It's time

I’m looking through photo albums from 35 years ago. They are full of photos Mum took on her various trips. This morning I’ve been looking at a trip she took to Britain. The labels are neatly typed and beside some of the photos are details like the photo of the donkey trained to walk on a wheel to pull a bucket up from a well. Mum tells me in her comments that the donkey’s name is Jenny and when Jeny sees the top of the bucket above the top of the well she steps off the wheel. There is a photo of “Oliver, a chocolate point Siamese who came out immediately to share Dorothy’s prawn sandwich.” These photos and their captions make me smile.

Oliver the lunch-sharing cat

There are photos of Mum, only a few years older than I am now. She wasn’t much for photos of herself. I can imagine the fun she had selecting the photos, typing the captions and putting them into albums. She, like me, relived moments of the trip as the albums went together.

Mum middle, her cousin Berta right

Perhaps that is the reason I’ve been so hesitant to get rid of the albums. I know they meant something to her and that she relished every trip she took and the memories of each one. In her later years she was fond of saying, “Well, I did it when I could,” and she did a lot!

I’m going carefully through each album, taking out the photos of Mum and the ones that will be good for drawing practice. The first album I did I took all of the pages out and salvaged the cardboard pages with sticky strips on them. I thought they might be good for book covers. I’ve used a few of them but they warp more than other types of cardboard and I don’t think it’s worth my time to scrape the captions off. So I’ll take out the photos I want to keep and the rest will go out. If I have seen the places she photographed, I have my own photos and memories and if I haven’t, they really don’t mean anything to me. It’s a bit sad to be disposing of all the hours of work she put into them; however she would have been the first one to advise me to get rid of them if they have served their purpose.

She spent years cleaning out my dad’s stuff and was determined not to leave me with the same task. By the time she died she had very few possessions and enjoyed the ones she did have. I know I have way too much stuff and I’m starting to go through what I have. I’m not at the point of being absolutely ruthless yet but I am making a start by sorting through the albums. After all, ‘a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.’

What now? Scotland to Iceland 6

When I last wrote about our Scotland to Iceland trip, we were in Greenock port with a hole in the hull of the ship. Adventure Canada is extremely good at changing plans on the fly so they got busy and arranged a couple of tours of the local area for us.

On Thursday June 15 we boarded buses and headed for Stirling Castle. It was another scorcher and the heat radiated off the cobblestones inside the courtyard of the castle. I didn’t feel like taking a tour so I wandered around on my own, did a couple of drawings and tried to stay relatively cool. There were many interesting exhibits but the one at which I spent the most time was one on musical instruments of the time. There were various mock-ups of instruments that you could play and buttons to push that gave brief snippets of music played on the historical instruments. There were several young kids there and we politely took turns at the various stations.

I wandered the gardens and climbed up to the top of the castle for a view of the surrounding countryside. Not being much of a history buff I’ll leave it to you if you’d like to learn more about the history of the castle. https://www.stirlingcastle.scot/discover/about-the-castle/

We returned to the ship, cooled off a bit and then watched some delightful Scottish dancers. The dancers ranged in age from 5 or 6 to teenagers. I enjoyed watching the younger ones who were simultaneously having fun and regarding their performance as a very important occasion. We were hoping to be able to sail that night but it was to be another day of land based adventures before we actually cast off.

Seeking shade

Musical exhibit

Shaft of sunlight underground

Rose in the castle gardens

View from the top of the castle

Never say never

Well, 2023 has come and gone and here we are in 2024. It was a good year for us with travel and new and old things to keep us entertained. We are fortunate in our friendships and we just returned from a wonderful visit with relatives in Vancouver.

While I was there I made an interesting discovery. There aren’t many foods that I don’t like but brussel sprouts is pretty high up on the list. I’ve always found them bitter and I ate them if I could completely cover the taste with something else. Since folks generally serve brussel sprouts with turkey dinners, I found gravy and cranberry sauce did a good job of masking the taste. When my cousin suggested we have brussel sprouts one night for dinner I said they weren’t really my favourite. She told me she hadn’t liked them either if they were boiled but they were good roasted and I should try some.

I was willing to give them another try. Turns out she was right. I enjoyed them and even went back for a second helping. I’m always on the lookout for ways to increase the cruciferous veggies in my diet and I was pleased to have found a way to cook the sprouts that were not only palatable but delicious. When we got home and Richard did the first grocery shopping of the year, he bought a bag of brussel sprouts. He cooked them up as instructed and again, they were delicious. From now on I’ll be looking for them in the grocery store and whenever I see them, I’ll buy them. I’m not sure why adding brussel sprouts to my diet delights me but it does. Maybe it’s knowing that long standing tastes can change for the better or maybe it’s one of those very small things that I’ll be looking for and savouring in 2024.

The second thing that falls under the ‘never say never’ category isn’t quite as positive. I remember when I first taught high school we went cross country skiing almost every weekend during the winter. We also skied after school in the parks and golf courses around Calgary. There was always abundant snow and it was easy to get out for an hour or two. I haven’t had the motivation to get out on snowshoes or cross country skis for years now but that’s a different issue.

We flew home from Vancouver on New Year’s Eve and drove directly to our friends’ house for snacks and fireworks. They very kindly invited us to share the evening with them understanding that we would have very little food in the house. They live in a lake community on the south side of town and the community puts on a fireworks display on New Year’s Eve. We thought about going to the lake to watch but then decided to stay inside and watch the fireworks from the kitchen window instead. The fireworks display was short and beautiful. We didn’t have to go anywhere; we simply stood at the window with the lights off in the warm kitchen and watched. Now, that’s my kind of fireworks!

Not being as young as we used to be, and feeling no compulsion to stay around until the stroke of midnight, we left for home around 10:30. We walked out of the house and into the rain. Yes, RAIN! This is Calgary. It’s December 31 and, regardless of how lovely warmer temperatures feel, it just shouldn’t rain in the winter here! It wasn’t just a case of ‘can’t make up my mind to rain or snow’ either: it was a hard pounding rain. It should be cold and snowy at this time of year. Cold kills pine beetles and other creatures that we haven’t had to worry about at this latitude before. Snow lands on the glaciers and in the mountains and fills up our rivers in the spring. While I don’t particularly enjoy freezing my butt off, I don’t have to go to work and can get what I need when the weather warms slightly or when it’s not dumping snow. I couldn’t help but think that this coming summer we will, again, have a serious and prolonged forest fire season. Our snowiest month is usually March so there’s still time to replenish some of that ice and water in the mountains. I wouldn’t mind getting some of that snow now.

Anyway, the world bumbles along as do I. The sun is shining in an almost cloudless sky and the temperature is slightly below freezing. Odie is sitting beside me on his perch, head tucked into his back feathers having a nap and my tea cup is empty. Odie probably deserves his own post but that’s for later. Right now it’s time to make another cup of tea and smile at the memory of brussel sprouts and fireworks. In 2024 I’ll be savouring little nuggets such as these. May you also find small things each day that make you smile.