The right to reside in the tree

So Canada Post never bothered to get my passport signed for in the Immigration Office in New York. Consequently while they were 'looking for it urgently', it stayed there for a while, got its shiny new PRC stamp in it and found its way back to me today.

Via Canada Post of course.

I waved it at Himself (well the note from the postman saying 'while you were out...' anyways) and said, now, I'm in. Finally. Does that mean I get to live in the Tree House? Previous readers of this blog will know that the Tree House is where the big boys get to hang out. Girls don't often get to hang in the Tree House. Well this one doesn't anyways.

No, Himself said. You just get to live in the tree.

Himself was not being defeatist. It's just Himself has been dealing with an extended period of Queenie asking to be let into the Tree House at work and the boys saying no and Queenie coming home in tears, and claiming she's going home to Ireland so he'd better sort out the CD collection. Or wanting to move to South America, or Alberta, immediately!, before he's even had his supper, so he's pretty much defined his position on all things boreal-based and habitationally-inclined for the moment and is having none of the boys ever again.

Even if it does mean voting for the Greens.

Well, how the hell am I going to get into the Tree House now, I asked Him.

Cut the tree down, he suggested.

I love the fact that Himself is an anarchist by instinct.

Anyways, I feel a bit better now. It was pretty hard to say goodbye to the Queen Parents and the neighbours in the same week, and then to lose the boss, and then get a new boss without any pretext of a competition, and have Canada Post not give a shit about my passport and nobody care about the fact that I need a pension and to get my teeth seen to, and to see good friends not let into the Tree House either. Etc.

But you can't keep a good lumberjack down, can you.

Sometimes the weekends take longer than you have

Himself and Queenie were both sick today.

Terrible.

Couldn't go to work.

Either of us.

Happily we are all better now after a sleep and a lie around all day, so we'll be back at the coalface tomorrow.

Don't know what could have possibly caused it.

Honest.

Maybe the shrimp we had last night. I'm always a bit queasy when I have shrimp. But I thought barbequed would be okay.

Probably the shrimp.

Not the weekend at all.

Nosirree bob.

Nor the twelve weekends preceeding that catching up on us.

Some days, you just need a day to get your head and your body and your ability to face the hell that is being employed by the man (in Nova Scotia) all back into alignment after a bad week.

Call it a mental health day or whatever. Some days it is physically and mentally impossible to face work.

In exciting building news, Peter the Lover is back ensconced in the apartment upstairs with the new neighbour from hell, and NO I DID NOT read the letter - what kind of a wench do you all think I am?

But it must have been a good letter, as it is all back to normal upstairs.

Hurray.

Not.

However, apart from being woken at 2.30am last night by the NNFH moving the furniture or something around, it's been quiet so far.

We spent the weekend in Londonderry.

Londonderry, Nova Scotia.

With Himself's cousin and his family. Great time had by all as is normal on our annual trip to Londonderry.

Every time we go we say - we must do this more often. And then we never do of course.

Anyway, washed those work blues right out of my hair.

And then when we got back the Melwood gang had a bonfire with BBQ shrimp AND sparklers. All finished by eleven pm too.

So I'm all set to go back and face into another few weeks of the TreeHouse Gang.

Sigh.

The things we have to do to pay the rent.

Moral choices

Saturday morning....

We lay in bed and watched a spider abseiling up and down from the ceiling for about an hour then we sent it outside to play.

Himself told me the neighbours had a big fight last night, and when I went outside to put the spider out in the front yard, there was a note on my neighbour's door, saying 'Peter, there's a letter for you in my mailbox'.

What would you do?

No, what would you want to do? The correct behaviour is obvious, of course.

But still...

Apologies for the previous post, I think I left the middle bit of what I was trying to say out.

And now I can't remember what I was thinking about.

I must be getting old.

The first thing I do, when I log onto my blog in the morning

... is look to my links.

What do you do?

Are you even there anymore?

What are we all doing on multiple platforms?

Intuitively, I feel it is the best way.

But I feel myself drawn to the simplicity of a single interface.

Is that what all of this is about.

Jesus. If I had known that, I would have said the following:

Communism was a simple idea.

And so was Fascism.

And so is Christianity.

Intelligent Design has two words.

I'm not allowed into that kind of high-level focus group.

But as a member of the voting public; oh that's right, I don't have the right to vote. Even though I pay tax.

Must remember my lowly position in Canadian society.

After all that.

It's not about focus groups boys and girls.

A focus group is just a group of people who aren't us, sitting in a pretend pub.

That's what I miss most about home.

Conversation.

At least I have found it here now.

Canada Post ate my passport

So Canada Post has mislaid my passport.

I sent it off via their guaranteed XPress post to the Consulate in New York on 16th August, sat back and waited for the tracking device to kick in on the internet.

The joys of technology.

It left Canada on 18th August.

Since then, nothing.

So I called Canada Post. Complained. Nicely. Explained it was my passport. Explained that they needed to find it. They opened a file. The nice lady Karen, whose English wasn't so good called me and told me she would call me again when she had any information.

Five days passed and nothing. I called again. The nice lady Karen had gone on vacation until September 17th, so I re-entered the bowels of the call centre and got a nice boy who said the file had been closed because I hadn't called back.

He re-opened the file. Another nice non-English lady eventually called yesterday and said they can't find the passport and can I (yes, moi, me, mise) call the Consulate General in New York and see if they have it.

I pointed out that they are supposed to have the package signed for so they will know and that is why I pay them the big bucks.

They pointed out that I have to call.

It's my own fault. This is the second time they have done this to me.

Can I spend the night with...?

No you can't.

Multiply that by one hundred.

That was last night.

Yes, the teenager is back. For a few days anyway.

And she is out with her friends, as teenagers are. But she wants to spend the night.

There are two problems with this.

One, she never actually spends the night where she says she's going to. So we cannot calculate odds and say, yes, that place is fine. Because we don't know where she'll end up.

Two, there has been a spate of teenage violence in Halifax in the last two weeks. A sixteen year old stabbed four security guards at a teenage disco last weekend and nearly killed one of them. Three sixteen year old girls attacked an elderly lady with iron table legs (for no apparent reason) at 9.30pm on the Commons and were set upon by the crusties who hang out there who held them until the cops came.

Plus all the usual swarmings etc.

Now, I'm pretty sure Kitty wouldn't stab anyone, or attack someone's granny with a table leg, but she has been known to throw rocks at her own house (there must be some Irish in her somewhere), so no, she can't spend the night.

Then she got home at eleven pm on a Thursday and started with the 'It's so crap having an eleven pm curfew. Nobody else has an eleven pm curfew' rant.

By eighty eight times.

I listed all the other sixteen year olds who have one.

They are all losers, apparently.

I have to laugh. It's all exactly the same as the conversations I had with my mother. Except this time the Queen Mother was sitting listening to me having this conversation with a sixteen year old. There's even an annoying little brother butting in.

Karma.

This week has been one of massive shifts and changes and it's all a bit unsettling.

I am currently spying on the new neighbours. Mike and Kate and Connor and Mika and the dogs left on Wednesday for Ottawa and the new neighbours are a couple with a baby who are teachers and triathletes at the weekend. They have just arrived on their matching bicycles sans baby and are now walking around the house checking every inch of the exterior very carefully.

I'm sure they'll be lovely.

Himself is despondent. Not without cause.

Craig and Lyse whom we love and who were the best neighbours ever left a month ago and were replaced by a nurse who is on disability which means she sleeps all day and moves furniture around all night and has the LOUDEST LONGEST SEX in the world.

Every night.

When she and 'Peter your Lover' (that's how he signs the notes he leaves on her door) are having loud energetic sex and we are in the garden we have to be sure not to look up at her windows because she often likes to have sex against the window.

It was poor Himself who copped that one night when he was putting the garbage out.

It's actually quite annoying.

At least we know it's not her back is causing her disability.

What's most annoying though is that Peter the Lover usually arrives around seven, so she has long, loud showers in the hour preceding that, which is when Himself arrives home from work covered in diesel actually needing a shower and as our pipes are connected, there's never any water for him.

He got so pissed off yesterday he turned the hot water on and left it to run while she was abluting.

I have never ever seen him do something vindictive. But all his male buddies are abandoning him, see, so poor Himself is upset.

We need a house in its own gardens with no neighbours, and a dog for Himself to play with. That's what we need.

The baby has arrived in a battered old station wagon (the baby is not driving it obviously).

Well, a battered old station wagon is usually a good sign.

And the D key has fallen off my laptop. No D, no K, and two of the cursor keys are now gone.

I possibly may need a new keyboard.

I hate the end of the summer. The Queen Parents leave tonight and then it's Labour Day weekend and then it's back to nose on grindstone for another four months.

The good news is that we will be in Ireland from 22nd December - 5th January.

Well, good news for some anyways.

Bible talk time

It would appear I know my enemy better than I thought I did.

You know the Bible 92%!

Wow! You are awesome! You are a true Biblical scholar, not just a hearer but a personal reader! The books, the characters, the events, the verses - you know it all! You are fantastic!

Ultimate Bible Quiz
Create MySpace Quizzes

Sorry but

I was going to blog then I noticed my neighbours who are leaving forever on Wednesday are sitting in their garden, so people being more important than blogging always, sorry but.

Why are sleeplessness and marriage so terrifying?

So I didn't sleep much last night.

First of all, I had a strong coffee after my meal, which is not something I should do without a bucketful of wine to counteract it.

Second of all, I came home and blogged when I was tired which made me wired.

Then I read The Blair Years until my eyes hurt.

And then when I turned the light out I realised that there was roadworks being done somewhere, so that was it for me.

I got up at two and emailed Deveaux in Vietnam, figuring he'd be up.

What the fuck are you doing up at this hour, he responded.

WTF indeed.

It was after three the last time I remember looking at the clock.

Then Himself bounced in the door at 6.30am, got into bed and started talking about getting married.

Needless to say I was not in the mood to talk about anything, much less the single most terrifyinig concept in my world.

A world that includes grizzly bears and drowning.

I think I hurt Himself's feelings. Which I am sorry for, not just because I shouldn't do it, but because he just looks so damned sad when I do. Makes me feel like a nasty Queenie, which I don't mean to be. I'm just a sleepless Queenie, alone and adrift in a big bed for too many hours.

How ironic that I would spend a large part of my twenties feeling alone and adrift because the man I was with refused to contemplate the idea of marriage, and now that I am in my thirties and am with the only man in the world I could probably stay married to, the thought of it makes me feel alone and adrift.

I am probably over-analysing it as I normally do with the choices in life.

However, being a good Irish Catholic girl by instinct (if not by reputation), I think a bit of over-analysing is quite proper.

I was at a funeral recently at which they offered Communion and I didn't go up and told my (Jewish) friend that I wasn't because I was in a state of mortal sin. She just looked at me like I was an idiot and said 'do you follow the rules?'

To which I had no answer.

Some of them, I do.

And saying I do would be one of them.

Not that I would ever get married in a church or by a priest, but I would say I do and mean it.

Not that everyone doesn't I suppose.

But that's kinda scary isn't it.

It's like when I was trying to pass my driving test and I couldn't and there were people whom I knew for a fact to be utter morons and they could pass their test.

And eventually I got so impatient with my own inability to cross whatever psychological barrier needed to be passed to do it that I just went out and did it.

Hopefully, this will be the same.

It's not like I have to make my mind up anytime soon. Himself being wedded to the woman who WOULD BE WEDDED TO HIM FOREVER.

What happens when you run out of steam?

Hey, I justed turned 35 and I'm wondering whether I should be settling into nicely into painting the back garden. I am still addicted to painting the town red. I think that Dublin right now is a seriously tough place to have a relaxed lifestyle - it's so manic and expensive and it really suits a manic and expensive life. So what happens when I run out steam? Meath? Leitrim? Wicklow?

I have been thinking about this comment for some time. As Luke is the guardian of the spirit of the girl I used to be, am now and always will be, I feel obliged to tackle it.

What happens when you run out of steam?

The Queen Parents took me out for a very nice fish supper with a nice chardonnay to wash it down and then retired; Himself is working nights tonight, which involves playing cards with Greg and keeping the refinery going; absolutely no distractions for Queenie for the next couple of hours.

I have made a nice mix of Cat Power You are Free, Patrick Watson Close to Paradise, and The Magnetic Fields 69 Love Songs to keep me company.

The northwest wind that was sniffing around Halifax for a few days is gone and when we left the restaurant tonight it was muggy and warm again. I dropped the QPs home and then headed up Spring Garden to get some cash and a cab.

It was hoppin'.

For a Monday.

People walking out into the traffic in that 'the air is warm so I'm going to be crazy' way people have when they realise the summer is still on.

What happens when you run out of steam?

You sniff the air and it is intoxicating, but even though your body itches to head down towards your favourite bar, your brain propels you into the ATM unit and back to the cab rank because it is Monday night and you have a week ahead tomorrow.

I sat into the cab and clicked myself in and told cabbie where I wanted to go and sat back for the rush that is a cab drive down the Northwest Arm on a hot August night.

In the absence of going crazy on a Monday night when I have nowhere to be and money to spend, I love summer taxi rides with the window open. I love being propelled forward through the night by a stranger who may or may not talk to you about something interesting or crazy or just banal.

Sometimes the idea is better than the reality, isn't it.

We hit a light pretty much straight away. It was a long one. I started to notice a weird smell in the cab. Then I noticed that cabbie's hair was a bit 'messy'.

Also, he was gnawing his finger knuckles and making a strange bronchial sucking sound.

When I say gnawing, I mean he had three of them in his mouth and when I say bronchial I mean Denis Hopper in the rape scene in Blue Velvet.

The smell was getting worse.

There was no window opening device in the back of the cab.

We hit road works on Bell St. and cabbie was in the wrong lane. It was closed for repairs. He peered through his enormously thick lenses into the car in the next lane. He was trying to see if the girl in the car would let him into the lane I think, but she took one look at whatever his look said to her and REACTED.

Then she looked at me.

I shrugged.

Which is hard to do when you've stopped breathing because of the smell in the cab.

She mouthed something at me.... don't know what it was.

Probably something along the lines of 'just shout if you need help'.

It was only a cab ride.

I've done worse things on a Monday.

Long pause while nothing happened because the guy working the stop-go sign was having a spliff break or something.

Cabbie did a u-ie in the middle of the road and we sped off down the other route.

We passed the church on North St.

The sign which I always read when I pass this church said 'I came to bring fire to the world and how I wish it were already kindled' (Luke 12:49).

Sometimes you pass that church and it says something really religious. And sometimes you pass it and it says what you've been thinking all day.

As we drove past I craned my neck to see if it was repeated on the other side of the sign, as I hadn't caught the verse number.

'Golf tournament, for details call 4** 2***'

Is that what happens when you run out of steam?

Eventually I got the drive down the NorthWest Arm but the smell meant the rush was not the rush I intended.

Through the Rotary. Which is a Cretan labryinth of red and black traffic bollards at the moment. Cabbie drove ve-ry slowly round due to the lack of eyesight.

Up the hill and he took his sweet time about getting me my change.

Finally I got out of the smell and got my evening back.

WHY ARE HALIFAX CABS SO EFFING SMELLY? IT'S EFFING EMBARRASSING.

So anyways, what happens when you run out of steam?

I am reading Alastair Campbell's diaries at the moment. I am obsessed with them. They are the most accurate description of working for a politician I have ever read and I have read them all.

A former colleague recently pointed out to me that the problem with where I work is that everyone there acts like they are five years old all the time. And I took that incredibly accurate observation on board and resolved to grow up and be twelve, at least.

On a good day anyway.

And after having done that for a month with all the self-control that that entailed, I start reading this book and realise that the architects of New Labour all acted like they were five.

All the time.

The whole book is peppered with Mandelson having a hissy fit about nobody listening to him. And Gordon Brown having a sulk because no one listens to him. And Robin Cook plotting against everyone because he is the smartest person in the universe and yet nobody listens to him. And Prescott trying to beat up people because they won't listen to him. And Clare Shortt fucking everything up for everyone on the Channel 4 news, because she is the conscience of the party and nobody listens to her.

And Harriet Harman and Mo Mowlam are just appalling. All the time.

And Cherie having a tantrum because Alastair sees more of Tony than she does.

And Alastair having a fit because Tony didn't care enough about his ulcerative colitis.

And Tony Blair in the middle of it all sitting on a bed in a chateau somewhere playing air guitar with his underpants on his head saying, for fuck's sake, we're trying to be the government here, can we all stop acting like we're five

Change a few names and we have every political party I have ever worked for.

It sounds like they had a lot of laughs at their own expense. Which is the same for every political party I have ever worked for. Which is why I still do it even though I feel like I have run out of ideas most of the time.

Himself just called and said one of the boilers is not working, so he has run out of steam for sure tonight.

I don't think I ever ran out of steam. I don't think that was what happened.

Honestly.

One day I had a life that involved dinners with ambassadors and weekends in draughty cottages in the west of Ireland with appallingly arrogant Guardian journalists and race meetings with dodgy millionaires and ladies' room chats about other people with drunk female politicians and parties in all the best places and knowing whose intellect was propped up with cocaine and whose was propped up by their wife and what Nobel Laureate to avoid because he was a fucking sexual deviant and which one was the party bore.

And the next day that life was over.

And I never missed that life.

Not for a minute.

Because apart from the fact that all experiences pall after a while, I had moved on and I had a life that involved being on my own and being in total control of what I did and I never had to watch my words or spend an eternity at some boring PR witch's theatre supper because some better guest had dropped out at the last minute and I got to hang out with the best kind of rock band - the professional touring band - which involved nights in the Camden Palace snooker hall and too many pints and then a walk in the Wicklow mountains in the rain with my favourite people in the world.

And then I had a moment of utter silence in the most expensive shoe box I had ever bought and realised that a life without the background noise of the real universe is not a life and decided that I should try to find that soundtrack and live in it.

And sometimes I miss that life.

But I remember every single second of it and when I get achey for it I just tell Himself stories about it and he appreciates hearing about the me that was me before the me that is me now.

And so do I.

And now I have a life that quite improbably and remarkably involves a seamless shift between the ridiculously pompous work of trying to figure out what is the best option for the society I live in and putting it out there safe in the knowledge that when I am wrong someone smarter than me will spot that and call me and tell me to cop the fuck on...

... and the times when I just sit in what's left of the wilderness from which that society was carved and listen to a trio of woodpeckers bore into a spruce bole.

And a whole bunch of creative, ridiculous five year olds to hang out with during the week.

And I don't have to feel guilty about how I spend my money, or my time, or my carbon, or my emotions.

It's not that I ran out of steam.

I just ran out of reasons not to live my life the way I am supposed to this time round.

So I suppose if you are living a life that you choose and it is the life you are meant to be living then you will never run out of steam.

Did you come to bring fire to the world, Luke?

Yes. Definitely.

Are you wishing it was already kindled?

If you are not then you are in the right place.

If you are then know that it is, somewhere and go find it.

And if you're not sure, then come to Bear Cove next August where we'll be kindling a fire.

Like the one in the photo. That's last year's fire I think.

Maybe some whales will come in to feed when the moon is overhead.

We might see a coyote on his nightly run.

We could even hear a shark take a seal.

I have to warn you though, it takes a long time for a seal to die from a shark bite.

And it's very bronchial.

In a Dennis Hopper kind of way.

Vikings apologise.... finally

From the Guardian:

More than 1,200 years ago hordes of bloodthirsty Viking raiders descended on Ireland, pillaging monasteries and massacring the inhabitants. Yesterday, one of their more mild-mannered descendants stepped ashore to apologise.

The Danish culture minister, Brian Mikkelson, who was in Dublin to participate in celebrations marking the arrival of a replica Norse longboat, apologised for the invasion and destruction inflicted. "In Denmark we are certainly proud of this ship, but we are not proud of the damages to the people of Ireland that followed in the footsteps of the Vikings," Mr Mikkelson declared in his welcoming speech delivered on the dockside at the river Liffey. "But the warmth and friendliness with which you greet us today and the Viking ship show us that, luckily, it has all been forgiven."

Of course, when I demanded an apology from the National Museum in Copenhagen, circa 1998 -99 I think, for neglecting to mention the rape and pillage their people had inflicted on mine during the Viking raids, they just laughed at me and said that history was written by the winners.

The section of the museum that dealt with that time was a total whitewash. Along the lines of 'during this period in history, the Danes farmed and built ships to travel to other lands'. Got me right riled up at the time.

Glad to see they've seen sense at last.

Wonder whether they will change the museum exhibit now?

Shelbird Lake - the Inside Passage of Nova Scotia

A big regret was that the Monkeys and us didn't get to go camping. We were going to head down to Bear Falls and I went so far as to book a spot, but it poured rain that weekend, so we did the city break thing of coffee shops and book shops and spent time in Doulls buying second hand books, and then spent more time sipping cappucino in the PaperChase. Which was cool because they had the front of the shop down (it's all glass) and there was an almighty thunder and lightening storm which we got to watch from a sofa.

As usual in Doulls, I went in with nothing particularly in mind and got some great books just by wandering around a bit:

Jonathan Raban's Coasting, and his Passage to Juneau.
Colin Thubron's Behind the Wall (I have nearly all of his work now).
Wayne Johnston's The Custodian of Paradise (I have everything of his now).
and Mrs. Monkey bought me Ahab's Wife.

Added to that, I got Vikram Chandra's Sacred Games, and Orhan Pamuk's Snow for my birthday.

Also, I got an Amazon voucher which I used to buy Michael Chabon's The Yiddish Policeman's Union, as well as some books on Costa Rica which I am going to use to whet my appetite and try to get myself organised to go there sometime.

And I also bought Michael Ondjaate's Desiridata.

So the last four weeks have been mainly about trying to get all these books read.

I got through Sacred Games in about ten days, despite its size. Great book. Great great great. A most wonderful description of Mumbai. I spent most of the time I was reading dreaming about Indian food, to the extent that I broke off one day and cooked a biryani because I wanted one so badly. Well, I tried to cook and read at the same time, so it wasn't the best biryani in the world, and then I didn't have any yoghurt so I had to put the book DOWN and drive to the supermarket to get the yoghurt. And then because I had growled at Himself for being in the same world that did that to me and I had to leave the book down while we ate and be nice to him, the break actually kept me from the book for an entire hour, the biryani was probably a mistake.

You always know when you have a great book because the only time you stop to eat is if you can prepare the food while reading the book. That's why I always have cheese and crackers in the house.

Nevertheless, I got through the next part of the book with a lovely full tummy and the slight taste of yoghurt and cumin in the back of my throat so it was nearly as good as being in India.

Great characterisation, and a great description of the politics that nearly tore Mumbai apart in the nineties, and which will probably nearly do so again sometime soon.

Very strange ending though. The book ends. And then there's this totally random epilogue, which creates a sense of 'oh yeah, how interesting'. But I felt the ending was not expanded enough and the epilogue was a bit of a rush job on a sub-plot that the author insisted be left in.

It would be interesting to know whether his editor agreed with him.

After that I tackled Raban.

Coasting first.

He took off on a converted fishing boat to coast around the UK coastline while Thatcher broke the miners and declared war on Argentina over the Falklands.

Coasting was pretty easy. It's only a small thin volume, so I started using the lovely yellow organic cotton bag that my friend Barbara sent me for my birthday and just took it out every time I had a minute.

In fact, the bag is now my handbag of choice because I can fit my book and my camera and my coffee mug and all the rest of my crap in it and I am SET for the summer.

I will cry when I wear a hole in the bottom of it, as I will do because I wreck every bag I love through overuse.

Think small girl trailing dirty one-armed teddy bear through mud, fast-forwarded thirty years.

So the attempt to read the book in between the chaos that is my summer went off pretty well and I still managed to get enough time to sit around and think about Raban's views on life, love and the importance of being in touch with the ocean. Which is an important part of life.

If you are interested in politics, or English people, or class structures, or the sea, and you ever find a copy of this book buy it and bring it home and treasure it.

I was so energised by Raban's writing that I decided to head straight into Passage to Juneau. I reckoned that I would be sorted for this one, even though it's a lot longer than Coasting, because Himself and I were having OUR WEEKEND.

It had been a long time in the coming. Since January, we have been raising a teenager. Then when she went home for the summer, we have hosted innumerable barbeques, backyard parties, camping trips, evenings in, evenings out, worked pretty solidly and kept the cogs of life going.

We sat looking at each other one evening over the dinner table and said:

HOW ABOUT WE SPEND THE WEEKEND TOGETHER, DUDE?

Enter Syd.

I work with Syd.

We did a two day work trip up the Eastern Shore a few weeks back and on the way home I told Syd that Himself and I love to camp.

Syd had a camp.

Way back in the woods.

Would we like to stay there sometime.

Would we what!

I went home and told Himself.

Himself didn't talk about anything else for the ten days it took to get three days off and the key from Syd.

We drove ninety minutes up the Eastern Shore and inland to Mooseland.

Yes, boys and girls, there is a place in Nova Scotia called Mooseland.

Syd got out his four wheeler and we drove down a back road for a couple of miles and met him and his wife Nancy at a crossroads.

Yes, boys and girls, I work with a Syd who is married to a Nancy.

Then we drove down an old logging road for forty kilometres.

Poor Albert is scratched to death.

Then we hiked in another mile.

And then we were at Shelbird Lake. At the edge of the Grand Tangier Great Lake Wilderness.

Syd and Nancy showed us the cabin and helped us unpack and then they left.

Me. Himself. A cabin with no electricity. A lake. The fog rolling in. A thunderstorm in the distance.

I was out on the rocks by the lake calling loons before you could say Canada's national bird.

After about four minutes one started calling me back.

Another thirty minutes later, Mr and Mrs Loon came to visit me.

Oh joy...... I just love loons.

Himself was on the other rock fishing.

Before we arrived, we had struck a deal. I would read. He would fish. When it was too dark to do either we would sit in the night air and watch the stars come out one by one. When it was too damp to do that we would sit in the cabin and talk in the candlelight. When it was too late to do that we would sleep in the FANTABULOUS new double sleeping bag that the Monkeys donated to the Himself and Queenie camping equipment fund.

Next day we struck off on a hike and got EATEN by horseflies. After that we confined ourselves to the lake. We had a little rowboat and we paddled around the entire circumferance of the lake, explored every nook and cranny, cast for trout in every deep pool, punted up every brook that led to the Great Tangier Lake that loomed on the far side of the trees.

A very dangerous lake for wind apparently. We stuck to Shelbird.

The first day was foggy and mysterious and we couldn't see past the trees on the side of the lake. But it was very warm so we didn't care. Raban was travelling up the Inside Passage from Seattle and telling me about Captain Vancouver's trip to map it for the English Crown. He had a miserable time, old Vancouver, but Raban's empathy overrode the nasty character he seemed to be. I felt sorry for him, hemmed in on all sides by trees and fog and water. Himself and I talk constantly about what it must be like to have been the first white man to explore Canada. I suppose our little trips into the woods are an attempt to recapture that feeling somewhat.

I spent the day in a delicious fug of Canadian wilderness fear disorder.

Unfortunately, the bear I was hoping for (they are still roaming the Tangier) didn't turn up.

Jonathan Raban saw lots of them of course. I think he is as scared of them as I am.

On the second day the sun blazed and we spent most of the day in the boat. Two men passed by on the far side of the lake in a kayak. Four ducks came and swam in our brook for a while. A family of woodpeckers took up residence in a tree and bored it for about an hour.

Busy day.

We went skinny dipping in the lake and fished some more and I travelled up the Inside Passage from Seattle to Juneau with Jonathan Raban as he tried to make sense of his life. At night watching the stars we tried to do the same.

Same stars.

By the last day Himself had, understandably seeing as it was thirty degrees and August, not caught a trout. Jonathan Raban had lost his father to cancer and been dumped most heartlessly in Juneau by his wife.

I didn't know who I felt worse for.

I do know that despite the fact that I was eaten alive by horseflies on day one, gave myself a black eye on the bunkbed frame on night two and hauled a hundredweight of gear in and out a narrow woodland path, I wouldn't have missed this weekend for the world.

Pictures under the heading.

When we got home I headed straight into Thubron's Behind the Wall, which is a portrait of China circa 1988 I think. It was very interesting too, a very deep meditation on the why of the Chinese personality's ability to take part in the Cultural Revolution.

And I just finished Pamuk's Snow.

I am going to have to read it again. I have a feeling it is the Ulysses of Turkish literature. Far too much in it for me to absorb in one reading. Especially the way I devour books.

He definitely deserved his Nobel Prize.

More about that anon. Hands are tired now.

Washer toss - the sport of Queens. And Monkeys.

Well, it's been a very full four weeks.


Firstly, Mr. and Mrs. Monkey were here. That involved a lot of shopping for food and wine and obscure Canadian beers; preparation and consumption of aforementioned food, wine and obscure Canadian beers, followed by work, repeat as necessary.

Gone are the days when the Monkeys and I would tear the town apart, put it back together and paint it red in search of a good time. We have settled nicely into painting the back garden a nice orange firelight glow.

Seen through the nice wine glass.

But it was great to see them. It's great to see them particularly, but it's also great to spend time with people who know you since forever and just get you, so you don't have to work out whether their facial expressions mean you have overstepped some invisible Canadian social boundary.

Which are legion.

If you overstep the boundary with people who know you forever, they just tell you to fuck off. In a nice way of course.


And of course it was even better because Mrs. Monkey and I proved yet again the superiority of the female species by whupping male ass in the washer toss stakes.

Washer toss is the best game.





The two boxes you see in the picture above are placed approximately twenty feet apart. Two teams of two people each play, a member of each team behind each box. You take turns to throw washers into the box. Within a stick's length of the box is one point; in the box is two points; in the white tube (which is inside the box) is three points. First team to twenty one wins.


Easy peasy.


Even if you've had a few beers. It's all about the heft of the washer in your hand as you let it fly in the air.


My weren't Himself and Mr. Monkey flailing around in a sea of missed opportunity and overshot throwing attempts.


Ha!


We had to give up after a while, such was the sulking that was going on. And when we let them win a game - the overbearing sense of superiority (quickly diminished by a swift kicking in the following two games) was pretty unpalatable.


I fear, although our menfolk are excellent in the areas of providing, caring, loving and doing their share of the housework, they show their true colours in the area of washer toss.


We didn't let it spoil our evenings though.


Me and Mrs. Monkey didn't, I mean.


The Queen Parents are coming for a two week stay on Saturday; I wonder how the Queen Dad will take his beating at washer toss.

The things you do for your friends' kids' college fund...

So I had heard that medical tourism was the up and coming thing and then my mate Caelen started his own company in the sector.

So it must be true.

Caelen has had a successful surf of the internet for a number of years now, and like all success, it is borne out of hard work.

So he asked for a mention, as it will help with his internet ratings.

The more money Caelen has, the more money Denali and Meeda have in their college fund, so I am happy to oblige.

My only question is: why are there no Venezuelan breast implant clinics on the site? They are recognised to be the best in the world and thousands of Americans (continental rather than stateside) travel there to have their boobs done every year.

A trip to the beach in Venezuela is a very interesting experience, if you are interested in implants of any kind.

And a trip to Reva Health Network is also a very interesting experience - check it out for all your cosmetic and other medical needs. If you don't live in Canada where we have FREE HEALTH CARE FOR EVERYONE.

Thanks to the NDP.

Memories are funny things, but not as funny as self-help books

The Monkeys are here of course. By that I mean accentmonkey and her husband, Mr. Monkey. So there's been a lot of sitting around in the sunshine (after work for me) having a beer and shooting the breeze about everyone and everything going on in Ireland.

Nostalgia rules.

And then out of the blue yesterday, a friend of mine from college turns up on Facebook. We figured it out last night; I hadn't seen her for over six years.

She hasn't changed ONE LITTLE BIT.

She has a converted ambulance called Bessie that she camps in.

Of course she does. I expect nothing less than a converted ambulance.

Except maybe a converted fire truck.

I'm sure that's on the To Do List.

Tor always had the best To Do lists.

I wonder whether Albert the Stationwagon and Bessie the Converted Ambulance would get on?

Probably, their owners always did.

Anyways, it brought back a lot of memories of an apartment we shared on the North Circular Rd in Dublin way back in 1989/ 90.

The other hippie chick in my life, little sister, sent me a book for my birthday. A self-help book. I don't usually read them, but as it was a gift I did. It's called The Monk who sold his Ferrari, by Robin Sharma.

I am now very conflicted about said book.

There were a lot of very inspiring quotes in the book. None of which were written by Mr. Sharma, of course. The bits he wrote were very badly written. The premise of the book is that

1. We are all walking around with an illusion of the world created by the fact that we had to conform to our parents (and thereby other people) in order to feel loved.

2. That blindness prevents us from accessing our true selves, and consequently we all hurt and do nasty things to each other.

3. When we strip away the illusion and see the world as it really is, and re-invent our innocent pure selves, the Universe will reward us with abundance.

4. This takes a lot of effort: meditation, yoga, reading, journalling, massage, diet, walks in the countryside will all help to keep us healthy and work through the anger. Going to seminars is helpful too. (I assume Mr. Sharma does seminars).

5. Most people can't do this, but those who can live 'the biggest life possible'.

Mr. Sharma was a little sketchy on the details of the biggest life possible, but it involved appreciating nature and the people in your life. And service to mankind.

My problems with these books is that the people who are the main characters are always highly successful businessmen who have a crisis of health which leads to a crisis of conscience, and then realise (with the help of a shaven-headed guru who drives a Ferrari that they don't own) that if they are nicer people, they will get to keep their money and have a shiny soul as well.

I would like to read a book about a woman who works in a call centre in Windsor, for example, who goes home each evening to three kids, a useless husband and a mother with Alzheimer's, who gets totally fed up and leaves. When she opens her heart to the universe, she ends up being the next Martha Stewart (in income terms) and finds peace sailing the world in a flashy yacht that she doesn't own.

But it never works like that in those books.

I should write the anti-self-help book.

It would help me work through the anger.

Anyways, I opened my heart to the universe last night and the universe responded by dumping two inches of rain on my yard this morning, and made me get up at 5.30am to drive Himself to work so I could have Albert for the day.

I didn't even get to admire the sunrise, as it was too foggy.

Container ship with George's Island and tall ship in the background, Halifax Harbour

It's all about perspective, isn't it.

Having read some Campbell diary extracts...

... I have a whole new respect for my Taoiseach.

Poison 'em all, indeed.

Hahahahahaahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!

I'd love to have seen Wally Kirwan's face when he said that.

I am really looking forward to reading this book when it wends it way over here.

Teenagers.... sigh...at least I've stopped throwing up

I appear to have stopped throwing up. Our neighbour came in today and said the throwing up was probably due to the passing on of a nasty little virus from his kids.

Bloody kids.

Not those ones particularly. They're lovely kids.

Just kids in general.

Kitty called looking for money today to go on a shopping trip to St. John, and when we wouldn't give her enough (ie more than $150 which we scraped together at a day's notice) she swore at her father. Then she called back and when I took a strip off her for being an ungrateful little hussy, she swore at me.

So we reduced the amount we are giving her by fifty dollars. To teach her a lesson about ingratitudinal swearing.

Then her mother called to say that we were a pair of selfish layabouts and so she was going to go after alimony (from me, apparently, I don't ever remember having a lesbian marriage with a psychopath, but I've done stranger things when I'm drunk so maybe) and swore at Himself a lot about how we were living high on the hog (whatever way you say that when you're a psychotic Quebecoise), and how that was all going to end soon.

I told Himself I had that possibility checked out by the greatest legal minds in Nova Scotia as soon as I realised he was divorcing a psychopath and it was okay, my millions are safe from her.

Pennies can be millions too, boys and girls, it's all about perspective.

So now we are both sitting here relieved we have stopped throwing up finally (no small measure for Himself who had to not throw up into his oxygen mask at work all day) but kinda sad that there's all this swearing going on about money.

Honey catches flies better than vinegar.

I very much hope that Kitty will learn that one of the days, when she's a little more mature. Of course, I'm one to talk - I wrote a lofty, patronising message on her Facebook wall for all her relations and friends to see, and deleted her as a friend so she can't swear at me online - so I don't think maturity is the issue.

It's all about perspective. My parents went short to give me things and so when Kitty was here, I did the same and we went short to give her things, and because her mother would never dream of doing that, the fact that she had clothes and shoes and bags and books and money in her pocket when she got home meant that I must be rich.

Anyways, we have transferred the child benefit back to her mother's name, as Kitty seems to have settled down a bit too well at home, so hopefully the federal machinary will creak into action at some point and she will calm down and stop forcing her daughter to extort money out of me.

What hurt the most was Kitty telling me that she didn't have to take any (of my) crap from someone that wasn't even in her family.

I suppose that's why she forgot my birthday last week.

It doesn't hurt because it's hurtful - well, forgetting my birthday was actually kinda hurtful. That's the downside of Facebook - if you forget you just don't care, do you!! But she's just a teenager, and her hormones are in control.

It hurts because it reminds me of all the hurtful things I said to my mother when I was sixteen.

At least I get to apologise nowadays though. Two weeks of it in August, as the Queen Parents make their second royal visit to Nova Scotia.

Hooray!

A year in review

I should do this now, because I will be busy later.

But I don't really want to do it.

Himself will be up in a bit, though, and then it will be all go, all of the time until tomorrow.

2006 - 07 - What have I achieved?

I can't even remember most of it, what happened? Let's see...

I moved house and found this place, which is great and which we love.

I sold some of my photo cards, that was pretty cool. Making money from something creative is very cool. I will do more of that next year.

I went to Ireland. That was pretty cool too. I will do that again soon of course.

I parented someone for a number of months. That was not cool. That was difficult. My mothering style is a sarcastic version of my mother's. Which would have probably worked if I was mothering me, but I was dealing with a whole different kettle of fish.

I also learned that there is nothing wrong with saying that X, Y or Z is a pointless piece of marketing-driven shit and that the child involved should walk away from it now. Right now. The ensuing absence of said piece of marketing-driven shit is a learning experience for them, not a privation. Parents need to re-assert themselves against the forces of advertising. Starting by ignoring it themselves a bit.

I read a lot of books. Much more manageable, books. Pop em on a shelf until you need 'em and then pop 'em back when you're finished with them.

I sold books for the first time so we could buy dinner, and a hole did not appear in my universe.

I managed not to blow my SSIA money on anything. (Did anyone else notice that piece in the IT about how everyone paid off their credit cards with their SSIA money, cutting debt by EU6 billion or something in one month - scary!!)

Yet.

I bought Albert the Stationwagon, and sold my car in Ireland.

I continued to pay some of my mortgage in Ireland as well as my rent here, on a pitiful salary. I have got to sort this out. This year's challenge.

I moved in with someone and it worked despite the slam dunk of a teenager right from the start, and we still get on. That's pretty cool.

I completed my immigration process and am now waiting for a decision.

I bought a new camera and took lots of nice photos.

I learned how to bind books.

I learned how to use a barbeque.

I planted a vegetable garden.

I lost my beloved fish and got the phish.

I learned whatever effing lesson about money Saturn is trying to teach me and am now anxiously waiting for 2nd September when he goes away for a bit.

I managed to keep this blog going.

I bought a bed.

I furnished an apartment for less then $1,000.

I guess I did okay.

I wonder what next year will bring?

It's not how old you are, it's how you are old

So my Google interface told me today anyway.


How apt, it being my birthday weekend.

I have a love hate relationship with my birthday.

I hate my birthday. But it is my birthday. So I get all sniffy if people don't mark it. But I get all sniffy if people do mark it because I find it embarrassing to be the centre of attention.

I am a pain in the ass about it, basically. Needy-needy in all the bad ways about it.

Who cares, it's MY birthday.

Speaking of, I am having a barbeque this afternoon to mark my birthday by feeding other people (that I can handle, being a Cancerian), and two guests have already emailed me this week to say, hewm...naaahhh... don't know if I can be arsed, maybe I'll come, type out all the instructions again for me in case I'm REALLY bored and decide to turn up.

The fuck I will.

Listen, petaleen (as Nabla says when she's mad with me), if you don't care about me enough to pretend that you are very busy doing some dreadful domestic chore, so you are terribly sad that you're maybe going to miss my birthday, then you have no business coming to my home to eat my food if there's nothing better on offer.

I am completely astounded at the rudeness of it.

Not the not turning up part, I've been doing that myself for decades.

The openly, cheerfully, candidly admitting they can't be arsed part.

What, do they think I am stupid? Do they think I have no feelings?

Of course they are younger than me, so that's probably why they think it's okay.

Us oldarses know better....

Thirty seven.

God how boring that sounds.

Some Potery for Ur Edification

I just took a notion to read this today. It reminds me of a lot of things... reasons why I came to Canada mostly...

The Fisherman
By WB Yeats

ALTHOUGH I can see him still.
The freckled man who goes
To a grey place on a hill
In grey Connemara clothes
At dawn to cast his flies,
It's long since I began
To call up to the eyes
This wise and simple man.

All day I'd looked in the face
What I had hoped 'twould be
To write for my own race
And the reality;
The living men that I hate,
The dead man that I loved,
The craven man in his seat,
The insolent unreproved,
And no knave brought to book
Who has won a drunken cheer,
The witty man and his joke
Aimed at the commonest ear,
The clever man who cries
The catch-cries of the clown,
The beating down of the wise
And great Art beaten down.

Maybe a twelvemonth since
Suddenly I began,
In scorn of this audience,
Imagining a man,
And his sun-freckled face,
And grey Connemara cloth,
Climbing up to a place
Where stone is dark under froth,
And the down-turn of his wrist
When the flies drop in the stream;
A man who does not exist,
A man who is but a dream;
And cried, 'Before I am old
I shall have written him one
poem maybe as cold
And passionate as the dawn.

It's not raining in Nova Scotia

Happy Canada Day, from the Bear Falls' frog

Camping Gear List

For Accent Monkey - hope they can fit it all on the plane!!!
(I jest, we will provide all except sleeping bags)

Accommodation Gear

Tent x 2
Sleeping bags x 2
Air mattress and blanket
Comforter and blanket
Pillows (Lorraine’s camping pillow)
Night lamp
Head Torches x 2
Tent lights
Wind up radio
Hammock and rope
4 x camping chairs

Cooking Gear

Stove and propane tank
Burner and propane tank
Kettle and coffee pot
BBQ tool bag

Cooking bag – frying pan, saucepans, 5 x plates, 5 x glasses, 5 x cups, 5 x cutlery, chopping board, sharp knife, corkscrew, can opener, wine cork,

Condiments cooler - salt, pepper, olive oil, BBQ sauce, tomato sauce, pickle, mayonnaise, mustard, margarine, jam/ honey, soy sauce, hot sauce

Wash up bowl - w-up liquid, kitchen towel, recycle, garbage bags

Washing bucket - soap, shampoo, shaving foam and razor, toothpaste and brushes

Food Cooler – burgers, hot dogs, sausages, bacon, eggs, mushrooms, bread, apples, oranges, grapes, cheese slices, ham slices, burger buns, hot dog buns, tomatoes, lettuce, onions, tinned beans, tinned soup, tinned fruit, box of rice, box of cereal, coffee, teabags, sugar, granola bars, peanuts, chips, hummus/ dips and pita wraps

Drinks Cooler– 4L water bag, beer, wine, pop, milk, juice packs (lots of)

Miscellaneous Gear

Swimsuits, life-jackets, towels
Basketball/ rings game/ pack of cards
Sweaters and long pants for evening
Off/ anti-mossie spray, Sunscreen
Hiking boots/ socks, Wind-breaker
Backpacks, Water bottles, thermos’

First Aid pack

band-aids, topical cream, needle (for splinters), ibuprofen, motilium, gauze, bandages, anti-histamine, cotton buds, cotton pads, sterile spray, insect relief, tweezers, scissors, electrolytes, sunburn cream, Optrex

Garden's all planted as well

My, don't you get a lot done when there's no teenager in the house needing to be fed and clothed and entertained and nagged and lectured. The day Kitty left for a trip down home Himself and I wandered aimlessly around the apartment for hours.

Couldn't figure out why.

Turned out nothing needed to be put away, no laundry needed to be done, no meals needed to be prepared, no shopping needed to be undertaken, no life lessons needed to be taught.

Nothing.

It took me one day to find stuff to do. There being a bit of a backlog.

Saturday was a bit of a washout what with it pouring rain all friggin' day. But at least we had the house warming/ shivering. As a result of the rain, however, most of the people left the housewarming early and it was up to us to keep the host company while he got drunk and turned his shed stereo up to eleven to welcome himself to the neighbourhood. Then we walked home. Down the dark bendy road (you'd swear we lived in the country, but we live in Armdale, which is very shady and treelined) past the house where the Red Chair Man lives.

Four tipsy adults and the urban myth of the Red Chair Man = silly time had by all.

Red Chair Man sits in a red chair in his yard all day smoking cigarettes and drinking tea. The chair is placed in the centre of his driveway which is a little odd. However, what is worrysome is the bag hanging from the tree on his lawn. The bag is an oblong, grey sac, that bulges.

It could be an alien breeding pod.

It could contain the skulls of his victims (Canada is currently living through the horrific trial of Willie Pickton, accused serial killer of down and out women in Vancouver, so the mind jumps to these conclusions currently).

It could be full of rotten fruit.

It could be his dirty laundry.

Whatever it is, what is it doing in the tree?

Lyse announced herself petrified of Red Chair Man and the contents of his bag. Lyse doesn't drink, I'd like to point out by the way.

Himself and Craig decided to open the bag and see for themselves.

It being one am and Saturday to boot.

Himself and Craig like to drink of course.

Off they 'tiptoed' across RCM's lawn. They neglected to notice that RCM was standing in his front room looking at them, so when he turned on his outside light to get a closer look at the intruders, they fell over themselves in shock and lay rabbit-in-headlights for a bit, trying to decide whether they'd make it to the bag before he murdered.

That's what they told me anyway. After they ran down the hill and round the corner.

Lyse and I were bent into each other laughing under the trees on the other side of the road.

Next day, I had to walk up the hill BY MYSELF to collect the car. Red Chair Man was sitting in the red chair in his driveway, smoking a cigarette and drinking a cup of tea. Rather than the scary looking older man I was imagining, he's about Himself's age, with nothing going on apart from a mullet. A slightly seedy looking blonde was sunbathing on the lawn UNDER THE OBLONG BAG.

They both looked at me as I scurried by.

I don't know what to think.

They looked normal enough.

It's the three word name that gives it away of course. Red. Chair. Man.

Anyways, when I got to Lyse's house, she had a load of seeds for me, so instead of having to go to the garden centre we got straight to it, planted our garden finally and hopefully, the horse manure I put in a month ago will do the trick.

We have:

Lettuce
Peas
Beans
Radishes
Tomatoes
Chives
Parsnips
Beets
Squash, summer and winter
Sage
Oregano
Thyme
Basil
Echinecea
Dill

and Sunflowers and Nasturtiums.

Just gotta get some carrots and some garlic and we're set.

Pat the phish, the neon paparazzi, Pee and Dee

In all the chaos that is my life these days I forgot to tell you all that I finally replaced Alexa and Peter, my goldfish, who slipped away one after t'other a few months back, leaving me bereft of animal company.

Well, replaced is a strong word. They are irreplaceable.

I finally got my act together one day and bought some fish.

A scarlet ghourami, two hatchet fish, and four neon tetras.

Put them in the tank. Watched them for a bit.

No personality emerged, so I ignored them, apart from feeding them the required amounts.

Very boring. No names jumped out at me or anything.

In fact, they just made me miss Alexa and Peter more. (I know, it's sad, but they had personality and liked music and all kinds of things. Plus I didn't know many people then).

Anyways, after a couple of weeks I was bored one night, so I watched them for a bit.

I don't like the ghourami. He's a big reddish fish with a pot belly and long whiskers dangling down either side of his pout. He swims around the bowl like he owns it. In fact, he reminds me of Pat Rabbitte a bit in his gait. (Except I like Pat).

And he was bullying the tetras. The four of them were huddled together in a corner of the bowl quivering as he sailed around imperiously.

I decided to call them the meeja.

So anyways, time passed and suddenly we were at the housewarming for our neighbours who just bought a house up the road. Which took place last Saturday in the pouring rain, so it wasn't really a warming, more a shivering under the gazebo on the patio avoiding the clumps of water falling from the sky.

Or an Irish Barbeque, as we call it at home.

Happily though, I ended up sitting beside a molecular biologist from Carolina called Amy, who had dressed for the Carolinas in June, not the Maritimes in June, but who was nonetheless interested in my fish dilemma. 'Buy another ghourami', she advised me, 'one about the same size'.

I considered that for a moment, and was trying to think of how I'd explain about how there was only one Pat Rabbitte the phish really and that wouldn't work because he'd take lumps out of another similar fish, when she sensed my hesitation and said I could buy a rake more tetras, so they'd have safety in numbers.

So now the meeja have turned into the paparazzi, and Pat Rabbitte the phish is the one skulking in the undergrowth.

Serves him right for scaring them.

I have two hatchet fish as well. I decided to call them Pee and Dee, because there's only two of them, he he, he. (People from Canada will not get this, Irish political Humour, d'ya see).

So there you go, the menagerie is complete again.

Oooh, I do love to go camping

Himself is cooking supper and singing 'We're goin' campin' this weekend, we're goin' to have sooo much fun!' while he works. Himself is happy, because he is making hamburgers and because we are going camping this weekend.

This weekend is Canada Day weekend. Start of the camping season. Hoorah!! We found an amicable compromise this weekend. While we both like wilderness camping, Himself wants to fish this weekend and that involves a lot of black fly this time of year if you are in the wrong sort of spot. And Queenie will have Lady Moonbeam visiting (there ain't nuthun in this world worse than eco-friendly wilderness camping with Lady Moonbeam and a swarm of black fly in tow). So I kinda put the foot down this year, having done back country camping last year in similar circumstances.

Himself was bitterly disappointed when I did, as was I really, as the provincial park campsites here are expensive and liquor free and most of the private sites are full of ATV wankers. There was a bit of a grump going on last night, about how Himself never gets to do what he wants. But happily a bit of interweb research this morning found the Bear Falls Wilderness eco-camping site, run by Eli Shannon. So I called Eli and he had a site or two left and booked us into one right on the river where there are some nice trout for Himself and handy access to an outhouse for Queenie.

And then I showed it to Himself who deemed it suitable, so we're set. In fact, Himself is very excited that it might be good, and then we'll have a handy weekend spot for the summer. Routine is nice, isn't it.

The campsite is just outside the Tobeatic Wilderness in Queens County, which is a wonderful part of the province that we haven't really explored yet. And it beats staying in Kejji, the big park there, which is run by the Official Anti-Fun Police.

So now the preparations begin. Preparations for the first camping trip of the year are intense and take about three evenings. First we have to take the stove apart and clean it and put it back together again (one person one evening swearing, other person half an evening assisting). Then we have to assemble the gear, which involves finding the gear, cleaning and fixing the gear (although I am pretty good about storing things clean), remembering the new gear we got during the year (mental note to self - hammock, new chairs, new burner, new wind up radio, new lamps). That will take another evening (one person), while the other has to go and get the canoe and lifejackets from Leonard.

Finally, we have to get the provisions ready. Food, liquor, kindling, games, clothes, tents, bedding, cooking and eating equipment (two people falling over each other in apartment, one evening).

Eli says not to worry about firewood, there's loads there. That's the kind of campsite owner you like to talk to.

After about the third trip it gets easier. Because it all gets dumped in a corner of the apartment until the next time.

Then there is the obsessive checking of the weather forecast all week. So far the five day forecast is good for Saturday and blank. Tomorrow will reveal more.

Oooh, I do love camping. The neighbours are thinking about coming too.

I wonder if there are any bears in Bear Falls? There have been a lot of black bears spotted this year in Nova Scotia so far.

Ooooh, shiver.

eMusic morning

Himself is still asleep, even though I have bribed him with the four yard sales that are on in the area this morning if he gets up. Himself prefers sleep to almost anything. Which is bad, because he lives with the early morning fairy.

So I amused myself for a while downloading my monthly quota from eMusic. This month I finished downloading the Elliot Smith album, New Moon, then I downloaded some random Malian music, because I do like it to be interspersed with everything else I listen to. Finally, I downloaded Mavis Staples, We'll Never Turn Back which is her performance of all the old civil rights music she sang in the sixties. This time, however, it is produced by Ry Cooder.

Most excellent. You should get the album.

Currently, I am listening to High Times, by Elliot Smith, whom I only discovered after he was dead. Like many other people I suppose.

It's quiet. Kitty has gone home for a while seeing as it is the summer and she is off school. So there is no television blaring or hip hop music blasting from her room.

Anyways, Himself has emerged so it's time to go yard-saling.

Back again at last. I'd say hooray but that would be unCanadian

Oh that's right, I'm not Canadian.

Hooray!!

I see Mary McAleese and the Irish contingent with her were amazed at how self-effacing Canadians are and how they look at their feet rather than accept a compliment.

Well, yes, that's Canader for yer.

Denis Staunton has a long article in the Irish Times today giving out about how Canadians have it all and they can't see it. He lists the enormous resource wealth of the country and medicare as two reasons to celebrate.

Then he mentions the treatment of Aboriginal peoples and the equalisation funding mess as two reasons why they might be depressed. He neglected to mention that the day before yesterday was National Aboriginal Day. He probably didn't realise. Most people here don't.

The reason that Canadians are self-effacing and depressed is because they elected a right wing idealogue as Prime Minister and now they can't get rid of him while he tears the country apart, pits rich provinces against poor and ignores the environmental issues that are starting to be a big problem here. He ripped up the Atlantic Accord (equalisation), the Kelowna Accord (aboriginal rights), and the Kyoto Accord because he can.

That's why they're all so self-effacing. They're bloody ashamed.

Got up early...

... to blog and got suckered into wasting half an hour on Facebook!

DAMN!

But I found Yoichi.

WOW!

Robbie Williams is hiding in my basement

This blog is older than I am.

In blog years anyway.

I wonder will people study blogs in the future, the way they study diaries nowadays when they find them in dusty libraries.

I hope they do. I keep meaning to read more blogs, to see if there are many good ones out there, but I don't want to spend that much time on the computer every day. It wears me out. I am suffering from ICT fatigue I think. I cannot concentrate on computer work for long periods of time anymore. I flick over and back between mails and other programs.

Tis very annoying.

Anyways, I don't want to think about work tomorrow. I want to think about the weekend. Which was great.

We eventually got up today and lay around for a few hours. Man, it was the first time I had done that in sooooo looooong. Just lay around. And then go back to bed for a nap. And then when I got up again the sun was out, so we went down and sat in the yard for a couple of hours and chatted to Sean, who wouldn't come into the garden last night because he had to work the next day, and his friend Neville, who used to be the drummer in a punk rock band.

Sean is a Cape Breton version of Robbie Williams. In fact, I think the real Robbie Williams is not in a rehab centre at all, he's actually given up the fame game and is now living in my house and training to be a hotel junior manager.

So Himself has his guitar jamming buddies now. Which he has been seeking out for some time. And they're going to set up the PA system in the yard and jam in the evenings.

We'll be getting ducks next.

Himself used to have ducks in his pond on the island and when he and his buddy would play guitar in the evening by the pond, the ducks used to line up and sway to the music. And sometimes they would waddle over and gently pluck the guitar strings with their bills.

We'll have to get punk ducks.

That's what they can call the band: The Ducks. A seventies-retro-post-punk three piece with Robbie Williams on vocals.

And so at last, the summer begins to widen out before us.....

Barbeque leftovers

Just Himself and Queenie and a few bits of chicken. That's all that's left of the barbeque.

The sun came out and blazed down just in time yesterday for us to set out the barbeque and all the food and plates and cutlery before people started to arrive. That meant everyone could relax outside and enjoy the heat, go for a swim in the lake and watch the kids get to know each other. The teenagers even deigned to join us for a minute.

Himself and I managed to feed everyone with the minimum of fuss. I do like entertaining with him, he's so laid back about everything and just gets on with the grilling. We only ever argue about his compulsion to cover everything in hickory smoke BBQ sauce - not everyone on the planet likes the taste of hickory smoke BBQ sauce, I explain. He just looks at me like I'm insane when I do. I think he doesn't believe me. I even caught him putting it on the potato wedges!! But he's great - he cleaned up everything and had the dishwasher on before I could stir myself, so there was nothing to do today but pick up the glasses and bottles left out overnight.

After a stint of cooking and chopping, we fed everyone eventually, who happily all got on with each other, and then when it got dark and a little chilly we built a fire in the old cast iron stove in the garden and sat round watching the kids toast marshmallows and Himself rummage around in the woods for more fuel.

All dead wood obviously.

Eventually our neighbours got up to leave, picked up the comforter that the children had fallen asleep on and carried them home without a murmur. I hadn't even realised they were there, they were so soundly asleep.

Superfun night was had by all. There were three left when I went to bed, arguing about whether to wait for the sun to come up or not.

Our garden is really a small piece of heaven... where else would we have a lovely green space surrounded by trees, a lake just beyond for that country feel, nice neighbours to hang out with and our apartment just upstairs when it's time for bed.

I wish I was in this photo! Or, how to age gracefully...

So there wasn't a peep out of anyone from Ireland for a few days and I couldn't figure out what it was until I clicked on accentmonkey's blog this morning and saw the pictures from the wedding.

Ah yes, of course.. Portumna will never be the same, I'm sure.

So I looked through all the pictures. And then I looked through them all again. All those familiar faces. Familiar faces that are gradually changing.

Mixed feelings...

Two years away from all those faces. Yet I still feel very strongly connected. Even though all the experiences are second hand for me now. Still, they are part of every day thanks to the wonders of technology.

Christ we're all starting to look a teensy bit middle-aged but!

In a perverse way I was glad to see it, as I had spent part of the morning panicking about getting old, it coming up on my thirty seventh birthday (what kind of an effing birthday is thirty seven!! Other than depressing!). Plus we had spent the previous evening in the company of Himself's work colleagues, who are all about twelve years old and MARRIED. Well, actually some of them are already divorced, which is even scarier.

We were celebrating my second anniversary in Canada. Well, what was really going on was that after almost six months of responsible living and parenting and with a night off due to Kitty staying with a friend, Himself announced we were going to go out and get liquored up. So I created a hook to hang the liquor on, not being able to face a night out without a reason anymore.

So I scored six tickets to the Nova Scotia Liquor Corporation Annual Summer Drinks party and off we went. Queenie, Himself, Alex and Tristan, and Eric and Gillian.

The NSLC parties are amazing concepts. Three hours of free samples of everything they sell in their stores. With food and a band. It's like a big wedding. They have three a year - summer, a new wines fling in the spring, and a winter whiskey party.

I went to the whiskey one in my first year here. I remember watching everyone standing around sipping slowly and chatting and thinking that if they had these parties in Ireland, there would be a triage unit set up in the middle of the room.

A very sedate affair.

The Summer Beach party is a whole different kettle of fish.

And I realised finally that I am getting middle-aged.

There was so much skin on view. Oceans and oceans of pale skin, bad fake tan jobs, leathery wizened tan jobs. Mostly with long, bleached, straightened, sprayed fake blond hair.

Alex and Tristan spent the first half an hour running around in pointless alcohol and women free circles, shouting 'girls', 'liquor', 'ohmygod thankyou Queenie', until Himself pointed out that there was liquor to be had. Himself had worked his way up the wine stalls and was introducing himself to the Captain (Captain Morgan's rum - staple drink of Cape Breton) at that point.

I was stupified with shock. As well as the flesh and the hair, there were arses everywhere. Acres of arses. Whole prairie-widths full of them, poured into leggings atop stiletto mules.

I saw Paris Hilton from behind. It was definitely her. A little see through baby doll dress and long legs (mahogany) slipped into little pink slipper mules. A dog under her arm. Long silvery blonde hair. Then she turned round.

Fifty. At least fifty. Life lines etched into her mahogany face like runes on a granite pillar.

Whatthefuck?

All the men looked the same; khakis or shorts with a polo shirt and sandals or flip flops. Standard Canadian summer wear no matter what you're doing. Or what age you are.

All the women looked the same too; leggings or skinny jeans with a little strappy top and wobbly mules. Standard Canadian party wear no matter what age you are.

Except it does of course.

Why does wearing clothes designed for a twenty year old not work when you're an ageing woman and work just fine when you're an ageing male?

Because the frigging women's clothes are so ludicrous in the first place.

Queenie was wearing her jeans and her green long-sleeved top that she's had for seven years and her black zip up biker jacket that she's had for six and her flat pumps. You could see nothing but my face and hands.

Less is more after twenty five, ladies, less is more.

So it struck me how great everyone looked in the photos of the wedding. How all the men and women looked so confident and attractive and comfortable in their skins and how all their smiles were so relaxed and happy. Not a stiletto mule in sight, so no grimaces of pain, see.

There's a lot to be said for an uncertain climate!! And a lifetime of partying in a field.

And then I immediately felt better about getting older. Because all the people I will be getting old with are so cool.

And as Himself said this morning as we peeled our eyes open to survey the events of the night before, we may be getting old but we are the coolest old farts in Halifax according to Alex and Tristan.

Hmmm, he didn't look too cool when he was getting thrown out of Cheers pub at one am this morning.

His crime?

He asked where the bathroom was.

Apparently, if you don't know where the bathroom is then you shouldn't be there in the first place. They are lucky I wasn't with him when it happened. Although, I got thrown out of there once before for refusing to let them put my ID card in a scanning device unless they told me where the data went.

The bouncers of course don't have a clue where the data goes, or why data going somewhere would be a bad idea in a country that pretends to be free, so they barred me for life for having a bad attitude.

Anyways, Himself is barred now as well for wanting to have a pee in the bathroom. The official reason is that he was intoxicated.

Ehm, yes.. we paid six dollars to get in to a place that serves alcohol, and patiently allowed our bags and persons to be searched by a gimp, and then paid over-priced prices for drinks so yes... he was slightly intoxicated.

We weren't off our heads on drugs like everyone else in the place appeared to be but.

Anyways, we headed down to Gingers with Hotspurr to have a drink in a bar that 'spects you to get liquered up'....

... yes dear...

As we were leaving, Tristan and Alex came running out. Well, Tristan was trying to stand up and run at the same time. They were outraged at the treatment Himself had endured, so Himself suggested they all go back in and take on the bouncers. He's such a provocateur sometimes.

They were horrified!!

Young fellas... they had spent the entire evening telling me about this guy and that guy they were going to smash his head in yadda yadda. But a trio of bouncers with scanning devices? Nosireebob.

So Himself pretended to leave in a huff.

We were relieved really. Gingers is so much more enjoyable than a heaving throb of twenty something pheromes. Even if it doesn't have a seventies dinosaur guitar band doing Duran Duran covers in the back bar.

Hungry like the wolf.... time for breakfast... we are supposed to be having a barbeque today, but Mr. Sun has not appeared yet.

Irish property market in trouble - says AIB

And Queenie says back to Allied Irish Banks plc, 'whose effing fault is that?"

Giving people 100 per cent mortgages to buy overpriced little boxes all squished up together in fields sixty miles from the city...

Of course, people who do that also voted for Fianna Fail.

So at least they are going to have to preside over the ensuing meltdown.

Anyone want to buy an overpriced little box next to a cemetery??!!

Coming up on two years in Canader...

I realised today that Friday will be my second anniversary in Canada.

I was trying to think what I was doing this time two years ago.

I think I was in Springtown.

Hang on, I'll check...

Yes I was.

Blogs are great, aren't they.

I was thinking about Springtown today because it rained all day here. Dark hanging clouds with no sunlight breaking through and everywhere the sound of water gurgling. Just like home.

It's funny though, because Himself and I are finally thinking about this old place as home.

We went to his island for the weekend to open his house for the summer and when we got back last night we unpacked and cooked the lobsters we'd been given and sat on the couch eating them and thought... home...happy sigh...

It's not that we don't like the island - we do. Particularly in the summer, when the lobster season is over and everyone's relaxed and up for a barbeque or a bonfire.

It's just always such a hassle at the same time.

The joys of your life partner's past coming up to bite you on the ankle.

Himself's past is not much taller than my ankle and every time I encounter her I feel that if I take my eyes off her for a second she'll bite me. Not because I'm paranoid, but because she has threatened to beat me up so often I'm resigned to the fact that some day she'll finally do it. And I'll have to let her because I'm the sane smart one of the two of us.

So I spend the weekends down there looking over my shoulder, wondering when she'll turn up.

It can be tricky. I like to get it over with early on so I can relax and enjoy the weekend, but then again, it drives Himself crazy and he spends the rest of the weekend moaning about it.

If she turns up too early, that can often mean we get more than one visit. If she doesn't turn up, I am watching and waiting all the time. Sometimes she's on a bender for the weekend and we don't see her at all, just her car speeding to and from the pub.

Those weekends of course can be the worst, because she tends to pack the children off somewhere we can't find them. Which makes Himself pace around muttering for hours. Until I drag him into the woods to walk it off.

We had one minor encounter on Saturday which I ignored because I was in the house (and Himself always charges out into the yard when the car comes up the hill - to head her off at the pass), so I thought we were fine. And then yesterday, when we were on the ferry waiting for it to bring us to the mainland it happened. A shadow flickered over me as I sat in the car. I looked up and there she was, yelling and yammering about something.

I pressed the button and let the window slide down.

She wasn't making any sense, and I can't be arsed arguing with someone as stupid and irrational as her, so I pressed the button again and let it close.

Really slowly. Just the way she hates it.

Unfortunately, this time I was too smart for my own damned good and had forgotten to lock the door, so she pulled it open and told me she was going to punch me in that smart mouth of mine.

I hadn't said a word at this stage. But I've been told there's a look I get on my face when I'm really mad that maybe does it to her.

Plus, with her frizzy plum perm and her thick black eyeliner she reminds me so much of a rabid raccoon cartoon character that I sometimes have to try not to laugh.

At this stage, I am so used to her tantrums and screaming I can keep my face completely calm (for me) and not react. But inside my stomach is churning with rage that I am being subjected to this kind of intimidation by someone I completely despise, beng subjected to something to which I can't react at all.

And I'm nothing if not reactionary to anger.

I found it difficult to relax into the moment, but I can do it now.

Anyways, she eventually moved back enough that I could close the car door without cutting her hand off. Bereft of an audience she demanded her daughter open the back door of the car so she could yell at her for a while. Kitty opened the window, but didn't react either, so she yelled at the back of my head some more.

I wiped the back of my neck like she'd spat on me (really slowly, etc) and she suddenly stopped and ran off the ferry which could then get going.

Sometimes something as simple as that (wiping the back of my neck) can bring her to. She suddenly realises what a show she is making of herself there in front of half the island and stops.

Sometimes the unearthly silence the island creates to contain one of her tantrums filters into her head and she stops to listen to it and suddenly calms down when she realises the entire village has stopped hammering and mowing and is standing enjoying the show.

Sometimes she's so far into the rage you just have to sit there and let her yell herself into satisfaction.

Sometimes that takes a long time.

There is a Chinese saying I repeat to myself when I am being humiliated in public by the cheap slut who broke up Himself's family for a twenty two year old lawnmower repair man, who destroyed his home and his life and stole all his money and took away his children for two years, who still tries to turn them against him and who is trying in her own pitiful, tragic way to destroy my life now because she is so miserable inside she can't bear anyone but herself to appear to be happy.

I say it over and over like a mantra, to keep me in the calm quiet place in my head where I don't want to rip her stupid head off with my bare hands and throw it over the side of the ferry in one monstrous therapeutic moment of life-altering rage.

It says, if you sit by the river long enough, the body of your enemy will float past you.

I'd say that'll take some time this time but!

It always amazes me how much crap I am capable of putting up with.

I try to understand why it's happening so I can deal with it and I take it until I realise it's not me, it's just happening, and then I put up with it for so long.

And then one day I say it has to stop and if it doesn't I just walk away from it.

And I never go back.

Himself is the same.

As the ferry pulled into the wharf on the mainland we gave each other a look that said that day is fast approaching.

Which is a pity, because I love Long Island and the people who live there so much. They hold a memory of me when I was free and happy and unencumbered by life that very few other people have. And they watched Himself and I fall in love and engineered the situation slightly because they knew we were right for each other.

It's that time of year again...

DEPT OF NATURAL RESOURCES--Help Avoid Bear Encounters
-----------------------------------------------------------------
After hibernating through the long winter months, it is time for Nova Scotia's black bears to be out and about, constantly looking for food.

Storing garbage inside or in metal bear-proof containers and keeping your barbecue grill clean and grease-free are just some of the things that can prevent bear encounters at your home or cottage.

"Bears have the potential to be dangerous and more than 500 nuisance bear situations were reported last year," said Department of Natural Resources Minister David Morse. "Use caution when in an area where bears may be expected, and be sure to report all bear encounters."

While there is often an abundance of natural foods, bears are known to search for food from other sources, including rural backyards. Bears are attracted to garbage, compost, green bins, pet food and bird feeders. There are specific precautions home and cottage owners, campers and hikers should take to reduce the likelihood of attracting bears.

To find out how to prevent bear incidents and what to do when seeing a black bear, visit the department website: www.gov.ns.ca/natr/wildlife/Nuisance/bears.htm.

Bear sightings in communities and near homes should be reported to the Department of Natural Resources. Trained and experienced staff will determine the appropriate action. During business hours, call a local Natural Resources office.

Friday at last

And I shouldn't really be blogging, I should be packing. We are travelling down to the island this weekend. So although I have packed the food, there only being one crappy shop on said island, I also have to pack all the cleaning products. For to clean the house. Which has not been opened in six months.

There will be a lot of spiders I'm thinking.

And we'll have to rehook the water up.

And start a fire to wake up the spiders.

And Lady Moonbeam arrived with the full moon last night.

Never mind.

Later tonight we will be sitting on the deck looking out over the village and past it to the sea, and the moon will be huge and sitting directly in front of us, accompanied by all the stars.

And there might even be a whale or two!!

So it will be worth the packing and the four hour drive. And the cleaning.

I had an action-packed day yesterday. Firstly I had my immigration medical. I got all the paperwork ready and was waiting at the bus stop for the one bus that would bring me to the clinic when I realised I didn't have the form. Ran back to the apartment. Not there. Damn damn, left it at work. Called a taxi to drive me to work, wait for me to get forms, and drive me to the clinic. The taxi driver could sense my stress. Was I late for work? I explained. Turns out he was an Iranian Kurd, a refugee, who translated for other refugees at the clinic. The international brotherhood of Canadian immigrants kicked in and by the time he got me to the clinic (in time) I was no longer stressed and we had had a great chat about Kurdistan. I won the prize for passenger who knew most about Kurdistan.

Not a difficult prize to win in Nova Scotia, where the only place everyone (thinks they) know about is Scotland.

So I had my weight, height, sight, hearing, blood pressure, urinalysis and blood work done at the clinic, along with a lot of questions about my lifestyle that I didn't answer completely truthfully, but who does! Then it was off to the hospital for my chest x-ray. The whole thing was over in ninety minutes.

Out-patient queue chaos rules Nova Scotia, my ass!!

Then it was back to work for the rest of the day.

Sigh.

There is a growing contempt and lack of respect for staff in our workplace that is really starting to bug me. It stems from some recent appointments; a combination of the personalities involved and their interaction with other senior managers. To be truthful, I don't care who's in charge of the treehouse; so long as my contribution to the workplace is respected, and simple phrases like please and thank you and how is your day going remain the currency of the place.

The reason I don't care is because politics is a collaborative process and so there are no superstars (well, maybe the leader, but certainly not staff superstars). Unfortunately, self-indulgent macho bullshit appears to be gaining a foothold.

In the spirit of everything I've ever done in my life before and everything I will ever do in the future, and with the power invested in me by Lady Moonbeam (ie a grinding backache and consequent foul temper) I called it yesterday and told the ringleader he was to stop being a prick.

He didn't bat an eyelid before he said he was what he was and he wasn't going to change.

He is what he is all right. But I am not having it.

Nosirreebob.

It might be okay to pull this crap in the provincial backwaters of the world, but some of the rest of us have worked in places where this type of thing is not acceptable any more. And I for one am going to drag this workplace into the late twentieth century if it kills me.

In the full knowledge that it probably will kill me.

I just need a plan.

A plan, anyone?

In the absence of a plan as to how to put an end to it at the moment, though, I am going to invoke the spirits of the Stoics, as outlined in Farmer Brown's blog.

Cross-posting rocks, doesn't it!