Mont Tremblant mini pleasure jaunt

My Mini-daughter, also known as the Mom of Noah and Hayden booked our stay in a two-storey condo apartment.  The GPS was sending us higher and higher up on a winding country road.
"Are you folks sure that this gadget knows what it is doing?"
"Yes Mom, yes Oma".
As we entered the apartment I dropped my luggage and stepped out onto the patio to take this picture.

I opened my eyes to this the next morning

but after the sun had come to steal the fog nothing stopped us from enjoying the day

Oooof, now it's my curser that gives me problems.

Pink Floyd in the park

We just came back from the park. Since it was Moselito's last evening of 'home vacations' I wanted to do one more special thing with him.
He was delighted to dance to the rhythm of the sound which means that he spreads his legs wide apart and swings from one side to the other.
I don't care for Pink Floyd, sorry, but was more than happy to be surprised with Pink Cloud in the sky.

1001 POTS

Follow us to this one-of-a-kind pottery exhibit in the nearby village of Val-David. An annual event for ceramic lovers founded by Kinya Ishikawa 24 years ago together with his wife Marie-Andree Benoit. Two talented potters with big hearts and noble visions for mankind.

Thousands of pieces created by the best pottery artists of Canada are on display. I would have
loved to show you a general view but the site is much to big to show it in one shot. Each artist displays in a given area in the gardens and inside various buildings.

There are also thematic areas such as JUGS

or TEA POTS

or PLANT HANGERS

The Amazone is always on the site. Moselito was happy to see her and to show me which plate he had made.

We came across a miniature garden on wheels

Make your own Furoshiki workshop was taking place but we were to late to join it so I bought one made by Kinya - a fish design. I will use it as tablecloth on my patio table.

They can also be used as gift wrap, shawl, wall hanging or ..........Oh yes

Now we will sit in the Secret Garden for a while, have a cup of green tea on the terrace of the Tea Room and my next post will show you the Silica Garden.

Outdoor life

The job that almost broke my back last year was the digging to make room for a little flower garden off my patio. I wanted it to have a 90 degree slice look wedged between side of patio and wall of building, deep enough to dump 20 bags of garden earth needed as soft bed for bulbs, seeds and young perennials.  I dug,  lugged uncountable buckets filled with  'bad' earth up the hill and dumped it in the woods. I drove to places where I had seen rocks and gathered 20 that kind of had the look I wanted them to have for separating the garden area from the grassy area to be.
The tulips came up first and grew much taller than expected . Narcissus were next.
I don't recall planting an animal bulb but a frog came up anyway. I picked it up, placed it on the patio table, ran to get my camera and came back to an empty table. I was so relieved to find it jumping about amongst the tulips. It was so tiny - the size of a big walnut.
The deer did not like the aroma of whatever they sniffed on this side of the fence and decided to leave and never come back again.
Moselito invited me to the mayfair which they celebrated in June.

This is what the outdoors look like when I step out onto my patio.  It has been very hot lately. We are not allowed to water but yes, I cheat. I can be seen sneaking out early in the morning or in the middle of the night with guess what in my bucket.
The bean I soaked over night and stuck in the ground is making me happy.

   

Mea culpa

Hm - have to recognize that I am not less weird as Hulk of my previous post. I also allow myself to have opinions or make comments on things that I know little or nothing about.



Will now hide under my duvet for the night.

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.