Otterpool Camp

July 31 1915

Dear Father,

You people are certainly having some time of it. I have almost lost track of all the things you have been doing. Mother's letter came in just now and two weeks in Toronto just now certainly appeals to me.

But we are perfectly happy again. Our new camp is lovely outside of the moving and the general fixing up of the new camp, we have had no hardships whatever. At present the water supply, or rather the lack of it, is our worst trouble. Sometimes the water is shut off for 24 hours at a time. At such times we have to do the best we can, and imagine what we don't get.
I told you last letter about my increased duties at the new camp. Well, I am getting along fine now. Getting up at 6:30 every morning is quite a change for me. However it is just as easy as 7:30. The day we moved I was up at 4:30 A.M. and in the saddle 10 hours, so that the riding I had done in Winnipeg helped me out a lot. The next day the horse was all bandages but I was O.K.

Did I tell you that I had received the photos O.K.? Thanks very much. They are not bad, considering the material they had to work on. I found out the other day that none of the letters posted on the coast reached their destination. That is why you did not hear for so long. I am sure I wrote. The snap enclosed in Mother's letter taken at Pike Lake on 24th is quite good. I recognize Ede all right but don't know who the other girl is.
I have met some very nice people since I came over here. Just up the road from our camp is a large old-fashioned English home with a huge stone wall around it. One day when I was out looking for a room for our YMCA ladies I noticed it so thought I would go in. I walked up through the winding walks from the road and rang the front doorbell. Nobody answered so I went through a door to the side, which I found to be the entrance to the garden. I almost had to step back for the odor. Almost 2� or 3 acres of beautiful lawns and roses. Absolutely one of the finest places I had ever seen. Before long I spied the lady of the house, out among the roses. She was quite shocked and frightened, but I told her I was a Canadian and quite harmless. She told me her name was Miss Smith and that she and her brother lived there. Then she called her brother out of the house. He was about 60 and she about 43, so I had quite an exciting time of it. I told them I liked their house and garden, so they took me all over it. Really, it was lovely. Never saw so many roses and such a variety. Ramblers all over the walls, and lawns divided by lovely green hedges. Then they made me stay for afternoon tea. They were very, very kind to me and took me through the house, and said that I must come up and make myself at home and spend my spare time with them. I have been up to tea two or three times since. Later I asked them to let the ladies stay with them in their home, and after some coaxing and planning, both brother and sister said they thought they might. So Miss Smith is going to take two of the ladies and is placing them the other two in her lodge which is a lovely little house at the gates of the grounds.

Miss Ravenscroft, the golf champion, is going to be married on Aug 12. She is a dandy girl, and we have been fine friends. The wedding is going to be very quiet because the groom is an officer home on leave and wounded, and has to go back to France in a month. Only the family and a few friends invited, so I was quite surprised and delighted when she invited me. It is to be in London so I will take a few days leave and go up for the occasion.
Will write again soon and tell you about my trip to London etc. Lots of love to all,

Your loving son
Wilbert