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...