Seniors In the Loop Celebrate “Dinkmas”
On December 19, 15 enthusiastic pickleballers from the Marda Loop Seniors Indoor Group celebrated the end of the fall session by meeting for lunch at the Little Chief Restaurant at Grey Eagle Resort. Here we were royally treated to excellent and plentiful food, great service, and of course fantastic camaraderie and conversation.
Heather and Andrew had devised an interesting game to determine who each one thought is most likely to… take their game most seriously (Mike); poach on their partner’s shot (Alex); leave earlier to avoid dismantling the net after the game (Nobody!); and so on – all in jest and just for fun!
We all left with mini pickleballs wishing us “Merry Dinkmas and Smashing 2026”. Again, many thanks to our intrepid volunteer committee of Brenda, Heather, and Jan who somehow manage to keep us pickleballers “out of the kitchen” throughout the year!
Marion Mahoney
Member – Seniors in the Loop
Dr. Stephen Boucher Takes Seniors on a PowerPoint Trip to Botswana
Let me explain who Dr. Stephen Boucher is, first of all. He describes himself as retired from a long career in medicine and professional people watching as a psychiatrist. But to our Seniors group, he is one of our well-travelled members (and pickleballer) who volunteered to take us on a safari to Botswana by sharing fascinating stories, extraordinary pictures and sound recordings of a recent trip there with a few like-minded friends.
I lost count of the many birds and animals we met along the way – the majority of them we had never seen or heard of before – Verreaux’s Eagle-owl, White-browed sparrow-weaver, Black Death [Cape buffalo], Blue wildebeest, Spotted hyena, oxpeckers, Honey-badgers, Blacksmith lapwing, Chacma baboon, Sable antelope, and the list goes on and on.
Of course, there were safety issues along the way as they travelled in their open 4×4. Bang-Duck-Thwang became their standard operating procedure to avoid lost eyeballs and facial gashes from Acacia thorn bushes, as the vehicle went bumpily bump through the forest. There was also much discomfort from the 30 to 38-degree heat, not to mention visits from wild animals looking for food scraps around their campsites.
Thank you, Stephen for the exciting trip. We did come away with a somewhat Robert Redford and Meryl Streep experience, like in the 1985 movie Out of Africa.
Heather Bhatty
Director – Seniors in the Loop
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