Canada Day 11 days past

I met a spiderman, a tiger, a forgot what was painted on Morgan's arm and a forgot what was painted on Noah's arm. The tiger and her brother are Noah's and Hayden's friends - the four of them came into this world with the help of a midwife.

On the way to the park we passed a car parked in a tree garage

and a fully loaded cherry tree, my first such sighting since I arrived in Canada.

I just came back from grocery shopping where I had this weird encounter in the vegetable section of a supermarket. I met Hulk all dressed in black. We met eyes as we were passing each other  and with a grin in his face he tilted his head towards a young woman trailing four little ones behind her. And so spoke Hulk "You know, they were almost entirely exterminated. No wonder they have the urge to multiply".
She wore long sleeves heavy stockings the boys wore their yamaca and the fringes of their undergarment were showing. The youngest, the little girl, was wearing a sundress.

Off to........

celebrate Canada Day with  my grandchildren.

Hopefully the activities will take place in a park nearby. I must not forget to pack some painkillers which I only take very rarely but my legs are not very nice to me lately. I must make sure they cooperate this weekend.

St. Jean Baptiste Day or La Saint-Jean is...

our national holiday here in Quebec - June 24th.


Our small town celebrated yesterday. Live music, bonfire, games for children, food and drink and fireworks kept things lively.


A young couple dancing caught my eyes. Talk about energy. And their two children doing cartwheels have not fallen far from the tree.


No, I did not indulge in a drink or two.  I just don't know how to push the buttons of my camera.

Exhausted dancers.

Edelweiss and Butterflies

Whenever I saw him in the school yard my heart flattered like the wings of a butterfly. He was three grades ahead of me. Girls on one side of the yard, boys at the other end. We shot glances at each other but very very seldom talked. Summer vacations he spend on his bike touring Germany and Switzerland and was gone until 'back to school'. He never roamed the streets like many other boys - always studying hard to remain first in class. He never came to the movies. I occasionally saw him at church. The year he came back from climbing the Swiss Alps and handed me an Edelweiss, I was in heaven.

It all started when I was 14 and I can count on one hand the times we talked together.

We meet at the river's swimming area which was known as the public pool. Yes, we have  a wooden shack which is used as changing room. It's walls are riddled with peeping holes. We do not want to be seen talking to each other- my dad does not allow it - so we stretch out on the grass instead of the blanket and pull the blanket over us. How sweet when faces are so close to each other that cheeks and noses touch and eyelashes enlace  for a blink blink dance - the butterfly kiss.

He leaves his bike at the edge of the road and walks me home on a hot afternoon. I know that mom is at work and dad is either at the Cafe or walking the streets to check if I am up to any mischief. I offer to show him my room. My walls are covered with pictures of film stars.  He looks and asks to see my breasts. I lift up my shirt and pull it back down in the same move. His first look at female anatomy. He became a medical doctor. No butterfly kiss, nothing.

I had been up on the mountain to decorate the chapel dedicated to Ste.Mary with bouquets of lilac. As I come down the path I hear this strange unfamiliar noise which I have never heard before and can not identify. I reach the country road, turn the corner and see him standing at the edge of a steep deep hill holding on to his bike and shouting "your father went down here in his car".   I did not even look down there. I started screaming and ran off in the opposite direction to lean against the wall of the vicar's residence, wailing as loud   as I could until the Vicar came out. Dad survived.

I am 18. He is away at university but happens to be attending the same event as I in our home town. He walks me home. We talk and kiss.

I move away. I marry. I come to Canada and 60+ years later I find a letter from him in my mailbox (2009).
He married a doctor - they are retired - they travel all over the world - he came to a class reunion in his home town and was given my address.

These are the pictures he enclosed with the letter  I received today.

Tenerife - climbing Teide.                        He him  =  Edmund

• 
  

Pride

I am so blessed to witness so many memorable events in my family.                                                                

Grandson Hayden is sitting on his well deserved victory laurels holding his diploma for graduating from 'small school'. He will now go to same 'big school' as older brother Noah.

Moselito is proud to present his and his classmates's pottery creations.

There was so much more but the pottery workshop master, our dear friend the  'Amazon', suggested I'd better stop taking pictures when she saw me lean on a wall on which some plates were on display.

Me: "Oh no! So sorry. Hope the artist is not looking".
Amazon: "Don't worry. It's al-right, we'll make more".
She is such a treasure, this lady. Our sons and daughters in need of special care love her to pieces and so do we parents.

And yesterday the Bell Choir performed for the Fathers. Moselito's father did not attend the concert but Moselito smiled anyway.

And Audrey, the music teacher, is also loved to pieces by all.

PS: Have not decided yet if I'm going to send a picture of the Bell Choir to Moselito's dad. He lives strictly kosher now.

Le P'tit train du Nord......mid-May

Finally the long awaited sign of spring

                            


And what's this I see here for the first time? Did someone throw a cluster of last year's dead greens into this tree? No, the monster looks alive

and looking at it's underside shows that it is kind of a living parasite branch of the pine tree.

Two trees in one

Our student protest

Surely you have heard about the demonstrations in Montreal and Quebec City and the "wear a red patch to show support".


This was part of a student art exhibition in a nearby village which is proud to claim being "un monde apart".

    Police in riot gear.

Super Moon

I read it in the papers, I heard it on the radio, we spoke about it. It was going to be 30% larger than usual and so much % brighter than usual.
I chased it up the hills and down the hills in my car, along this lake, down this country road, behind the church, on the outlook besides the hotel and in many more spots that my car had never travelled. It played hide & seek with me appearing and disappearing behind hills, mountains, rooftops and forestland as I was searching to see it as big and bright as I thought it should be. Of course, as it went higher up and could no longer hide, it also became smaller. I am left with a photo in which his 'superness' does not show but me knowing how and when next time.    

  
Fengaraki mou lambro, fengemou na prepato, na peejaino sto skolio, na matheno gramata, tou theou ta pramata.


I'm not going to tell that someone taught me this poem 71 years ago in a language that was never spoken again in our family because new languages had to be learned. It asks the moon to guide me so that I can go to school and learn to read the things of god (I think). 

No idea what to name this maybe exhale deep

Bon , I decided to get it out of my system and blow it into the universe once and for all (promise to my daughters). I will not think about punctuation, paragraphs, grammar nothing just make remarks and noises about my 25 pounds weight gain which I am to graciously accept because I was smart enough to finally stop smoking, bravo Madame, and because I was almost as skinny as a twig except for carrying babies ,yes, but I have nothing to wear and don't feel to go shopping for clothes not knowing and not wanting to know what my new size is and when I take a shower I no longer need to bend forward to see my belly button since it looks up and stares me into my eyes and when my hands distribute soap all over my body they notice that the surface is much much greater now and when I brush my teeth and look down to my mouth and make sure that whatever drops out ends up in the sink and not besides it my cheeks block the view and when I wear nylons the crotch no longer comes all the way up to where it belongs and when I step out of the bath towel and walk towards the dresser to get some underwear I can feel my rear-cheeks bounce and my body is covered with dunes from below my breasts to my belly button and I have difficulties lifting myself up from sitting on the ground and more difficulties walking uphill and and and a good thing I have no partner because forget about shower sex.

  

First Sightings

It appeared in this little triangle as I lifted my eyes from the 
screen that  I am looking at now.                                                                                                

I jumped up, ran to fetch the camera in another room, slowly approached a window and pushed the button.


Bambi arrived May 10th

The table was set for this one since mid-April. Did I remember the recipe for the mix of the drink. Yes I did. It keeps coming back for more since yesterday, May 16th

It's sooo tiny. I wonder if it arrived on the back of one of the bustards (outardes) I saw flying overhead.

More Fairies

My kind Blog Fairy R. started the good deed and my daughter Besito de Luz T. together with her helpers finished it. My blog was reborn on Mother's Day.

and I'm smiling happiness

Message to my Blog Fairy

Dear Rouchswalve


Herzlichen Dank for bringing 18 of my lost posts back to life. 

Le P'tit Train du Nord............mid-April

For the ones that can read

and for the ones that can't

  
No green sign of nature's renewal as yet but the ice on lake has melted to make room for a lonely visitor. 

Some of our rocks were deposited some 500 million years ago, they say. I wonder how old these beauties are. 

Strong language

You don't want to see my face. I'm sitting here - wide eyed- open mouthed - horrified- you name it. I managed to delete all my posts. 
The locals here would say "tabernac - maudite marde - calice " . Sorry, would not use this language in my mother tongue. Zum Teufel nochmal! 
Just as I was going to reply to R's last comment and suggest  Holy Water as a possible ingredient for her beer recipe.  

Le P'tit Train du Nord....mid-March

More than 100 years ago a railway line was built leading deep into the Laurentian Mountains North of Montreal. It was known as Le P'tit train du Nord.  30 years ago the train made its last passenger journey and work began to transform the line into a 230 km long linear park and 20 years ago it was inaugurated as such.  Today Le P'tit Train du Nord plays host to cyclists, skaters, cross country skiers and humble wanderers such as myself.
My walk starts here    

with Lac Raymond on my right and forestland, walls of rock and residences nestled in the hills on my left

I know that the large residence further up the path belongs to retired nuns and was surprised that the two gentlemen whose voices reached me from behind turned out to be monks as they passed me on the way back to my car.

Wilhelm Tell

This is a Swiss Hero

and this is is my Grandson Hero

Robigalia Day

A national Roman holiday. An agricultural festival celebrated with prayers and sacrifices to head off wheat rust disease and ask for protection of corn crop
                                         but                             
also a day for celebrating male sex workers.


So that's what I was doing many many years ago when I took part in a procession with banners and crosses around our small town and out into the surrounding field - I was celebrating what was then called Rogation Day
                                                          
                                        but


 male sex workers were never mentioned.

A What?

I hope Rouchswalve drops in and enlightens me.

This is a gift that Kazuko offered me when she came back from visiting her family. I understood that this is a miniature of a creature that can be found standing near entrances to eateries welcoming the clients. Does it have a name?

  

When looking at this on her first visit to my house Kazuko said "Oh, you like Japoneese art, looks like a poem at top of drawing". She did not translate it.

End of poem or signature?

Carol and the card

"loving, dear, honey-bee, who polynates my life with beauty, wonderful being, sharing of our innermost feelings, good soul, warm memories, soul-friendship" are words that have kept  Carol and I connected by way of a birthday card which travelled back and forth for 25 years past. I received the card from Carol, kept it safe and returned it to her on her birthday suggesting we keep sending it to each other until.....                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 

Today I need to send it off to Carol and soon it will appear in my mailbox. Carol's birthday is at the beginning of March and mine middle March. What are the chances that Carol will get stuck holding it?

Delayed in the morning

I was late for work last week. Volunteer work at the 'Rag Palace'. You know, the place where poor people come to see what the not so poor no longer want.
Why late? Well, after my shower I had to lay down again. Why? Because it helps to zip up my slacks. Oh yes!
I decided to make small sandwiches for lunch (teaspoon to show size).