An Ordinary Day

Shirley Treleaven's gift to me --
a slip from her ruffled lilac tree

Rebecca and I went to London Drugs tonight to take in some prescriptions that the doctor had faxed to the drugstore and they were all ready for us. 

After picking them, I remembered that I also needed to by some Voltaren eye drops as well, and the druggist told us to wait 5 minutes, which Rebecca was happy to do, and in fact was willing to spend that time shopping. 

Five minutes of shopping, happy shopping on her part.

Since we had been to London Drugs the week before she knew there was a the International Isle of Food because we had looked at about one half of it. She was willing to look at every product in the other half of the isle. Unfortunately, the clerks had cleared the international shopping aisle out and are beginning to displaying seasonal items since spring is here, at least at London Drugs.

I had expressed an interest in looking at the cards, and she was willing to go down that aisle, but I knew at the end of the day I wouldn't be buying any of cards, having never bought any before. So we stopped at the aisle for the magazines. Both of us picked up cookbooks, me, one from America's Test Kitchen and she, one from Cook's Company. Side by side play she called it when we began to look at different magazines. I wanted to show her how many times there are different recipes for macaroni and cheese in the magazines. And I wanted to show her a pickled ginger recipe. But more importantly there was a great carrot salad which she seemed to be disinterested in. I told her look at all the great ingredients that we don't put in our carrot salad: serrano peppers, fish sauce and I can't remember the other ingredients .

... David Camps's apple tree in bloom ...

The best isle for me was the toy aisle. I found a beautiful Scrabble game there, wooden, the price, $150.

I wanted to open the box and look inside. It was carefully sealed and I could understand why. Nobody wants to buy a game like that and then have some of the pieces missing.

I told Rebecca that if I were living in Calgary, I'd buy that in a second and then play it with Michael, Betty and Alice.

... a view of the lake through cherry trees ...

I told her I know that Betty and Alice are too young to play Scrabble, but we would make up our own rules, and then play with that beautiful board and have our fantasies with words that intersect, parallel and vertical, and spell them any way we wanted, and not worry about who got the most points.

We would all win in the game we would make up.

... Moiya's tulips ...

In the isle that holds housewares, there were three different sets of knives, forks and spoons; one black, one with fluorescent colours that would sparkle as you moved the utensil, and the last set was gold. 

I could not help but pick them up and turn them over.

Again, I told Rebecca if I were home I'd be putting these in my shopping cart.

She replied, "The black ones are made from all of that coal we see drive by us on the railroad and headed for China."

What's the fun of having grandchildren right next door if you can't surprise them at every move.

... new material for bags
designed by Moiya and executed
'by her granddaughter, Sidney ...

It's been a really full day.

Physio in the morning, from which my shoulder is feeling a little tender and then Rebecca had a big conference call for which we had to sit in the car after physio since we couldn't make it home in time and she needed to listen in.

On the way home we stopped by The Farm, and then to Fairways to pick up some cream for Steve’s coffee.

Across the street I watched people line up for Fujiia’s (the Victoria equivalent of a fast food Japanese take-out full of wondrous items.

I was entranced at how fast people have learned the rules of lining up. All of them were keeping there 6 feet of social distancing.

"Grandmother, will you show me
how to make a bag," says
Sidney Wood to Moiya Wood.

In the afternoon we watched the film The Angry Inook.

I actually love that film. and then I went to her class from 3:30 pm to 5. pm.

For extra entertainment for the day, Canada Post delivered a beautiful set of books in the mail. Rebecca had to order them from a collective in the far north. When book is called Atanarjuat: the fast runner. Most people have probably seen the movie. The book contains the script of the film in both Inuktitut and English.

So today I read pieces of the larger script from which the film is made. 

There's another beautiful book arrived at the same time: The Journals of Knud Rasmussen published in a similar vein having both languages and stunning pictures from the film. I've had my hands in both of those books today, and then Gillian Calder dropped me off another book with a lovely card.

... close up of a new bag design
by Moiya and her granddaughters ...

I've read about the first 50 pages now of Hamnet and Judith by Maggie O'Farrell.

The card from Julian was so beautiful.

Written in a printed script. The note said that if I'd read the book, I could pass it on to Rebecca.

I know she hasn't read it. It's the one thing I see her not to do. She is never reading anything that is outside of her discipline, no matter but public opinion tells her to read.

She did say that all her friends have been loving this book, High Praise indeed. And to bolster my argument about what she does with her time, she is rarely watching Netflix.

Rarely means almost never.

... bags sewn and designed by Moiya Wood
with her Adam and Michelle's girl (Sidney and Nora) ...

Wyona and Moiya are going to come next week to Victoria

I know their presence will help me put a lot of things into my shopping cart.

Of course, I'm looking forward to that! 

I love shopping for things I don't really need.

Arta

Doral Came Out of My Mouth

Question for people who have swum here?
How many water covered sections to the end of the ramp?

Sometimes Doral Pilling’s words come out of my mouth.  

My parent tape from him must be loud and deep.  

When his words pop out of my mouth because I am not attending to the difference between what is in my head and what I say, I laugh.  

Sometimes I shouldn’t laugh, but it feels fun to have his words in my head, even if he is gone.  

That is what I am laughing at:  how some parental ideas are imprinted!

For example, Moiya and I were having a chat about her aches and pains.   At least that is how our conversation started began.

She said that yesterday her arm got so bad that tears were streaming down her cheeks, so she decided maybe she should take some Tylenol, something she never does.  The Tylenol worked for her.  Today the pain is gone.

I know this spot.
Just to the right and back 3 yards is an
Italian plum tree that I planted long go.

Small green cherries on the tree to the west of the ramp.

I added to the conversation, that I want my body to do certain things, like tend my younger grandchildren.

Thank goodness their parents know not to leave them with someone who might just go to sleep in a chair while she should be watching the kids.

Moiya told me that she needs an afternoon nap sometimes even though she is 11 years younger than me.

Her voice might have underlined 11 years as a bit of a taunt, for I longed for the years that difference represented. 

"Sensational Lilac"
... a gift to me from Shirley Treleaven ...

We talked about some pictures she sent me, some wonderful pictures of the lake – the place I want to be.

I told her I have some jobs I must do here, before I go to the lake.

And I am still not stable enough to walk on the dirt roads. 

“Hard,” I said, “to take care of myself.  And you are the same. It is so hard to take care of myself instead of taking care of others.  You have your diabetes to take care of.”

“Oh, I haven’t been doing that,” she said.

“If I were busy, that is the first thing, I would quit doing, too,” I intoned, “watching my diabetes.”

She laughed. 

Then Doral left.

Photo Credits: Moiya Wood

All the Lovely Blossoms of the Day

Photo Credit: Moiya Wood

... yellow blossom of the skunk cabbage ...

From Mary

All the lovely spring blossoms are out and Xavier, Leo and I saw them on our walk.

Cherry blossoms, apple blossoms, pear blossoms, skunk cabbage blossoms (though they hardly look like a flower), false Solomon seal, and some weeds that have lovely flowers, but I know they are weeds.

Richard and I went into the water to our necks.

... the water?  deceptively cold ...

Betty leaped in to the water and then into her dad’s arms. Michael braved the frozen water.

We just can’t stay away from that water.

Miranda made a delicious lemon cake for supper.

We also had BBQed chicken and had a Greek salad.

a week ago, a little chick
... now they are soooo much bigger ...

We finished the moveable chicken coop today, so that will make 6 little chickens happy.

Miranda knew where the key was to open the pipe for the water for Lot 4.

Having never done that,  I went to Dave to show me how to close off the drain and open up the water.

We slept in the cabin on Lot 4.

Naomi woke up and there was an ant crawling near her ear so she left to come back to Lot 3.


Mary

Now You See It, Now You Don't

Photo Credits: Richard Johnson

This will be your last look at the Lot 4 boat shed
which has collapsed on the Pilling's green boat
and on the LaRue lawn mower

Good-bye boat shed
Hello lawn to be watered and mowed.

... an early spring morning ... a glassy lake ....

Glimpses of My Home at the Shuswap

... dying clump birtch to the left and a struggling pear tree to the right ...

I have been plotting a way to get out to the Shuswap.

I am not alone in this venture.  I think Mary and Rebecca both have the same idea cross their minds.

I can’t find a way to see me there yet. I can continue to visualize ways to find myself out there, and who knows, that dream might come true.

... an forest anomaly at our place, a yew tree left of centre and middle ...

I have never been there for an extended amount of time at this time of year.

That is why I enjoyed having Moiya send me a few pictures from her view of it on the road as she drives down to the lake.

I am curious about what is going on in the garage for I see the garage door is open.

I don't care why the door is open.  I just want to know who is having fun in there.

I look at the stairs and remember weeding them last year.

They had been neglected for a season or two and the clover roots were deep enough that I had to take a screw driver and slip it way down and then wrench them out of the dry earth.

That too me two full days, a bucket by my side to put the clover in, and pads in the middle of my legs so that I didn't drive too many rocks into me knees as I knelt there.

I have a lot of broken boughs to pick up beside the stairs.
And I think I can see the pool Glen built in the stream at the far right middle.
The two brown stones give it away.
I wonder why there is so little snow here.
This is not the sunny side of the house.

I can’t believe that thinking about that gives me so much pleasure now, since it was so much work then.

At any rate, I am having the feelings that I have always imaged were felt by the man who wrote “Oh give me a home, where the buffalo roam.”

The first line of my song would be “I’m thinking of that home, where the clover grows in the loam”.

Now that was really bad.

Please, no one comment.

Arta

*Upon reading the comment below by Bonnie, and her generous supplying of the link, I add it here for easy fo viewing.

The Abandoned Dock

David has been working on this dock for about four days.

He was down there working on it again this morning.

It was pouring rain so I went down to take pictures of him working in the pouring rain.

I told him he should probably come up.
He said, no I think I’ll stay and work.

So I left.
I was walking towards the car he said maybe I will come up. 

His coveralls are soaked right through.

He did say that he was warm.

You can see our new generator in the back of the truck. 
He has been using that for some of his power tools. 
He is sure glad that we got that!

This rain is helping to melt the snow.

Photo Credit and Text: Moiya Wood

By the Stream

I am weeding by the stream.

The snake grass (esquisetum) rims both sides of the stream and arches itself around the walk overs.

The hedge around the water makes me want to leave the esquisetum there.

But the down side is that I can’t see the water, although I am always conscious of it running when I am working down there. I often think that someone has come to talk to me and I look up from my work. The sound of the water has changed for me as it gurgles on by and that is what has given me the sense that someone is there.

Photo Credit: Arta

A thimble berry from deep in the woods

and only dappled with sunlight on its leaves.

Ron Treleaven built a planter on the Wedding Reach of the Stream.

A group of thimble berry bushes have invaded that space and the flowers of thimble berry vines lean down the hill  lay in the stream.

All the way from the top to the bottom.

I can’t blame the plant. The earth there was better than the silt and rocks that are usually on the side of a stream. Ron had mixed that soil so carefully. Now the rocks have fallen away but the thimble berries there are beautiful as they bend down and into the stream – four feet wide and four feet high.

I dreaded trying to take that stand of plants out. I left it until late in the afternoon while I was really tired. Procrastination works. For some reason, when all of the other josb were done, that is when I could face it. I laid the tarp out on the hill and one by one went after each root, down deep, cutting the gnarled roots of the shrub. The brown curves remind me of someone’s severely arthritic fingers, perhaps because it is mine that were trying to pull it out.

Photo Credit: Arta

Picture taken on walk along the path
that leads to the Shady Beach

I finished 80 % of the work and it began to rain.

I had to quit anyway, for next I have to get on my rubber boots and get into the stream to finish the job.

I have worked as far as I could reach downhill. Now I have to work uphill. I decide to wait until morning when I am more on my game.

On that note, getting up off of the ground is not as easy as it used to be. I have been testing myself, seeing what will happen when I am laid into a position I can’t recover from. I haven’t quite got there, but I have been close. Just testing. Today Mary reminded me that I should be carrying at the very least my nitro when I am making these tests.  I might add, I should also have my phone along with me.

Arta

24 Hours With Bonnie

Photo by Rob Dirk
The Little Canadian Stream

Bonnie came to stay over on Friday night.

She and I tried to figure out what would be fun, really fun. 

Obligatory fun.

The question for us was, how to leave behind the work world worries and find pleasure.

She told me that she had been to a PartyLite event in the middle of the week—one where candles of every size, shape and fragrance are sold. The people at her house have fragrance allergies so there didn’t seem much point in exploring fragrance nor products for her. So there was a party that didn’t work for her.

That made me think that she and I could have our own candle party for the eveningI seem. to always be buying candles but never lighting them. We went around the house taking down candle candelabras, finding ruby red Christmas tea lights, exploring the beauty of tiny glass bunnies with smaller tapers coming out of their backs and commenting on the ugly design of a wooden candle. Wood is never ugly – except in this case.

We must have been in tune with the environment or at least somehow have known that a tree was about to fall on one of the electrical lines, for we had enough candles collected to light up the house by time the darkness fell.

Photo by Rob Dirk
The New Look of the Train Coming Down the Track

A magnificent storm was coming in. First there was the wind that blows the rust and brown crackled leaves of last year to the east side of the porch and the switches and blows them to the west side of the porch. Then the waves come along the lake from the west, first small whitecaps and then waves with large white ridges – big enough to ride. When the rain began to fall it was in sheets of water. We could see it against the light behind green trees and again as it hit the deck.

“This is like rain in Florida,” Bonnie said, “sheets of rain coming down”. And then there was the sound like the sound of a gunshot and out lights went out. That was the tree falling on the line and triggering the electrical breaker.

We hadn’t planned what to have for supper, so having no electricity didn’t interfere with out plans. We sliced a cucumber into large lengthwise fingers, called that our main course and we were both happy to have a meal plan like that executed – no pots and pans, no dishes, no clean-up.

Photo by Rob Dirk
The New Look of the Path to the Lake

David Wood and Glen were the investigators, trying to find out why we had no power.

Dave was the one who found the tree laying on the electrical line and Glen called in a help message to BC hydro who had someone out on the site within the hour to fix it.

With the electrical back, Bonnie and I finished out our candle party and we both needed a rest from all of that fun so we pulled out our electronics.

I told Bonnie that I have few regrets about my life – but this one. I wish I had studied more about Canadian history and about Canadian geography. That is why I sometimes go to the National Film Board site to watch something in the evenings. So that is what we did – the most spectacular film from the Five Feminist Minutes series. The 5 minute film was “New Shoes” – an intriguing title with a dark underside.

And that ended the first 5 hours of what truly became 24 hours of fun – about which I may type more, later.

Arta