Sorry to hear that - belated condolences - but that is on you: you should have mentioned it earlier!

When we lived in Alabama we did a road trip to Ottawa because there was (back in the 1990s at least) an M&S there. Going to visit Niagara Falls was just a side benefit.

Thank you for the condolences.  It was hard to lose my father as he was a really good guy.

My main reason for the post was to see if others had sock searching trials.  I have found lots of socks in various places for women, it's just men that I know (or have known) who complain.  It surprises me to not be able to find a replacement for the sturdy cotton socks that my husband bought for years, since you'd assume that in a free market with billions of customers, a market niche could be carved out for such things.  You only have to check the reviews on amazon to see the endless complaints of people who used to buy the same brand socks and their laments that they are no longer available.  It's not a limited phenomenon.

I'm amused to hear of your trip all the way from Alabama to Ottawa to visit M&S.  That's a schlep for a shopping trip.  The first time I went to M&S was in Paris in the 1980's.  I didn't even realize it was a British store, but I was very young and had no idea.  I still have a couple of sweet rayon dresses from that shopping trip that no longer fit.  They'll join others for donations as I clean out the closets.

Oh, so he's not under the patio after all.

Who knows. It could be his missus under the patio and he could be on the run.

Is there pollution (perhaps some kind of sewer mix into potable water supply) that is causing you to have to boil your water?  When we were on the island, we had to use bottled water to brush teeth with and to cook and rinse vegs with because the other water, the stuff in the cistern (mostly rain water but with frogs living in it) was not potable.  It got to be expensive and we had to be creative with it.  Washing clothes and bathing wasn't such an issue, but drinking it was not a good idea.  We did wash dishes with it but dried them before we ate on them.  It is kind of amazing how much we take clean water for granted as it's not the case in many parts of the world.

I remember the fishless fishing on Stargate.  It was kind of charming.

I'm pretty sure if my dad could have fished sans hooks he would have.
Meanwhile my uncle introduced me to bashing fish head with rock. I'd never seen that, dad was a catch and release kind of guy.

I found it amusing on stargate when O'Neill took the team fishing, then admitted there were no fish in his lake.
It actually got a callback later when they had solved a time conundrum, they're fishing, one of the team complains, and a fish jumps in the air.

Back to meatless, I'm on a water restriction again, and you can't really cook meat in a waterless environment. Boiling water to wash dishes... well we bought paper plates, bowls, and plastic cutlery last time for a reason.

I diced up an onion to make the salads a bit more spicy.

Onions: They aren't meat!

Thanks for the update.  I sent him a PM on here but no response so it's good that he's out having an adventure.