Christmas 🎄

My knee is feeling much better. I resorted to buying Aleve last Thursday and by Saturday the pain had diminished. I don't know whether to credit the naproxen, post hoc, or if it was just time healing as it usually does. Jay's back is also getting better. So in spite of the fact that we are both missing the Christmases we shared, this year's wishes were answered.

A young couple on my street invited me to Christmas Eve dinner at their house. There were small children, moms and dads, some grandparents and friends. It was a lively, warm gathering and the meal was delicious. It wasn't the traditional Eve with Jay and the Pollock's, but to paraphrase the Stones, "If you can't be with the ones you love,
Love the ones you're with."

When I got home, Jay and I sent a few Kakaotalk messages back and forth and then I went to bed, fortunately early. Because I was wakened before 7:00am Christmas morning by the cheery ring of Kakaotalk, almost as welcome as the giggle of a child. It was May wishing me Merry Christmas just as they were heading to sleep. This is the sweet little mime she included in her message:



I was happy to receive it but not ready to get out of bed. Sweetness and giggles have their limit, and I was glad that it was all virtual reality for me and I could drop my iPhone under my bed, roll over and sleep some more. When I did wake up it was to a crazy coincidence. I reached up and turned on the radio to hear, "It's a marshmallow world in the winter...". I didn't have sweet dreams but I had two sweet awakenings, not that I like that song so much, but the coincidence pleased me.



Violets and a sprig of lavender in the back yard. Other than the year we spent in Puerto Vallarta, this is the first time I haven't had a white Christmas.

It's sunny and 7c this afternoon. The bit of snow we had in town has melted, but I was skiing yesterday in lots of it. However, I didn't ski on the weekend and am going to take a couple of days off again because I danced too much at the VOC Christmas party. I resurrected a pair of red heels and some black mesh nylons I haven't worn in years and when the less than terrific sound system in the hall blared a tune that moved me I rose and joined the other women boogieing it up with or without men. It was great until it wasn't. The shoes and nylons made it through the night admirably, but my knees don't appear to be made of the stuff of resurrection. I'll never dance in heals again. One of the mixed blessings of getting old is that never's not as long as it was. Or is it? Ay, there's the rub.

I had a KakaoTalk with Jay on Sunday, and he too was levelled on the weekend. He'd been trying to pace himself in the gym but a muscle in his back went out nonetheless.

So we both will be singing to Santa for body parts, not two front teeth, but backs and knees.






Carrying on to Christmas

As I sit here in the dark with the lights on the Christmas tree and in the window bright and blurry around me I wonder if Van Gogh was myopic. I'm thumbing through this post with my glasses off so that I can read the iPhone screen, and when I look up the aura surrounding each little light reminds me of his painting, The Starry Night.

The temperature has been in the minuses but not really low and still no snow in town. Barbara Steers and I are well into the planning of our trip to Mexico City and a one week Spanish course in Querétaro. After that, we will fly from Leon to Puerto Vallarta. I have already booked a dental appointment for January 21, the same day that Carolyn Baughan has an appointment with Dr. Adan. I know this because we've emailed each other a bit about meeting in PV. They've invited me to stay with them while I'm in PV. After that, I will spend a bit of time in La Penita with Barb and then return to Vernon. This Christmas will be quiet, and I will miss Jay and the gang, but Miriam and I are going to make Christmas dinner together at their place. With a couple of other outings and this trip in the offing, the future looks about as bright as and less blurry than these lights that surround me now.

Jay now has an apartment with May, a gym membership and one teaching job. It's not full time, but with the visa he has this time he will be able to put together a few different things.



The Starry Tree


Miriam and other CFUW friends on the snowshoe trail last Friday


A quail on the trail, I think 🤔 💭

Driven to decorate

Still no snow in town, but the weather's been dreary. I'm on a bit of a mission to use my dual cross country pass because I'm planning to spend about a month in Mexico this winter, so I've been skiing at Sovereign and Silver Star, a total of 7 times so far. The conditions have been pretty good. Tomorrow I will meet Priscilla at the Schubert Centre at 10:00 am to join a group that gathers there to belt out popular songs whether they can sing or not. We went last Tuesday for the first time, and the woman sitting beside me changed seats at the break. It made me wonder about my voice, and my suspicions were confirmed on Wednesday when I tried singing alone in the car as I drove to organize books for the FOL. I sounded off tune and time. My sounds are to singing as a ducks waddle is to a gazelle's leap. But I'm going back hoping that I won't clear the room and that maybe with a bit of exercise my vocal chords will vibrate more tunefully. We'll go skiing again after singing. I'm marginally better at the former.

The last three books I've read have dealt with the state of the USA today and how it got there. I've found them all fascinating, but the one I'm reading now is the best.









Listening to the news and reading these books drove me to decorate for Christmas on Sunday just to lighten the tone. I discovered when I went to the storage space under the basement stairs to get the tree that it was too big and heavy for me to move alone, but fortunately Jay had organized the space before he left and their smaller tree was also there. So now it stands decorated but unlit beside the fireplace. I also put up the window lights and other festive stuff. I'm not going to turn anything on until December 1, but having the tinsel Christmas colour all around has raised my spirits.









Even the plants in the sun room look brighter








Jay and May with her brother's two boys at a wedding in Seoul. They have finally moved into their own apartment.







Jay hiking with Frank in the hills around Seoul

Lest we forget

I'm just back from a walk around town, stopping at the Cenotaph for the 11:00 am memorial service, perhaps maimed but moving rites. The town is so small and the ceremony was so brief that I got home before noon. Three old planes flew overhead, a young mother, with her small son standing beside her, stood in front of the memorial to read "In Flanders Fields", slowly so that those gathered could say it with her, another woman took it upon herself to inform us of when it was time to begin and end the moment of silence, after which those who had been wearing a poppy took it off, approached the monument and placed it at the base of the cenotaph.









A young boy places his poppy beside the most touching tribute at Vernon's Cenotaph today. The can of Spam reminded me of dad's memories of 'Quonset sandwiches'. He called them that because at some point when he was overseas with the RCAF as a navigator, they lived in Quonset huts and made these sandwiches he loved using Spam that they either got in their rations or were sent from home.



Earlier in the morning I had listened to Adam Gopnik in conversation with Michael Enright on CBC Radio. Their discussion was largely about gun violence in the USA and the fact that although the majority of Americans polled are in favour of gun control, the power of the gun lobbyists, the willful spreading of misinterpretations of the Second Amendment of the US Constitution and the current US political leadership that appeals to anything but the better angels of our nature conspire to do nothing about it.

Violence, whether in war or on the street in peacetime, is often either ignored, condoned or downright encouraged by governments whose concerns lie elsewhere or whose self interest is furthered by it. At times this may seem to be more justified than at others but no matter what, it's the young and less privileged among us who suffer, who make,
"The ultimate sacrifice."





Sections from a recent article by Adam Gopnik.






The last thing I did on Remembrance Day was attend this concert at the Performing Arts. It was wonderful, the Okanagan Symphony Orchestra, a choir of well over 100 voices and these excellent soloists. I am adding this photo of the program because I want to remember their names. Rosemary Thomson, the music director of the OSO is what Ellen would call a real spark plug. Her professional enthusiasm inspires the musicians and her comments before a performance inform the audience and prepare them for the best. Needless to say, there were more people here than at the Cenotaph in the morning. It was a full house.

Rains before winter

I'm back in the chair by the window working my iPhone with one thumb, my right one; although I'm left handed. It was only a few weeks ago that I realized I am a right thumb texter. I'm definitely a slow blogger but I enjoy sitting here rehashing my days and well worn ideas. It's no wonder that I keep being reminded of E.M. Forster's story, 'The Machine Stops', which I haven't read since high school. I'm becoming Vashti and Jay is my Kuno, out in the world. I googled the story just now and discovered that Forster wrote it in 1909. I must have read it in a collection of short stories that was published after that. A lot of stuff at FWCI looked pretty ancient to me at the time, but the book couldn't have been that old. We have not yet devolved into Forster's underground dwelling, machine-run blobs. In fact, if retired people's endless bucket lists and the masses of tourists crowding world sites are any indication, we still like to travel. But some of the favourite venues are either getting overcrowded with first world retirees and the newly 'middle class' citizens of erstwhile third world countries or being inundated by the rising waters of climate change and destroyed by war. Thousands of other people are moving around the globe out of desperation. Maybe it won't be long before basement rooms are again a feature of every house in Canada. We'll decorate them with bars, pool tables and TVs, as we did in the 50s and 60s. and sit in them watching old Rick Steve's travel series on tv. Eventually we'll merely be able to sit in them pushing buttons with our index fingers. That's also our trigger finger isn't it. We might have to fend off invaders. Enough.

The month of October was perfect for getting outside, but rain is forecast for the whole of this week, which will be good for the dry earth.



A windy hike near Kelowna. I've lived here long enough that I can say that the new bridge in the distance across Lake Okanagan was just being started when I was staying with Bert and Peg before I could get into our house.




This year's Hallowe'en pumpkin, the day after








The view from a window of the apartment Jay and May will move into next week








Jay








And his friend Frank on a ride in Seoul

I drove Jay to the airport early Tuesday morning and returned home with only his yoga mats. He had them strapped to the outside of the enormous backpack Blake had given him, and they don't allow any attachments. I've been missing him, feeling a bit empty, especially making and eating dinner. We usually worked together preparing it and ate in front of the tv, watching either CBC, BBC or PBS News, depending on which slant we wanted. No matter which one we chose, we were constantly pushing the pause button to get our opinions off our chests. We frequently differed. Now I just have the sound of one hand clapping or slapping. But at least I can imagine what Jay might say and be a bit more critical myself, especially of CBC and Justin T. Jay has always made me laugh at least once a day and now that he's back in Korea I still get smiles imagining what he might say.

It's 4:45 Thursday evening, and I'm sitting in my chair by the window as the setting sun slanting through the blinds gives the whole room a golden glow. I went on a pretty long bike ride around Enderby to Gardom Lake with the VOC today. It was a good fall day but not as sunny as predicted, so we all got chilled, especially on the long downhill back into Enderby at the end of the ride. I am now wrapped in a shawl and blanket. The gas company, Fortis, has asked everyone to conserve while they work to repair a break in a gas line.


Jay on Bluenose, one of the hikes we went on while he was here


Carving the Thanksgiving roast


Jean blowing out the candles on her 100th Birthday cake


I straightened up the basement room after Jay had left. He sold all their stuff except his ATV helmet, so I set it up beside the laundry bag Marilyn Glover helped me make for Jim. It says, more or less, that either perseverance or pigheadedness, depending on your perspective, overcomes everything.

Oliver and Korea

We have gone very quickly from hot and smokey to cool and rainy. I prefer the latter, especially as last week when it really was rainy in Vernon I was in Oliver on the shores of Tucelnuit Lake at the VOC bike camp. It only rained a couple of nights while we were there. The days were perfect for biking, especially on an ebike. It's the best toy I've had since can't remember when. I no longer have to fear long hills; if I start feeling breathless, I can put her in 'eco', the lowest level of electric assist, and carry on. You still have to pedal, but my legs are strong. So it's back to being good exercise without the fear and fact of chest pain.

Jay's still here. May's additional papers arrived yesterday. He immediately put them together with his, walked to the post office, mailed them all express post to the South Korean Consulate in Vancouver and now awaits his fate. Meanwhile they talk on Kakaotalk for hours every day, and he and I are having a good time together.



Stopping at the Haynes Ranch, the oldest ranch in the Okanagan, on one of our bike rides.


The first rattler I've seen since I arrived in the Okanagan. If you look closely you can see her two babies curled up near her.


This plant looks innocuous, attractive even, but it's well named. It's hard pointy seed pods we're responsible for four flat tires, not mine fortunately, over five days of biking.


Me in my Korean grandma's gardening hat at the crazy hat barbecue. The even daffier looking person beside me is a friend's husband. He is part of a family that has been involved with Sovereign Lake Ski Club for years. He brought me back to the lodge on a snowmobile when I dislocated my shoulder a few years ago.


Mixing the fruit salad for the pancake breakfast. Each person threw in a cup or so of fresh local fruit.

Clearing up

We've had some clear, bright, early fall days lately. There are still fires burning in BC and a bit of smoke in the air at times, but the worst is over 🤞. Jay and May's work on all the tests, papers, forms and what not that must be amassed and sent hither and yon in order for Jay to return to and work in Korea seems to be getting cleared up too. Last Tuesday they were hit with the revelation that the only available forms on line, the ones Jay had been working from , had not been updated, so much of the information he had presented was incomplete. Information that had been classified as optional is now essential. After the cursing, there followed a few days of visits to medical and government offices in Vernon and Seoul and many conversations on KakaoTalk. It seems now that the bureaucratic ball is again rolling, albeit like the frozen flat tires on old cars in Thunder Bay winters.

My ebike is perfect now. The fenders and skirts are off and all the parts are lubricated and tightened. The new car carrier has also been improved, and for the first time I have a new helmet, not a hand me down from Mara Shepherd or Barbara Chase. Not that I wasn't grateful for those when I was given them. Tomorrow I drive with Marg, a new biking friend, to the one week, VOC bike camp near Oliver.



Last Saturday Mo, John and I biked to watch the parade at the Armstrong fair. The theme this year was Sheep Thrills. This man was the most eccentric entry. He never waved and didn't crack a smile. Stare as I did, I could not figure out how he powered and steered his ???? Is that a sheep he's astride?


There were many creatures in sheep's clothing, but this beaver was the funniest and least sheepish.





First bounty from the yard. Jay and I made plum sauce from the Green Gage and Italian plums and there are still plenty more on the trees.


The Thursday ride with the VOC. My mother would say that I look like Happy Hooligan in my new turquoise helmet and electric yellow jacket.

Smokanagan 2018

Today the air quality index in Vernon is 10.5. You can smell and taste the smoke. It doesn't just blanket the surrounding hills; it seems to swirl with the wind at the end of the street. I was wakened by its arrival around 1:00am. We shut all the windows. I could feel a tightening in my chest, and Jay was really stuffed up by it, as he has been for days. This morning I wanted to do yard work because it was necessary and it was beautifully cool. I dressed appropriately.






Smokanagan, Asian Fusion gardening gear (Korean purple pants and Vietnamese plaid breathing mask)
Normally you would see hills in the distance behind the church.

Banff

VOC in Banff National Park

I spent last week in Banff National Park with the VOC. Six of us shared a condo in Harvie Heights. On Sunday, I drove three of us and two of our bikes from slightly smokey Vernon into the towering, rugged Rockies. Visibility remained clear on the Monday hike along the C Level Cirque Trail and also on Tuesday as we biked into Banff and along the Vermilion Lakes. But as we rode home that afternoon the smoke drifted in. It had caught up with us.

By Wednesday morning the peaks that surrounded our place in Harvie Heights were no longer visible and the smell of smoke was in the air. We six decided to drive into Banff instead of going on the planned hike. Fortunately we arrived in town early enough in the morning to get one of the many free, three hour parking spots. We went first to the Whyte Museum, founded by local artists and philanthropists Peter and Catherine (Robb) Whyte. In the room that explained the development of the museum, Chic was recognized as having been a major contributor of time and information. We spent quite a while there. I was particularly impressed by the works of Carl C Rungius, especially his paintings of moose. By the time we left the museum the streets were alive, not with the sound of music, but with other tourists, talking, shopping and snapping selfies with no mountains in the background. We drove to a golf club for lunch. Later, Mo and I had one of many soaks in the hot tub at our condo. During and after dinner we discussed which of the two possible Thursday hikes we would take: the easy, the difficult, the first half of the latter. By morning we realized it had all been a waste of time and hot air. The smoke was still quite thick. We went off together to join the easy hike to Johnston Canyon and the Ink Pots. I, who remembered it from when I was twenty and working for Brewster's, had dismissed it as too easy the night before but found it in my seventies to be quite enough of a challenge and well worth the walk.
Our last hike on Friday was around the Sunshine Meadows. We took a long gondola and short chairlift ride to the top and walked up and down and around for hours. It was beautiful in spite of the fact that we couldn't see the distant peaks.

Lack of clarity was a theme of the trip for me. I felt quite on top of things while packing and driving to Banff but lapsed into confusion on the second day when I thought I had lost my MasterCard. I panicked. Then calmed down, went on line, got the MasterCard number, phoned it and canceled the card. I was just gluing together my shattered nerves when Jane came downstairs waving my MasterCard. She'd found it in the folds of her quilt. OMG. Oh well. It was a bit of a laugh until I went to put it in my purse, even though it was now useless, and discovered that what I had really lost was my TD debit card. So I was beginning my holiday with no plastic and very little cash. Lynne volunteered to accompany me on a bike ride to the TD bank in Canmore. By this time I was as rattled as the character in the Stephen Leacock story. But for no reason. The teller was sweet, helpful without being patronizing. In five minutes I walked out of the bank having already used my new debit card to withdraw cash from the machine. When I arrived home yesterday I found the envelope containing my new MasterCard where Jay had put it, in the pile of saved mail.

Unfortunately the weather has not cleared as quickly as my confusion. The smoke from the forest fires is now so thick you can taste it. My chest even feels a bit heavy. BC is still burning.









Donna and me on the Cirque C trail







Lunch with Lynne and Aleta. I'm using the chopsticks Gord made. I forgot a fork to eat my salad, so he looked around, found a stick, broke it in half and gave me the pieces to eat with.










The trail back from lunch on the Monday hike






Peek a boo. Mo on our first hike.







A painting by Carl C Rungius in the Whyte Museum in Banff





The falls at Johnston Canyon







A hippy on a stick in the Sunshine Meadows








Map of fires currently burning in BC

All the young Thai soccer players and their coach are safe. Milagro!Only one rescuer died. In the last picture I saw of the boys their heads were shaven and they were offering prayers of thanks to those who had saved their lives. The last bit of fine tuning of my new ebike was that Jay tightened everything that an Allen Key can turn. It has run smoothly ever since. Two stories that occupied my life for a while have both ended well.

Now we are into the real heat of summer. I've been staying inside between 1 and 5 most days, rising around 7 to bike, hike or work in the yard early. I water two evenings a week but that barely keeps things growing. Everything is getting crisp and fires are now banned everywhere. The sunflowers did much better than I had expected, but this morning I chopped most of them down and cut off their heads, which I set out in the garage to dry for next winter's birdseed. Then I leaned the long parched stalks against the back fence to wait for Jay's next dump run. The back yard is drab without them. Then Jay and I had a big, late bacon and egg breakfast after which he drove to Enderby with a friend to float down the river. He worked last week building a carport with Everett, the carpenter he finished the basement with. He will probably continue working with him for the next few weeks, maybe until he leaves for Korea. That is still the plan, but there's a lot more preparation to do in Manila, Vernon and Seoul. Vernon is certainly the the skimpy filling in that city sandwich.

I'm getting to be quite a small town old lady, sitting in the afternoon in my favourite chair by the window in the living room. When I first sat down to read today, I was distracted by movement in the church parking lot across the street. I put on my glasses, which I take off to read, and watched a thin, drugged or drunken man with wildly dishevelled hair who was staggering around the lot, pulling things out of a green garbage bag and stomping on them. I took my glasses off again to continue reading and writing. The next time I put them on he had disappeared and there was a young mother in a bright summer dress in the same parking lot practicing riding her bicycle with her daughter who was wearing a pink bike helmet sitting on a special seat behind her. I don't have a grand view of Lake Okanagan, but the church across the street entertains me with the gamut of humanity that comes to its services, weddings, funerals, concerts, soup kitchen lunches and day care programs.

When I finish this I'm going to make iced tea and continue reading, If I Die In A Combat Zone, Box Me Up And Ship Me Home by Tim O'Brien. I taught his collection of short stories, The Things They Carried, when I was at the lycee but had forgotten about him. He writes very well.






Terry Keough sent me these pictures this week. He took them when we were having lunch together in Victoria. It was surprisingly moving to open his email and see mom and dad again.





I proudly present the biggest garlic in my crop. I only had seven in total and two of them were really small.

Well, the ebike odyssey continued. On my inaugural ride last Monday the bike made a scraping sound and erratic clicks even when it was not in assist mode. Then on Tuesday when I went for a ride with Miriam the electric assist screen showed a series of letters and numbers that the manual said meant trouble, so we canceled the ride. Miriam volunteered to go with me to Kamloops the next day. We arrived at Cycle Logic at 9:00am, David was ready to go and we went walking around Kamloops. Among other things, we found a thrift shop with bargains for both of us. When we returned to the shop, I took the bike for a test run. Perfect.

I now have a name for my bike. When I was in the Rec. Centre sauna last week a man who's there regularly and whose banter I usually ignore because I dislike his attitude made me laugh. He got an ebike recently and said that when he took it out to ride for the first time his neighbour came out and yelled, "So now you're driving a Hardly Davidson." My bike is now called Hardly.

Jay is on call on this his last week of work for Okanagan Restoration. He left early but sent me a message soon after to tell me the good news that four of the twelve Thai boys trapped in the cave have been rescued. What a moving story that is. It's an inspiring example of youth, the will to live and the readiness of skilled people to do whatever they can to help, no matter the danger to themselves. We are so flooded with self interest these days that this is a deep breath of fresh air. May they all get out alive.

My new bike kit includes a gift Caroline gave me when she returned from Thailand last year.









Caroline's Thai purse carries the valuables








More news from the back yard.

HAPPY CANADA 🇨🇦 DAY

Saturday, June 30th has been productive. Jay and I were at work well before 7:00am. I cooked and gardened while he replaced the really old door on the equally ancient back garage. He was using a slightly newer door that he'd got from our neighbour a few years ago when he helped him tear down his portion of Jim's Eccentricity. My job was easy compared with that. I was trying a new recipe for salmon croquettes, but at least all the ingredients were fresh. He, on the other hand, was struggling with old doors and a frame that time and weather had been warping since the '30s. It's not perfect but it's over 80 years old and it swings freely now. It was a good day for working, not too hot, cloudy and the threatened rain didn't come. Although there's a strong wind now. As I look out the window I see only the backs of the leaves on the grape vines. I remember Ron Noginosh passed on a bit of First Nations lore to me once, in his educating whitey way. "When you see the backs of the leaves, it's going to rain." So perhaps it will. I wouldn't mind and neither would the yard, in spite of the fact that it's been cooler and wetter than usual in the Okanagan lately. I heard on the radio that it's going to be really hot in Ottawa tomorrow.

I finally have an ebike. Thus ends the most serious shopping I've ever undertaken. And in spite of the fact that I did countless google searches, visited six or eight bike shops in Vernon, Kelowna and Kamloops and test rode quite a few bikes, I bought one yesterday in Kamloops that I had never heard of until about two hours before I bought it. I had gone there ten days earlier with my friend Jane. We had bought identical bikes, but there was only one in the shop. We were in Jane's car and she had a rack, so she got it and one was ordered for me. NOT. It's a long story, but I ended up back in Kamloops yesterday to pick up a loaner to ride until mine came in. BUT the dealer called while I was there to say that there was no hope of getting the bike I had ordered, not even for ready money. Ebikes are as popular as pizza these days, and not as quickly made. I had reached my limit. Shopping rattles me the way banks rattle the character in the Stephen Leacock story I can't remember the title of. David, the man I'd been dealing with at Cycle Logic could see that I was getting psychologically shattered. He said I could keep the loaner as long as I needed to. But I couldn't bear the thought of dragging out the agony of shopping. So a couple of hours later I was headed for home with a new ebike, a bit of a deal because of the inconvenience but still a bit more expensive than the one Jane and I had originally chosen. Now I have to study how to make it work. You don't just jump on the thing and ride. I still haven't set the clock on the control panel, and that's the easiest of its functions. Yikes. I'm not going to really appreciate it until Monday when I get to the first hill and engage the battery.



The new door and ebike


The new bike in front of the sunflowers in the back yard.

Going with the flow

Jay and I have become good at going with the flow. In fact, if it weren't for the flow we mightn't get anywhere. This served me well on Sunday. We had nothing specific planned. We slept until almost 8:00am, Jay made coffee and we took it outside to drink in the shade of the horse chestnut. This seemed to be the right moment to ask him about something I'd been considering for a while. Would he be interested in joining me for a walk on ranch land just outside of Vernon to look for a place to scatter Jim's ashes. I hadn't thought until we began discussing this that it was Father's Day as well as my birthday. He said it was my decision but he would join me if that's what I wanted. So we went back inside for more coffee and cinnamon toast, removed Jim's ashes from the urn, put them in two bags in a backpack and drove to the ranch. It was a warm morning, perfect for roaming the grassy hills, which we did, with only fleeting fear that there might be ticks. We found a hill overlooking Swan Lake with a clear view of the valley of Vernon to the right and on the left fields spreading to more rolling hills and eventually the Monashees. There was still a bit of snow on the tops of them. We each scattered some of Jim's ashes in this place. I think he would have approved; it's a part of the Okanagan he loved.
We drifted back to town. Jay treated me to lunch at Eatology, a restaurant that makes unique and delicious food. Only Albert Pollock can poach an egg as well as they do.
Back at home we settled down to doing things. Jay washed his quad, truck and my car while I revealed myself to be more moved than I had thought by the experience of finally settling Jim's ashes. Or else I was just my usual distracted self. At any rate, part way through making the pizza dough for our birthday dinner I realized I was following the recipe I got years ago from Jim's mom for 'Flaky French Croissants'. I haven't made them since before Jim died but I carried on and made pizza crust too. We had TV dinner watching Idris Elba, a favourite of mine, in a very good but unsettling movie about child soldiers, 'Beasts of No Nation'.
I couldn't have had a better birthday if I had carefully mapped it out in advance.

Back yard and beyond

It's raining.
This morning I learned from the fount of all real news, CBC Radio, that June is generally the wettest month of the year in Vernon. And well it might be. We have had some real rain in the last few days, and the temperatures are quite a bit cooler than they were in the last two weeks of May. This is good for the yard. The back is ludicrous, a forest of sunflowers and maple branches. Jay described the pollarded maple as a bullet, a variation of the mullet. You know the once popular man's haircut that was short front and top and long at the back. Well a bullet is bald on top and long at the back. And that's what this huge tree is like. Very few new branches are sprouting at the top but the whole back, facing the house, is a thick train of leafy new branches. I've been enjoying working in the yard, going on a few hikes and bikes and watching a couple of good movies:

' The Insult,' directed by Ziad Doueiri is about Lebanon in the 80s. It's a wonderful treatment of a personal dispute within a national conflict.

'The Death of Stalin' directed by Armando Iannucci is a really good farce with some wonderful actors.




This shot is the best I could get of the 'bullet'



Two of the most beautiful roses in the yard




One of the ugliest faces in the world. This article written by the director of 'The Death of Stalin' just shortly after Trump's election is a good one.