather from the message that he passed successfully, and has received his commission. I am looking forward to seeing him, and I think we will have to have a celebration. Also the orders last week contained my name, as being confirmed in the rank of Major, so that even if I am moved from my present appointment or job, I retain the crown. There is not a ghost of a chance of further promotion for me now, unless the war lasts 3 years more, and as you know, I would much prefer to see it end, and be just plain GSA again. However they ought to kick through with staff pay, dated back to when I got the present appointment on 1 May 42. However, they are quite capable of holding out on that. I could use the money, and when I see what other sort of people are given staff pay I feel that they are being damn cheap about it in my Case and Col Meuser. Somebody remarked the other day that in the Cdn army, there is a premium on "youth and ignorance". Except for a few rather glaring instances, I think this remark is generally unfair. I seriously think that on the average, the officers and men in the Cdn army compare very favorably with those of any other country.

While the news during the last week has cheered everybody up tremendously, I think the Cdns feel a bit disgruntled that they have been left on the sidelines once again, this is especially a bitter pill, as the Cdns were one of the first of the overseas troops to leave for what at the beginning was the only front there was. However, it looks as tho the pattern of Victory is at last beginning to take definite form, and no doubt there will be a significant place for the Cdns in it. Also I feel that everybody will be needed with all their power before we have it "in the bag" for sure. The next week, fortnight, and month will be tense, and not without good grounds for hope, and faith.

Dick, Ecila, Miss Williamson, (the WAAF) and I are going to a play in town on Wednesday. "The Importance of Being Earnest" It is reputed to be an excellent cast. I am looking forward to it, and only wish that you could be with me.

Well its bedtime, and that's about all the news.

Heaps of love,

GER.