Kaya one week on

It is just over a week since Kaya joined us. This photo was taken last week, after we brought Hobbes' old basket up from the basement. Its back down in the basement again, as she is now staying in the basement room during the day. So far, she hasn't got up to too much mischief down there. We're sure that she sleeps on the pink sofa, and she has obviously been chewing the stairs and Hobbes'-now-her basket. But that seems quite mild for a puppy. So far, we have had no accidents in the house, which is amazing, given the fact that she wasn't supposed to be house-trained.

The pictures at the beginning of the post are taken on the river. Kaya has been enjoying herself in the snow, surfing through it, although it is deeper than the length of her legs. Yesterday we gave her a chew treat on the river, and instead of eating it she buried it. Huffy made a snow inukshuk so that she could find it again on our way home, and she did, and dug it up and ate it.

Gotta have Kaya now

The new addition to the Griffin clan. We rescued her on Saturday, from the Gatineau SPCA. We had originally gone to adopt a 16month old puppy called Leo. When we arrived, a family with 2 young girls were walking him, and clearly going to take him home. Taiia (as she was then known) was not in the adoption centre because she had recently been spayed and was on penicillin because she was found to have an ulcer on her tongue. Once we met her, that was practically it -- she lay her head on my thigh and rolled over on Huffy's feet at least three times before we even got through the door to take her outside.

We have no idea what "make" she is. The shelter said "airdale terrier/collie -- but that was a guess. She could equally be a bearded collie/retriever or yorkie/german shepherd (unlikely!) for all we know.

What we do know is that she is a little sweetheart. She likes to snuggle up to you, but she is quite self sufficient. She is very calm, but boy if she is allowed to play loose with another dog, in the fenced in tennis court she can run like the wind, out manouvering a new-found friend Lichen (timber wolf/husky). She is friends with everyone. She is trying to make friends with the cats, letting them approach her, rather than chasing them. She likes to eat her dinner, but will stop to permit you to take it from you or to run over and say "thank you". She has a dim view of our treat selection -- she is already refusing to eat milk bone biscuits and chews. She looooves cheese (very useful for hiding her tablets).

She sleeps through the night, settles at our feet if we're eating. Is quite happy to sit in her basket and watch the tele with Huffy -- she especially enjoyed the soccer on Sunday. We are sure that more "naughty behaviours" will emerge -- she has been caught with a slipper in her mouth. But for now we are smitten with our new arrival!!

Glub Wine

It seems as though many ciites are coming to realize the magical charm of a Christmas market. Quite a few people we talked to this past week had visited Christmas markets: Andy & Ali in Birmingham, Nick, who'd had his own stall at the market on Queens Stree in Leciester, Dom in Toronto.. and us. We were priviledged to be able to visit the oldest market in Germany held in the town square in Frankfurt.

We arrived late afternnon, when the sun was going down and the Christmas lights were beginning to sparkle.

There were many stalls selling Christmas decorations, and local crafts such as wood turning and lace. There were also many stalls selling street food -- candy floss; frankfurters; roasted chestnuts; fried pastries; all manner of German Christmas cookies and gingerbread, that imparted a wonderful aniseed and molasses scent in the air. But by far the bast stalls were those with steaming vats of Gluhwein.

It was cold, really cold, and we did try hard to distract ourselves by watching the children on the most amazing merry-go round I have ever seen, and by buying some of the Christmas goodies -- gingerbread for Andy and Almut and some beeswax candles, complete with beeswax bees.

We also bought some glass ornaments -- round globes that held tea-lights. Unfortunately, my packing skills are less than stellar and we have arrived home with only two out of three intact.

Despite our best attempts to keep warm by other means, we confess that we were forced to visit the Gluhwein stalls three times during the course of the eveining. Gluhwein is marvellous, it not only warms the hands, and body, but also warms through to the verycoldest parts of the soul. It is pure magic. We may have had jsut a little more than we needed, as H didn't seem to be able to read the signs after the first one. He insisted on calling it Glub-wine, claiming that it was spelled that way. Glub, glub, glub...

Courier

The meeting in Brussels took place in one of the European Commission buildings. Being rather jet lagged I managed to leave the flyers I had brought to hand out back at the hotel. A colleague loaned me her cell phone and I called the hotel and woke up HG. Stirred into action, he finally made it across the city on the metro, and hand delivered the flyers, walking stright into the meeting room. he said it was like wlking into the set of the movie Dr Strangelove. A hushed tiered lecture room with laecture benches, and headphones and microphones at every seat -- more suitable for a meeting of the United nations than a bunch of scientists.

Sad to leave Brussels

We could have spent much more time in Brussels. I hardly saw any of it, but HG walked around quite a bit on Tuesday.

He found the Grand Place -- the main square in the centre of the city. The architecture is stunning, such fine stone work, and gold leaf on the buildings. We went back in the evening, when the Christmas tree was ablaze with lights. there was a son et lumiere playing against the buildings on the other side of the square, and the biggest creche ever, since the real thing.

On PS's recommendation, we had dinner in an Inn opposite the creche -- which kindly decided to take us in. The food was good, but the most notable thing about the Inn is the taxidermied horse. I have never seens a stuffed animal that big. It was a little moth eaten, going bals in patches, but I gave it a stroke anyway. Unfortunately HG forgot the camera.

Our hotel was very close to the cathedral. But despite the huge landmark, we seemed to be incapable of finding our way home. None of the roads led to anything familiar, and we walked around in circles again, until we were rescued by a kind Belgian guy, who claimed to have lost a whole posse of Japanese business men in the 5 minute walk from the train station to the Domincan hotel. He claimed that he had had to rescue them by car. We felt better, warmed by te story, the very fast walk home, and finally getting to the hotel and out of the -5C cold.

Da Vinci

I decided that the Brussles hotel felt a bit like being in the movie the Da Vinci Code. It was stone and grey and felt old and contemporary at the same time.

There was very little light in the room, or in the corridors. And downstairs in the lobby braziers were burning at the entrance.

The atmosphere was not helped by the damp bone-numbing cold of a late November Brussels fog.

Leaving for Europe

Not the best start to a translatlantic flight -- exhausted from a trip to Saskatoon. This taken at the Ottawa Airport (Maple leaf lounge). Im not usre whether it was tiredness or having to endure the Grey cup.

We are staying at the Dominican, Brussels. We found it after a lengthy walk from the train station. It has a bit of a monastery, gothic feel to the place.

I'm not sure that this photo does it justice. It feels much more sinsiter in a way. We have a window set in our room with a bay that looks down on the diners below. The background music is Palestrina, or some other monastic chanting, and most of the corridors are stone, or dark and menancing. I'll try and take more photos tomorrow, if I get hold of the camera. For now, here's a picture of one of the lights in the corridor. there is a matching blood red design on the beige carpet beneath.

One red canoe

My birthday gift from DAG.
Suddenly I found myself in the possession of a red canoe. Something I have wanted for about 30 years, ever since HG made me paddle around the dark side of the island at Kashwakamak at 9pm on a cold October evening.


So then what do you do? You have to take it for a spin -- I mean a maiden voyage
Its heavy so you can't carry it too far on top of your head -- it needs to be in water

DAG and I practised carrying it around to the back of the house. that was quite far enough. I have now bought it a set of wheels so that we can walk it down to the end of the street.



But it works best in water. Meech Lake for instance where we saw five loons in one canoe trip.
We have had beautiful beaver tail paddles for at least 10 years waiting for the time when we'd have our own canoe.


Meech lake is not a big lake
But big enough that you can feel like you've left everyone behind for a while, even when a Trailhead expedition has bee organized for the same day.

Aside from the loons there was a chipmunk that decided to eat each lunch of wild raspeberries on HG's leg (couldn't get to the camera) and dragonflies that also took a fancy to sunning themselves on HGs yellow T-shirt.


Check out the locals

Not just a load of old lentils

I think lentils are one of those things that you either love or you hate. I used to think lentil-hate was hard wired, a genetic trait that could not be influenced by environment. It was one of those foods associated with hippies, granola crunchers, and hard core macrobiotic types. I actually have a book by Rose Elliot with the same title as this post. Everything I ever cooked from that book turned out brown and heavy (Sorry Rose).

I have always thought that lentils, particularly the orange ones of my childhood were interesting. On bored days I would be given the task of doing "the seperations" -- picking by hand the odd lentils that had fallen into the rice jar, or vice-versa. Only later did I discover that this was a Montessori age appropriate task (my Mum was an infant school teacher -- did she know?). I forget what my Mother used the lentils for, maybe soup, she would never have made Indian food except out of a vespa dried packet.

Over the past few years I have had a few lentil converts, thanks to the dhal recipe below. I often serve Indian food for dinner when we have guests, especially meat eating guests who can tolerate a bit of spice. The dhal has elicited many quotes, of which a give you a few:
"It really tastes much better than it looks" (CC)
"Well -- I quite like it actually" (MD)
"Now I understand why E always insists on gettting dhal" (MEL)

It originated from a Sainsbury cookbook by filmmaker Ismail Merchant (circa 1992) but has been modified over the years. I never stick faithfully to the recipe.

Lemon Lentils

2 tablespoons oil
1 large onion
2 cinnamon sticks
250g red lentils
1 tsp chopped ginger
500ml vegetable stock
500ml hot water (I add half of this to start off and then more as needed)
1/2 tsp chilli powder
1/2 lemon
2 garlic cloves
pinch cayenne peper -- to taste or piece of fresh chilli
2 bay leaves crumbled
fresh coriander (MEL -- this is totally optional)

Heat oil in a deep saucepan over medium heat and cook 1/2 onion until soft. Add cinnamon sticks, lentils and ginger and cook for 10 minutes until colour of lentils has become more translucent.
Add stock, hot water and chilli powder. Season with salt, bring to the boil an dboil rapidly for about 10 minutes. Squeeze the juice from the lemon and add to the pan with the squeezed lemon skin. Cook for about an hour, stirring frequently until the lentils have broken down and the mixture is creamy.
While the lentils are cooking, make the terka -- chop the remaining onion, heat a little oil in a skillet and cook the onion, garlic, cayenne pepper or chilli and bay leaves until onion is just brown.
To serve empty dhal into serving dish, drizzle the terka over the top and add chopped coriander, unless you are MEL.

That's it for lentils -- except to mention a wonderful one-man play from the Talking Heads series by Alan Bennett bed among the lentils one of six monologues of wonderfully closely observed character studies. I am suprised, but quite encouraged, that they are now part of the GCSE English literature syllabus. Although they are quite short, the honesty and detail of the writing makes them almost painful to read, especially if like me you grew up in the UK of Bennett's mind. There may not be any overt link between the play and the recipe (except for lentils), but like bed among the lentils lemon lentils and the other recipes in Ismail's bookserved to bring a little bit of India into British homes.

Pedantic

31 minutes; 5.16K; 5408 steps

Thanksgiving

It took me a few years to figure out thanksgiving after we moved to Canada. But now I definitely get it. No-longer kids make strenous efforts to get home, you invite people for dinner who are far away from home (and might not "get" thanksgiving either). Days are spent fretting about what to make for dinner, with text messages back and forth either begging for nut roast, or begging not to have nut roast. You spend hours chopping veggies, baking and cooking, so that finally there are no more pots to use in the kitchen. The dishwasher chooses to break down just prior to the weekend and the dishwasher repair man refuses to visit until after the weekend is over. And through it all, and despite all the effort, everyone is so pleased to be together that the weekend and thanksgiving dinner are way beyond fun.

Thanksgiving doesn't happen in the UK, but when I was growing up we did have harvest festival at church. We had to bring baskets of produce from our gardens (and increasingly as the years went by, cans from our cupboards), which we carried in a crocodile from the school at the back of the graveyard, round the corner to the church. The church was always decorated to the hilt with michelmas daises, lashed in the umbrella stands, something that the vicar of the time, Rev Clift, particularly disliked. We would stagger up the aisles with our loaded baskets and hand them over to him at the steps to the sancturary where he would place them all around the altar.

I was musing this year about the difference between Canada's thanksgiving and the US and thanks to the yarn harlot found out that the first North American Thanksgiving was celebrated when explorer (and pirate) Martin Frobisher stood on Baffin Island in 1578 and gave thanks for safely crossing the Atlantic. Similarly the French settlers, having crossed the ocean and arrived in Canada with explorer Samuel de Champlain, held huge feasts of thanks. Apparently they formed 'The Order of Good Cheer' and shared their food with their Indian neighbours.

I always thought that thanksgiving was instigated by the pilgrim fathers after they had survived a year of hardship in the New World and had been taught how to grow squash, corn and beans, something I romanticised after having survived our first year in Canada. However, apparently the history is not as simple as it seems, and although the traditions that began with the Mayflower were carried North when the loyalists fled during the American revolution, there are other threads that are important to remember.

As the years go by family stories are retold and embelished. It is ARGs birthday at this time of year, and many times she has celebrated her birthday at Thanksgiving dinner, with pumpkin pie in lieu of birthday cake. This time we decided to have a birthday dinner on Saturday night, followed by Thanksgiving dinner on Sunday night -- just to stretch out the overeating. But we remembered as we do every year that before I "got" thanksgiving I just used to ignore it. So, once when she was 10 or so, and her Aunt asked ARG what she wanted for her birthday, she embarrassed us to no end by saying that she just wanted to go and eat turkey at their house. It worked I guess -- after that I made sure to cook Thanksgiving dinner. And bit by bit, over the years, I began to understand the importance of celebrating Thanksgiving and gathering around to be thankful for good food, good families and good friends.

Sagas of my blender

I have a blender -- a beautiful Cuisinart model in black rubber and stainless steel that matches the food processor, dishwasher and other appliances. I look at my blender from time to time, and feel asssured. Finally, I have arrived at a place in my life where I can have an expensive toy in my kitchen. It's a luxury, a real power toy. I don't play with it often, but when I do, it delivers velvety soups and creamy dresssings that no other food processor or blender can match.

I'm fairly possesive about my blender. I really don't like other people to touch it, but sometimes I try to play nicely and let them have a go. Christmas day for instance. ARG was home, and having announced some time ago that she had never tasted lobster, it seemed to be the perfect special occasion to make lobster bisque. It also seemed to be a friendly Mummy kind of thing to do to let my girl play with the blender. I did say, "don't put too much of that bisque in at once", but no sooner were the words out of my mouth than bloop, the lid blew off and boiling soup rained down over the counter top. Her Daddy rushed to save her from the nasty machine and bad mother, but not having been allowed to play with the power toy himself, unscrewed the base and let the remains of the bisque flow out over the counter and on to the floor where the dog's tongue was waiting.

This weekend I gave my man a second chance with the blender. He was lurking in the kitchen, waiting for dinner to make itself. Again, it seemed a friendly thing to do to let him have control of the machine. I set him making the Duma dressing from Get it Ripe. It requires chopping an onion and throwing it into the blender along with oil, vinegar, nutritional yeast and some herbs, a real macho kind of recipe. HG complained that the blender was leaving lumps, and it sounded a bit rough at high speed, but I didn't think much about it until we sat down to eat the salad. A few mouthfuls in I found myself chewing on a hard lump. It had a bit of give, but refused to break down as I chewed on. Fishing it out of my mouth I found a small flat piece of grey silicone. Somehow, HG had managed to blend the gasket that fits between the blades and the glass jug. How can the gasket have ended up inside the glass jug? HG has a theory that the blender pulled it in because the jug wasn't screwed together tightly. I have my own theories on the matter, starting with no-one understands the sheer power and beauty of my blender.

Stories from my grown-up life

Somehow I imagined that one day I would grow up. I used to look at women who were the same age I am today, or even younger, and imagine that I too would somehow be transformed into a sophisticated competent career women, elegantly dressed, balancing home and work without a ruffle of my carefully lacquered hair.

I thought it would happen without any effort on my part. At some point I would just realize that I had arrived and taken my place in the world of grown ups. Half a century later and I still don't know what that means. Somehow I have become a wife, a mother, a career woman (whatever that means) without ever having grown up. I joke about what I might do with my life when I do finally grow up.

Dom and Amy both talk about feeling grown up when they have had to take responsibility for other peoples lives, even though that meant putting themselves in a place of opposition with their peers. But both of them want to retain that feeling of freedom and exploration, that seems an antithesis to being a 'grown-up".

We said farewell to my research fellow at the end of August, who claimed she was moving on to her grown up life. Good luck with that Allison. Let me know when you've figured out what that is; bottle it and send me some to sprinkle on my muesli.

People or places

It is said that cats are attached to place whereas dogs are attached to people. When we moved from the UK to Canada we sent our two cats on ahead, a couple of weeks before our arrival date. HGs brother picked them up from the airport and looked after them until we arrived. The older cat seemed to cope fine and was not at all bothered at having moved to a new place. The younger cat, Elmo, seemed to be quite depressed and apparently stayed under the bed in the basement until we arrived. Once he had seen the kids again he took on a new lease of life and started running about my brother-in-laws house as though he owned the place.

This past two weeks have seen quite an upheaval at home. First DAG moved out, then ARG returned from Europe, spent a few days with us and left again to return home to Montreal. Both the dog and one of the cats have been quite confused. The dog is clearly looking for DAG or ARG and keeps checking the car or the moving van for them. More unusually, to my mind, is the behaviour of the grey cat. She is refusing to spend time on the main level of the house and keeps wanting to be in the basement (which used to be ARGs room when she lived at home), or in DAGs old bedroom. Often I just find her crying in the downstairs entrance hall.

ARG moved out two years ago, long enough for this house not to be her home anymore, but DAG has only just made the move. I guess we each adjust to change in people and places in different ways. DAG surprised me by appearing to be much more rooted to place than I had expected. ARG on the other hand went back packing in Europe for the summer, but seemed to have had the best time enjoying people, rather than the places that she visited.

Over the years I have been in Canada, I have really missed my friends and family back in the UK. But yet I feel strangely rooted to this place. Leaving Canada, especially in the winter I miss the trees and the snow and only feel at ease when I'm back home to my pine forest.

we are thriving

For my birthday this year ARG gave me a book called about the Thrive Diet. Its a vegan diet developed by a triathalon specialist. The book wasn't a revelation to me, or anything like that. Instead it took me back to when I was ARGs age, just finished a BSc in Physiology and moving on to live in a series of rented dives while studying further. It was those hippyish years when we are all into making our own bread, sprouting lentils, scrounging windfall apples and tomatoes left over from field trials.

The Thrive Diet book took me back to those years of hempseeds and cheesecloth. I particularly remembered our home made lasgne drying on a clothes rack where it was nibbled by cats (and possibly vermin too). Over the past few weeks I've had enormous fun getting back into growing sprouts in glass jars and making a variety of recipes included in the book.

I've not become a convert to veganism overnight, but I have to say that I've not got such a kick over playing with food for a long time.

Married for 50 years

A couple of weeks ago we drove to Brechin, Ontario to celebrate B&As 50th wedding anniversary. Congratulations to B&A, but congratulations too to each of their six kids who arranged the celebrations. There was a church service to reconfirm their vows. All the music, lessons, prayers were by the children and grandchildren. Then there was a party at the legion, with speeches from the eldest son, S, their best man and many of the family members -- this is a family that loves the stage. HG and I had seen the "first draft" of the powerpoint slide & music presentation that the younger siblings had created from old family photographs when we visited N in March. There were few dry eyes in the house. I don't cope with crowds very well, so I hid myself in the back and did face painting for the kids.

50 years though, its really a lifetime. HG and I passed our silver milestone this year, only half of B&As achievement but still it seems an impressive length of time. I'm proud of us, that we have stuck together through rough times, and good times -- here's to you HG, here's to us.

Luma

I'm so far behind in writing on my blog. In my mind I would up date this every few days. It already seems weeks since we visited ARGs friend MDL and her new baby Luma. By now they will have flown back to Peru, to MLDs husband and their new life as a family.

I was happy to have found Fair Trade peruvian cotton, in order to make a little hoodie for Luma. It came out larger than I had expected, but she should be able to wear it by the time she is about a year old. However, I find these days that I'm quite bad at estimating sizes for babies. I knit a sweater to fit a 6-12month old (the size I usually pick when I'm knitting for a new baby), only to visit at 3months and find that it just fit perfectly. I'm convinced that babies are larger these days, or that my old UK patterns do not provide suitable age-size matches for North Americans.

Living in the garden

June 30th, the day before Canada day. If I was a Canadian gardener, the front yard would be ablaze with red geraniums and white shasta daisies. Actually, despite the soggy weather, the front garden is attempting a vague nod to July 1st. That's at street level, where the tubs are full of geraniums and white spider flowers. Further back, the enchantment lilies are an orange sunburst and with the blue campanula, there seems to be a Dutch theme going on. Where did that come from? No connection to us, but I love the opposition of orange and blue.

The lilies have been in the garden for years. So long that I don't remember buying them. But they are a stalwart of the front yard. I look forward to their return every year, and, based on the comments I get from the neighbourly dog walkers, so do many other people who take their morning stroll down our street.

They are such an outrageous colour, (the lilies, not the dog walkers), I often think that they don't really belong in our rock terraces. However, I wouldn't want to be without them. We had a pot of them in the front garden in the UK, and before that they were the one flower that I had to have in my wedding bouquet, and before that they were the first flowers that HG bought for me one dreamy day on Queens Street in Leicester.

This year its been so wet that the slugs and other nasties have taken over the garden. I was horrified to find fornicating red beetles followed by black sludgey beings chewing up the leaves of my precious lilies. I was so upset, and resorted to wiping down the leaves with soapy water for several days running. Fortunately it seems to have paid off. the lilies are shouting as loudly as ever in vibrant orange -- Happy Canada Day.

The things we leave behind

We waved ARG off from the Pierre Elliot Trudeau airport in Montreal last Tuesday. She was off on a big adventure -- backpacking around Europe with a couple of girlfriends for three whole months. We stayed at the airport for a drink, monitoring the line containing our girl until it finally snaked its way through the security screen and we could see her no longer. Then we stayed a bit longer and had something to eat, before finally wending our way through the terminal carparks to find the bright blue car (bbc) on the edge of the furthest most car park. I drove home as HG was tired. It was dusk by the time we left, so it wasn't until the next day that I found the hair elastic abandoned on the passenger seat.

ARG has been a dancer her entire life. Hair elastics are such an integral part of her, that seeing it lying on the car seat almost reduced me to tears. It was not only a hair elastic, it was a thick ouchless hair elastic, seamless so that no hairs get snagged on the metal join. A carefully selected purchase, bought with the experince of many years of inferior elastics. And, it was a lavender blue colour, a colour that I always associate with ARG. There was one year when the entire class of dancers at the School of Dance adopted lavender leotards as their class uniform because ARG had a lavender bodysuit.

Seeing the hair elastic reminded me of a poem by Sharon Olds about finding a drop of crystallized maple syrup on the table after her daughter had left for summer camp. I looked for it on-line and then I found this from High School Senior

"There are creatures whose children float away
at birth, and those who throat-feed their young
for weeks and never see them again. My daughter
is free and she is in me--no, my love
of her is in me, moving in my heart,
changing chambers, like something poured
from hand to hand, to be weighed and then reweighed"

And then I remembered lines from my own work about DAGs First Leaving.

I've been thinking recently about the things we leave behind. It feels attractive to carry little through life, to tread so lightly on the earth that one leaves no trace of oneself, except a brief trail of consciousness like the water vapour stream behind an airplane. For me, at this point in my life, I'm not sure whether it comes from a desire to disappear, or from a real place. For now I litter my office and my home, and write and knit and garden in a way that binds me to others and which seems somehow contrary to this desire.

There's a glut of them

It's that time of year. Babies are popping out all over. A co-worker had her baby on Sunday, a couple of weeks earlier than expected. ARGs first friend in Canada had her baby a few weeks ago. She came home from Peru to give birth in Canada. She had a little girl called Luma and is planning to stay only for a few more weeks before heading back home. Then another co-worker's daughter, is due to have her second baby in October. All this reproductive activity is quite stressful if you knit. I like to knit baby sweaters, they're small and don't take a lot of time to produce. But when there's a line up, the pressure can be a bit much.

I finished the jacket for HG's co-workers new baby last week. Still waiting to take it to her, but I don't think she will have grown out of it yet. My co-worker is more of a problem as I didn't knit anything for the first child, but now feel as though I should overcompensate and knit matching sweaters for the little girl and new baby brother.

Then what to knit for ARGs friend. I don't know what to do for someone who pretty much became a hippie and has little use for material things. You still need baby sweaters though. I've considered rummaging in my stash of old yarn and mixing random colours and textures to make a ragbag sweater, but I don't feel right giving Luma leftovers, when everyone else will receive sweaters made from newly purchased yarn. On the other hand, I love receiving things that have had a previous incarnation, so perhaps it isn't really inappropriate.

While I mull over my baby sweater(s) dilemma, I'm posting a picture of the sweater I knit for HGs co-workers little girl.