Kitchener airport

VIA workers did not strike, but I went to Walkerton by bus anyway.  It was fine.  Caroline took me to the station.  The seating was allocated according to the time the ticket was purchased, so I was the 20th person to board the bus and easily got a window seat. The system is slowly approaching the efficiency of Mexico's. The only hitch was traffic in Toronto at rush hour.  It took about 45 minutes for the bus to get from the station to the 401. Traffic seemed bad in Ottawa until I sat through that.  It must always be slow because the schedule had accounted for it.  We reached Guelph on time.  Cathy and Brian picked me up, and the last leg of my trip east began.

 I've been in Walkerton enough now to feel at home there.  I have the whole top floor of Brian and Cathy's house, know some of their friends and have seen the grandchildren so often that Alex remembered that we had gone swimming together last summer.  My birthday was all I could have asked for.  Mark picked me up in the morning and took me canoeing on the Saugeen River.  We went quite a long way quickly because we actually paddled; we didn't just drift.  With Mark in the stern I felt perfectly confident and only had to paddle hard when I wanted to for the exercise. We did have some wind against us at times. When we got to the dam near David's house, I got out and Mark shot the sluice.  We portaged around the dam in town, Mark with the canoe and me carrying paddles and cooler.  The day was beautiful, almost too hot by the time we landed and Cathy picked us up.  Cathy made her signature standing rib roast for dinner followed by strawberry rhubarb pie for desert.  The whole gang was there: Mark, Jen, Emily and Evan and David, Dana, Alex and Zak.  It was hot enough for the kids to run wild and wet in the back yard and the adults to sit in the shade and sip drinks.  Perfect.  So far 70 seems to be fine.  

I'm home. The flight was fine, but I don't like flying, trudging through airports that are huge and partly under construction and having your ears pop as you rise and descend.  I land feeling deaf and confused.  Fortunately, Jay was there to take me home in his truck.  It was great to see him and the sleepy May who stumbled, squinting into the kitchen to greet me.  I saw the girls the next day.  Jin Hee is still a dynamo and Min Hee has a pet Guinea pig she calls Snowball.  The garden was overgrown.  Now, after about 6 hours of joint-aching work, it looks managed again.  I love to work in it, but I ached all over until I had a hot tub at Mo and John's this evening.  May and I had one of our delicious lunches today in which we eat food that none of the others will touch like fish trimmings, skin and all, or chicken livers.  She cooks them both in oil and garlic and we eat them with sticky rice and lettuce and avocado, usually using our fingers.  Filipinos eat as well as the Lebanese.  It's enough to make me accept the fact that you can't get a descent shawarma in Vernon.   

Jay just got home from driving his truck in the mud on the back roads around Vernon, so I will eat a bit with him and have an early night.  

Mark about to shoot the sluice on the Saugeen River.

A cow with eye makeup almost as extravagant as Min and Jin's

A castle in Brockton, none of your castles in Spain

Getting around

I've been on the move and sleeping around.  For me, fortunately or un, the latter doesn't involve any awarkward wondering in the morning about who's head is on the pillow beside me.  I've been staying with Don and Mela for the last few days. Poor Don has spent the whole time wandering around, unable to sit for any length of time because of sciatic nerve pain. He's even had to eat standing up sometimes.  He hopes it will just go away, but if not he'll have to see a doctor next week.  Mela and I, on the other hand, have been busy in her garden and at nurseries.  We planted a beautiful crab apple tree in memory of Blake.  She's done a lot of work in the yard since they moved in and it's beautiful this June. We also went to a wonderful dinner with Miche and Paul at Les Fugères in Chelsea.  It has been remodelled since I was there with Jim.  Huge windows frame the trees and gardens that surround the building, so the interior is as bright and open as the outdoors.  The woodwork is all light and the bar is a sinuous line of pale coloured rammed earth that looks like a pastel wall of rock in a painted desert; the food remains delicious. Mela and Don will have lots of company staying with them in the next few months. Their house is suited for that because there are two spare bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs. I have enjoyed being with them and hope that this time spent with family and friends will ease them into a new pattern of life. 

In a little while, Caroline will pick me up. I will spend the last days in Ottawa with them before taking the bus to Walkerton on June 14th. I was supposed to take the train but received an email from the never-to-be-counted-on VIA Rail this morning informing me of the fact that they are presently in negotiations with their employees' union and hope to avoid a strike. If unsuccessful, the latter could be out as of noon on June 13.  My ticket was for around noon on June 14.  As I have no faith in VIA's ever being on time, I was not about to count on their settling with their workers by Monday.  The email informed me that I could get a complete rebate if I cancelled, so I did. Then I went through the necessary hoops of phone calls and on line stuff to get a Greyhound ticket to Guelph.  I emailed Cathy about the changes and as she has no objections to meeting me at the bus instead of the train station, I'm back on track/highway for Walkerton.

It sounds as if a whole chaos of grandchildren await, so the last week of my visit in the east will be very different from the first.

Barb Steers delighted by her birthday cake at the surprise party Crofton and Nick organized for her at The Mill in Wakefield

One of the boats at the races in Gananoque that I went to with Miche and Paul.  We got right into the pits.  Note that the prop. is covered; they all were.  

Caroline and Mela at the Stoney Swamp nature trail.

Me with Mela at the same spot in front of the beaver house.

Back east

I'm sitting on my bed in a B&B, Les Jardins de L'Achillée Millefeuille, in Les Laurentides. Micheline is reading in the Jacuzzi-type tub that took us a while to get used to last night, mainly because we didn't read the instructions clearly posted on the wall before using it. We biked on Le Petit Train du Nord yesterday when we arrived and again today. We had intended to do more today than we did but we stopped in Val David to visit a potter that Maurine knows and stayed so long with him that it was well past lunch, so we went to a cafe in Val David for a revivifying café alongé followed by pizza and salad.  By the time we were finished, 

rain was threatening, so we decided to ride back to Sainte-Agathe-des-Monts where we had left the car. By the time we got there it was raining. We waited a while at the station to see if it would stop but it didn't so we racked our bikes and drove to Mont Tremblant. The weather was fine when we got there, so we walked around.  Then we bought some food and wine, drove home and had a great meal and talk. It's now 10:35pm, and we're relaxing. We've 'shut'er down' as Jay says. Anyone who knows this area will realize that our bike tour today was only 14 kilometres in total, but the time we spent visiting with the potter, Kinya Ishikawa easily compensated for our lack of physical activity.  He spent well over an hour walking with us around his Jardin de Silice, a project he has been working on for the last 9 years.  It's a testament to his love of pottery and the community of potters. Every summer he hosts a three-week gathering of potters on his property. It's called '1001 Pots'. He knows that making pottery is solitary work and this gives them a chance to get together, socialize, see each other's work and sell some of theirs.  The works of these potters and many others are incorporated into the walls of the garden that he continues to work on every summer and plan every winter.  His imagination is vast and the work he has done to realize his vision of a huge instalation of steel and pottery, boulders and vines is impressive. It really was a privilege to walk around his creation with him as he explained how he had envisioned and executed it. 

My time in the east has been spent with good friends, Pollocks, Baughans, Don and Mela, Barb Steers and now Miche. Gardens seem to be a feature of this visit. I've helped in both of Caroline's gardens, admired Micheline's, relaxed in the Baughan's and Barb's and next week I hope to visit with Don and Mela and help her in her garden. The reason for my coming was a sad one, but things grow in the spring in spite of everything. Life carries on. 

Micheline in her chicken house with three eggs. 

Kinya in front of his Jardin de Silice in Val David. 

A view down the length of the Jardin

A small portion of one of the walls of pottery encased in steel mesh in Kinya's exhibit, 1001 Pots. 

Blake Alexander MacMillan (BAM)

Hello, I'm Jan Van de Vyvere. Like you, I'm here today to remember Blake and to share memories of him in the hope that by being together with Margaux, Mela and Don we might ease their pain at his loss. His life was short but his spirit lively.  It is his vitality that we will always remember. 

I first saw his beaming little face when he was three.  He came running to greet Jay as we entered the door of the daycare. His eyes were so wide with the promise of fun and mischief that I wished I could have stayed and joined them. 

A year later I did. I quit work and started a daycare at our place. Most days Blake and Jay were my only customers.  And we did have fun. If Blake wanted to do something, he did it with an energy and enthusiasm that was contagious.  

One day we went to a pool in Ottawa where I discovered another of Blake's qualities, determination. He was a skinny little kid who didn't really like swimming much; his lips turned blue after about three minutes in the water, but when he heard that I wanted to teach them to dive, he was determined to learn. We went to the deep end. He prepared exactly as I had instructed.  Just before taking the plunge, he turned to look at me one last time. His expression was serious. The space between his furrowed brows seemed to be flushed with the intensity of his effort.  Then he lowered his head and dove in.  As he rose up out of the water, eyes wide and mouth spluttering, I saw that bits of his breakfast were beginning to rise up after him.   He swam to the edge, and as I pulled him out, we shared a conspiratorial  look and moved to another part of the pool, leaving the cereal to settle on its own.  He dove so many times that day that his lips turned purple but the rest of his breakfast stayed down and he did learn to dive.

Blake Alexander MacMillan, BAM!   That pretty well sums him up. When he was around there was very little neutral ground.  He was his own person, but he had elements of Mela and Don in him. 

If he took on a task, he finished it,and well. If he was your friend, he was generous, fun to be with and true.  He sought the best in himself, in everything and in everybody. He was as  pleased with his friends' successes as he was with his own. 

When he fell in love with Margaux,it was our turn to rejoice in his joy, and we did. They were soul mates.

He is no longer with us in the flesh, but the memory of his lively spirit will remain to encourage us and to brighten our lives at moments when we might least expect it.  

Monday, May 16, 2016

Edmonton to Ottawa

May and Jay were up with me this morning before six. They had some complex arrangements involving dropping off his truck at the garage and both getting to work; the girls were on their own to get to school. Mo picked me up at 6:00am and drove me to the airport.  Then she had to get back to Vernon to go on the clear before Sunday's Sugarloaf hike, which she volunteered to lead for me. I thought we had arrived in time for me to have the traditional Tim's coffee and bagel BLT breakfast, but I was wrong. There were a lot of people at the airport, so after checking in, I had to get right onto the security lineup. I don't mind the flying part of air travel, but all the removing of shoes, prohibiting of liquids, X-raying of luggage, showing of photo ID multiple times, charging extra for all stowed luggage ( which is done on relatively expensive national flights but not on bargain international ones), having to pay if you want to eat anything other than pretzels or cookies, etc, might ground me. But it is faster than driving in spite of all the frustrations, and I have no worries for food; May sent me off with enough granola bars to get me to Vladavostoc, and I'll be in Ottawa in about three hours, after leaving Edmonton one hour ago. The little plane on the tv monitor is approaching Winnipeg. 

Jay is working all week and flying to Ottawa on Friday. Because it's a long weekend, he won't have to fly home until Monday. He had been looking forward to showing Blake and Margaux the wonders of Vernon, not flying back to Ottawa himself to be at Blake's funeral. 

Talking of flying, this mother mallard in Polson Park flew at me right after I took this picture. 

Sunday, May 8

It's a week since Blake died.  And life goes on, as it does.  Sometimes I feel stunned for a moment, as if punched in the stomach,  but other parts of the day carry on.  I am enjoying my holiday in Victoria.  The weather has been perfect.  Every morning begins as it always used to with coffee and conversation in B and T's living room.  We have had lunch together a few times and gone for a walk and coffee by the Gorge. Yesterday we visited the Victoria Art Gallery.  Part of it is the impressive old home of the Spencer family.  We spent most of our time looking at an exhibit of watercolours very thoughtfully put together from the gallery's permanent collection.  This was followed by beer, white wine for B, and a meatball sandwich in a pizza restaurant that I had wanted to return to for pizza but then got distracted by the lunch special.

I had a good walk and lunch with Ross and Liz last week, and we will do the same tomorrow.  On Tuesday I will join Barbara and her group, The Old Roses, some women who tended the old rose garden at Government House in Victoria a few years ago.  And then I will drive home on Wednesday, earlier than originally planned.  I have booked a flight to Ottawa for Mon., May 16 in order to  be able to see Don and Mela and do whatever I can to help them.  The memorial service for Blake will be on May 21.

Aside from this, I have had a couple of bike rides on the Galloping Goose and dipped my inflatable kayak into the Pacific twice, once at Willows Beach and once in the Gorge and Inner Harbour.  Both times I was lucky to meet people who helped me either by easing my fear of tipping alone on entry or by giving me helpful tips.  Now I have started from a beach and a dock in both fresh and salt water; each time I feel more confident.  It's fun just to be out on the water; I never was one to push even the flimsiest of envelopes, but I find that at this age I am thrilled just by being there. 

Barbara and Terry having coffee by The Gorge

One of my favourite watercolours in the exhibit

About the artist

The BC Legislature from the kayak

The little ferry whose driver intentionally passed close to me as I was taking the preceding picture. He and his passengers got more of a kick out of it than I did. 

Liz, Jan and rhododendrons

Ross and I on the beach. I might have been trying to glimpse Mercury crossing the sun. 

Blake

On Sunday, May 1, Blake died while riding his dirt bike in Calabogie.  Blake Alexander MacMillan, BAM, boy and man, an enthusiast, determined, insistant upon getting the best from himself, others, gear, everything.  He was always truly delighted when things went well, whether for himself or his friends. 

Jay and I are devastated to lose him. He has been part of our lives since Jay was two and they were together in daycare. Mela, Don, Jim and I and the boys had almost every Sunday dinner together all the years that we lived in Wakefield.  The boys were like brothers, very different individuals brought close by many shared expiences both with and without their parents. 

I'm too tearful to write more at this time but couldn't let the moment go unnoted.