It’s very quiet.
Nobody is sitting in the garden reading a book without joining in the conversation, despite travelling thousands of miles to see his daughter. Nobody is tidying up after supper, despite being told not to because she is on her holidays. Nobody has gone for a little walk down the road to look at the sea. Nobody is telling me a bit of gossip I missed about someone at home. Nobody is opening a bottle of wine, or enjoying a can of Monkey Beer, which is quite the nicest beer in the world apparently, so nice he insisted he had to pay for it. Nobody is talking about the nice meal, which was well cooked, and it was fine that it was fish again.
Nobody is intently watching Himself barbeque the steaks, looking back at us to see what we think. Nobody is sitting quietly, listening to me as I rant about work, keeping an eye out to see would Himself roll his eyes at her.
He was their ally. I kept catching him at it. Having a little joke with them at my expense.
And when I'd express my outrage at him he'd just give me a look that said, Get up the yard. You muppet.
It was strange at times. I felt like I was playing myself in my own movie.
But I was one of the minor characters.
Very unnerving, I can tell you.
Thank goodness I have a blog.
What would I do otherwise?
Nobody is sitting around the table after dinner, talking about the war. Or remembering stories from our families. Or bickering with each other over something the Queen Dad did, or Queenie, or the Queen Mum.
I’d get a different look when that happened.
Himself has a very complex body language. Which I’m starting to learn.
I wonder what mine is like?
Some time is spent thinking about this.
I’m probably just pretty verbal.
I just wrote my first stage direction!
Some time is spent thinking about this.
There’s no effing money in theatre.
Except… I was reading a review of a book (this is how slack I am) about John Osbourne, the angry young man, and it turns out that he made a fortune from the theatre.
I wonder how he did that?
Some time is spent thinking about this.
Nah, don’t know. Time to move on.
Time passes.
Beckett was rich too, of course.
Some time is spent thinking about the last two weeks.
And a bit of a weep is had.
A very bittersweet one.
And then a train went past. And a dog howled at it.
I kid you not.
And the train went by forever, like they know it does now.
I feel better now.
Even just remembering is making it less painful.
The quietness.
Then she heard the hiss of a car passing quietly down the road in front of the house.
Sorry reader, I couldn’t resist that.
Goodnight. Safe home.
All of you.
Monday, July 31, 2006
Saturday, July 29, 2006
So many restaurants, so little time
Queenie is having terrible problems with her wifi at the moment, so posting may be delayed….
Effing internet. What effing use is it if you can’t get onto it.
Well, if you can do nothing else in Nova Scotia, you can eat well. Of course you can do lots of things here, but ohmygod you can eat well. Queenie has a taut swelled bump of a midriff after two weeks of the Queen Parents being here.
Last weekend, I brought them down the Valley. Down the Valley is the Annapolis Valley, which is the farming area of Nova Scotia. It was generally agreed that it was very like Ireland. Although it is mostly dyked reclaimed land so it is like Ireland if Ireland were Holland.
We stayed in a B&B in a little village called Canning, which has apple blossom everywhere, and a number of Baptist churches, and nothing else. The breakfasts were amazing. First of all, you got fresh juice, coffee and warm muffins served to your room at 7.30. Then you had an enormous breakfast at 8.30. Then we went in the car on a little jaunt somewhere. Unfortunately, Tropical Storm Beryl crashed onto the South Shore and across Nova Scotia that weekend. SO. IT. POURED. ALL. WEEKEND. Apart from one day, Saturday I think.
We did mostly tourist stuff – went to the Habitacion in Annapolis which is a reconstruction of the original French settlement of 1705. And the Acadian museum in Grand Pre which marks the Grand Derangement, the deportation of 10,000 Acadians from Nova Scotia by perfidious Albionists. And pottered around Wolfville, which is where I Wwoofed last summer and which is a nice university town a bit like a small version of Kilkenny. If Kilkenny had clapboard houses and was by the sea.
There was always a nice lunch in a European run bistro about two pm. Then back to the B&B for reading and afternoon tea, which usually involved some kind of very nice chocolate cake.
Then we picked a restaurant and headed off to eat more at 7.30, which is of course horrendously late in Nova Scotia. But still, there needed to be a bit of space in order to clear the stomach for a further filling.
Wolfville has many great restaurants, but the best three are The Tempest, Actons, and Between the Bushes, in that order I think. The Tempest is a chef-owner, very trendy European type bistro, all of whose servers are resting actors I think. Actons is a more high-brow, professional server type formal dining type place, with a focus on fish and steaks, and Between the Bushes is a lovely farmhouse restaurant in the middle of a blueberry farm with nice sunsets and all kinds of interesting fauna. Of course, Wolfville has the Blomidon Inn as well, which is supposed to be the best, but it’s a bit expensive for us.
Anyways, after that it was back to the B&B again for thankfully, rest not more food and a big long sleep until it was time to eat muffins again. Before that though Queenie had to reverse the car into the parking spot every night, which involved the Queen Father getting out and giving her complicated hand signals which she couldn’t see in the dark and then she would make a complete shite of the whole thing and get a lecture about parking. Which would go down like a lead banana of course.
Since we got back to Halifax we have been alternating eating in and eating out and sampling the delights of Haligonian cooking, which are multitudinal also. And as tonight was our last night together as a group of four, we went to Chives.
Chives of course starred in my blog nearly a year ago as the site of the wedding feast of Mr. and Mrs. Monkey. And very nice it was then and very nice it was tonight too. Although the table wasn’t decorated as prettily :->
So, just the one night left and the QPs will be winging their way back to Ireland. I wonder what impressions they will be bringing with them?
They met Himself and various politicians that Queenie works for and Hotspur the Goddess of Spin of course and some of Himself’s family, so that was all good. And Halifax seemed to grow on them once they figured out the buses and the waterfront and the grid system and that. Maybe not enough defined shopping areas for the Queen Mum to browse in.
And the Queen Dad and Queenie did the Harbour Hopper today, which is the Nova Scotian equivalent of the Viking Splash.
Today it was so hot it was almost too hot and our room is like an oven tonight so we will have to use the fan for the first time this year. August will be hot hot hot. Not as hot as BC, where temperatures of over 40 degrees are being recorded in Kelowna and Nanaimo and the forest fires are raging fiercely.
Effing internet. What effing use is it if you can’t get onto it.
Well, if you can do nothing else in Nova Scotia, you can eat well. Of course you can do lots of things here, but ohmygod you can eat well. Queenie has a taut swelled bump of a midriff after two weeks of the Queen Parents being here.
Last weekend, I brought them down the Valley. Down the Valley is the Annapolis Valley, which is the farming area of Nova Scotia. It was generally agreed that it was very like Ireland. Although it is mostly dyked reclaimed land so it is like Ireland if Ireland were Holland.
We stayed in a B&B in a little village called Canning, which has apple blossom everywhere, and a number of Baptist churches, and nothing else. The breakfasts were amazing. First of all, you got fresh juice, coffee and warm muffins served to your room at 7.30. Then you had an enormous breakfast at 8.30. Then we went in the car on a little jaunt somewhere. Unfortunately, Tropical Storm Beryl crashed onto the South Shore and across Nova Scotia that weekend. SO. IT. POURED. ALL. WEEKEND. Apart from one day, Saturday I think.
We did mostly tourist stuff – went to the Habitacion in Annapolis which is a reconstruction of the original French settlement of 1705. And the Acadian museum in Grand Pre which marks the Grand Derangement, the deportation of 10,000 Acadians from Nova Scotia by perfidious Albionists. And pottered around Wolfville, which is where I Wwoofed last summer and which is a nice university town a bit like a small version of Kilkenny. If Kilkenny had clapboard houses and was by the sea.
There was always a nice lunch in a European run bistro about two pm. Then back to the B&B for reading and afternoon tea, which usually involved some kind of very nice chocolate cake.
Then we picked a restaurant and headed off to eat more at 7.30, which is of course horrendously late in Nova Scotia. But still, there needed to be a bit of space in order to clear the stomach for a further filling.
Wolfville has many great restaurants, but the best three are The Tempest, Actons, and Between the Bushes, in that order I think. The Tempest is a chef-owner, very trendy European type bistro, all of whose servers are resting actors I think. Actons is a more high-brow, professional server type formal dining type place, with a focus on fish and steaks, and Between the Bushes is a lovely farmhouse restaurant in the middle of a blueberry farm with nice sunsets and all kinds of interesting fauna. Of course, Wolfville has the Blomidon Inn as well, which is supposed to be the best, but it’s a bit expensive for us.
Anyways, after that it was back to the B&B again for thankfully, rest not more food and a big long sleep until it was time to eat muffins again. Before that though Queenie had to reverse the car into the parking spot every night, which involved the Queen Father getting out and giving her complicated hand signals which she couldn’t see in the dark and then she would make a complete shite of the whole thing and get a lecture about parking. Which would go down like a lead banana of course.
Since we got back to Halifax we have been alternating eating in and eating out and sampling the delights of Haligonian cooking, which are multitudinal also. And as tonight was our last night together as a group of four, we went to Chives.
Chives of course starred in my blog nearly a year ago as the site of the wedding feast of Mr. and Mrs. Monkey. And very nice it was then and very nice it was tonight too. Although the table wasn’t decorated as prettily :->
So, just the one night left and the QPs will be winging their way back to Ireland. I wonder what impressions they will be bringing with them?
They met Himself and various politicians that Queenie works for and Hotspur the Goddess of Spin of course and some of Himself’s family, so that was all good. And Halifax seemed to grow on them once they figured out the buses and the waterfront and the grid system and that. Maybe not enough defined shopping areas for the Queen Mum to browse in.
And the Queen Dad and Queenie did the Harbour Hopper today, which is the Nova Scotian equivalent of the Viking Splash.
Today it was so hot it was almost too hot and our room is like an oven tonight so we will have to use the fan for the first time this year. August will be hot hot hot. Not as hot as BC, where temperatures of over 40 degrees are being recorded in Kelowna and Nanaimo and the forest fires are raging fiercely.
Friday, July 28, 2006
Domestic Bliss on Beaufort
Friday evening. I am sitting on the smallest deck in the world as usual. We have had a barbeque. Himself cooked steaks and baked sweet potatoes. I did the fresh corn, drizzled with oil and wrapped in tinfoil. The Queen Mother made a salad. The Queen Father was driven by Queenie to the Liquor Store and bought an eight pack of Keith’s (for the Queen Parents), an eight pack of Olands for Himself, and an eight pack of Schooner for me. He had also been to the nice wine shop in Bishop’s Landing and bought a couple of bottles of Knife and Fork, the great wine we found which comes in litre bottles with screw tops but which is very drinkable and a reasonable price.
Then we had mangoes and ice cream.
As you can see, everyone has found their role and is doing their bit to make it work. It’s all very domesticated. We had a nice meal and sat around talking about Belgium and Holland and the second World War and what the Canadian role was. And what they did in Bosnia. And Rwanda. We circled around Afghanistan a bit but didn’t go there tonight. It’s too depressing.
I find myself reading voraciously every time a Canadian is killed. Trying to remember their names. Trying to remember where they’re from and what their girlfriend or wife said at the memorial. A lot of it is to do with the fact that I can only remember one or two of the thousands of people who died in the Troubles. That has always bothered me.
Canada’s role in Afghanistan is troubling. For many Canadians too. You forget how much combat this country has seen. Most of it against the will of most ordinary Canadians.
However, it was too nice an evening to spoil it with war talk. We are all feeling very relaxed at the moment. For different reasons, I suppose. Himself and Queenie are thrilled because we’ve found somewhere to live. A really gorgeous two-bedroomed place with a kitchen that you could have a party in, a dining room and a living room, out on Herring Cove Road, which is a lovely part of the city. It has a really nice big garden, with a gate in the back fence that leads to a path through the woods, that ends at a sandy beach on a swimming lake. Steeped we are. We signed the lease today and take possession in mid-August.
I spent a lot of time this evening discussing the possibility of getting a kayak for the lake until Himself not unreasonably pointed out that we needed some furniture first.
Spoilsport.
I cannot believe that I am finally going to live in a wonderful, light-filled, large, two-bedroomed apartment in a house with just two other apartments, with parking and heating included, on the edge of a lake surrounded by a maple tree wood, for six hundred euros a month.
This is why I came to Canada.
You are all invited of course. The options are: come in the summer and swim in the lake, or come in the winter and skate on the lake, or come in the autumn and admire the trees. Or come in the spring, but I wouldn’t recommend that.
Queenie will be hosting skating parties. Imagine that! So long as she doesn’t have to skate.
We alternate eating in with going out with the Queen Parents and it is working well. The Queen Father is astounded at Queenie’s ability to cook. It just sort of happened this year once I had a bit of time and a nice kitchen. And we’ve been eating a lot of really wonderful in season Maritime food – squash and sweet potatoes and fresh corn and blueberries and freshly picked raspberries and lobster, and crab, and wonderful haddock fresh off the boat. So it is a pleasure to cook and to eat. And the kitchen is big enough for two women to work in without killing each other. And then it’s time to watch the CBC news and moan about how terrible it is compared to RTE (it’s not really – one of the things I love about the CBC is that they have the young funky presenters doing the main news, and the old arses are relegated to the second channel late news, in direct contrast to RTE).
I’ve been working three day weeks for the last little while, so I can spend some time with the folks. And Himself. He has a job now, hauling logs in Nova Scotia, but his hours are crazy and his schedule is not a five day week, so we can go eight or ten days without spending any quality time together, so I have been trying to make sure we have at least two days every ten where we get to converse enough that we can get down to the mundane. Which is of course extremely important for the smooth running of a relationship that has recently moved from being together to living together.
So far so good. Queenie has a bit of work to do on a couple of issues but is determined to try. So has Himself of course. But that’s up to him.
Work is finally calming down. That’s one of the reasons why I have not been blogging. Well, crazy work, followed by visitors, followed by domestic chores, followed by time with Himself, followed by sleep. Takes up pretty much all the time. Anyways, this is the first night for a while everyone has had enough of everyone else and is off doing their own thing.
The Queen Mother is cleaning up in my kitchen. She’s not been too bad actually, for a mother staying in her daughter’s house for the first time. The only hiatus was the evening I came home from work exhausted and she had gone to clean the green bin and realised there were maggots in it, which could turn into bluebottles, which therefore needed to be exterminated. She had soaked them in water and something or other, but still the hose needed to be found, and a scrubby thing, and then it needed to be washed out and rinsed and bleached and etc, and Queenie had to act like she knew/ cared about what she was doing when really she just wanted a gin and tonic and bed, but we got it done.
The Queen Father is reading The Colony of Unrequited Love and grumbling at the news. Himself is looking for cheap furniture in this week’s issue of Bargain Hunter. And Queenie is updating, because Luke is sick of checking in.
Consider yourself updated until tomorrow. There will be another post tomorrow.
Then we had mangoes and ice cream.
As you can see, everyone has found their role and is doing their bit to make it work. It’s all very domesticated. We had a nice meal and sat around talking about Belgium and Holland and the second World War and what the Canadian role was. And what they did in Bosnia. And Rwanda. We circled around Afghanistan a bit but didn’t go there tonight. It’s too depressing.
I find myself reading voraciously every time a Canadian is killed. Trying to remember their names. Trying to remember where they’re from and what their girlfriend or wife said at the memorial. A lot of it is to do with the fact that I can only remember one or two of the thousands of people who died in the Troubles. That has always bothered me.
Canada’s role in Afghanistan is troubling. For many Canadians too. You forget how much combat this country has seen. Most of it against the will of most ordinary Canadians.
However, it was too nice an evening to spoil it with war talk. We are all feeling very relaxed at the moment. For different reasons, I suppose. Himself and Queenie are thrilled because we’ve found somewhere to live. A really gorgeous two-bedroomed place with a kitchen that you could have a party in, a dining room and a living room, out on Herring Cove Road, which is a lovely part of the city. It has a really nice big garden, with a gate in the back fence that leads to a path through the woods, that ends at a sandy beach on a swimming lake. Steeped we are. We signed the lease today and take possession in mid-August.
I spent a lot of time this evening discussing the possibility of getting a kayak for the lake until Himself not unreasonably pointed out that we needed some furniture first.
Spoilsport.
I cannot believe that I am finally going to live in a wonderful, light-filled, large, two-bedroomed apartment in a house with just two other apartments, with parking and heating included, on the edge of a lake surrounded by a maple tree wood, for six hundred euros a month.
This is why I came to Canada.
You are all invited of course. The options are: come in the summer and swim in the lake, or come in the winter and skate on the lake, or come in the autumn and admire the trees. Or come in the spring, but I wouldn’t recommend that.
Queenie will be hosting skating parties. Imagine that! So long as she doesn’t have to skate.
We alternate eating in with going out with the Queen Parents and it is working well. The Queen Father is astounded at Queenie’s ability to cook. It just sort of happened this year once I had a bit of time and a nice kitchen. And we’ve been eating a lot of really wonderful in season Maritime food – squash and sweet potatoes and fresh corn and blueberries and freshly picked raspberries and lobster, and crab, and wonderful haddock fresh off the boat. So it is a pleasure to cook and to eat. And the kitchen is big enough for two women to work in without killing each other. And then it’s time to watch the CBC news and moan about how terrible it is compared to RTE (it’s not really – one of the things I love about the CBC is that they have the young funky presenters doing the main news, and the old arses are relegated to the second channel late news, in direct contrast to RTE).
I’ve been working three day weeks for the last little while, so I can spend some time with the folks. And Himself. He has a job now, hauling logs in Nova Scotia, but his hours are crazy and his schedule is not a five day week, so we can go eight or ten days without spending any quality time together, so I have been trying to make sure we have at least two days every ten where we get to converse enough that we can get down to the mundane. Which is of course extremely important for the smooth running of a relationship that has recently moved from being together to living together.
So far so good. Queenie has a bit of work to do on a couple of issues but is determined to try. So has Himself of course. But that’s up to him.
Work is finally calming down. That’s one of the reasons why I have not been blogging. Well, crazy work, followed by visitors, followed by domestic chores, followed by time with Himself, followed by sleep. Takes up pretty much all the time. Anyways, this is the first night for a while everyone has had enough of everyone else and is off doing their own thing.
The Queen Mother is cleaning up in my kitchen. She’s not been too bad actually, for a mother staying in her daughter’s house for the first time. The only hiatus was the evening I came home from work exhausted and she had gone to clean the green bin and realised there were maggots in it, which could turn into bluebottles, which therefore needed to be exterminated. She had soaked them in water and something or other, but still the hose needed to be found, and a scrubby thing, and then it needed to be washed out and rinsed and bleached and etc, and Queenie had to act like she knew/ cared about what she was doing when really she just wanted a gin and tonic and bed, but we got it done.
The Queen Father is reading The Colony of Unrequited Love and grumbling at the news. Himself is looking for cheap furniture in this week’s issue of Bargain Hunter. And Queenie is updating, because Luke is sick of checking in.
Consider yourself updated until tomorrow. There will be another post tomorrow.
Friday, July 14, 2006
Whereupon the narrator gets comfortable...
Rambling alert. It's late and I'm *tired*.
I think it’s a mafia society.
Canada I mean.
Real old style garotte from behind mafia culture.
I often wonder where their sense of this cultural history comes from.
Somewhere really vicious.
They talk very openly about things that nobody mentions in Ireland. Or London. Or Paris.
Wife-beating. And murder. And drug dealing.
And they fight. The young men do. They attack each other in the streets. Except I don’t know if that’s true, because I don’t know anyone who was attacked. In some sense there's nothing unusual about it, it goes on everywhere, but they don't do anything about it. No zero tolerance here. The cops just ignore it.
It’s amazing how we only start giving a shit when it affects us.
And there's a sense of 'good luck to you, dude' for those guys who shoot up half a town and two Mounties and then disappear into the woods for months.
Apart from the Mounties. Who get incredibly pissed off and ALWAYS get their man in the end.
Half-starved, frost-bitten, lost in the snow.
Corporals January, February and March.
But then they all have a nervous breakdown when someone in the armed forces gets killed.
I think it's about being happy that the people involved chose their own path.
And soldiers don't, do they?
But yeah, they happily engage with and talk about feuds all the time.
And they're very fond of their local headbangers.
In the Irish sense of the phrase.
And then, they've such an incredible sense of order in society they bring in a law that supports gay marriage. And common law relationships exist after one year. As opposed to NEVER in Ireland.
I don't know where the latent violence in Canada comes from. Nor the tribalism.
It doesn’t come from anywhere in particular, I think people brought it from where ever they came from.
I think that might be the problem here.
They don’t encourage the finding out of tribal cultural history easily here, because they don’t want to allow tribalism. Because Canada would disintegrate into a series of forest and urban fiefdoms.
Or revert to, I should say.
But it exists anyway.
That sense of affinity with others of your kind.
And it’s getting stronger.
Why are we all starting to mass into tribes again?
I was thinking the other day, the movement of people around the planet must be wrecking the dwarves’ heads.
"There's something up boys... the weather's changing up top. All that thunder and lightening," they must say to themselves. The gods stomping around.
Or maybe we sound like a flock of birds.
Swirling around their mountains like nasty seagulls do down on the waterfront when you’ve got an ice-cream.
What do I sound like to a sparrow?
Or a blade of grass?
I explain further on why I am talking about these profundities.
Dear Reader,
I have always wanted to start writing a book with those words.
I love those kinds of books.
Dear Reader means:
Sit down, girl.
Why?
I’m going to tell you a story.
Really?
Oh yes.
Then Dear Reader would perk right up and say:
Fantastic, let me get comfortable.
Time would pass.
Pasta is cooked.
Eventually Reader would resurface with a bag of stuff
…. Have I got everything?
Smokes.
Chocolate.
Bottle of wine.
Vibrator. Just in case.
And the dvd.
In case I need to see his face (insert actor of choice).
I’d sell fifty million copies if I could continue in the same chatty narrator vein through a rip-roaring twentyfirst century version of the nineteenth century chick lit sprawl.
I would.
Anyways, back to the sparrow…
I think it’s a mafia society.
Canada I mean.
Real old style garotte from behind mafia culture.
I often wonder where their sense of this cultural history comes from.
Somewhere really vicious.
They talk very openly about things that nobody mentions in Ireland. Or London. Or Paris.
Wife-beating. And murder. And drug dealing.
And they fight. The young men do. They attack each other in the streets. Except I don’t know if that’s true, because I don’t know anyone who was attacked. In some sense there's nothing unusual about it, it goes on everywhere, but they don't do anything about it. No zero tolerance here. The cops just ignore it.
It’s amazing how we only start giving a shit when it affects us.
And there's a sense of 'good luck to you, dude' for those guys who shoot up half a town and two Mounties and then disappear into the woods for months.
Apart from the Mounties. Who get incredibly pissed off and ALWAYS get their man in the end.
Half-starved, frost-bitten, lost in the snow.
Corporals January, February and March.
But then they all have a nervous breakdown when someone in the armed forces gets killed.
I think it's about being happy that the people involved chose their own path.
And soldiers don't, do they?
But yeah, they happily engage with and talk about feuds all the time.
And they're very fond of their local headbangers.
In the Irish sense of the phrase.
And then, they've such an incredible sense of order in society they bring in a law that supports gay marriage. And common law relationships exist after one year. As opposed to NEVER in Ireland.
I don't know where the latent violence in Canada comes from. Nor the tribalism.
It doesn’t come from anywhere in particular, I think people brought it from where ever they came from.
I think that might be the problem here.
They don’t encourage the finding out of tribal cultural history easily here, because they don’t want to allow tribalism. Because Canada would disintegrate into a series of forest and urban fiefdoms.
Or revert to, I should say.
But it exists anyway.
That sense of affinity with others of your kind.
And it’s getting stronger.
Why are we all starting to mass into tribes again?
I was thinking the other day, the movement of people around the planet must be wrecking the dwarves’ heads.
"There's something up boys... the weather's changing up top. All that thunder and lightening," they must say to themselves. The gods stomping around.
Or maybe we sound like a flock of birds.
Swirling around their mountains like nasty seagulls do down on the waterfront when you’ve got an ice-cream.
What do I sound like to a sparrow?
Or a blade of grass?
I explain further on why I am talking about these profundities.
Dear Reader,
I have always wanted to start writing a book with those words.
I love those kinds of books.
Dear Reader means:
Sit down, girl.
Why?
I’m going to tell you a story.
Really?
Oh yes.
Then Dear Reader would perk right up and say:
Fantastic, let me get comfortable.
Time would pass.
Pasta is cooked.
Eventually Reader would resurface with a bag of stuff
…. Have I got everything?
Smokes.
Chocolate.
Bottle of wine.
Vibrator. Just in case.
And the dvd.
In case I need to see his face (insert actor of choice).
I’d sell fifty million copies if I could continue in the same chatty narrator vein through a rip-roaring twentyfirst century version of the nineteenth century chick lit sprawl.
I would.
Anyways, back to the sparrow…
Delicately poised over two rushes
So the rush is over. The work rush.
The holiday rush is about to start.
I am delicately balanced between the self-imposed stress of the two.
As I said to a colleague today, I have deep reserves of patience available if I need some, I just don’t think many people are worth dipping into them for.
He said he felt the same about life.
It was one of those afternoons.
We passed the budget and headed over to the Triangle for lunch which was very relaxed and nice and I did my thing that I do of not mentioning politics AT ALL, which seems to help the people from work when they’re very stressed, although sometimes I think it makes me look like a bimbo (what a horrible word) and I just burbled on at length about various things until I hit on the one they wanted to talk about and then sat back and listened to the stories.
Which was great because I learn so much about Canada when they tell those stories.
Also, even though they are about things I am still learning about, they are really comforting because they remind me of the swirl of the pub after work at home, which is the thing I think I miss the most about home.
The idea that it may be five o’clock, or three o’clock, or two o’clock in the morning and we might all have had a shitty week, and have partners at home who are expecting us, or chores to do, or someone we don’t like particularly to meet, or a meeting to go to. And I might have spent the week moaning about my life and bitching about you and getting paranoid about your motives and consequently trying to shaft you out of a job, but HEY…..
… I’m not done with you just yet, so let’s go for a pint and remember why we do this job.
At one point in the afternoon we found ourselves discussing McCarthy’s Bar, which two of them had read.
And then one of them said he was dead. Pete McCarthy.
I hadn’t known that.
I love afternoons like that.
They don’t come along very often.
And then someone told a story about the storm the other night, about how the dog was scared and couldn’t sleep. So they both had to go downstairs and sleep with the dog…
I would have put the effing thing out in the yard.
Canadians and their pets....
After enough time had passed and everyone was either gone or gone, Himself and I wandered out and walked down to a spot on the waterfront where the birds gather and watched them for a while.
Until he said, see that sparrow?
There were about fifty.
Which one, I said.
The one over by the wall.
I looked.
There was one. It was hopping anxiously over and back in front of a little clump of grass that was clinging to life in a narrow crack in the pavement.
Canada is full of cracked pavements.
Well, Nova Scotia is.
I watched the sparrow. I had a feeling this was going to be one of Himself's comments on my world. His humour is genius.
And one of my colleagues had spent forty minutes the night before trying to convince him that plants could talk.
Swampy had bailed on him of course.
I think that’s why he remembered it.
He’ll have to get used to Swampy’s disappearances.
That’s just what he does.
Anyways, I watched the sparrow for a while.
But I couldn't fathom what he had spotted.
What? I said.
That sparrow is trying to talk to that blade of grass.
Which blade?
The young one, in the middle.
I watched again.
Sure enough, the sparrow was zoning in on that blade for some reason.
Rubbing its brown breast against it.
It’s probably looking for food.
No, look, they’re all eating out of the stalk on the other side.
So they were. Humming around it like jewel birds.
Everyone, even sparrows, is a humming bird inside. But you gotta do the best with what you got in this world.
And they were on the waterfront.
In Halifax Nova Scotia.
So it was common or garden grass in a crack in the pavement.
Anyways, I watched some more.
And then I started to snigger.
Because he had noticed it straight away for what it was.
A stupid sparrow. Too dumb to notice all the eating going on just beside him.
It gets you thinking all the same.
All this hippy dippy stuff they come out with.
The holiday rush is about to start.
I am delicately balanced between the self-imposed stress of the two.
As I said to a colleague today, I have deep reserves of patience available if I need some, I just don’t think many people are worth dipping into them for.
He said he felt the same about life.
It was one of those afternoons.
We passed the budget and headed over to the Triangle for lunch which was very relaxed and nice and I did my thing that I do of not mentioning politics AT ALL, which seems to help the people from work when they’re very stressed, although sometimes I think it makes me look like a bimbo (what a horrible word) and I just burbled on at length about various things until I hit on the one they wanted to talk about and then sat back and listened to the stories.
Which was great because I learn so much about Canada when they tell those stories.
Also, even though they are about things I am still learning about, they are really comforting because they remind me of the swirl of the pub after work at home, which is the thing I think I miss the most about home.
The idea that it may be five o’clock, or three o’clock, or two o’clock in the morning and we might all have had a shitty week, and have partners at home who are expecting us, or chores to do, or someone we don’t like particularly to meet, or a meeting to go to. And I might have spent the week moaning about my life and bitching about you and getting paranoid about your motives and consequently trying to shaft you out of a job, but HEY…..
… I’m not done with you just yet, so let’s go for a pint and remember why we do this job.
At one point in the afternoon we found ourselves discussing McCarthy’s Bar, which two of them had read.
And then one of them said he was dead. Pete McCarthy.
I hadn’t known that.
I love afternoons like that.
They don’t come along very often.
And then someone told a story about the storm the other night, about how the dog was scared and couldn’t sleep. So they both had to go downstairs and sleep with the dog…
I would have put the effing thing out in the yard.
Canadians and their pets....
After enough time had passed and everyone was either gone or gone, Himself and I wandered out and walked down to a spot on the waterfront where the birds gather and watched them for a while.
Until he said, see that sparrow?
There were about fifty.
Which one, I said.
The one over by the wall.
I looked.
There was one. It was hopping anxiously over and back in front of a little clump of grass that was clinging to life in a narrow crack in the pavement.
Canada is full of cracked pavements.
Well, Nova Scotia is.
I watched the sparrow. I had a feeling this was going to be one of Himself's comments on my world. His humour is genius.
And one of my colleagues had spent forty minutes the night before trying to convince him that plants could talk.
Swampy had bailed on him of course.
I think that’s why he remembered it.
He’ll have to get used to Swampy’s disappearances.
That’s just what he does.
Anyways, I watched the sparrow for a while.
But I couldn't fathom what he had spotted.
What? I said.
That sparrow is trying to talk to that blade of grass.
Which blade?
The young one, in the middle.
I watched again.
Sure enough, the sparrow was zoning in on that blade for some reason.
Rubbing its brown breast against it.
It’s probably looking for food.
No, look, they’re all eating out of the stalk on the other side.
So they were. Humming around it like jewel birds.
Everyone, even sparrows, is a humming bird inside. But you gotta do the best with what you got in this world.
And they were on the waterfront.
In Halifax Nova Scotia.
So it was common or garden grass in a crack in the pavement.
Anyways, I watched some more.
And then I started to snigger.
Because he had noticed it straight away for what it was.
A stupid sparrow. Too dumb to notice all the eating going on just beside him.
It gets you thinking all the same.
All this hippy dippy stuff they come out with.
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
When is the wimmin of Ireland going to learn?????
Jesus, when is work going to slow down!
Queenie is at a point far beyond her normal endurance levels. And of course because it's hot and everyone's tired, and stressed, and working far too long hours on the budget, the atmosphere is just peachy at the moment.
That's Queenie's charitable assessment of the situation.
Effing politics. Sometimes I hate it. Most times I don't hate it.
This week I do, but.
At least I'm just tired. I'll be alright when I've had a bit of a rest and the visitations to take my mind off things. (Visitations are starting on Sunday with the Queen Mother and Father, then Polly's coming in August, and Jersey Girl and her Boy, so there will be eating in July and camping in August - HOORAY!!).
Obviously we'll be eating in August too, but it won't be as raison de jour as the eating out with the Queen Parents when on holidays is. I do like a parents who like a good meal out.
Yeah, so at least I'm just tired.
I'm not STUUUPIID.
Like some women.
Some Irish women.
Like the 'big eejit' (according to Derval) who got drunk at Dubln Zoo and stuck her arm into the tiger's cage. And had it mauled. Big eejit is right, Derv. I loved the quote from the zoo director, who said she was lucky the tiger let go of something as new and interesting as an arm.
Sensible tiger.
Irish women...
We met a Waterford man in the 'Shoe last Friday night who told Himself ALL about Irish wimmin. Apparently we're a shower of selfish sleeveens.
I'm beginning to think he's right.
What's all this about some woman with some frozen embryos fertilised by her former husband, who is not only looking to have them implanted so she can have a child, but is planning on charging him child support for it?
What kind of a way is that to bring a child into the world?
How loved will it feel, reading back on the Irish Times coverage of the court case currently in progress?
Stupid woman.
I know having babies is difficult for some people and I have all the sympathy and encouragement in the world for people who are nice and would be great parents who decide to take one of the alternative routes to parenthood. If that's what's needed.
But to stick your ex-husband for the bill?
That's a bit vindictive, isn't it.
Jersey Girl and I were talking about it on the phone tonight and she said in America, the ex-husband would counter-sue saying he wanted them embedded in his new wife.
Man, Himself and I lie in bed at night thanking the stars we are not that couple.
Then there was the woman in the Observer a couple of weeks ago who managed to get paid for what was supposed to be an article about a life choice, but what was essentially a four page advertisement for the perfect father. To impregnate her in some way. And then possibly to contribute to the upbringing of said issue. But not to have any meaningful input into the raising of said issue.
I'm sure she's coming down with offers.
I don't know... you work hard and you pay your way and you insist on equality and you fight and fight and fight to convince men that you're worth taking seriously, and then three bints like that come along and just RUIN it for the rest of us.
Himself's truck broke down tonight and he's not home yet although it's almost eleven, so I should give him a call and see if he wants hang sangwidges made or anything.
Domesticity.....
Doncha just love it.
Queenie is at a point far beyond her normal endurance levels. And of course because it's hot and everyone's tired, and stressed, and working far too long hours on the budget, the atmosphere is just peachy at the moment.
That's Queenie's charitable assessment of the situation.
Effing politics. Sometimes I hate it. Most times I don't hate it.
This week I do, but.
At least I'm just tired. I'll be alright when I've had a bit of a rest and the visitations to take my mind off things. (Visitations are starting on Sunday with the Queen Mother and Father, then Polly's coming in August, and Jersey Girl and her Boy, so there will be eating in July and camping in August - HOORAY!!).
Obviously we'll be eating in August too, but it won't be as raison de jour as the eating out with the Queen Parents when on holidays is. I do like a parents who like a good meal out.
Yeah, so at least I'm just tired.
I'm not STUUUPIID.
Like some women.
Some Irish women.
Like the 'big eejit' (according to Derval) who got drunk at Dubln Zoo and stuck her arm into the tiger's cage. And had it mauled. Big eejit is right, Derv. I loved the quote from the zoo director, who said she was lucky the tiger let go of something as new and interesting as an arm.
Sensible tiger.
Irish women...
We met a Waterford man in the 'Shoe last Friday night who told Himself ALL about Irish wimmin. Apparently we're a shower of selfish sleeveens.
I'm beginning to think he's right.
What's all this about some woman with some frozen embryos fertilised by her former husband, who is not only looking to have them implanted so she can have a child, but is planning on charging him child support for it?
What kind of a way is that to bring a child into the world?
How loved will it feel, reading back on the Irish Times coverage of the court case currently in progress?
Stupid woman.
I know having babies is difficult for some people and I have all the sympathy and encouragement in the world for people who are nice and would be great parents who decide to take one of the alternative routes to parenthood. If that's what's needed.
But to stick your ex-husband for the bill?
That's a bit vindictive, isn't it.
Jersey Girl and I were talking about it on the phone tonight and she said in America, the ex-husband would counter-sue saying he wanted them embedded in his new wife.
Man, Himself and I lie in bed at night thanking the stars we are not that couple.
Then there was the woman in the Observer a couple of weeks ago who managed to get paid for what was supposed to be an article about a life choice, but what was essentially a four page advertisement for the perfect father. To impregnate her in some way. And then possibly to contribute to the upbringing of said issue. But not to have any meaningful input into the raising of said issue.
I'm sure she's coming down with offers.
I don't know... you work hard and you pay your way and you insist on equality and you fight and fight and fight to convince men that you're worth taking seriously, and then three bints like that come along and just RUIN it for the rest of us.
Himself's truck broke down tonight and he's not home yet although it's almost eleven, so I should give him a call and see if he wants hang sangwidges made or anything.
Domesticity.....
Doncha just love it.
Thursday, July 06, 2006
In search of Glooscap (and bears)
OhmyGod! What a long gap between blog entries.
Queenie hadn’t realised how long, so busy she was being the domestic diva.
June 18th…. A beautiful day….
It’s been raining pretty much since, apart from a couple of nice days.
So what’s been happening?
Well, Himself arrived home a few days after that Saturday. And got Himself a job within a couple of weeks, so now we’re setting out on that greatest of all journeys in life… shacking up together properly.
It’s going well so far. Very polite. Very nice.
Very nice, actually…(
And we’re going house-hunting soon, as the lease is up on this house soon and we’d like to get a place of our own.
Everyone say ‘aaahhhh’.
What else?
Work has been crazy busy. The Government herded us all back into the House for three weeks of budgets and Question Time and all kinds of complicated business when we just want to take a week off and lie in the sun.
If there was any sun to lie in.
Lotsa fog here at the moment. The Atlantic is still too cold and the air is too warm and Halifax is too near the confluence of both so we have misty mornings every day. Dreamy damp fronds drifting amongst the high rise buildings of downtown Halifax as people grumble their way to work.
I’m not too pushed while I’m in work, particularly since the warmth outside increases the blast of cold air inside my building. But I like my weekends to be a bit nice.
First weekend Himself was back we headed down to the island to catch up with folks. We had two barbeques over the course of the weekend, one at a reasonable 3pm on Sunday afternoon, and the other at a far more unreasonable 11pm on the previous Saturday due to the inability of the host to put down his beer until I turned up and dragged his drinking buddy away from him.
Men!! Tsk!!
And me after slaving over a hot Frenchie’s all day.
Frenchie’s is the chain store, with branches spread throughout Nova Scotia that sells remaindered high street and designer gear from the states. You go into a large warehouse, which is full of huge bins marked ‘Women’s pants’ or ‘Men’s shirts’ or ‘Evening Wear’ and you rummage until you faint through last year’s Gap, Ralph Lauren, Liz Clairborne, and other nice brands.
It’s two bucks for a top, three bucks for jeans, skirts and dresses, and two - three bucks for bags, belts, shoes, etc.
This is why Nova Scotians look at you like you’re insane if you buy clothes in a boutique. Particularly clothes marked ‘new arrivals’.
This is also why Nova Scotian fashion is about two years behind the rest of the modern world.
But so long as you don’t leave the province it’s okay.
So I got Himself an entire new wardrobe for less than sixty bucks.
For which he was suitably grateful when he sobered up.
Next weekend was Canada Day when Canadians go camping so being good little Canadians we went CAMPING!! With our new exciting tent and stove and toasting rack and other exciting camping stuff that I bought from Angel before she went out West.
Camping in the Bear Woods. Which are really called the Cobequid Mountains. I was very brave. But there wasn’t a bear in sight.
They are really beautiful, even though they are just big hills and not mountains at all. We did the Glooscap Trail. Glooscap is the Mik Ma’q god and he lived at the top of the Minas Basin, which is at the head of the Bay of Fundy. The Mik Ma’q believed that the fermenting waters of the Bay’s high tides and the tidal bore that runs up the Shubenacadie river were evidence of his presence in the area.
The landscape on one side of the Basin is very Irish, rolling green hills covered in a wonderful spread of wildflowers, hedgegrows and willow trees, small rivers and winding roads. Lots of cattle and horses in the fields; the only difference being that the farmhouses are all woodframed and the barns are all big red Dutch gabled wood barns.
It was the closest thing to Hobbiton I’ve ever seen.
Then we crossed through Truro, which is a big, bustling market town at the crossroads of Nova Scotia and headed west into the Cobequid side of the basin, where the landscape is more Canadian. The Cobequid Mountains are covered in Nova Scotian mixed forest, and roll gently down to wide red sand beaches that are a distinction of the Bay of Fundy.
The sky was blue blue blue, and together with the red sand and the green hills, it made for a most typical Nova Scotian landscape.
The wind was too southward (pronounced suthurd) to camp on the beach, according to the Old Man of the Sea, so we found a gentle little curve of riverbank with a nice copse of trees to camp in and a wide pebble beach to build a fire on, and set up for the weekend. We had such a lovely time hanging out and cooking steaks, making coffee and sitting by the fire drinking beer and looking at the stars and then the bloody RAIN came and ruined it so we had to go home.
But I really enjoyed our first camping trip in the Cobequid Mountains and shall definitely return.
This week it was back to work work work although it is only a four day week and Saturday is Queenie’s BIRTHDAY.
Queenie hadn’t realised how long, so busy she was being the domestic diva.
June 18th…. A beautiful day….
It’s been raining pretty much since, apart from a couple of nice days.
So what’s been happening?
Well, Himself arrived home a few days after that Saturday. And got Himself a job within a couple of weeks, so now we’re setting out on that greatest of all journeys in life… shacking up together properly.
It’s going well so far. Very polite. Very nice.
Very nice, actually…(
And we’re going house-hunting soon, as the lease is up on this house soon and we’d like to get a place of our own.
Everyone say ‘aaahhhh’.
What else?
Work has been crazy busy. The Government herded us all back into the House for three weeks of budgets and Question Time and all kinds of complicated business when we just want to take a week off and lie in the sun.
If there was any sun to lie in.
Lotsa fog here at the moment. The Atlantic is still too cold and the air is too warm and Halifax is too near the confluence of both so we have misty mornings every day. Dreamy damp fronds drifting amongst the high rise buildings of downtown Halifax as people grumble their way to work.
I’m not too pushed while I’m in work, particularly since the warmth outside increases the blast of cold air inside my building. But I like my weekends to be a bit nice.
First weekend Himself was back we headed down to the island to catch up with folks. We had two barbeques over the course of the weekend, one at a reasonable 3pm on Sunday afternoon, and the other at a far more unreasonable 11pm on the previous Saturday due to the inability of the host to put down his beer until I turned up and dragged his drinking buddy away from him.
Men!! Tsk!!
And me after slaving over a hot Frenchie’s all day.
Frenchie’s is the chain store, with branches spread throughout Nova Scotia that sells remaindered high street and designer gear from the states. You go into a large warehouse, which is full of huge bins marked ‘Women’s pants’ or ‘Men’s shirts’ or ‘Evening Wear’ and you rummage until you faint through last year’s Gap, Ralph Lauren, Liz Clairborne, and other nice brands.
It’s two bucks for a top, three bucks for jeans, skirts and dresses, and two - three bucks for bags, belts, shoes, etc.
This is why Nova Scotians look at you like you’re insane if you buy clothes in a boutique. Particularly clothes marked ‘new arrivals’.
This is also why Nova Scotian fashion is about two years behind the rest of the modern world.
But so long as you don’t leave the province it’s okay.
So I got Himself an entire new wardrobe for less than sixty bucks.
For which he was suitably grateful when he sobered up.
Next weekend was Canada Day when Canadians go camping so being good little Canadians we went CAMPING!! With our new exciting tent and stove and toasting rack and other exciting camping stuff that I bought from Angel before she went out West.
Camping in the Bear Woods. Which are really called the Cobequid Mountains. I was very brave. But there wasn’t a bear in sight.
They are really beautiful, even though they are just big hills and not mountains at all. We did the Glooscap Trail. Glooscap is the Mik Ma’q god and he lived at the top of the Minas Basin, which is at the head of the Bay of Fundy. The Mik Ma’q believed that the fermenting waters of the Bay’s high tides and the tidal bore that runs up the Shubenacadie river were evidence of his presence in the area.
The landscape on one side of the Basin is very Irish, rolling green hills covered in a wonderful spread of wildflowers, hedgegrows and willow trees, small rivers and winding roads. Lots of cattle and horses in the fields; the only difference being that the farmhouses are all woodframed and the barns are all big red Dutch gabled wood barns.
It was the closest thing to Hobbiton I’ve ever seen.
Then we crossed through Truro, which is a big, bustling market town at the crossroads of Nova Scotia and headed west into the Cobequid side of the basin, where the landscape is more Canadian. The Cobequid Mountains are covered in Nova Scotian mixed forest, and roll gently down to wide red sand beaches that are a distinction of the Bay of Fundy.
The sky was blue blue blue, and together with the red sand and the green hills, it made for a most typical Nova Scotian landscape.
The wind was too southward (pronounced suthurd) to camp on the beach, according to the Old Man of the Sea, so we found a gentle little curve of riverbank with a nice copse of trees to camp in and a wide pebble beach to build a fire on, and set up for the weekend. We had such a lovely time hanging out and cooking steaks, making coffee and sitting by the fire drinking beer and looking at the stars and then the bloody RAIN came and ruined it so we had to go home.
But I really enjoyed our first camping trip in the Cobequid Mountains and shall definitely return.
This week it was back to work work work although it is only a four day week and Saturday is Queenie’s BIRTHDAY.
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