Saturday, January 28th, 2012

Nothing on television tonight, sez Charles, as he twirls the dial, so to speak, and catches a bit of right wing politics.

Fine, sez I - I have other things to do and will be back at nine o'clock to watch 'Lewis" (with wonderful references to 'Morse" here and there throughout the show).

It has been a busy week, with great peaks but not without conflict and misunderstandings.

However, I have been stewing around, trying to pick up knowledge about digital pianos, - the ones that are appropriate for church use, - and finally our daughter suggested I ask Steve!

Of course, why hadn't I thought of it before.  Steven is our eldest son.  In the beginning I taught him to play the piano, but he far surpasses me now in the wonderful ability he has to express himself through his music and to rely on his ear, rather than his eye, to pick up marvelous melodies.

And besides that he is most generous with his time. and has a boundless spirit that is willing to help anyone, any time, willingly and with the same sweet smile he's always had....

The Church Board kindly gave me permission to go and find a digital piano to replace the old clunker we have had to rely on when it was a matter of piano vs. organ, - or piano and organ.

And so late yesterday morning I started off for Summerland with Sid, our third son, clambering up into his very large truck by way of a small step ladder.  We arrived there just at lunch time, met Steve went to have lunch with our DIL, Terry, at the restaurant she is in the process of buying.

I scoffed down the best part of a magnificent Greek Salad, and then we were off to Kelowna and the Music Shop.

I really am quite countrified now, - it is so long since I've been even to a large town, and Kelowna has grown to be a city at least as large as the one I grew up in on the prairies.  The music shop was amazing, - I counted ten cellos, - probably about fifty guitars, gleaming brasses by the dozens, and then all these wonderful small pianos.

I was shy about playing, to try out the sensitivity and weight of the keys and the various buttons marching along above the keyboard of this HP302 Roland, but eventually played a little Scott Joplin, and Steven played Sweet Georgia Brown, and then Myrna, who doesn't play the organ in church, but does play the piano, came and gave the instrument her blessing.  Sid, who plays drums and appreciates piano, thought it was pretty adequate, so after giving the man a cheque we all went next door to a bar and grill and had the largest plate of tacos and cheese and chicken and jalapeno peppers I have ever seen (country girl) while they bundled up the Roland  for transport.

 Sid was in Kelowna to pick up yokes for his steel shop and so we nudged them over and they loaded that lovely piano into the back of the truck, and off we went in late afternoon traffic, which was quite horrendous.  We stopped in Penticton to phone Charles and  buy him a wireless mouse for his laptop and then came home on a less crowded highway with the mouse and the piano and a light heart.

It was a lovely day, - I did so enjoy seeing the Okanagan, - the new highway and a different  bridge to the one I used to go over when I made regular trips to Kelowna.  But most especially it was such a pleasure to spend time and have conversation with these two sons, - I enjoyed the day immensely, and thank them both for their kindness and cheerful company, - and Terry for that gorgeous Greek salad and a peek at her new venture.

Myrna has been in touch and is ecstatic about the new piano and that adds even more pleasure and satisfaction to the day.  Oh, life can be very good sometimes....

ABC Wednesday
January 25th, 2012

The letter this week is bountiful B


and considering the date, how many people will choose the Scottish Bard, Robbie Burns, whose birth date was the 25th of January, 1759.  Well, I will tip my bonnet to him,  beribboned and tucked with heather, and choose instead another Scottish B - the Bagpipe.

Glen Thompson

We have Pipers scattered through our family, - David was a Pipe Major and his band piped him out of the church with his lovely bride on their wedding day.....

His grandsons played the pipes and drums and entertained the neighbourhood when they came to visit us.

  And here, as they prepared to play at their grandfather's funeral reception.

One of his mentors, Harry Lunan, was the last surviving piper to have played in battle during World War 1 before his death in 1994.

Harry Lunan joined the Gordon Highlanders in 1913 as a piper, for which he received one penny a day extra pay.  He took part in the horrendous Battle of the Somme in 1916.  At the attack on Highwood, armed only with his bagpipe, he led a suicidal charge into machine gun fire, playing his comrades into attack with Cock o' the North.

"I just played whatever came in to my head, but I was worried about tripping on the uneven ground, which interrupted my playing" he says in an interview that appears on the cover of a CD dedicated to him.  (The Last Piper)

Harry Lunan's daughter lived one street over from us when we moved from the farm, but before that the family came from the small town in Alberta where my sister lived with her piper husband.

And then there are my cousins who moved to California and celebrate the Thompson clan with great enthusiasm.  My first cousin, with the beard and the big drum and what looks like a pith helmet!!

A Brae, Bright Scottish quartet...even without the bagpipes

The family has their serious side as well.  Glen Thompson, whose picture heads this post, is a well known piper and piping teacher.
When he was fifteen he went to Scotland to study with Duncan Johnstone at the College of Piping, in Glasgow.  To finance this journed he became the featured piper of the loch Ness Pub in old town Pasadena,
playing there every weekend during his sophomore year in high school.

In 1998 Glen took over the Cabar Feidh Pipe Band as Pipe Major.  He has appeared in
many movies and is heavily involved with the Clan Fraser,
having played the pipes as the guest of Lord Lovat at many occasions.

Although his background is in competition they say Glen is at his best when entertaining a crowd.
I, alas, have never heard him play, and I do so love the pipes.

Charles is non-committal and rolls his eyes.

For more great B's visit here at ABC Wednesday and see what Mrs. Nesbitt and her Blessed
helpers have to offer.

A Baptism

A rare occurrence in the mainline churches these days  As are weddings, - the last wedding I played for in the church must have been five years ago - there are so many other venues that young secular people find appealing.  Traditionalists are to what we once considered Holy Sacraments as needles are to haystacks!!

Nevertheless we had this very mindful and beautiful ceremony at morning worship yesterday for a sweet baby entering into a community of loving souls, - he smiled all the way through it, even when the minister scooped up at shellful of water and cascaded it over his dear little forehead.

All of us old believers, who are so forlorn at the lack of children's voices in the church,  - young energies and sweet innocence - were past delight and into wondrous nostalgia.

I wakened about one o'clock last night.  The glow from the street light was golden on the trees and Orion's belt stood out brilliantly against the dark sky.

Today the sun is shining, - it is high enough in the sky and rising to our view by nine o'clock, skimming the top of the mountain.  Beautiful blue sky and soft benevolent clouds!

I see buds swelling and catkins on the hazelnut tree and I yearn for spring...

January 21st, 2012

I have a pair of socks that I am knitting for Charles that somehow do not draw me with any enthusiasm, even though I am anxious for him to have them because I know they will be comfortable on his poor feet that suffer with neuropathy.

No, all they do is keep me from clicking my needles, making something that really appeals to me and stirs me to get with it.  I just feel the tiniest bit guilty about the socks whenever I leaf through knitting books and see something  I'd love to try, - oh golly, that tiny bit of guilt is really messing up my creative life!!

If I were being sensible I would know that in beginning a new project  I can hardly wait to sit down and work at. making those blessed socks would be more inviting in spare moments when my hands want the calming effect of knitting but my mind isn't in to figuring out complicated patterns.

And goodness only knows that this is not a life that has been confined to having just one thing on the go at a time!  And I have UFO's to prove it, the socks for Charles being just one example.  There is the front of a lovely white sweater hidden away in a knitting bag, along with half of the back, and in a basket with a closed top I even have a circular needle sweater knit up to the arms  of the most heavenly blue wool, - a project that someone else foisted on me when they found it impossible to go the last mile with it.

This is not the UFO I have in my possession, but it is close enough, except for the shimmer in the wool, to be a near cousin of the one that was so kindly given to me, complete with markings for the sleeve and a confusing sheet of instructions that were vague as to just where the previous knitter had left off - given up because of disgust, lack of interest or distressing confusion.

At one time I had three or four looms warped at the same time, and happily went from one to the other, content to be creating, busy planning new warps, throwing a studied weft with care and happiness.

And here I sit, stymied by a pair of tweedy socks!

I am hoping to become activated soon, and to fill these winter days with something that pleases me and keeps my hands flying and my mind pleasantly occupied.

Mary Cassett

A snowy day in the Similkameen

Well, if it hadn't been for the wind it would have been quite a pleasant day, - a little nippy

but what's that to a Prairie girl.....

However the snow was fine and dry, and the wind whipped it up into

an absolute frenzy,  - white veils of snow were spirited down the road like ethereal gypsy dancers,

their feet barely touching the ground, and then caught up in the

wind's passionate embrace and flung skyward.

That all sounds quite romantic, and I suppose it was if you were cosy by the fire, but out in the 

garden the small birds, their feathers fluffed, were grateful that the bird feeders were full.

a mourning dove looked down inquisitively

while Miss Callie visited at the side window with a chickadee perched in the Rose of Sharon,

tail swishing......

late in the afternoon a flock of quail came to clean up the gleanings on the ground

and just at dusk I saw them all flying up into the tall trees next door...... 

shelter for the night.

I heard the plants in the garden sigh comfortably, happy with the lovely new coverlet

and safe from King Winter's mighty wind.

ABC Wednesday

Off we go on another wild ride through the Alphabet

So why shouldn't A be for Alphabet


I had considered skipping this round of ABC Wednesday, because sometimes Time crowds in on me and I end up posting quickly and not very mindfully, - a video that is entertaining, - a picture or a poem that it only takes a few minutes to post. And do  not have time to visit other wonderful posts as often as I would like....

But it is such good discipline and pleasure to be part of this meme, so I am going to try to devote more time, whenever I can, and so here is what I have learned about Alphabets - thanks to Sir Google and Wikipedia.....(who I expect will be blacked out in just a few short hours, in protest)

First things first,  a bit of history  - the word ALPHABET comes from the Greek word, alphabetos, and the word alphabetos in turn comes from the first two letters of the Greek alphabet, a Alpha, and b Beta.


The names of the Greek letters were based on Phoenican letter names, the first two letters of the Phoenican alphabet being are'aleph (ox) and beth (house).


The Greeks created the first phonetic alphabet when they used letters from the Phoenician alphabet to represent consonants sounds which were not in the Greek Alphabet .


An Alphabet is a set of letters representing one or more phonemes, both consonants and vowels, and in some cases combinations of letters are used to represent single phonemes, as in sh, ch and th, and I guess ph, too.


The best known alphabets are the Roman and Cyrillic. which have been adapted to write many other languages.  Some alphabets are used for only a single language and some alphabets are used only for religious purposes, or for decoration, such as the Coptic, or the Irish Uncial.

which really looks like just another font, doesn't it........

Just a few facts, Ma'm, but how very fascinating it must be to study linguistics.

Do you remember when you first learned the alphabet, - well, probably not.  Those days are lost in the mists of time as we grow older, but quite likely it was at your mother's knee, -  from a book perhaps

or maybe a song.

Maybe your learning was enforced by the blocks you played with...

and here are some for modern little techies....

We learned so early what these letters meant when they were put in orderly fashion to form words, and what a marvelous gift this has been, - to be able to read the thoughts of others, - to be able to express our own inner selves in written form.  To be able to travel the world from an armchair, or snuggled beneath the blankets at night with a flashlight!

"To learn to read is to light a fire. Every syllable that is spelled out is a spark."    Victor Hugo

For more great A's visit here at ABC Wednesday,  as we start once again an alphabetical adventure at Mrs. Nesbitt's wonderful meme.

Monday, January 16th, 2011

Walnuts

Here are the walnuts

that hang from the tree

that grows next door

and towers over

the neighbour's woodshed.

Late in the fall the tree is luxuriously laden

and the walnuts loosen themselves from the branches

and roll down the roof of the woodshed,

bouncing over the ledge and hiding

in the grasses that grow along

the few feet that divide us

from the neighbour's fence.

I imagine that in the spring the

nut hatch will find a noisy heaven

amongst the branches of this generous tree

but in the meantime.......

You see them - small and dry, with their hard black coats split,  but I would imagine still harbouring

the Jaglone that dyes a wonderful variety of earthy browns, depending upon how

long they are stewed and if a mordant is used, and also what kind of mordant.

My days of dyeing wool are long past, although I have a wonderful

remembrance of them in sample skeins that along with my other weaving

and spinning paraphernalia are now mostly decorative.

Still, the memory of those exciting days, gathering materials, watching the wool absorb

the dyes of such a great variety of natural plants, and change before

your eyes with different mordants - all those memories still warm my heart

and make me grateful for the richness they brought to my life.

I picked up all the walnut hulls that fell on our side of the fence

and they sat for a few months in the garage until Charles,

dear one that he is, decided to crack them all and retrieve the nuts.

They are now drying in a basket to keep them fresh and edible

although I just might use them all up before they have time to get

rancid, as old walnuts are wont to do!

I have had to put them out of my reach so that I won't dip into

the basket each time I pass it and pop one of these lovely golden nuts into my mouth.

I have found an enticing traditional Greek dessert recipe

that uses one and one half cups of walnuts and little flour.  If, when I try it,

it is as delicious as it looks, I will share the recipe with you!

A leisurely afternoon -

I had planned to turn up my toes for a few minutes after lunch, and then  to walk to the Post Office and to the Library.  I have had a marathon read between the days before Christmas and  today, when all thirteen of the books I had ordered came into the Library at once and all fell due on Friday the 13th.

I really did quite well.  I finished Alan Bradbury's 'I Am Sick of Shadows' about midnight last night, which left me with just two books unread, - two books that I was unable to renew because someone else, somewhere in the Okanagan, was sitting on the edge of their easy chair, reading lamp lit, waiting to read these popular tales.

I looked at the blue tote bag that held all these books, and considered the four blocks I would have to walk to the Library.

"Take the cart", - said Charles magnanimously.

The cart makes me nervous.  It is a big cart with large wheels, made for fields and uneven ground, and I have seen Charles do wheelies on it, - that cart is adventuresome and dangerous....who knows, - it may even have as mind of its own, as is the way with Charles' canes......

"Take the car", says Charles, understandingly, - and so I pick up my keys, go down on the lift, open the garage door and the gate to the fence and back up into the lane.

I stop at the Post Office and mail my letters, lug the big blue book bag into the Library, and am lucky enough to be able to renew the Emma Donoghue book at the last minute.  Somebody else had turned in a copy for she who was waiting anxiously for 'The Sealed Letter'.  This made me quite happy, and I left the Library, popped in to see my dear DIL in the Variety Store she would so dearly love to sell and bought a bright Christmas throw and two table runners which will look cheery on someone's tables next Christmas,  - my first contribution to the 2012 Christmas present box.

At the grocery store I add a bag of frozen shrimp to the necessities, thinking of a nice easy stir-fry for supper Sunday evening.

On to the Bank, where I make a deposit, - always better than a withdrawal - and then I browse next door at the pharmacy - not the pharmacy which Jenifer owns, where the order of business is strictly pharmaceutical, but the pharmacy cum newspaper/magazine stand, gift shop, vet supplies, the occasional shelf of groceries, and newly added, some belly dancers' jingly belts and a few glamourous sheer scarves, shirred through silver rings with bells and chimes attached.  I buy one of these scarves for a beautiful granddaughter, and even consider the belly dancers' jingly thing-a-ma-jig, but decide against it......

When I come home I hear on the weather report a forecast for snow for the next FIVE DAYS - I am elated.  It has been such a satisfying afternoon!  And here it is Happy Hour already....

For supper I cook a wonderful hamburger that Frank had mixed together with some kind of copacetic genius, and during the evening, while I have been writing this, Charles turned up the television and I quickly went to listen to the most magical wild and tempestuous music, - two violins, a viola and a cello, played with such a fusion of concentration and abandon by four young people from the Chan Centre in Vancouver.  I was totally bewitched.

It's been one of those lovely days, and when I lock the doors for the night I will be sure to look and see if the snow has arrived!

ABC Wednesday
January 11th, 2012

Whoa - we've come to the end of the alphabet, - the Zinging Z


Z stands for Zip-a-dee-doo-da

Enjoy!!  There is no encore.

For more exciting Zs click here to go to Mrs. Nesbitt's

ABC Wednesday

Sunday, January 8th, 2012

For just a little while this morning the world was pure and white, unmarked and magical.

A neighbour's cat made dainty tracks across the white expanse of lawn (not a very big expanse, - it is only a small lawn) investigating the bird feeders and upsetting Miss Callie no end, as she perched on the top of the sofa and peered through the slats of the blind....

The snow hung heavily on the everygreens that reach across the side fence

and through the kitchen window I followed the twisted  and unpruned branches that in summer

filter the sunlight from the west - still beautiful in their bareness and a convenient place

for quail and small birds to visit while I do kitchen chores....

Dorothy and Frank came for morning coffee, - we went to dress, and as we

stepped out the door to walk to church (Charles rode on his cart)

we heard the church bell ring across the snowy lane.

The plants in the garden shivered with delight!!  Finally, a beautiful

white coverlet to keep them warm until the sun resumes its summery task....

January 6th, 2012

The Day of Epiphany

O sages standing in God's holy fire

As in the gold mosaic of a wall,

Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,

And be the singing-masters of my soul.

                                                                         W.B. Yeats

Twelfth Night and I have now laid the Christmas tree and all its precious

ornaments to rest, - wrapped in tissue, and passing through my hands together with the memories of where each angel, each Santa, each glistening bird came from.

I started early with Christmas decorations, nostalgic for Christmases past

as we made this new home our own.

No great Twelfth Night Party here tonight, but somehow I have 

this wonderful feeling of Epiphany - Epiphany as light and manifestation

and something akin to the feeling that September brings.

The summer is over, as is the great festival of Christmas. and there is a

feeling of energy and enthusiasm and plans.

The house has a aura of simplicity,  - the Christmas table has been shortened, the white linens put away, along with the silver and the company dishes.

I have a little list of things to do.  I know from experience that all of them

will not get done, but that's o.k., - I will prioritize them according to 

pleasure and expediency and the light that each one

of them will bring into our lives.

I have left the stained glass angel and the two snowflakes

hanging in the window,  and the amaryllis,  along with the white hellebores

I couldn't resist.  They will cheer the path to spring and daffodils.

ABC Wednesday
January 4th, 2012

The letter this week is the curious Y
Why, you ask?  - well just because we are coming to the end of the alphabet and have only one more week to go in Round 9 of ABC Wednesday, kindly sponsored by Mrs. Nesbitt and her Young-at-heart helpers.

Y is for Yahk - located in the southern end of the East Kootenays along the beautiful Moyie River Yahk is a small B.C. town where Charles and I once spent a few winter months about sixty three years ago, when he was working on the construction of a bridge leading into town and I was pregnant with our second child.  What I remember is the snow, and the woods and the incredible kindness of the residents of the town who remembered to tell Santa about our two year old son who would be attending the annual Christmas party.  And I remember all the mittens I knitted for Christmas presents, because this was how my hands coped with empty time....

The Goat Soap company in Yahk

Years later David and Nicola who now make wooden rings in the wilds of the Cariboo, were a vibrant presence in this town, and I'm sure have many wonderful remembrances of the people who live there and the woods and the snow and the history of the place.  Amongst their friends  was a far removed cousin whose shared ancestors came to Canada as United Empire Loyalists  circa 1775.

Yahk has a great railroading history and at the time we were there steam engines still pulled the railroad cars through the mountains of the Kootenays.

It is a quiet town now, - a pleasant backwater where nature is the chief tourist attraction.  HOWEVER - rumour has it that Yahk benefited from more than railroading and lumbering, and the dilapidated provincial police barrack and gaol built in 1919 does not live out its days for nothing.  When in 1919 Woodrow Wilson signed into law the Volsted Act that brought prohibition to the United States it immediately became 'corruptngly profitable' to distil booze in southern B.C. and run it south.  'Yahk, in such close proximity to the border, was a handy location for stills, and numerous caches of liquor are said to have been secreted in the vicinity awaiting trans-shipment.'

On dark nights powerful Oldsmobiles, souped-up and concealing tanks in their trunks and under their back seats, roared down the highway into Idaho, while reliable Fords, similarly outfitted, stole quietly along back-woods trails to slip undetected across the Border.  Of the hundred of thousands of dollars that changed hands, much of it flowed through Yahk, and secret stashes are whispered to lie there yet in those woods, awaiting the return of long-gone smugglers.

Overnight, on December 5th, 1933 when FDR signed the order repealing the misgided Act, Yahk lost its illicit income and now the secret stashes are good only to attract visitors to the area!!

If you would like to read more about the letter Y visit the postings here, at Mrs. Nesbitt's ABC Wednesday .

New Year's Eve 2011

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light;
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow;
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

an excerpt from a verse by
Alfred, Lord Tennyson


And here we are, on the cusp of a new year with all that it promises,
each day anew.
We start out the year tenuously, well aware of early birthdays
that will see us twelve months along on this adventurous journey.

The small creeks that joined us to the river of life are widening out into
a placid estuary, and each day we strive for serenity,
ever grateful for the love that surrounds us,
the small boats that guide us,
and look, - look, oh look!  the stars shine.

We move towards spring.
Small stirrings in the earth, warmed by a returning sun.

Soon the sap will rise again and it will be the time of the Pussy Willow!

I'm with Poe - hope springs eternal!!!!

and now I am off to see the new year in with the beloved.

Happy new year to all dear folk.

ABC Wednesday

The letter this week is the eXtraordinary  X


X is for the kissy part of....

Charles and I have six children, who in their early years made lovely homemade cards for Mum and Dad, signed with OXOXOXOXs (hugs and kisses), and now bring beautiful sentimental cards, more sophisticated in their wording, but still with those fond hugs and kisses across the bottom, which dampen the eyes, just a smidgin, and make you think it has all been worthwhile.....

Add to that the dear cards that arrive on special occasions from fourteen grandchildren, and you will know that we have boxes and boxes of loving OXOXOXOXOXs.  What could be sweeter......

Thanks to Mr. Google for the illustrations.

For more Xamples of the letter X visit here at ABC Wednesday, with

thanks to Mrs. Nesbitt and her eXcellent helpers.

P.S.  Xmas kisses are especially nice.

We are buried in the splendid confusion of Christmas, 

 but from the depths of wonderment 

Charles and I wish you all the peace and happiness and joy 

that this day brings, 

- and our earnest wish that it continues for each one of you 

as often as reality allows throughout the coming year.  

Off to stuff the bird......

A very Merry Christmas to all!!!

ABC Wednesday
The letter W


W stands for Whiskers

Out of four sons three of them have whiskers, but the well trimmed kind that make them look distinguished, and not anything as wild as this.....

the Brad Pitt beard, which is said to turn the ladies on, but looks a little unkempt to me

and they don't look like this, which IMHO has no pizzazz at all, but just looks

as if the gentleman in question was too lazy to shave, but thinks he

looks attractive in a manly, woodsy way.

Miss Callie sports whiskers like this, and is terribly glamorous 

and sensitive to what goes on around her.

For more interpretations of the letter W

visit here at ABC Wednesday

with thanks to Mrs. Nesbitt

and her Willing

helpers.