If February were a blog post...

Almost half-way through February.  It's starting to sag though, the positive attitude.

Frozen branch near Terminal Beach, 2011

February is very difficult in Canada.  January, you have had Christmas vacation and a bit of a rest and you are just getting started with the real snow and the cold.  There's a sense of settling in for a spell of it, the winter projects kick in, the NHL gets interesting, and when it's fit to go out, there's sledding, and skating, and ski-joring or ski-ing or whatever it is you do to stay one step away from catatonic.

Also, there's still February - April to get through, so you don't want to over-think anything.

The end of January is a bit of a milestone though!  Cheers you right up for a minute.

And February is a short month.  The positive attitude gets a surge.  In the second week of February, the days stretch perceptibly at each end, so I am now driving to and from work in the dawn/ dusk, as opposed to the pitch black of January.  I can see the ice and snow on the road.  I feel less scared.  The cold makes for some pretty spectacular dawns.

Easy, peasy...

So here's the thing.

Round about the tenth of the month, you remember that February is not a short month.

In fact it is not a month at all.

February is in fact the moment in time when the long-suffering son-in-law of the meanest, coldest-assed, tightest-fisted, mascara-dripping bitch who ever produced a spoilt blonde turns away from the nagging to stoke the fire, but instead picks up the poker and hefts it.

If February was a scene in a movie it would be the Tommy Lee Jones soliliquy at the end of no Country for Lost Men.

If February was a book, it would be written by Franz Kafka.

If February was a song, Joy Division would have recorded it.

February is when the light is so harsh that every line on your face, every grey hair on your head is screaming 'LOOK AT ME EVRYONE, LOOKAT MEEEE'.

February is when the Caribbean music on your iTunes makes you cry instead of dance.

February is when your body has had enough of minus 28 and just wants to sleep all day and eat all night.  But you have to haul it to and from an office with forced air heating that makes your skin crawl.

I was on the phone with a federal colleague the other day, and I couldn't find my words in a week of not being able to find my words (not good in a week with an interview) and I said 'I'm sorry, i can't find my words, I have February Brain' and she said "THAT'S EXACTLY WhAT IT IS!!!!!!!!!!! I haVe it Too"

And that's the real problem.  We all have it at the same time, so life is a little grumpy right now.

Thankfully the Canada Games are on now, so the kids are off school for two weeks.  The disgustingly positive people have all gotten extra days off to volunteer.  The disgustingly selfish people are taking advantage of cheap trips to the Caribbean.

And the rest of us....

Hopefully there will be enough people gone out of the office that we can all hide in our offices, watch people having revolutions in countries where you can actually stand on the street for more than five minutes at a time.... and ignore each other in peace for the rest of the month.

Nearly only five weeks to the Equinox.
Eight weeks to the fishing season!!

Stay warm everyone.

The Lawrencetown worm massacre

It rained all day today which was good because the garden needed it, but bad because I didn't have my brain in gear and so left my umbrella in the car.  So did everyone else on the bus apparently, because when the rain burst onto the bus windows as we trundled over the bridge, everyone looked up from their book or paper and mouthed 'shit' simultaneously.

Then ran for cover when we had to get off a minute later.

But it's stopped now and my flip flops are drying out and so is the lawn.

Turdus Migratorius (American Robin)

From the window right now I can see eleven American Robins on the lawn.  I think that's a record for our house.  The poor worms that live beneath the grass are being massacred as I watch. 

Hoppity hop hop hop - stop.
Head cocked. 
Listen. 
Pounce. 

Another poor little worm gets hauled out of the clay by its neck, then pecked to death before the robin flies off to a tree to eat it.

I am waiting for one of the robins to encounter the two snakes that live on the front lawn.  I wonder who would win that contest.

On collecting the manure dividend

I harvested the first of the peas tonight. Which is the first of the vegetables. If you discount the spinach, which I planted in a crappy wet part of the garden to see how an 'above the ground' crop would do. And then really ignored, because even though I could see from the deck it wasn't doing so well, I don't like spinach enough to put the effort in.

I ignored it and ignored it, and then half-heartedly checked on it, and realised the tall ones were in fact dandelions, and then trudged over to the shed for the hoe (which was broken) and then didn't buy a new one, and, well, you get the picture...

So I have a lot of spinach gone to seed, which Bunny likes to nibble on when he's bored of dandelions.

And some peas.

I went out with a bowl, and even though I only had to go through one gate and not the two that led to our garden at home, suddenly I was nine again and it was Sunday after 10 o'clock Mass on a breezy summer day and I was picking peas for the Queen Mum to go with the roast beef dinner.

My fingers touched every pod and there was that old satisfaction when I found one that was bursting with goodness, straining against the pod.

Twist and pull. Just like Paddy showed me.

It was all I could do not to sit on the back door step and shell them immediatey, stuffing most of them in my mouth.

But Himself is working nights down on the waterfront this week, so I will leave them for him to enjoy when he gets home... seeing as he designed and built the special stands they are twined around.

There is nothing that man can't do with some 2 x 4 and a piece of netting.

If he decides he wants to, of course.


After a lot of work, and some sunshine and just enough rain our garden is starting to make progress.  The potatoes and corn are very vigorous, so I am hopeful.  The pumpkin patch had about a 10 per cent success rate, which is not too bad considering we were making it up as we went along. 

We only need enough pumpkins for Hallowe'en anyways... I can't eat the stuff.

We are on our second round of cucumbers as Bunny likes them too.

And the tomatos are succeeding against all the odds.  Just when they needed to be tended I took a huff with the garden and ignored it for about two weeks straight.  Then got a rush of guilt and watered the bejaysus out of the little seedlings three nights in a row.  It appears to have worked, we have about fifty sturdy plants now.

I can't wait until the greenhouse smells of tomatos... it is the best smell in the world.  Better than cut grass even.

This year I managed to get a bit of formal gardening done as well.  I put in a new small bed, and cleaned up the SEVEN beds we have found around the property. 

Holy of holies, it's exhausting though.  And back-breaking.  I have been to the massage therapist so often this year he's been reading up on gardener's elbow.  Basically what happened (I think) was that a woman who used to live here designed and planted all the beds.  Then she split up with her husband and they sold the house.  Before they left they mulched the beds. 

Seven years passed and nobody disturbed them.  Then along comes I, all vim and vigour last year and took out all the mulch. 

Twenty six years of pent up weedlings saw their opportunity and SPRANG FORTH AND MULTIPLIED.

I am getting there.

It will be manageable in about five years, I reckon.

I've decided to plant lots of Asians so there will be no ground cover underneath.  Hydrangeas, rhododendrons, wigelias, that kind of thing.

Starve the little bastards out, you might say.

A garden truly is a lifetime's work.

Old Man Table

I bought the coolest table today.

Well, the little card stuck to it, with the price on it, said it was a table, but it's more like a large potstand.  About 3 foot high and 18 inches wide, the dark stained wooden top is balanced on the shoulders of a hunched up old African man, whose face peers out from underneath his load.

East African probably. The legs of the table/potstand are his arms and legs, and the base has his elegantly elongated feet and hands sitting on another circle of hardwood.  There are a few cracks where the carving is coming away from the base, but I can live with that.  I'm not a 'must be from one lop' purist.

It was sitting out on the street in front of the shop that is my consumer nirvana and which I walk past twice a day every day on the way from and to the bus stop.

Deliberately walk.  There are alternative routes.

It wasn't there in the morning.

But I couldn't believe it was still there at 4.30pm on a payday in the middle of downtown.

He must have sold something earlier and put it out around three.

This store is the greatest kitsch shop in the world.

It is the John W. Doull (bookshop of which I write much) of kitsch and I am not going to tell you where it is because you either know what I am talking about and are my competition, or you don't  know.  In which case you aren't going to be my competition if I can help it.

The owner does a lot of estate sales and has an eye for African and Asian carving.
And seventies furniture.
And traditional Maritime fishing gear.

Which pretty much ticks all of the must have boxes for both me and Himself.  And we like nothing better than a good hour long browse in there of a wet Saturday.

You can take your overpriced Agricola 'antique' strip and stick it.  Yah!

Anyways, buddy, who's name I misremember deliberately, puts items on the street on sunny days.  For to tempt you in.  He's really good at it, and you have to swoop.  Pronto.

But he torments you with a price list that's dated.  So if you wait another three weeks the price will drop.  If it's still there.

It's 'non-gambler with latent gambling DNA and a penchant for furniture' heroin.  That's what it is.

On Tuesday, he had a fabulous seventies chrome and black leather armchair sitting outside at 9am.

I was on my way to one of those totally pointless civil service meetings that you only go to if you are too broke to buy coffee, or can't find any real work to do, so I couldn't stop.

Being in the need of some coffee.

But it preyed on my mind all morning.

I just fixed the car and I am broke schmoke.

He's good though.  Real good.  It was a great chair.  A classic.

By lunchtime, I had figured out where I'd place it, how I'd pay for it, even how I'd get it home on the bus.

Stick it into the bike holder on the front.

I skipped buying a sandwich (in case it was really expensive) and hurried down, but it was already gone.

To my former hair stylist, apparently.

When I hauled the table in today to pay for it, he looked at me over his glasses and said 'what have YOU got today?'

Old Man Table, I said.

Mmmhhweh... he said.

We have an awkward relationship.   We used to get on great, then he spent two hours trying to talk me into buying the most beautiful Burmese teak bookshelf that I have ever seen in my life.

That I still think about.

But it was the week we bought our house.  And he wanted a thousand dollars for it.  Which it was worth.  Plus tax.  Which means of course I didn't buy it because we were buying a house.

But I really tried hard to figure out how to buy it.   And Himself told me if I wanted it I could buy it, which I love him for.  And of course you repay that trust by not buying said object.

But I never really forgave Buddy for putting the yearn in me for it.

And he remembers those two wasted hours.

As we tried to furnish the house we got a few bits from him and made it up somewhat.  In the meantime he sold the bookcase in March (just when I was getting back on my financial feet) ON TICK to some woman in a condo and faked innocence when I pointed out that I was not offered tick.

Then I got him on a bad day and sneaked two Zimbabwean stone sculptures off him for less than they were worth.

And told him of course.  Because I CANNOT keep my mouth shut to save my life.

Which he didn't appreciate.

And it didn't work out for either of us in the end because now all the Zimbabwean stuff is way over-priced and he's lost his best buyer.

So the mwehh about the table could mean anything.

The fact that he couldn't be arsed finding a bag to put over it for me probably means it's a pile of crock.

But it's okay, I just like the table.  And Himself will like it.

Because I didn't have a bag, and the table had sticky outy bits, I had to sit it on my lap on the bus.

A woman looked at it and said: 'I saw that table from across the street!'

Thirty five bucks, I said.

GODDAMN, she said.

We had a lovely chat all the way through Dartmouth about that store and furniture in general and how we love furniture because our mothers went to auctions and how cool it was that they could read the mysterious codes of silver and china marks, and how our gardens were doing and what's the best way to split a hydrangea and how difficult it is to grow snowdrops here and how difficult the soil is in Lawrencetown.

We bored everyone on the bus TO DEATH.

I could see eyes rolling in the heads of people who I have seen smile politely at the really annoying guy who stands in front of the bus door in January handing out the excuse for a newspaper we get for free nowadays.

And at some point I realised that even fifteen years ago I would not have been caught dead with my mother if she sat on a commuter bus somewhere with an African table on her lap discussing her hydrangeas with a stranger.

Not that that would have stopped her of course.

But now I understand how rewarding those activities are, I have a feeling I am going to really enjoy my forties.

More importantly, for sixteen months I have had a space beside the front door that needed something to put stuff on.  Keys and mail and gloves.

Maybe a spider plant.  Or a geranium.

And now the perfect object has found me.

I love when that happens.

Bitter sweet Sundays

Somebody mentioned on Facebook today that Sundays are so bitter sweet.

True.

I love waking up on a Sunday knowing I don't have to go to work. But round about 4.30pm on a Sunday, I always get a really sad feeling.

I think most people do.

Sundays are such a strange day. They've changed so much over the years (well, if you're a lapsed Catholic living in a country where religion is not part of the DNA they have).

When I was young, Sundays meant you had to go to Mass. Then you had roast beef dinner and listened to the radio. Which meant listening to people drone on about Northern Ireland.

Then you went for a walk. Sometimes we went for a walk with the Queen Parents. Which involved a long walk in Portumna forest park, or somewhere like that (long for a kid, obviously) and then you went to the hotel for a mineral (pop) and a bag of crisps (chips).

Sundays we didn't go walking with the parents, we went to visit Paddy. That also involved a walk. A very very very long walk. And then sometimes a secret trip to the lemonade shop.

Also known as Kellys pub.

But that's a different story.

Then when we got a little older, I went to boarding school. Sundays meant you were getting a visit or not. If you were getting a visit, Sundays were FANTASTIC, until about 4.30pm, when you were sitting in the grimy hotel in Dungarven, having a mineral and a bag of crisps, and you remembered you had to go back to boarding school for another four weeks of misery before you saw your parents again.

I think that's why I get so sad on Sundays.

The brother went to boarding school for six years, and on Sundays he got to come home, bolt his roast beef down, and see his friends, before making a loaf of sandwiches and buying a bag of Pot Noodles and heading back to prison for another week. Four-thirty was round about the time of day he would start on the Queen Mum, wondering whether he could just stay home this time, and not go back to school.

I don't know who was more upset...

As for me, I got to go to secondary school at home, and Mass had been scheduled for Saturdays as well now, so Sunday was a big long teenage lie-in, followed by roast beef of course, then sitting in the playroom watching MTV USA, hosted by FAB Vinnie. Three hours of music videos and desultory conversation with Eileen or whoever else was around.

Then back to school on Monday.

When I went to college, weekends were often spent at home. Get the bus down on a Friday night. Spend Saturday doing laundry or catching up with people. Out Saturday night.

Sundays were when you had to get the bus back to Dublin. If you hadn't cadged a lift with Willie Burns on Saturday night in the pub. Or you couldn't persuade mum to drive you to the train in Tullamore.

Long, wet, boring trips through the midlands (before the motorway was built) in a smokey bus. Then trying to get a bus home to wherever you lived. Culchies roaming the streets of the capital with bags full of lasagne dinners and bags of spuds. Trying to fit into a pub stuffed with bags of clean folded laundry sent with love from Cork and Galway and Portlaoise and Donegal.

If I stayed in Dublin for the weekend, Sundays were a long, boring day of trying to stay warm in whatever hovel I was living in; writing an essay or just trying to find enough money to buy a packet of cigarettes to have something to do.

It was only when I started working that Sundays became a little more interesting. Long brunches in Odessa or somewhere trendy, with all kinds of people popping in and out and enough money to buy the paper and read it with a latte or a pint.

Now we have every second Sunday. This is a second Sunday, which means Kitty and Little 'Un were here for two days of chaos and noise and loud telly and cooking and feeding and whatever activities are on the menu. Then around 4.30pm the doors slam for the last time and the car heads off back to Truro and the dog lies abject at the gate hoping against hope that they're not gone and I pace around the house for an hour trying to find things to do to make the bitter sweet feeling go away.

But it appears on the other Sundays too.

5.33pm. Suddenly, completely dark. Shannon won't come in from the gate. I will go find some nice raw meat to bribe her with.

Even puppies find Sundays bitter sweet...

At least we don't live somewhere where you have to sit quietly and read the bible all day.

Inmytunes 2009: a cornucopia of Canadiana, brought to you by Queenie (and Rich Terfry)

Every year-end for the last few years, people who are members of the mailing list inmyday (of which I am a member, obviously) can put together a playlist of their favourite music of the preceeding year. Then share it with everyone else on the list.

Bingo!!

You start off the new year with a load of new music.

Of course, it being the inmyday Inmytunes compilation, there are rules, and of course it being Inmyday you are allowed to bend them. The original rule was that you had to make a compilation of the top 15 or so songs on your iTunes 'most played' list.

That turned out to be a little embarrassing if you had had a tough year emotionally.

So that quickly morphed into 'most played if I had a hyper-critical audience sitting with me at all times' list. Then as is normal on inmyday everyone just went off and did their own thing anyway.

By that I mean that I understand that sticking to the rules is some people's idea of doing their own thing.

Anyways, I have gotten to hear a lot of music that I would never have heard otherwise, seeing as I don't spend a lot of time buying music or reading about it anymore.

This year I was totally screwed. I think I bought two albums all year. And I gave them away before I ripped them. But I was saved by Buck 65.

Buck, or Rich Terfry as he was named by his mammy and daddy, who live near Enfield which is near here of course, DJs the Drive show on CBC radio 2. The show is for me and people like me.

People who don't like advertising.

People who like to listen to Rich shite on about baseball while they sit in traffic.

People who like the feel of the show, which feels like Rich is bringing in his own records to play for you.

People who want to know what's going on in the Canadian music scene, but who don't have the energy to go to gigs anymore because they don't start till ten pm, which is bedtime chez nous.

So, I cheated on the Inmytunes this year. Basically, anytime Rich and I agreed that a certain tune was a great tune, I made a note of it on a piece of paper I had stuck in the sun vizor (difficult on the highway trips). When I heard him spin it a few more times and we were still agreed that it was a TRULY GREAT tune, I put a circle round it.

Tonight I sat down and bought everything with a circle round it on iTunes.

Note to music promoters.... Rich Terfry moves downloads ... ohmylord he does... every song I bought was a massive spike of downloads, way ahead of everything else on the album.

So thanks, Rich. I really enjoyed this year's compiling.

If you're interested, on the Euro front, he plays Wilco and David Gray and the Waterboys to DEATH. And he's very excited about some woman singer from Dublin right now, whose name keeps escaping me, because he talks really fast when he's excited. But you should send him records. Because he sure sells them if he likes them.

I'm just going to take a moment to flip the playlist back to front. I had started with the electronica-type stuff and then got progressively folkier, but it's not working for me so I'm flipping it round.

Which is incidentally the order in which I downloaded them... I should've been a dj.

Inmytunes 2009

1. The Deep Dark Woods, All the Money I had is Gone (Winter Hours).

This is a very simple little song from a great folk band from Saskatoon. I thought it was pertinent for the year that was in it.

Rich and I dedicate it to all the capitalists out there who are hurtin'...

CBC Radio 2 had the strangest competition this year. The Great Canadian Song Quest. They got people to vote for 13 places (one in each province/ territory) and 13 bands (the same), who then had to write about said place in their province. DDW won the vote in Saskatchewan and wrote a song about Charlie's Bar, which sounds a bit like a Canadian Whelans and is being torn down.

Generally, the songs are a bit meh.... except for Quebec, which was won by...

2. Martha Wainwright, Four Black Sheep in the Snow (CBC Radio 2 Great Canadian Song Quest)

I think Martha missed the memo from Rich that said 'these songs are meant to be cheery for to cheer up Canadians who have lost all their money'. Anyways, I thought PFI would like to hear it, as Martha is 'known to us'.

Isn't it funny the way the guards say that about people. The Mounties don't say that. They just say 'he had a criminal record, that's probably why he got shot'. The guards say 'we don't know why he was shot, but he was 'known to us''.

Weird song. From a weird songstress.

3. David Myles, When it comes my turn (Things have Changed)

I think I am heading into my middle agedness, judging by the first three songs on the list. Or, maybe me and Rich are just feeling a little old arsey this year, what with getting to be married and all.

Not to each other of course.

I hate baseball.

I was about a month ahead of him I think.

Anyway, David is from New Brunswick I think, and he is just back from recording his new album on the SAME CONSOLE in some famous studio in Arizona as was used when Radiohead were there and recorded The Bends.

Which is my least favourite Radiohead album.

I'm shocked an album that miserable was made in the sunshine...

4. The Wooden Sky, The Late King Henry (If I don't come home you'll know I'm gone)

I just like the name of this song. And the tempo is kinda rollicking, maybe nice for kiddies.

Note to parents: Not only did I not put the song I really liked with the swear words on the playlist this year, I put on this song the kiddies might like.

Learning I am...

5. The Duhks, Mighty Storm (Fast Paced World)

I love the Duhks (ducks), who are from Winnipeg, Manitoba and so know a thing or two about weather. This is dedicated to all the Irish weather you`ve been having lately.

Bless.

6. Kathleen Edwards, Sure as Shit (Asking for Flowers)

This was our wedding song. So it goes on the list.

7. Bahamas, Southern Drawl (Pink Strat)

Man of mystery. Very difficult to find out anything about this guy. Apparently he's on tour with Amy Millan, so maybe he will turn up here some night and I won't go. Nice song though. Very smart.

Speaking of...

8. Amy Millan, Baby I (Honey from the Tombs)

Amy, the queen of Canadian pop. The homecoming queen for the nerdy boys. She pops up again later with The Stills. As she says herself: 'together, my own songs and these covers create a bed where the lonely can rest for a little bit, where little hopes, little deaths, and big loves are flammable but fallow'

Amy's fab. We are big fans, me and Rich. He nearly passes out when he talks to her.

9. Jenn Grant, Dreamer (Orchestra for the Moon)

Jenn has a voice like hot chocolate. Which is apt, because this song mentions her having a date at Chocolate Lake, where Queenie and Himself used to live (and dream), so it had to be included.

10. Cuff the Duke, Long Road (Sidelines of the City)

Okay, last of the alt: country, Canadiana type songs.

Onto more inmyday-ish type music.

11. The New Pornographers, My Rights versus Yours (Challengers)

According to the blog metatag, The New Pornographers are AC Newman and a group of ridiculously talented people uniquely equipped to realize his musical ambitions. You may know their album, Mass Romantic. It was considered the best indie album in Canada until Arcade Fire released Neon Bible. This song is from another album called Challengers. Either of them are worth a listen if you dont know these guys.

12. Metric, Sick Muse (Fantasies)

Emily Haines and James Shaw, the singer and guitarist in Metric also play with Broken Social Scene. Emily is one of those effortlessly cool blonde rockstars that make me feel completely inadequate, but despite that, I love this song.

13. Stars, This Charming Man (Nightsongs)

A lush retake of a Smiths classic, by the people who also bring you Broken Social Scene.

14. Stars, Your ex-Lover is dead (Set yourself on fire)

When there`s nothing left to burn, you have to set yourself on fire.

`Xactly.

Plus there are cellos. I do like a bit of cello in my eloquent, Montreal-based pop music. Even if they did support Coldplay recently.

... ah, the almighty dollar does strange things to us all. But these are the best lyrics on the compilation:

I`m not sorry I met you.
I`m not sorry it`s over.
I`m not sorry there`s nothing to say.

15. Holy Fuck, Lovely Allen (LP)

From the boys who are known as the Toronto evil super group, who brought you the Cowboy Cat t-shirt. Anyone who wants to buy me one is very welcome to do so!!!

Reminds me of God is an Astronaut a bit.

Anyways, folks, that`s it for another year. Hope you like them.

The weekend before Christmas is really the Christmas

Big snowfall tonight.

Maybe two thirds the way up the ruler.

Standard ruler... 30 cm jobbie. Like in school.

OK. Mathematics starting.

Mathematics in the sense of one of Mr. Hensey's classes (fifth year honours) ... I am hanging out with my friends talking about the weekend, but I am also supposed to be doing maths.

The driveway is 100 metres long and four metres wide.

A little wider at either end.

The snow shovel is 45 cm wide.

I think.

Why am I writing a math post? This is not good.

Side to side. From lawn to woodland.

Over and back.

Over and back.

Pick up the spill.

Then over and back.

By my calculations (which are usually wrong and need John Brown to fix), that's 222 shovel swipes across the driveway.

Over and back.

And then scooping up spill.

Say, another 150.

That's 372 shovel swipes.

I'm pretty sure it was more than that.

Put the shovel into the snow with the blade aligned to the edge of what's left, and push along the line to the far side. Turn on your heel, and clean up the spill on the way back.

Then put the shovel back down against the clean line of the snow.

Scraaaape.

In early November snows it's mostly rain with some ice in it, so when you shovel it's like pushing water up a hill.

Heavy and wet and no fun at all.

After January, it's all ice pellets and misery. The shovel stops up on the ice and pushes into your sternum and it's hard and miserable to move it.

After I finished doing it seven times last year I found out all the men on my road used to watch me shovel ice off the driveway, and wonder at how Himself got himself such a hardcore woman...

But there's a couple of weeks in December when it's light and fluffy and perfect if it snows.

And shovelling is a meditation.

That was tonight.

I think about a lot of stuff when I shovel the driveway in December.

I feel so lucky that I get to do it. I need to think about a lot of stuff.

Today I was thinking about Ireland, because I was very lucky this Sunday; people from Ireland were all home suffering from pre-Christmas hangovers, so they were vulnerable and I got to talk to a few of them for quite the chat.

Well, I have to admit that during the section of the driveway from the road to the garbage box (about 20 side to sides), I thought about how difficult it is to build and maintain a mature and loving relationship with stepchildren who are the powerless pawns in a ridiculous battle of control freakery being waged by their mother against their father and me.

But I think about that a lot and if I write about it she uses it in court proceedings, so we'll just move on, shall we.

From the garbage box to the rhododendron bush, which is not very far, the rhododendron bush being near the garbage box for a reason, I thought about Ireland.

The lights on Grafton St.

Winking against the wet paving.

The weekend that was.

What a weekend that must have been. Everyone finally had time to go out and chew down on a few things.

I'm sorry I missed that weekend.

I would like to fly home for that weekend and then leave before Christmas. Would that be so awful?

How well everyone is doing!

Everyone I love has survived.

The recession. The revelations. The floods. The everything.

For my New Year's wish, I would like everyone I know in Ireland to be in charge of Ireland now.

It's the fact that you're not that's making your teeth ache boys and girls.

The demography is on your side, guys...

I was halfway up the section from the rhodo bush to the back of the car (the long, difficult, middle section), when I had to put the shovel down and go get the dog.

Neighbours again, not approving of the dog being allowed to wander about in what is ostensibly a wilderness backyard area...

She's half wolf for fuck's sake... what do you think she's going to do in the snow.

I got feedback on the blog tonight and was told the dog bits were boring, which I knew, but dog bits = life right now, so maybe up the ante in the life is a priority for soon.

After Christmas, as Himself would say.

Anyways, got the dog, got back in the rhythm, over and back, over and back, pick up the spills, over and back, when I noticed it was blowing snow, like it said in the warning.

Your late thirties and early forties are all about 'blowing snow' aren't they.

You shovel and shovel and shovel.

And then you get up the next morning and all the snow is drifted up against the car again.

There you go, metaphor for next year.

I'm going to post this without a resolution because I am drunk and blind (dog ate my glasses)..

I will amend if something comes to me.

Oh yeah.... make Christmas about the kids for once eh?!

December temperatures going up and down like the proverbial's knickers

Plus 5. Then minus 6. Then plus 2 and sleet. Then minus 12 with the windchill. Then plus 6 and rain. Then back down to minus 6 with no precipitation this time.

Suede coat and shiny boots. Then winter parka and snow boots. Then raincoat and wellies. Then back to the suede coat. With a shawl wrapped round it.

This morning I walked the dog in the suede coat and shiny boots and about 5 minutes out the heavens opened (I didn't notice it was cloudy because it was pitch-black dark) and poured on me, and then I had no time to change and had to drive to work in wet suede and damp patent boots, which didn't dry out properly at work because I am in the office of crazy air, so they froze (with my feet in them, and they are very pointy) when the temperature dropped to minus 15 this evening and I couldn't get the car to heat up before I actually arrived home in it.

FOR FUCK'S SAKE.

So now I am sitting at the computer (in a heated house) wearing my polar socks and my polar fleece with a hot water bottle pressed up against my internal organs, and I AM STILL COLD.

I wish it was March 31st, I said to Himself.

I wish it was May 31st, Himself said back.

'Xactly.

And it's to be colder tomorrow, apparently.

And the work Christmas do is on.

Although it being the Canadian work do, I can wear my polar fleece and snow boots if I want, and it will be all over by 6.30pm anyways. None of your Irish wear a nice dress and stay out late rubbish over here in the North Pole.

It could be worse. I could have said yes when Himself wanted to move to Alberta and I could be dealing with minus 40.

Yes, that is a feasible temperature for human existence.

No, I don't know how they do it.

So I guess I should just suck it up.

I'm all in a heap because it's coming up to Christmas and I should be in Ireland and I'm not nor will I be and I'm very sad and I keep trying to push it out of my head and it keeps pushing its way back in.

Persistently. Like Shannon when she knows the reason you want her on the deck is because there's steak on the grill.

And of course Christmas in the 'new' house is not very exciting when it's just two people and no presents to open.

We bought a new water system instead. I guess I'll just tie a ribbon round a glass and hydrate all day.

Still, I shouldn't moan. We had lots of excitement and fun with the wedding and our trip to Cuba.

It's just that was THEN.

And this is NOW.

And Himself just came back from the postbox with a key that means there's a parcel (although I think it's presents for someone else) in the parcel box but he didn't know what it was so now someone has to go back down there.

IN THE COLD!!!!!!

Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Maybe I'll feel better at the weekend. When it gets closer to Christmas.

Last Days of Summer on the Eastern Shore

Tonight is the last night of summer here in Nova Scotia. It has been a beautiful seven weeks or so (July was a wet, foggy write-off) and today was no exception, 22 degrees in the afternoon and yet another beautiful starry, windless, still night tonight.

There are only two downsides to a windless night here on the Eastern Shore. You can't hear the surf roaring against the beach. Which is why we live out here.

And the mosquitoes have free rein.

Yes we still have mossies. On 21st September. I think I will enter ours in the mossie equivalent of the round the world race, they are that hardcore. They have to leave soon, btw, I hope they realise this.

Last weekend was the Eastern Shore yard sale extravanganza. It didn't stretch up the shore as far as I thought it would; when we hit Musquodoboit Harbour there were no sales, but the road from Gaetz Brook to Lawrencetown was pretty good.

We spent sixty dollars. We got:

- a pair of barely used Rossignol cross country skis and poles for me
- a brown leather handbag for me
- a hand-tooled leather tool belt for Himself
- Bill Clinton's My Life
- Dog training for Dummies (which include sad people who own huskies that are totally spoilt and think they are the alpha of the pack)
- an enormous box of camping equipment including a stylish kettle, numerous plates, cups, bowls, one of those plastic egg holding devices, an egg poacher, two saucepans, etc etc
- and a framing nailer (which is well hardcore I am told)

Not a bad little haul.

Last yard sale of the year...

Then we went home and painted the deck and the steps to the deck, and the other steps, and the steps up to the front door, and I hid the disaster of a side garden that I started deconstructing and got bored with, and cut down rag weed and trimmed bushes and we ignored the flower garden which needs to be sorted out (the Queen Mother has tonight stepped up to the plate on this one)

And hung the new curtains and the framed pictures we had sitting in the spare room for seven months.

And started cleaning the house.

So busy, you say....

We are getting married in the house soon.

Thanksgiving weekend to be exact.

So it has to be clean.

The house, I mean.

Normally it is tidy. Tidy is not clean, but it is enough for me as I am immune to my germs, Himself's germs and now Shannon's germs. But there will be foreigners and children and older people at this event, so clean is necessary.

That's a lot of cleaning, though.... And as I talked with the Queen Mother on the phone this evening, while watching the beautiful glow of the sunset light on the 'beginning to turn' trees and while realising I live in a wonderful house and how lucky I am (yet again), I also noticed that the dog has licked all the windows in a not even pattern, up to a height of about two feet so they will have to be cleaned too.

FUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

No I am not stressed. I did the stress and told everyone but nobody felt it was special, so I gave it up because it was giving me indigestion with no positive outcomes! Also I decided against a hen party, which relieved me of all my stress immediately.

Really, I am not stressed. I am very happy and excited and looking forward to our beautiful day and if we have invited too many people and they all turn up and it rains and there is no room in the house, well then we will all just have to pile into the basement to party, and hey, it won't matter if anyone drops their plate of roasted pork down there.

We are having a pig roast.

Our friend Dukie is organizing it.

And Elizabeth is marrying us. And there will be music on the iPod. And maybe a few carved pumpkins.

And then we will be married.

How about that!!

And then it will be back to routine, which now includes puppy school.

I already hate puppy school.

I have been to one class.

But that's a whole other post.

Which may come tomorrow, as I had quite the chunk of the top of my big toe (left) cut off today as I cut it in a bizarre argument with a door frame, then didn't look after it, then went camping in the woods with it, then yadda yadda, so it was 'gone septic' and needed to be removed. So what with the antibiotics and the anaesthetic and the glass of wine to give them a little edge, and the pain and the blood that won't stop and the need for copious amounts of epsom salts and polysporin and clean gauze, I may have to keep my toe home tomorrow for a little rest.

I would prefer not to have to wear flip flops to my autumn country wedding. It would remind me too much of the fact that I was supposed to wear flip flops to my Carribbean beach wedding.

Maybe I'll just wear my comfy slippers.

Much love to all the sick puppies/ kittens/ cats in Laytown and other places!!

Should we move to Halifax II

Well, not right now because it's raining again.

That's because it's a summer Friday.

It's a summer Friday.

So we gotta rain down on all the poor plebs, who went to the liquor store, just in case it was warm enough to sit on the deck and enjoy a cold one.

You can sit on the deck tonight and enjoy a cold one.

Drip-drip-dripping down the back of your neck.

So I am inside.

Alone.

With a glass of wine.

First one all week.

I had an intense urge to hear Once in a Lifetime, by Talking Heads, so I just popped onto iTunes and bought it.

And some Alabama 3, and some K'naan, and some Cary Brothers, and some Mozart.

And you may ask yourself.... how did I get here?

And then some Nickelback, so I won't feel too guilty.

I won't tell Himself about the Nickelback until tomorrow but.

Same as it ever was.
Same as it ever was.
Same as it ever was.

A wet Friday in July.

Come to Halifax for the weather.

I did.

People here literally fall around laughing when I tell them that.

They think it's one of my 'Irish jokes'.

The absurdist tinge to my humour which comes from being Irish is not really gotten here, but it is tolerated, which is as much as I can hope for.

But it is actually true.

The summer I came here, I was backpacking, I worked outside on a farm all summer, I met the love of my life, and therefore, the sun shone everyday.

So I figured it would always be like this.

Of course it still shines in my heart every day here.... aaah....

Letting the days go by...

Wow, I had forgotten about the crappy muddled ending to that song!

But yeah... to return to my point... despite the wonderfulness of the finding of the soulmate and soulcountry, the weather turned out to be the same as it ever was.

So don't move here for the weather.

Is my point I think.

Like I did.

So should we move to Halifax Canada?

Interesting question.

It was in a comment I got the other day.

I don't know. I don't even live in Halifax anymore, I live thirty kilometres from the bridge across the harbour to the city. And I commute in and out every day. Twenty minute drive, then thirty minute bus journey. Longer in the winter.

But I did live there for over three years.

I suppose it depends on where you're starting from.

I mean, if you live in Victoria, BC, then I would imagine you are swapping one city for another similar city, minus the balmy climate.

Why do people move anywhere anyways?

I moved because I was bored and despairing with a 463 square foot apartment in a complex that had a sign stating that children should not play on the grass. It was looking like that was the pinnacle of my existence and there was a little voice inside me that said somewhere there's a house with a nice guy and a dog and a garden just waiting for me to find it.

Which reminds me... why is the dog guy not emailing me back?? We want the puppy NOW!!

But Halifax was a sort of random end point. It could have been somewhere else. It just happened that the job turned up, and then the little yellow house found me, and then the guy moved in, and then his job turned up, and then the credit union got on board, and finally the house that we bought emerged out of the mess of For Sale signs we were sifting through.

Still waiting on the D-O-O-O-O-G!!

At the same time, there isn't anything I particularly dislike about Halifax.

Apart from the mayor.

Someday in about six years I will get my citizenship and then he'd better watch the hell out if he's still mayor.

Well, there are a few things I dislike:

- the wind tunnel downtown caused by the high-rise development on the waterfront
- the tumbleweed zone that is Barrington St. which is mostly owned by one guy who papers over shop fronts with Starfish Properties logos while he waits for ... what? A mayor who will let him knock it all down and build more high-rises?

If you can't get this one to do it... you'll be waiting Mr. Resnick, or whatever your name is.

All the great stores I hung out in when I moved here are gone - Sam the Record Man, Ginger's Bar, Dooley's pool hall are closed, the craft gallery is off down the waterfront somewhere I can't find. The pawn shop is gone, the little clothes place beside it. I knew the staff in all those stores; before I had any friends here, I talked to them most days.

Before you know it, John Doull will cave to Starfish, the bookshop will be gone, and that will be the end of a beautiful little street.

I will be forced to shop at the Mic Mac Mall like everyone else. I may consider another province when that happens.

SHOULDN'T BE ALLOWED, MR. MAYOR!!

Other things:
- floatables, obviously
- the crappy bus system, which means I have to drive anytime I want to go slightly off-track
- the half hour lunch break. I mean, why can't we have an hour, like a normal city? We have fantastic restaurants here, we should have French eating hours, so they can make money and I can digest.

The fact that lunchtime is announced with a cannon roar every day rocks though.

The city itself is beautiful, a ramshackle pile of old and new all huddled up against the hills sheltering from the wind and the rain. Nice parks. Nice residential areas. Lots of room.

NO TRAFFIC.

Like I said, it depends on where you're coming from... if you're coming from Kennetcook well yes the traffic is terrible. But I came from Dublin, where the traffic IS terrible.

Quirky shops and did I mention the great restaurants?

Anyhoo, have to go watch Breaking Bad episode 4 with Himself and eat strawberry and rhubarb pie. More about this anon....

Cabbages and cherries and things that go slime in the night.

Despite being at the tail end of sick in our house - Himself was the sicker and was taking killer antibiotics - we managed to have a nice weekend and get lots of yard work done.

I suppose I get to do the flower beds because I am a girl. And girls like flowers.

I am not one of those girls particularly.

I mean I like a nice herbaceous border as much as the next person, but you can't eat one nor can you donate it to Feed Nova Scotia come harvest-time.

Having said that, someone who used to live here put a lot of thought into the flower beds in front of the house. So I feel like I should resurrect them.

Currently they are buried in buttercups (hundreds of stringy roots with nothing to pull onto), dandelions (we all know about those bastards and the way they snap off and grow back), and some feathery weed thingy that has a root system comprised of interlocking elastic bands with a plant popping up every three centimetres along the elastic.

Really.

It has me stumped. I've never seen it before.

So I weeded and weeded and weeded and weeded and weeded and eventually cleared most of the weeds from one bed and saved about six plants, a hosta, some silver lace and a couple of gladioli that sat shivering in the cold tundra that was the newly weed-free zone.

Which meant of course that I had to go to the garden centre and buy fill-ins. I got a tray of Creeping Jenny and Allysium and some foxgloves (I am determined to have hummingbirds this summer) and hopefully they'll cover the bare ground before the buttercups rebound.

Mmmm, planting bedding is sooo much funnn.... not.

Himself and Justin who was over for a visit were playing with power tools nearby, in order to avoid weeding.

PZWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE..... 36 volts, man... that's a nice piece of iron, dude ... PZWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.................... listen to that, man.... hey, let's 'fix' the deck......

Prob'ly shoulda dug the bed out, said Justin, in between drilling holes in the deck.

Prob'ly.

The second bed is so much worse than the first one I don't know how I am going to even start.

Prob'ly should dig the bed out...

Goddamn, I hate giving into weeds.

As well as the beds in front of the house, we have four big deep beds alongside the driveway, made of old railway sleepers, which are quite nice but are painted a disastrous shade of rust.

To hell with flowers I thought. Just got in and dug the dandelions out and we planted veggies there.

Himself put the fully loaded 36 volt drill down and made himself available to supervise this, as veggies are much more interesting than flowers.

So I/ we/ us planted cabbage, broccoli, beets, chives and parsley.

Ho hum, a couple of hours passed and I was passed out in exhaustion on the couch with a nice glass of pinot noir when Himself went out to check them for the umpteenth time and realised that crumbly old sleepers are where SLUGS live.

So now we are on slug patrol.

Apparently, in a rare episode of garden alignment, slug genocide was taking place in Ireland at the same time.

Poor slugs.... there's nowhere for them to go.

Firstly, we cooked a big pot of mussels and ate them on the deck and then we smushed the shells up and sprinkled them round the cabbages.

Didn't work.

Not enough mussels.

Last night, we were out at 10.30pm with a torch killing them with a kitchen knife.

Thirty eight.

If you're interested.

This evening we found two, so we have put beer in jar lids and are hoping that the slugs will die happy rather than at the hands of Himself the Slugvader.

Of course, none of this healthy constructive positive gardening activity can call itself the real action of the weekend, which was the official planting of the cherry trees.

While I was deciding between the yellow bedding or the blue, Himself found some CHERRY TREES.

To go with the tomatoes, no doubt.

So we've planted our first trees here. A nice little milestone.

Saturday night, we tested our fire pit (built for Polly's visit in August). First impressions are pretty good - nice draught, not too much smoke, hopefully we'll have a wind-free week and we can have a couple of nice evenings in the yard.

JD the squirrel finds a new world order

The feud between Himself and the squirrel living in his building ramped up a notch last weekend.

For those of you not in the know, the nature of the feud is based in the concept of 'his'.

Which one of them is the 'his' that the building belongs to.

The squirrel, having spent the previous Fall and winter living rent-free in the building, thinks it's his building.

Himself, having paid for the building, is pretty sure that it is in fact his building.

The noisy chatter that he gets from the squirrel every time he walks into the building to pick up a tool (in order to do some work) PISSES HIM OFF.

What does that goddamn squirrel do but eat corn all day?

But my man is nothing if not slow to anger.

A veritable leviathan progressing through the Bay of Fundy when it comes to rage.

But even the calmest leviathan will swallow a Jonah, if he won't shut the hell up!!

That is why last weekend, despite my best efforts at averting revolution by cleaning up evidence of grand theft corn, Himself went into the shed to do something and realised that the squirrel had gotten back into the carefully wrapped-up sack of cracked corn (which I had carefully placed in the thick plastic bin) and there was cracked corn all over the building.

ALL OVER THE GODDAMN BUILDIN'!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

MY GODDAMN BUILDIN'!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The squirrel had managed to eat through the plastic this time. As well as the sack.

GODDAMN SQUIRREL, BATHIN' IN CRACKED CORN HE IS!!!!!!!! LYIN' BACK JUSTA SWIMMIN' AROUND IN IT!!! THINKS IT'S HIS EFFIN' CORN!!!!!!!!!!

I could hear the roaring from the house.

I'LL SHOW HIM!!!

Retribution was swift and brutal.

Every kernel of cracked corn (and when it was all found, it was a substantial amount of corn) got swept out of every crevice in the building, and the whole lot was put out in the yard in a big pile.

NOW!!

HE'LL HAVE TO SHARE!!

SERVE HIM RIGHT FOR BEING GREEDY.

Suddenly the rabbits, crows, wood pigeon, robins, jays, chickadees and other critters who had spent months getting by on just a tincture of cracked corn, provided to help them stay above the critter poverty line (with not even an increase to help with recent rampant corn inflation) .... they are all in carbohydrate heaven right now.

PARTYTIME!!!!

All the daily foraging routines have been disrupted in order to partake of the sudden corn largesse.

I have no doubt that this summer will see abnormally big baby critters emerging from dens all over the yard.

The babies will no doubt turn into a me-me-me Critter Generation Y and will break our door down in January demanding carb-rich three course meals, $120,000 jobs, and/or better EI (I mean corn) payments if this largesse doesn't continue.

Last night according to Himself, we even had Bob Rae the big old silver raccoon who pretends he's not living in our yard, come along last night for a bit of chow.

Seeing as it was goin' a beggin'.

If I was the squirrel, I would take my beating and my sudden eviction from the squirrel Versailles that is our buildin' like a man squirrel, and go find a new place to live.

Because the squeaking of tumbrils is quietly, but definitely discernible above the rhythm of the waves that is the soundtrack to our yard.

If I were JD the Little Red Squirrel, I would seclude myself, reflect on my loss and return in a few years... when the corn is gone... refreshed, with a new, superficially sustainable way of keeping everyone fed.

But no. He hasn't the wit to do it.

He is camped out on the pile of cracked corn, fighting everyone off.

As if he can.

He has been there all day according to Himself, who is home with a chest infection.

Instinct has kicked in and he's an aggressive little bastard.

JD the Little Red Squirrel ... not Himself.

Why wouldn't he be?

He's used to having most of the corn to himself.

He's used to being the only critter who knew where the corn was kept.

He's used to having unlimited access to the corn, to people turning a blind eye to grand theft cracked corn, to squirreling away some extra corn for the winter.

He's fighting for his political life as they say.

All the fat he's put on over the last couple of weeks is worn off him.

Our crows - we have three of them who are inseparable and who have that brilliant dark sense of humour that crows sometimes have - our crows have him driven demented.

It's so simple it's beautiful.

Desmoulins, Danton and Robespierre take turns to run at him, wings spread, until he panics and runs away under the building.

While he's cowering under the building, they pick slowly and desultorily at the corn, with their backs to him of course.

After a while he can't help himself and he chatters at them like an Albanian matriarch with four fields to plough and every son in a tower.

That's when they leave the pile to have a big lawerly convocation on top of the old pine tree, or to stare intently at something moving over by the lake. (Probably the mo-fo eagle nesting on the island).

Ahaa.... JD thinks!! The Fools!!!

Back he goes for a moment, and every time a swarm of starlings swoop down from absolutely nowhere, kick his skinny red ass again and grab their piece of the action while the crows stare into the middle distance and nod knowingly at each other.

JD has to retire defeated from the bombardment that is those locusts of the birdworld.

JD the Little Red Squirrel has learned two simple, irrefutable facts.

The buildin' does in fact belong to whomever pays for it.

And Himself, who paid for it, is a force to be reckoned with when his ire is raised ....

....

... We had an election in Nova Scotia this week.

It was quite the game-changer.

The forthcoming redistribution of the provincial corn will no doubt be just as entertaining to watch as the antics on Eagle.

Me... I'm rooting for the crows.

And scanning the horizon for starlings.

Hard day at the Superstore

I feel stupid even writing about this, but I was so upset, I need to get it out of my system.

I've already tried two glasses of wine and telling Himself, who give him his due, got adequately upset on my behalf, but the stone is still in my shoe.

Here's the thing...

In our house, I usually do the food shopping.

I hate doing the food shopping... hate hate hate... and Himself quite likes browsing the bargains, so really we should swap chores and I should clean out the water filter or something. But it just works out better if I do the food shopping because I am the cook most of the time and I keep the mental tab of what's missing because I make it missing.

In other words I am a control freak who likes to know what's in the fridge.

Plus I hate doing the water filter.

So we spent the weekend on the island and I didn't get the shopping done and I realised on the bus there were no decent options for a nice Monday supper for a man who worked a ten hour day, so that meant even though it was already 6pm, I had to do the shopping.

Also I had to get gas.

Those of you who know me or read this blog will know I have an irrational hatred of getting gas.

It's expensive, it destroys the planet, it gives me guilt, and causes me poverty between May and November, plus I have to stand in a wind tunnel for ten minutes.

So this evening, with a heavy heart, instead of just heading on into the beauty of an Eastern Shore sunset, I turned into the Superstore that's near the Esso on the way to Hwy 207.

Heaved myself out of my replenished gas guzzling machine, retrieved my recyclable bags from the enormous trunk, felt the inevitable twitch of irony about that particular situation, and went in.

Note1: We are currently going through the transition from plastic to recyclable grocery bags in Nova Scotia, and Gifted Typist recently wrote a post on how that transition is going for her (never has a bag in the car) which was very true and very funny.

Note 2: There was a ridiculous but typical 'shock horror, germs invading Canada leading to appalling death, ohmygod' CBC piece on the radio this morning about how people are not laundering their recyclable shopping bags enough, and consequently there are germs in them from the meat (even though it is wrapped in plastic) and WE WILL ALL DIE.

Me, I had to do the recycled bag thing in Spanish in 1989, in German in 1990, and in Ireland in the 2000s, so I am an old hand at having the bags ready.

GT - Hang the bags on the inside front doorknob!!

Note 3: I am so friggin' cheap, I brought my recyclable shopping bags with me from Germany via Ireland.

Note 4: My green bag *shame* - I have never washed them. Everything I buy is wrapped in plastic FFS!!

So, I tear around the fresh produce section and buy veggies and meat.

I ignore the centre aisles, like a good shopper is supposed to do.

The supermarket is quiet. I trundle up to a checkout and unload.

She's talking to her friend.

She is a 'pass it over the scanner and toss it anywhere' checkout girl.

Normally in this store, they are Grade 12 'after school and a quick toke behind the store' checkout boys. So they forget to scan half the stuff, and then you have to unpack and tell him they are leeks or porcini mushrooms, or parmesan cheese or whatever, so they can find the code, and find the label and put everything on the counter straight etc.

This one is a full-timer.

But me, I am the Queen of anal retentive.

I am ready for her.

My bags are open - I catch the produce and throw it in one bag, I catch the meat and put it in the other.

While I am doing this, she is foostering under the counter.

I know what her game is, so I haul my bag of meat out of harms way back onto my trolley.

Credit card in hand I stand there, the picture of 'I packed my own bags and now I want to pay using your store's credit card so I can get points for my green bags' innocence.

Because you get extra points for using recyclable bags.

Which would imply that the store WANTS you to do that.

Plus you get charged for plastic.

She hauls out a roll of plastic bags and shouts at me.

YES, SHOUTS...

"I was GOING to pack the meat in plastic bags."

I said, 'that stuff about germs, it's just a plot created by the plastic bag companies.'

I was just trying to be funny....

She shook her fist in my face and screamed at me in frustration.

I stood there and said nothing, thinking, wow, every auld one in the store today must have insisted on wrapping everything in the green bag in plastic.

I felt her pain.

I did.

Then she *forgot* to give me my credit for my recyclable bags.

They don't forget, it's just really complicated and stupid, so they *forget*.

Which meant I had to a) ask for it, b) get one of those customer service shrugs which means, you are a nightmare green customer beyotch, c) get mad enough to queue up for a 'raincheck' at the Lotto counter, and d) feel like a fucking cheapskate doing it.

By the time I got back to the car I was in tears.

Mainly because I have to go through this every time I shop at this store.

Here's the thing....

1. If you as a company purport to offer me a choice to decline plastic wrapping, then offer me the choice:

Train your FUCKING staff to offer me the choice.

Untrain them to assume I want a different type of plastic and then shout at me because I decline it.

2. If you as a company feel that the plastics industry is in fact correct, and the plastic wrapping currently on the meat is allowing juice to leak into the recylable bags and potentially causing eColi, (and lawsuits) then stop using plastic altogether and wrap the meat in something impermeable... like... oooh... I dunno... greaseproof paper maybe...

Like they do in the store where I am planning to spend my $700 a month food budget starting on Friday.

3. If I pack the bags like your checkout person is supposed to do, then tell them to say thank you, like they do in the Spryfield Superstore, because I'M DOING THEIR FUCKING JOB.

I'm calling Stephen the manager tomorrow.

I'm really upset.

On so many levels.

And all I wanted to do was buy some meat and veg.

Hard day at the Superstore, Himself said.

Hard day indeed.

Bunny's back

Queenie and Himself don't have any pets. Mostly out of pure laziness, dressed up as concern about their care. We don't have a dog because we're gone for almost ten hours every day... too long for a dog to be left alone. No point in thinking through a solution to the issue.

We don't have a cat because... well because that would involve finding a cat and getting all the cat accoutrements and looking after the cat.

Etc.

Pure laziness.

Happily, here in chez Eagle, we have lots of critters, who are now our pets. Who are great pets because they feed, house, exercise and clean themselves and all we have to do is admire their cute antics.

Himself has a special pet.. a rabbit that appears a few times a day to eat our lawn. Himself loves bunny because he's very tame (he obviously hasn't heard of Himself's previous life as a bunny shooter and boiler). In fact, he's so tame, he pops out of the undergrowth every evening to say hi when Himself pulls up in Albert the Station Wagon.

Not me. He never pops out to see me.

Just Himself.

Except that for the last few days he has been missing.

Coyotes gottim, Himself decided.

I was thinking maybe she's a lady bunny and she's been off having babies.

We were a little sad.

Then this morning I opened the back door to check the rain and there Bunny was. Chomping away like there's no tomorrow.

Bunny's back.

Thank goodness for that.

Goddamn Mercury... you devil you....

We have a joke in the office. The joke is Queenie knows about astrology, and when weird planetary alignments occur, she warns everyone in the office.

And they all laugh at the weird Irish woman in the office.

And then it all goes Peter Tong because the SHIT IS REAL!

It's kinda like a weird grown-up-lady version of telling zombie stories in the tent with just a flashlight at summer camp.

Before you go for that last trip to the toilet pits....

So, last week, I let the Office LayDeez know... mercury is going retrograde again.

Three times a year.

Six weeks a time.

Plus the turbulence four days fore and aft.

That's a lotta days a year.

Retrograde Mercury's like a poltergeist - cars, computers, electronics, contracts, job offers, all that kind of necessary shit... it all goes pear-shaped. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz....psssssssssst... stuff breaks down, blows out, messes up... things you think are legally nailed suddenly take off and fly through the atmosphere.

You just avoid avoid avoid.

I've been pretty good at avoiding it, but the Universe has been gunning for me for a while as I have been floating like a butterfly and stinging like a bee for far too long.

Today the little bastard got me.

Queenie had a day off.

Queenie's Day Off.
By Queenie.

5.40am. Get up. Shower. Put work clothes on.

6.10am. Drive Himself to work because Albert the Station Wagon is at the doctor with a potentially extremely expensive light on and a desire to stall constantly.

6.20am. Get to Himself's work 30 minutes early because Himself hates to be late.

Sit in carpark because it's raining and I still love him too much to make him stand in the rain despite the fact that I could still be in bed asleep.

6.47am. Leave carpark and drive 275km to Antigonish. Notice there are no other cars on the road because it's the Friday of a bank holiday weekend and everyone else is winding down, Nova Scotia-style.

9.18am. Get to Antigonish one hour early for meeting. Drive around Antigonish looking for nice alternative Fair Trade-type cafe for breakfast.

9.55am. Give up and order Tim Horton's Bacon Breakfast sandwich with no cheese.

10.05am. Eat THBBs with cheese.

10.06am. Gag on cheese.

10.10am. Try to pull out of Antigonish Main St. onto Hwy 104 at weird Yield Junction where speed limit is supposed to be 70kmh.

I have to paste this, because I can't write it again:

I've just come off my favourite highway - the 104 highway of death - and some cnut in a tandem truck just veered over and put me out of my lane, and put me ahead of the path of an suv doing about 150 so I just put my foot down and closed my eyes and said goodbye to you all.

After a moment the suv started beeping like crazy so I reckon I got ahead of him and woke him up.

O joyous life!!

That is the third time this has happened to me on this stretch of road.

Anyways..... I have a mad adrenalin rush on now!!!!!!! Jibber jibber jibber.......

1030am. Facilitate meeting between ten engineering types who have no intention of ever fucking agreeing about anything.

Get them to agree on what they disagree on. Facilitation 101.

11.59am. The weekend starts!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

12.01am. The car won't start.

Thirty minutes, three sets of cable, and a conclave of engineers later, the car starts, but I have to drive to Halifax without stopping to strengthen the battery and I only have half a tank of gas.

3.38pm. Glide into the Ultramar on Victoria Rd. on fumes, fill the car, pee (oh bliss), get a coffee, get a water, get a bar of chocolate, pay $80 for the lot, start the car again.

3.39pm. It starts!!!!!!!!!!!

And I would remind you boys and girls, that I am alive at this point, having nearly died earlier.

4.00pm. Pick up Himself at work where I left him in the rain nine hours earlier. Albert the Station Waggon needs a new fuel pump. $1200. Minimum. Plus $300 for the spark plugs.

Goddamn Mercury... you devil you.. you got me this time.....

But I'm ALIVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Happy Victoria Day everyone... it's not about her, it's about VICTORY!!!!!!!!!!!!

Taking the yard back in piles

Those of you who know me know that Queenie likes nothing better than to potter about in a garden/ yard/ farm/ pumpkin field/balcony pots/ terrace/ whatever.

So long as she has to scrub her fingernails afterwards, despite wearing a pair of gloves, she's happy.

As you can imagine, with a whole acre to play with, I am now in Queenie Heaven.

Every evening, I get home from work, I change into my yard clothes, I water my seedlings (my watermelon seeds started to sprout today) and I tackle something.

Someone in work asked me about my yard today (note - a yard in Canada is a garden, not a yard).

I said it was an okay yard, but it wasn't my yard, so it would probably take me about three years to get it right.

Probably 4 - 5 then, he said. Totally serious.

Probably he's right, he seems like a guy who knows what he's talking about.

So, five years....

I knew this year would be the back-breaking, re-organizing year, but all we seem to be doing is creating piles.

Piles and piles of stuff the previous people left behind.

There's the pile of paving stones.

They're everywhere.

Not just the piles.... the stones.

Coming from the Paddy Egan 'put the tools away' School of Gardening, I'm pretty anal about a place for everything and everything in its place, so when I find a paving brick, I have to put it on the pile.

Pretty soon, we had gotten down past the grass and they were everywhere, and that involved so much walking I was getting nothing done so I have created several piles.

I don't even like them.

The bricks.

Not that I like the piles either.

They're the red brick pavers... you know the ones.

There are three types: the octogon on top of a rectangle one that looks like a grandfather clock, the one that looks like a grandfather clock cut in half, and the rectangular one.

I have found over two hundred already... lying just about everywhere in our yard.

And I am such a weakling I can only put twelve in a wheelbarrow and carry them to the main pile, so it's taking a while.

There's something a little depressing about spending a whole day hauling someone else's boring red brick paving stones around the yard.

But HEY!!! When I get bored, there's the pile of building supplies.

It's bi-located - one pile under the blue tarp to be taken away, the other in the building for re-use.

There is building deitrus everywhere.

Wooden steps. Balustrade spindles. Large round balls for the tops of the spindles. Roofing felt. Wood. More wood. Gyprock. Rotting gyprock (the worst task so far). Different kind of more wood. Aluminium piping. Bathroom tiles. Copper piping. Lead piping. Paint cans. Tools.

Parts of cars.

ugggggghhhh.....

Then, you lift something up and you find a little pile of fiddlerheads.

Or tulips.

It's kinda fun in a back-breaking way.

We are trying to reuse as much as we can, but while we think what to do with the stuff, it's in a pile.

We found three huge tarpaulins.

I'm talking really expensive well-made stuff here.

Someone obviously had a boat at some point.

Then, I started to get mad...

One day, after about an hour, I finally dug up a really nice canvas tarp for a speed boat. Left out in the yard until it sank under the grass and rotted.

GODDAMN. IF YOU'RE GONNA LEAVE IT FOR ME PUT IT IN THE GODDAMN BUILDING SO I CAN USE IT.

Our building (which in Canada is the shed, not the main building) is a sturdy old New England type three room affair with a woodcote on top. I love it. We are going to put a wood stove in it so we can be outside in the winter. Sort of.

On Sunday, I realised it has a beautiful attic. With throw open windows at both ends and a warm, sweet-smelling spruce floor. it's going to make the most wonderful summer sleeping room for kids who are staying, or adventurous adults. All we have to do is build a sleeping platform and redo the mosquito nets... simple.

It took me a while to realise the potential. We're all a little more fire alert now, seeing as we're only two weeks into fire season and we've already had one major conflagration.

Sunday, I remembered seeing a lot of paper rubbish in the attic. I hauled myself up the ladder.

Five enormous garbage bags full of squirrel-chewed styrofoam later, I found the floor.

Forty five moving boxes (to add to our collection) later, I realised there was a second window. Four chest-height boxes full of random pieces of paper later, I just started throwing stuff out the windows.

Himself got a barrel and started burning the crap because we have enough piles.

But now, see photo above...I have a whole new pile.

Six in fact.

(I would just like to point out that I hauled all that shit out of the ground BY MYSELF).

There's one pathway into our little wood and with a little work it can be brought back to its original bucolic bliss - someone who used to live here worked really hard on it and planted all kinds of forest floor stuff, including fiddler heads and primroses and lupins and other flowers. But I haven't been able to find the end of the path - where it leads to.

I figure it must be near the building, but there's an enormous pile of brush left over from a tree fall lying there.

At least that's what I thought it was.

This evening, I waded into it and started lifting some of the brush.

And I found a cord of wood underneath.

A friggin' cord of wood.

Note: In Canada you buy wood in cords. A cord of wood is worth about $150 - $200 depending on the wood.

About four cords will get you through a winter.

So, wood is useful. It is currency. People need to buy it.

This wood was rotting.

The top layer was fine.
The second layer was softish, but it'll dry out.
The third layer was an interesting example of how wood fibre breaks down.
The fourth layer is what we call mulch nowadays.
The fifth layer was peat.

So now I have six more fucking piles.

In my driveway.

Brush.
Good wood.
Wet wood.
Useless wood
Mulch.
Peat.

Soon, I will be able to get a grant to open a garden centre.

I should be happy I suppose, I could spend years trying to get this level of decomposition going.

But the thing is, I live on the Eastern Shore, where there's lots of wood, and lots of wood stoves and lots of houses that would embarrass you with the beauty of their enormous wood pile. But I drive past houses every day that have a wood stove chimney and no wood outside and I always wonder.. is it some old couple that can't get any wood, or can't afford to buy wood or just need wood for some reason or another.

But there's always a truck in the yard, so the people in the house could come get some free wood if it were available. And they knew about it.

Himself drove in as I was working myself up into a tantrum about the needless death of the trees, and the waste of biofuel, and the lack of community spirit, yadda yadda... plus I was after pulling the leg attached to my recently Yoga/Pilates obsession with The Plank-destroyed right knee out of a particularly deep and dangerous mulch hole.

Maybe they were trying to fill in this space so it wouldn't get washed out....

WITH A CORD OF FRIGGIN' WOOD?

Maybe not...

Or maybe they just didn't like dirty fingernails too much.

They liked ball games. I have found - two soccer balls, a rugby ball, a volleyball, a tennis ball, a space hopper, and a basketball so far....

I've been trying to think what kind of little community festival I could have here now that I have more space than I can possibly think to do with.

Maybe we're heading inexorably towards the little festival of piles....

In the spirit of Paddy Kavanagh, we could stand on the steaming dungheaps of my piles and recite potery...

Like Paddy.. I'll have to find ways to avoid the haulin' and draggin' that goes on in the stony grey soil of the Eastern Shore so I can write potery.

Or maybe my piles are a little Song of Myself for the New World...

Addendum:

I just mentioned my piles post to Himself and he was horrified that I had forgotten our gravel pile. A previous owner had a child who had cancer, who had a playground built for them by the Make a Wish foundation. The toys are all gone, but there's sixty cubic feet of gravel left. Right where the vegetable garden will go.

You don't know despair until you have tried to shovel sixty cubic feet of gravel into a pile.

I hate to work on it, because every time I do I wonder what happened to that child...

We are leaving one corner... for our fire pit.

Also, Himself wants to make it clear that we did not burn the styrofoam, we left it out for the recycling truck.

I had to rescue the neighbour's cat from one of the bags this morning, such was the excruciating smell of squirrel emanating from the bag...

Oh stoney grey gravel of Lawrencetown

The laugh from my love you took

etc etc

The positive Greenhouse Effect

I was texting my sister Gypsy the other day and mentioned that we were building a greenhouse.

For Himself's cherry tomatoes no doubt!! ;-) she texted back.

Laugh!!!!

I nearly fell off the bus seat.

Regular readers of this blog will remember that last year, Queenie figured out the Canadian growing season after a couple of half-assed attempts. And managed to get a full crop of vegetables to harvest.

Of which achievement she was mightily proud.

But nothing, and I mean NOTHING, in that harvest (not even the potatoes) came close to achieving the greatness of Himself's cherry tomatoes.

After I annoyed him by insisting on growing boring old heirlooms, one afternoon he took a hammer out and gunthered a lopsided, triangular 'greenhouse' out of some plastic sheeting he'd appropriated somewhere, and a few 2 x 4s he'd appropriated from somewhere else.

And nailed it to the neighbour's fence.

Hot, sleepy afternoons in our shared back yard were spent admiring the cherry tomatoes growing like crazy behind the plastic.

As well as having to do most of the admiring, Queenie had to do all the harvesting of course.

Anyways, this year we have our own garden and lots of space so as a reward for being the Cherry Tomato Cheerleader-in-Chief last summer, Himself promised me that my heart's desire - my very own proper greenhouse - would be the very first project this year.

We spent the last two weekends working on it, with the help of Little 'Un last week (who insisted on digging for treasure while not hammering, and found a fresh spring right beside said greenhouse which will help with our irrigation system. Go the boy.).

This year, we're using greenhouse plastic, as opposed to glass. To make sure it all works well. If it does, hopefully we'll replace the plastic next spring.

I love my new greenhouse.

For a start, it has the same dimensions as the living room in my Dublin apartment.

Yes, you read that right.

Build 'em on the fly 'n' stack 'em high, as they used to say in Irish property developer circles.... ah well, at least now they're saying ... get me that list of hot countries with democratic governments and no extradition, we're headin' out boys!!

17' x 9', if you're that interested.

The apartment was 436 square feet in total.

And people wonder why I put up with Canadian winters!!

Anyways... back to the tomatoes.

I have a four foot bed running the length of the greenhouse, and a big worktable for seeding and potting.

I even have a rack for my tools.

We are hooking up water barrels with a pump so we have running water, and Himself spent a couple of hours last night installing a drainage pipe around the base of the greenhouse to draw excess water away from the soil. Which will also make it more difficult for our yard rabbit to dig into the building.

All in all, it's very professional looking. And as it's round the back of our garage/ shed well hidden from public view, I have no doubt the Mounties will be round to search it come the first fly-over of the summer.

Well they won't find any of that muck!!!

Just peppers, courgettes, aubergines, tomatoes, chives, herbs, sweet corn, peas, beets, and hopefully, water melons!

I popped into the greenhouse this morning to see how things were doing on the seedling front and the warm, cloying smell of compost and condensation hit me and reminded me, as all my gardening efforts do, of an afternoon spent at home with Paddy in the greenhouse (which was also the boiler house) thirty five years ago.

I think maybe I shall get an old wood stump or two from our little copse, and place them in my own greenhouse, so I can sit there during a rain storm and listen to the shore and the birds...

Chow time on Eagle

When we moved to this house, we were very excited at the thought of lots of new critters to bond with and observe and work around, so much so that Himself went out straight away and got a big bag of cracked corn and another big bag of mixed bird seed.

So, the bird seed goes in the bird feeder at the back of the house, and the cracked corn gets spread out on the ground near the garage (or as we call it here, the building), so that it is far enough away from the house (which is also a building of course but not called a building). This allows the shyer critters to eat without disturbance.

The spare seed and corn are stored in the building.

Me, with all this largesse being spread around the property, I'm already worrying about my vegetable gardening prospects in a yard where the critters are used to being fed.

Apparently that's not going to be a problem.

Hmmmm.

It's my humble experience that if there's food, and there's critters, and there's humans, then critters beat humans to the food supply every time.

And so it goes on Eagle.

The bird feeder is not too bad. We have a large and varied clientele who seem to have organized themselves into an all day rota that involves tits and chickadees first, then jays, then other birds.

Repeat cycle.

The birds spill seed onto the frozen ground while getting it out of the feeder of course, and lately we've been seeing a northern short-tailed shrew (as in the picture) burrowing around under the snow to get at the seeds.

I'm so tempted to trap him just to pet him: his coat is the shiniest, furriest, most beautiful I've seen on a critter yet.

What a sable must look like against the snow???

I am very excited that he is living in our yard because Northern short-tailed shrews neuro-toxinate and kill snakes, which is a good thing as snakes are to Himself as bears are to Queenie.

And as we have a pond, that means we have frogs, which means we probably have some snakes around somewhere.

Further over near the building, we were absolutely thrilled to coast down the driveway one evening and catch a very big deer having himself a snack of cracked corn.

Himself in particular was beside himself with pleasure... none of this short-tailed shrew bullshit.... a critter isn't a REAL critter unless you can track it, shoot it, skin it, stick its head on your living room wall and eat what's left of it.

That evening, the deer watched us for a while, then ambled into the woods behind the house. Then, after a while, he ambled back into the yard and walked around. Chowed down a bit more, and then left.

Since then, he and his friends have been by quite a few times for an amble and a snack, but we've not had the pleasure of being here to watch them. We just find deer tracks all over the yard when we get home.

In addition, Himself has been finding pheasant tracks leading to and from the chow.

Yum yum, I keep thinking to myself.... corn-fed pheasant....

We rarely see the pheasants either though.

Himself is getting annoyed - he has a vague, irritating feeling that there's a whole pile of critters laughing at him behind his back.

He's probably right. Just after he leaves every morning, the pheasants start calling to each other. Ten minutes after I leave, I imagine they're knee deep in breakfast goodness.

This morning, I'm home waiting on the cable guy and sure enough, twenty minutes after Himself drove off, there were two pheasant, a partridge and a mess of crows standing around the cracked corn pile eating like there's no tomorrow!!

No doubt Mr. Bambi will be along later.

And the squirrel of course.

Our squirrel is one cheeky little bastard, as only a squirrel can be.

He infuriates Himself, who didn't spend a pile of money on nice cracked corn just so some rat with a furry tail could eat it all!

He's out there right now, engaging in a kind of hoover-sweeper movement across the cracked corn...

He spends a good part of every day scurrying around just to annoy Himself, with his cheeks full of corn and he has the temerity to sit on his favourite tree stump basking in the winter sunshine while chewing, right in front of Himself.

Then he got into the building, well, I think he lives there.... anyways, he managed to open the bag of bird seed, separate out every sunflower seed and eat them all.

Himself nearly had a fit when that happened, as Mr Squirrel dropped all the other seeds on the floor while sorting through them.

I sense many spats between those two occuring over the next few months. Himself might think it's his building.... but we all know who can more easily climb up on the rafters to shit on whose head.

Right now, the cable guy is here reorganizing our tv package - we're going digital in a last ditch attempt to find something to watch - and he nearly fell off the pole in excitement as a beautiful cock pheasant strolled across the lawn in front of him.

Yeah.. he's coming over for his breakfast I expect, I said.

Time for me to go to work... let the chow times begin in earnest.