A Double Feature Day

... I ate the soup for breakfast ...
 ... I ate the soup for supper ...
Thank you, Mary!

Mary began planning the curried pumpkin soup meal by taking cooked pumpkin out of her freezer a few days ago.

It took us a long time to add the other ingredients, the rest of which were put in the pot today.  In fact it was done in a rush this morning, both Mary and me intent on other tasks, but each adding to the mixture.

When I sat down, oh yum to this -- perhaps because of the curry.  As Mary said, "If a person can't find curry in their house,  can they find all of the spices to make curry?  I can tell you I did."

She says she may not be able to replicate her curry mix.

That will be too bad for the soup was memorable.

The high point of the day was going to the cinema twice.

Mary, Naomi and I saw Alan Bennett's Allelujah!

Me for the second time.

Forty-five minutes after that ended, Funny Girl starring Sheridan Smith was playing.  Christine and Jacob Cusack joined us, as did Leo.  Again, I was seeing it for the second time.

Thank  you Wyona for teaching me that once is not enough.

Arta

Biscotti and Cie

... charming second floor seen above us ...

Christine picked me up at the National Gallery and drove me through the lovely Gatineau Hills to a small tourist village, Chelsea.

She was looking for the perfect lunch spot, and she knew from past experience that it could be found at a charming cottage, now turned into a restaurant called Biscotti and Cie.

I ordered something new to me off of the menu.

A panini sandwich made from roasted beets, squash and goat cheese, which tasted just like that: beets, squash and goat cheese in a toasted, buttery bun.

... one of us is waiting for a hot beverage ...
... the other has had her first beet sandwich ...

We whiled away the hours of a sunlight afternoon in a café decorated with Persian cushions and beaded lamps.

She filled me in on stories of the Mormon WOCA women, whom I have read about but never met.

A day to remember.

Mary and Christine

Make your own Vietnamese Subs
compliments of Mary and Christine.

This picture is one of the few evidences that Mary and Christine really came to visit this year.

Christine is the first guest who has ever walked in the door, picked up a cleaning bucket and cloth and said, "I am going to be the one in charge of cleaning the toilets while I am here."

I will bet there are other people who will be wanting her to come and be a guest at their house, after reading this.

It is an old cliche -- "I don't know where the time went".

But I really don't know where it went.

I do have a vivid memory of driving down the highway on the way to the pottery studio to pick up ceramics she and her children had done last year.

Those turtles were carefully packed in her carry-on luggage, and to be finished at home.

Mary and Bonnie are beginning to look alike -- it may be the long curly hair on both of them, streaking with natural colours, many of them shades of white.  If someone isn't aware that both Mary and Bonnie are likely in the vicinity, it is easy to mistake the one for the other.

Twins, but not really.

Arta

Vietnamese Spring Rolls

Mary and Christine came to visit -- did that only happen last week?  We sang, swam, walked, ate and laughed.

A never-to-be-forgotten moment.
Everything you have always wanted
in an evening meal.

Christine brought along her laptop and studied.

She said that she didn't think the land could measure up to the picture that Mary had painted of it to her as they had talked about a possible trip here.

Only minutes into arriving she knew that there is no previous description that can stand up to the the real thing.

The same could be true of eating the Vietnamese spring rolls that Christine laid out before us.

She made the invitation, "Assemble your own."

We did.

Arta