Saturday Photo: Day Lilies for Difficult Days

A long time ago my son had to take a class that when I was an adolescent would have been called Home Ec (the only advance in his day was that both boys and girls took it.) 

One of the units was on home decoration (!) and a colour wheel was given with what colours were good for what purpose that the kids were supposed to memorize.  I forget what they all were, but I remember that blue was supposed to be calming.

So, there was a test and one of the questions was: your friend is very upset about what's happening in his life and can't sleep.  What colour would you suggest he paint his room?

Lukas answered "yellow."  His reason was that yellow was such a cheerful colour, his friend would feel better.  The teacher said no, the answer was blue because it was restful. 

Lukas was furious and so was I, but he was of an age when he was starting to fight his own battles so I don't think I intervened. In the end he got
part credit because his reasoning was good, as I remember, but I think his point is very well taken: yellow is cheerful.

Given the long string of sad and troubling news this week--the Nice craziness, attempted coup in Turkey, Trump and Hillary neck and neck in the polls, and the list goes on--we're all in need of some cheerfulness.  So here are yellow day lilies which conveniently are in bloom in my back yard right now in hopes that they will make you feel better enough to continue the fight.

Saturday Photo: In Clover...

When something is going good, you can say that it's in clover.  Certainly thing are not going in the world these days, but it's nice to know that clover still is growing in the most unusual places.

This was taken in a corner lot that had been left to go to ruin--only I don't think clover looks bad at all.  Hope no one cuts the grass--although the smell of fresh cut clover is delicious.

Saturday Photo: A Beautiful Immigrant...

The fields along the CPR track through Mile End was full of dancing blue chicory (Cichorium intybus) flowers this morning. A lovely sight. 

The plant, of course, is an invasive import from Europe.  Some have used it roots for a coffee substitute, and apparently it makes good forage for cattle.

But mostly the plant has escaped along the roads of North America, colonizing waste spaces, beautifying urban and rural landscapes. 

Like so many other immigrants, it has made its place here.  Thank goodness.

Saturday (or rather Friday) Photo: Fête nationale and Brexit

This is what our house looked like yesterday, with our Quebec flag unfurled. The grandkids were over and we put it up together.  They don't know the political import of it, but for me this is a sign that we belong here just as much as anybody else. 

Not all of us are Québécois de souche (although grandson Thomas Édouard has ancestors who arrived in the middle of the 17th century from France), but Lee and I chose to live here and the grandkids and their parents were born here or (in the case of Jeanne's father) also chose  Quebec.

This reflection comes as the British are trying to come to grips with what they did on Thursday.  People, it seems, didn't really believe that  Brexit would pass.  Can't understand how people could vote to leave without considering the implications.  But apparently that's what happened in many cases.

Now, there may be good arguments for leaving the European Union, but just because you're angry is not one....

Saturday Photo: Summertime and the Grass Is A-growin'

Summer won't arrive officially until sometime tomorrow, but that hasn't kept the grass and weeds from getting away from people. 

I'm always of two minds about overgrown, shaggy spaces. A weed, after all, is just a plant growing where you don't want it, right?  And my own approach to gardening is what I call Darwinan.  In other words, what grows, grows.  Sometimes the unplanned array of flowers is truly wonderful.

But then there are yards where people have opted for grass and yet who don't do anything about what grows there until it becomes a grass fire hazard.  With just a little thought they could have a low maintenance yard that is a delight for birds and butterflies and also is easy on the eyes  too.

Saturday Photo: Gate into Summer

The photo was taken a week or so ago, before the trees fully leafed out.  But I think it shows nicely where we are headed--toward summer.

Thanks goodness...

Saturday Photo: Chestnuts in Blossom, Paris under Water

The song says:  April in Paris, Chestnuts in Blossom.  That's true as far as it goes perhaps, although when I've been there in early May the chestnuts were always lovely.

They don't bloom until late May or early June here, and now I'm pleased to report that they are lovely right now. 

What I'm not so pleased about is the way the Paris is being submerged in flood waters.  Not so surprising, I suppose: the location was originally chosen because it was on easily-defended islands in the middle of the Seine.  But the recent photos I've seen have given me a little wrench because so many of them show places I've walked completely covered in water, like this pathway along the Seine. 

Saturday Photo: Flowers for Wedding?

It's called bridal veil, I think, and this week its flowers are cascading gracefully everywhere around here. 

Several of the trees on the street were cut down early this spring as a measure to slow the progress of emerald ash borer.  The jury is out over how effective that is, but one thing is certain: the plants which just got on underneath the trees no better than they should have grown immensely.

So this is a good year for bridal veil and honeysuckle.  What that means for weddings and etc. I don't know.  Any ideas?

Saturday Photo: Holiday, Just When We Need It

I've run this photo before. It's of the flag used by the Patriotes in 1837, when Canada had the nearest thing to a revolution that it ever had.

This weekend we're celebrating the Patriotes, while the rest of the country is celebrating Victoria Day.  Interestingly, she took the throne in 1837, although her attitude toward the rebels demanding a say in how they were governed was not at all positive.

I'd much rather celebrate wanting a vote that counted than a girl who stayed on the throne for decades.  But when the weather is warm, as it is right now, I suppose any excuse to enjoy the outdoors is all right.

Satuday Photo: After the Spring Rain

The roads aren't in great shape--the legacy of bad planning (probably) and a winter with a roller coaster of temperatures that turned the freeze and thaw cycle to new heights.

But Saturday morning after a heavy rain, the potholes in the lane were little lakes reflecting the progress of spring.  A few trees are nearly completely leafed out, but many are still in the early stages.  A long way to go before the growing season is really upon us, but there are many promises to be seen.

Saturday Photo: Yello to Match the Sun

First nice weekend this spring.  Really lovely.  Going to do a barbecue for Mother's Day (Lukas will be doing the actual barbecuing, of course.) 

Saturday Photo: Forsythia

Next up: forsythia.  The first week in May is the week when the trees leaf out here.  While the last week was pretty cold, with temperatures below freezing several mornings, the little leaflets seem to be plumping up nicely.  So with any luck by this time next weekend there will be the lacey tracery of leaf shadows falling on the ground.

In the meantime, the forsythia is beginning to come out.  Love the colour.  Yellow rules...

Saturday Photo: Resistance, Plus a Slide Show

Always is nice to see how the force that through the green fuse drives the flower (as Dylan Thomas put it) continues to work. Here's a photo I took, plus a slide show that is truly lovely.

Saturday Photo: Scylla Here and in Chicago

Took this a few years ago when I was in Chicago when the scylla was in bloom.  This year the firsts ones are shaking their little blue heads and spring begins.

Other signs of spring: people whizzing around on Bixis which went into service at midnight Friday, kids asking their parents for ice cream on a lovely Saturday afternoon, and me trying to remember what I thought I sould do in the garden this spring.  So much for keeping records: I may do a good job when I'm reporting/researching something, but I always forget that I mean to plan out the next year's garden when the memories of the last year's one are still vivid.

Saturday Photo: Orange is the New Black

Or something like that.  Didn't post on the weekend because of visits from grandkids and dinner guests (yes, dinner guests: the young'uns were surprised to learn that Grandma and Grampa actually have friends!) 

But there also was a good reason to wait--the NDP convention.  I didn't go, and I was not shy about saying that I thought the party--my party for so long--had gone terribly astray during the last election.  To let Justin Trudeau run to its left!  What a terrible abandoning of what the NDP has always been in Canada--the voice on the Left with the good ideas.

That the stunning repudiation of Thomas Mulcair appeared to be a surprise to those close to him shows just how little they'd been listening to the rank and file, or for that matter the electorate.  It's not having lost an election that's a problem. It's having lost an election by running on Centrist ideas.  And it's not that Mulcair and company weren't warned.

Full disclosure is necessary on that point: I was president of Mulcair's riding association from 2011 to 2013, so I knew to whom to send emails when Lee (an economist) wanted to point out the fallacy of running on a no-debt platform at a time when the economy needs stimulus and interest rates are very low.  Similarly, for years I've tried to get Mulcair to take a more pro-active stand on protecting the Canada Health Act and our single-payer system.  There were others in the party who also blew whistles but weren't listened to.

So we shall see what we shall see.  In the meantime here's bit of orange I clicked back when the world seemed to be going Orange in 2010-2011....

Saturday Photo: Bougainvillea, or a Plant from Away

It's not often that my bougainvillea blooms, but this year it has.  Not sure why.  Certainly it's not because it's received a great deal of sun.  The gray, rainy weather has apparently not dissuaded it, though.

The plant is a native of South America, and it's blooming is appropriate because I'm up to my neck in books about Brazil and Spanish South America for my next non-fiction project, a book to be called Unidentical Twins.   

But it also reminds me of my mother.  Bougainvillea was one of the few plants she could grow.  She always had a massive bush on the east side of the house in San Diego, which I remember with great pleasure. 

Saturday Photo: The Rites of Spring and Our Place in the Universe

This was taken last year--obviously an Easter egg tree this year would be standing in a pile of snow since we had a nice late winter storm Thursday and Friday.  But it's time to celebrate the coming--or the promise--of the verdant season.  (For other signs, check this out.)

This last week has been aces for such celebrations:  the Equinox on Sunday/Monday;  Norooz, the Persian new year festival on Tuesday; Purim, the raucous Jewish holiday on Wednesday/Thursday; Holi, the Indian one marking the victory of "good" over "bad" on Thursday; and now Easter for Western Christians tomorrow.

The equinox is a good time to pause and reflect on how much our world--full of IT and noise--is actually based on our fundamentally subordinate place in the universe.  No matter what we do, there is no way we can change the fact that we are on a planet that orbits its sun over a period that is somewhat related to, not not quite in sync with its moon's orbit around it or with its own rotation around its axis. 

We saw a demonstration of that at the end of February when we all had to make an adjustment as that month was given another day as it does every four years.  If that adjustment weren't made the seasons would soon be out of phase with the months. Another demonstration shows up in the way that  Greek Orthodox Easter comes a month from now.   It always comes after Passover, and Passover won't be for a month because the Jewish calendar this year has an extra month in order keep it more or less in phase, too.  That's what happens when a planet's orbit around the sun isn't quite in sync with its moon's orbit around it, or some such thing.

Makes you feel small, perhaps.  Or maybe just like going in the kitchen and starting to cook for the festivities that will make us feel better about it all....

Saturday Photo: First up, Snow Drops...

This is not the first time I've posted this photo, but it's right in sync, as the snow drops came up this week.  Had a few days with sun and temperatures above freezing, so they burst out.  This morning the cold made them curl back up, but the promise is there....

Saturday Photo: The Incredible Shrinking Snow People

The snow is melting fast.  This means that the snow fort made by the Hassidic boys up the street is just about gone, and all the snowmen fashioned by eager hands lately are on their way out.

Went out without a hat yesterday, the kids didn't wear boots in this afternoon, and the parks were full of people sitting in the sun on benches that have emerged from snow banks.

The equinox is a week away, and the time changes tonight so I guess we're just about ready for a change in season.

Saturday Photo: Literal Blast from the Past...

That's me and our dog Trout Fishing in Canada on March 4 or 5, 1971 following the biggest (or second biggest, depends on who's talking) snowstorm in Montreal's history.

We were living downtown then, and things had ground to an absolute halt. Kinda fun, though, and Trout thought it was marvelous.  Another thing notable about the photo is how thin both of us are.  She became very portly toward the end of her rather long life (she died at 13) and I, well, I've put on some pounds too.

Still like hats with brims, though, as well as walking in the snow.

As for Trout's name, as those of you who were around in the '60s and '70s may have guessed, she was named after Richard Brautigan's Trout Fishing in America which both Lee and I liked a lot at the time.  Funny, though, when a friend of Elin's lent us another of Brautigan's books recently, we were left cold.  Could be because there's a reference to some 'elderly folks' who are in their 50s...

Saturday Photo: The Sun Rises Earlier and Earlier..

There hasn't been a lot of sun lately, which is not the usual scenario for February.  I've always liked the month because usually we get a lot of cold, clear weather.  This next week, too, is usually the one when the sun starts shining in our back bedroom, as it begins to swing higher in the sky.

This morning the sun shone briefly before it took its sentinel position behind the clouds.  But at least it rose much earlier than it had two months ago when we were just recovering from Christmas.  The back of winter should be broken, we can look forward to more sunshine, I hope at least.

Saturday Photo: Ice Is Nice

It was this cold earlier this week--down near where Farhnheit and Celsius meet if you factor in the wind chill.  For one of the first times this winter we had nice ice on the windows: it has to be really cold before frost forms on the inside of the storm windows.

But of course, like everything this crazy winter, it didn't last.  About four inches of snow last night, and then rain today, so we're walking in puddles at the moment. 

Climate change, right?

Saturday Photo: Natural Hearts

So what if Valentine's Day is tomorrow, I dug up this picture which fits perfectly today, I think.  Tomorrow the kids and I will make a heart-shaped cake, today my Sweetie bought me flowers, outside it's wonderfully cold and sunny.

Hope you have a lovely day....

Saturday Photo: Reflection of Winter

Some what paradoxically, house plants do very well in the winter here.  That's probably because, while the days are short and it's cold outside, usually it's very sunny.  My two hibiscus get a growth spurt most years around now, while my lantana that never blooms outside in the summer because there's so much shade, sets out a few blossoms.  

A couple of years ago I took this photo of a restaurant window where flowers were bravely blooming even though the snow was piled deep on the street.  There's a lesson there, I think  We manipulate our living conditions with both good and bad consequences. 

Saturday Photo: Snowcat by Jeanne

Such a nice thing to see little kids spread their wings and make interesting things.  Jeanne was sick this week and stayed home, which gave her quite a bit of time, it seems, to draw and paint.

This is a water colour she did of a snowcat with the snow falling, and her name written on some of the snowflakes.  Quite delightful, says Grandma!

Thomas, two years younger, isn't as adept at drawing yet, but Thursday when I picked him up from day care he had a drawing that he wanted to take home.  Looked like a bunch of squiggles in red pencil, but he had a wonderful story about the firemen in it who were climbing ladders to get to the fires. Quite delightful, Grandma repeats!

Saturday Photo: Libertarian or Socialist Ways to Clear Snow

What more can be said?  Snow removal is one of those many things that governments should do.  We grouse about how well it's done up here, but at least we are agreed that all of should contribute. 

That's why I love this graphic representation of what happens when people don't help each other out in the most basic ways possible--by having government foot the bill to keep our lives going. 

Otherwise we're reduced to getting the kids to do it, right?  (The photo is of Lukas a good 30 years ago when he enjoyed moving snow!)

Saturday Photo: Skating, Finally

All's right with the world, more or less.  At least winter seems to have settled in, and the skating rinks are in operation.  Jeanne apparently has had a great time on the rink in the park across the street from Elin's.  Lukas hasn't had a chance to take Thomas out yet, but the small snowshoes that Sophie ordered came on Thursday and they're planning an outing to a park near them tomorrow,

Today I doubt if we'll get any skating done, but there is new snow to shovel in the backyard, so I'm sure they'll have a good time.

Saturday Photo: More Grey Weather...

When people have asked how we could have chosen Montreal over California when we made our great move decades ago, I always have said that I thought white, cold winters were a lot nicer than grey, not-so-cold ones.

My opinion certainly hasn't changed this winter.  We have temperatures above freezing today, with even higher ones forecast for tomorrow with lots of rain.  This means that the snow, which fell in abundance before New Year's, is likely to melt and leave grey sidewalks as well as  grey skies.

So this is climate change? Don't like it.

Saturday Photo: Sil, or Pickled Herring

As the holiday season ebbs, we have begun once again to eat sil, or Swedish pickled herring.  Our consumption was interrupted by bouts of stomach flu or some such.  Seems there's a nasty version going around: Lukas and family had it two weeks ago, Jeanne the week following and this week Lee and I succumbed.  This meant that the sil I made from 20 salt herring got pushed to the back of the refrigerator, as I cooked and we ate rice.

Thankfully that seems past and now we can take up where we left off a week ago, eating delicious things.  So tonight there will be sill and rye crisp bread on the table, beer to go with them, and the prospect of a nice white wine for the endives wrapped in ham and smothered in béchamel.

Oh, how I love to eat!  It's so nice to feel good!

Saturday Photo: A Little Snow for the After Party

We barbecued on Christmas Eve and went to the park with the kids on Christmas Day, but on Sunday, December 27 it actually snowed. 

Nice to to see the ground white.  Seems more normal.  But unless things get a lot colder, we're not likely to have a White New Year's.

Stand by, I'll keep you informed.

Saturday Photo: Melting Snow, or No Snow at All

The photo was taken in March when the snow was melting, but this year it looks like there may be no snow at all.

After a bit in October, we've had buckets of precipitation, but all of it fell as rain. Things are rather grey, as you might imagine.

If you'd like more about my thoughts on climate change and the world in general (plus some cheerfulness too), check out my holiday blog here

Saturday Photo: Red Flowers....

Just a bit of colour for a grey day.

Saturday Photo: Holly, No Ivy, No Snow

Don't know where this photo came from.  Since holly doesn't survive in this climate, I doubt if I took it here.  Nevertheless it currently is my computer wallpaper, and I think it's a great shot for the beginning of December.

A December that is unusually mild, I might add.  Perhaps it is appropriate that the bigwigs in Paris are talking climate change with a certain amount of seriousness.  If the trend continues, we may have very few white Christmases in the future, although in the past Montreal has almost always had them.

Saturday Photo: Ice, Leaves, End of November, Climate Change

Walked up in the cemetery this morning where the ground was white, either from a heavy frost or the little snow that fell on Friday night.  Hard to tell, but it certainly was pretty.

Much talk about the climate change conference in Paris this week.  It's all to the good, would hate to have winter without snow.

Saturday Photo: Fall Bikes...

Bixi is closing down for the year.  Riding conditions continue to be good, but in Montreal the bike-share service doesn't run from about the middle of November until early April.  The opening date varies a bit from year to year, depending on snow conditions, but the ending date is relatively fixed.

I presume that's because we all know that winter can swoop down on us at any moment.  The big storm which apparently has bothered Chicago this weekend is tracking to the south of us so far, it's a rare year when we don't have some accumulation before early December.  Five years ago, when the house next to us burned and we suffered a lot of smoke damage, the bad weather held off until December 6 or 7.  Two years ago when I came back from South America Dec. 1, the first snow was piled at the edge of sidewalks.

Riding bikes in weather like that is crazy, I think, and I guess the Bixi folks think so too.  Time to turn back to the buses and your feet for transport, and to hockey for exercise?

Saturday Photo: I Love Paris

The savage attacks in Paris last night are echoing around the world.  So it seems they were the result of twisted extremist thinking?

Probably, and the great question is how to counter that wicked distortion of Islam.  While I--and many, many others--reflect on that, I offer this photo taken in June 2014 in the Parc Vincennes.  Lovely day, peaceful crowds, faces from all corners of the globe.  That is the Paris I love.

Saturday Photo: The Excellent Adventure

This week I finished the revisions on Road through Time, and sent it off to the University of Regina Press which will publish it in Spring 2017.  The book, about roads as vectors of change and exchange, now has a subtitle: The Story of Humanity on the Move.   I hadn't given it one before because when I started writing I wasn't quite sure where I was going.

Now I know.

It begins with a trip my mother, my younger sister and I took in the mid-1950s from San Diego CA to Walla Walla WA. (The photo is of Laurie and me at about that time.)  It ends with the trip to South America I took two years ago, travelling a newly opened highway across the Andes from Peru to Brazil.  In between I explore where humans have wandered from the time our ancestors stood up through the Great Expansion out of Africa to the Age of the Automobile.

The book will be illustrated with some photos I've taken, some archival images and, I hope, this snapshot of two girls near the beginning of their respective journeys through life.

Last Call for Our Medicare System: Are You Listening, Justin?

An excellent piece in Thursday's Toronto Star about what is happening in Quebec to our system of supposedly universal health care. This should be a wake-up call for the entire country.  It's up to Justin and company to come to the rescue.  He said "we're back" to the world.  Now he needs to go back to the Liberal attitude toward health care that saw Liberal governments in 1957, 1966 and 1984 put in place an excellent system.

Everyone concerned about health care should write his or her MP!

From the story:

"Quebec is likely to be the first province to slip out of the Canadian medicare scheme. In fact, at present, Quebec’s health care laws and practices do not respect the principles set out in the Canada Health Act. The only hope the people of Quebec have to benefit from a universal, free and comprehensive healthcare system in the future is a strong and swift intervention by the new Trudeau government.

"During the past decade, the core principle of medicare – that medically necessary care should be universally covered and free of charge (paid for by public funds) – has gradually eroded in Quebec. The process has been a slow but steady sum of small legislative changes that have benefitted practitioners (and profits) over patients, government tolerance for grey-zone billing practices and impressive fee-charging creativity from medical entrepreneurs."

Saturday Photo: Halloween...

Spent Wednesday afternoon making pumpkins with Jeanne.  It's very nice to have grandchildren since you have license to do all the artsy-craftsy things that you are supposedly too old to do.

Now back to work on Road through Time.  The completed manuscript is promised for the University of Regina Press on Monday.  Almost got it done!

Saturday Photo: Burning Bush, Montreal Style

Justin Trudeau started out his stint as PM by telling the world on behalf of 35 million Canadians: "We're back!"

Those were good words to hear after nearly ten years of Harperite stupidity.  Can't imagine that JT will deliver on half of his promises, but there have been moments this last week when I could dream we were headed for a promised land.

This lovely shrub, whose name I don't know, is at its height right now, and it would be nice to think it was a Sign!  Not very likely, but hope is a good thing...

They Ran from the Left, Will They Govern from the Right?

Canadians' basic decency won yesterday, with the decisive defeat of Stephen Harper's politics of fear and hate.  Thank goodness!

Now, however, Justin Trudeau's Liberals will have to hold to their promises to invest in infrastructure, run deficits and amend the terrible C-51 anti-terrorism law.  As often happens with the Liberals, they ran from the left. It remains to be seen if they govern from there.

The NDP is going to have to do some real soul searching about where they're going and who is their leader.  This time around I, a long NDP militant,  effectively sat on my hands.  Oh, I raised several thousand bucks for various candidates, but that's it, even though Mulcair is my MP and I was chair of his riding association back in 2010-2012.  The party on his watch as moved right, espousing dubious economic policies--he doesn't seem to realize that deficit spending should often be viewed as investment in the future--and not standing up for programs that really matter.  When it comes to the cornerstone of the NDP heritage, he made some noises near the end about  protecting the Canada Health Act which guarantees universal health care with penalties for provinces who allow extra billing. but that's about it.

Mulcair is said to be going to spend the day recuperating.  Good.  So should the folks behind this crushing defeat for him and the party.  Some changes are in order.

Saturday Photo: Even the Leaves Votes Red, Orange or Green

The election is on Monday, and it looks from here like a minority Liberal (red) government.  The NDP (orange) stands to lose much of what it gained in the Orange Wave of 2011 for reasons that I might go into later (has to do with letting the Liberals out flank them on the left, I'm convinced).  The Greens (green, of course) ran an honourable campaign, but if they get more than two or three seats they'll be lucky.

And it is fall of course.  We had our first snow this morning.  It melted as if fell, but still it's clear that time is moving faster than we realize.  The leaves aren't all off the trees, nor off the vines climbing the walls.  The effect is beautiful.  No wonder this is the favourite season of many--particularly when you  see the blue (Conservative, up there on the roofline) being challenged successfully.

Saturday Photo: The Path to Thanksgiving and a New Government

The leaves are beginning to turn colour here, and the sky is the brilliant blue that always makes me think of my mother quoting Helen Hunt Jackson's poem about "October's bright blue weather."

The poem is rather schmaltzy, but the line certainly describes what it's like outside.  This photo also gives an idea of the uphill road we're all travelling in Canada this week, toward an election when we get rid of Stephen Harper and his Cons.  There will be a lot of heated conversation this Canadian Thanksgiving weekend  as tens of thousands of people debate what is the best way to do that.

If you feel the need to retreat from the fray, here's  the poem which is both dated and too sentimental, but can get your mind off the dilemmas of democracy.

 October's Bright Blue Weather

    O SUNS and skies and clouds of June,
        And flowers of June together,
    Ye cannot rival for one hour
        October's bright blue weather;

    When loud the bumble-bee makes haste,
        Belated, thriftless vagrant,
    And Golden-Rod is dying fast,
        And lanes with grapes are fragrant;

    When Gentians roll their fringes tight
        To save them for the morning,
    And chestnuts fall from satin burrs
        Without a sound of warning;

    When on the ground red apples lie
        In piles like jewels shining,
    And redder still on old stone walls
        Are leaves of woodbine twining;

    When all the lovely wayside things
        Their white-winged seeds are sowing,
    And in the fields, still green and fair,
        Late aftermaths are growing;

    When springs run low, and on the brooks,
        In idle golden freighting,
    Bright leaves sink noiseless in the hush
        Of woods, for winter waiting;

    When comrades seek sweet country haunts,
        By twos and twos together,
    And count like misers, hour by hour,
        October's bright blue weather.

    O suns and skies and flowers of June,
        Count all your boasts together,
    Love loveth best of all the year
        October's bright blue weather.

Saturday Photo: Roman Road and Road through Time

Here's a photo of the Roman road at Conimbriga in central Portugal.  It's only one of the many roads I'm thinking about now, as I go back to the preliminary manuscript just accepted by the University of Regina Press.  Lots of fun in prospect!

Up Next: Road through Time

Pleased to say that I've just signed a contract with the University of Regina Press to publish my next non-fiction book Road through Time, probably in Spring 2017. It's about roads as vectors for change and exchange over time. The photo is of the Andes cordillera that I crossed on a bus just two years ago shortly after the new highway from Cuzco into Brazil was opened.

Saturday Photo: Dancing Grass

Just because it's another nice weekend...

Required Reading for the Election Campaign: The Best Laid Plans by Terri Fallis

In my other life I lead book discussion groups in Montreal-area libraries, and, knowing that a federal election was coming up, I put Terry Fallis's The Best Laid Plans on the reading list for October.  At the time I didn't appreciate just how funny or how prescient the book is.  Now I think every political junkie should read it as this long, long campaign grinds on.

The book was published in 2008, well before the Orange Wave, the Great Recession, even before the flirt with coalition government that occurred in December of that year.  It  starts off with a Liberal political wonk who is trying to get out of the game and who agrees as a swan song to find a candidate in a staunchly Conservative riding in eastern Ontario.  The candidate, a U of Ottawa engineering prof,  agrees only because he's promised he won't win.  But he does, for hilarious reasons .  (Hint: a sex scandal involving his opponent, leather and nipple rings are involved, which actually isn't much worse than the peeing-in-a-coffee cup video that scotched the chances of a Conservative candidate this time around.)

Fallis portrays  the vagaries of public opinion as well as the inner workings of political campaign extremely, but entertainingly well.  (Hint: there's quite a bit about lawn signs, telephone canvassing and door to door.)  I know just how hard that is to do.  In another life I spent far too much time organizing political campaigns and tried in one of my first novels (Endangered Species) to give a taste of the rush a political junkie gets from filling out phone canvass forms. My editor that time around made me cut a lot of the details. Fallis either was smarter than I or had a good editor too, because this novel is mostly fun. 

The accidental MP Angus McClintock turns out embodying all that is good in our political system, and makes a tremendous difference.  Would that all candidates out there were as principled.   Should also add that this is a very Canadian book: I can't imagine what Fallis would do with Donald Trump.

Saturday Photo: Cosmos, the End of Summer, Climate Change

I've always loved these sun-loving flowers.  Cosmos are the stars of many gardens around here at this point in the cycle of the seasons.  I suspect they won't be so gorgeous in a week when the temperatures are supposed to drop, but they are a pleasure now.

So is the lovely temperatures which have made September 2015 perhaps the hottest on record here.  Coming after an uncommonly cool and wet July and August, it has been a treat to have warm and dry days this month.

Of course, all this "unusual weather" is likely the result of climate change.  As someone who grew up in California, I get nervous when it doesn't rain here for a week or so since water shortages were always looming the background then.  To live in the current four-year drought must be awful.  

Saturday Photo: End of Summer and the Spiders are Busy

An

Anyone who's read Charlotte's Web or gone walking early on a September morning knows that spiders are especially busy this time of year.

This web was glowing in the early sunlight a few days ago.  I don't know how long it lasted, but the spider seemed to be sure of a good meal or two.  

The beastie won't survive for long, even with the unseasonably warm weather we've been having.  The way of the world is that spiders must die and new spiders be born.

A lesson there?

Perhaps.

Saturday Photo: Runners and Rainbows

The last long weekend of the summer, and the weather is wonderful here.  No rain in sight, but I did find this rainbow when out walking this morning.

The runners obviously were enjoying the sun and mild temperatures too.  A good way to start a holiday.