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Sunday 30th November
 
Yesterday was Hattie's first night in the 'Dreams in Motion' production of Fiddler on the Roof, and it was all a palpable success. I'm in a difficult position here, because she did brilliantly. However, if I bang on about how brilliant she was, and how wonderful the entire cast and the production was, you would all be within your rights to call me a bit of a theatrical parent and a luvvie and shun me like the plague for the rest of your natural puff. So, even though all that would be justified, I shall keep my council and just post a few photos I took this afternoon at the second performance.
 
They were all dead good in that one, too. Angie and I were both in tears at the end - but then we do tend to weep at almost anything these days.
 
Oh, and just in case you're not sure, Hattie's playing Tevye - and she has a beard. We had to go to Kingston to buy that beard she's wearing, because at the dress rehearsal they gave her one with a soup strainer moustache that not only covered her mouth, but nothing moved while she was talking. It was like performing through a mop.
 
Here are some photos, then. Notice the excellent costumes, which they got from the nearby professional theatre, the Thousand Islands Playhouse. We went to see their production of Les Miserables in the summer (Hattie went twice) and it was just brilliant, too...
 
daaaahling.
 
 
 
Thursday 27th November
 
It's been a long time!
 
The summer has been and gone. It was a dampish offering for the most part. Plenty of rain, but with enough hot days to make us feel like we've had a summer. The was a memorable day when Hattie had to do a couple of dressage tests. It absolutely chucked it down, persistent stair rods, and when we got to the stables that were hosting the event it turned out that Hattie had learnt the wrong tests. So poor old Hats had to learn the first test in the twenty minutes before she was due to perform it. She did that, then had to learn the second test in the time between the first and second tests. She did that, too, and didn't make any serious mistakes. Nerves, I have to say, are not one of Hattie's big problems. That was all in the morning, and in the afternoon she volunteered (because no-one else was in eye contact, I suspect) to be the person that opens and shuts the gate for the horses doing the tests. All afternoon, in grotty, rainy, muddy conditions she did that. She was chuntering a bit towards the end, mind, but I think that's fair enough. It was a crap day. I'd have had a bit of a chunter as well.
 
I've been busy trying to finish those books that have been hanging around for too long, and I've succeeded in nailing the main ones. Also, I've had one or two interesting jobs on the editorial illustration front. I did a small cartoon for The Economist, a cover for Nature Medicine in America and I've just started doing a comment cartoon, regularly I hope, in the Times Educational Supplement. Also, I'm illustrating a regular full page strip cartoon in The Walrus, and rather classy arts and current affairs magazine in Canada. I say I'm illustrating it because they've got a proper writer to do the writing. The magazine only has ten issues a year, but it's a good gig, I think. We're working on the first strip now. And I still get the odd job for The Guardian. Somali pirates last week.
 
What else can I tell you? Angie and Hattie continue to integrate seamlessly into the local scene. Angie, of course, touts her cards at every opportunity (and there seems to be no shortage of craft fairs and events where she can set up a stall and hawk a card or two), as well as running craft workshops at several local libraries recently. She belongs to the local catering group that does the meals for various events and generally bustles about like a pillock of the community, dogsbody grade. She has also managed to cast off a couple of stones in weight courtesy of LA weight loss. Woo hoo! Only four or five more and she'll begin to look like a whippet. Well, OK, a whippet in a barrel - but still...Anyway, some people round here seem to think she's quite good to have around. Personally, I'm struggling to see the attraction, but I may see the light one day.
 
In August, of course, Hattie became an overnight teenager by having her 13th birthday. A bunch of her mates descended on the house and camped in the garden and sang campfire songs and ate smores. She was in her first production at Dreams in Motion, the children's theatre and dance school in Gananoque. It was a two week summer camp preparing Swiss Family Robinson, and she was devastated to be given the part of a kangaroo. In the end, she told them she wasn't very happy with her part and they decided to double cast and split the performances. She was given the part of Father in the B team - but at least it meant she was occupied for the two weeks.
 
Angie went to Nova Scotia to see the Canadian wing of her family, plus Aunt Elizabeth, who was visiting her family from Lincoln. She also met with Sandra and Patrick Bourke, who are in the throes of emigrating to Canada themselves. While she was there, she noticed that her cousin Heather has radically different humming bird feeders to ours; little flying saucers that stick straight onto the window to afford uninterrupted views of the feeders. Since our own feeders were all rotten and split, we decided to invest in a couple. We filled them with sugar water and slapped them onto the window pane. Marvelous. They stuck beautifully first time, and we went indoors and waited. Then every wasp for miles buzzed in and queued up to muscle into the slots and drink the sugar water. The slots were bigger than the feeders we had been using, so the wasps could get right inside very easily and then get out again. They were quick, too; they could work their way through an entire feeder full of water in a day or two. Then we just had to wash out the odd dead wasp that got too close to the water and fell in, refill the container and start again. Endless fun. Humming birds? Oh, they don't like wasps apparently. Avoid them like the plague. I think I only remember seeing one at the feeder, and that was just after the most ferocious freak hailstorm. It wafted in looking extremely bedraggled and sorry for itself, and it had a proper bed head hairstyle.
 
The RCMP (Mounties) musical ride appeared at Brockville, and Charleston Lake Riding School, where Hats goes, was invited to demonstrate horse games. Hattie doesn't do horse games, but she went as ground staff and helped set the games up. Part of the thing was painting patterns all over the horses' backsides. Angie had a great time helping with that. See the scary picture! The Mounties were spectacular - and there was an extended moment when they approached the arena, riding two by two way off in the distance along behind the two man band that was performing at the time, that was truly magical. Despite the band, it felt completely still, like a moment of silence. They were riveting.
 
Here are a few photos. A couple of Hattie's 13th birthday party, some of the Nova Scotia branch of the family (and those humming bird feeders. Note that they got humming birds at theirs! You obviously don't get wasps in Nova Scotia. Bastards!) Hats on Pally at the dressage thing, Angie with a horse's arse (the horse's arse is the one with the patterns painted on it) and the Mounties. Hattie being the Father in Swiss Family Robinson, Clive allowing me to take the tiller on his sailing boat and a vintage car rolling by our house. There was a rally at the fair ground, and there was a long line of them trundling by, all lovingly restored and polished within an inch of their lives.
 
 
 
So, summer became autumn and then, just as we were admiring the colours, we had a sudden and gobsmacking snowfall in October. It came when there were still leaves and stuff on the trees, which meant the snow got more purchase and the consequent weight did quite a bit of damage. See those photos? The tree in that first snowy picture is not a weeping willow, or a weeping anything else. The snow actually snapped three or four big branches off it. We are also in the process of replacing our dodgy chimney. Well, actually the chimney is now replaced but the liners are yet to be inserted. Once in, we are going to get a woodstove installed - all courtesy of Angie's Dad, who has so generously stumped up the money for the chimney and the stove. This was such a great relief since we are permanently cash flow challenged, and as proof of the urgency I have put in a picture of the chimney as it was. See that dodgy cement work and those crumbling bricks? See the height of the thing? Well, that's nothing - when the chap got up the scaffolding and had a look at the back, he said there was a hole the size of a dustbin lid. There's a picture of the scaffolding up, and the chimney down, and then there are a couple of Hallowe'en. One showing Madison's scary half woman, half man outfit and Hattie's intricately crafted 'cardboard box' costume, and one of he 'chucking the beanbag through the holes in a lump of wood' game that I painted for Wendy at the riding school
 
Tomorrow is the dress rehearsal for Fiddler on the Roof, with Hattie playing the lead. Saturday is the first performance. I expect to have photos, and I will post them and it won't take me 4 months this time.
 
Honest!
 
Sunday 20th July
 
All must have prizes!
 
The Fair opened on Thursday and has been in full swing since. Angie, of course, has been dragooned for various duties: standing on the gate, dolloping out the mashed spuds at the beef dinner etc. - as well as having her usual card stall at the Farmers' Market, which takes place on the same patch and ran on Friday as usual. Hattie entered a bunch of craft type classes ('do a drawing from a photo', 'design a cook book cover', 'make a computer generated poster for the fair' etc) and came away with a smattering of ribbons for first, second and third places. There are so many classes, and so much potential for winning a ribbon, that I can't believe that anyone who entered anything didn't get placed. To demonstrate this, I shall describe the cat show:
 
There were various pet categories, but we have cats so Hattie dragged Henry along to  try his luck. As it happened, there were only two other cats in the competition. There was a small, black cat and a rather bigger, long haired marmalade moggie. They sat in a row on the edge of a small stage set up outside the Agricultural Society barn, spaced out a bit to avoid feline argy-bargy. All three were automatically in for all the cat classes, and it started with the longest tail. Henry won that by a good three or four inches, the marmalade cat came second and the little black cat third. They each got an appropriate ribbon for their placement. Next, and this is where you'll see what I mean about the 'all must have prizes' thing, came the cat with the shortest tail. The black cat won that that one, the marmalade cat got another second place and Henry was third - for which, again, they all got an appropriate ribbon. There was a 'biggest cat' category, which Henry won, and a 'smallest cat' category, in which he was placed third. At the end of it all, Henry had won two firsts, four seconds and a couple of thirds, a total of eight ribbons. Count them! Eight! What a star.
 
But I'm not knocking it. A little kid with a small, scruffy dog that had a very closely docked tail came up to me twice to show me his first place ribbon for 'dog with the shortest tail'. He was chuffed to bits with it. As far as he was concerned, his dog had won first place, and that made him the best. Quite right, too.
 
Yesterday evening was the Demolition Derby (pronounced 'durby', although I still insist on saying 'darby' because, frankly, that's the right way of saying it). A selection of cars on their last legs are decorated with spray paint and household gloss, then put into a small arena where they drive into each other until only one is left that still works. That one is the winner, and the driver climbs out of the window (no glass, and the doors are all welded shut), stands triumphantly on the roof and is handed a gaudy, oversized trophy. Then bulldozers and JCBs come and remove all the losers ready for the next lot of bangers to bash seven bells out of each other. It's dodgems for nut cases, really.
 
Here are a few photos. There wasn't actually a prize for 'most unfortunate balloon hat' - but if there had been, get a load of the one young Skyler got landed with. There's Henry having his first ever encounter with a dog, Hattie with Henry at the cat show, and some rather dark photos of the demolition derby. Well, it was dark - what can I tell you - and there were concrete barriers round the arena masking the view. Still, you might get an impression of the atmosphere.
 
 
 
Oh... our cow won the decorated bale competition! Woo hoo!
 
Tuesday 15th July
 
It's been a tough old week this week. Or rather last week, but I've lost all sense of time and orientation. The Lansdowne Fair starts on Thursday, and to that end we have 'decorated a bale'. Sometime around the beginning of the month a whopping big bale of hay, the cylindrical sort, was deposited on the lawn close to the main road. We idly thought that, if it got dumped in the wrong place, we would be able to just shove it over a bit and get it just so. Hah! Fat ruddy chance. Who'd have guessed that a few bits of straw could weigh so much.
 
So we secured a set of step ladders to the top of it almost immediately, and then did nothing for a week or so. It tantalized passers by. 'What will go on the ladder,' they probably wondered to themselves as they flashed by in their gas guzzlers - pleased to have something to distract them, even for the briefest moment, from the petrol gauge and the thought of what the next fill-up was going to set them back. "How utterly intriguing," they almost certainly added. In the meantime, across the road, a hay bale steam engine was gradually getting more and more defined and polished. It sprouted wheels, then a chimney and a sort of cockpit. Then it got a trailer behind it, which became populated with fluffy animals. It got a nameplate and a big tin plate at the front for a light. Fluffy animal engine drivers appeared. Then it got to last week, and we realised that something needed to go up our ladder in fairly short order. We were being left behind. Arses must be got into gear, or we would be falling flat on them.
 
To complicate matters, Nature asked me for a little series of illustrations last week which were going to take a bit longer than the usual one-off. Still, first things first. I decided to make the polystyrene cow that would stand on the ladder before I started work on the Nature stuff. So I biffed off to the shop that sells such things and bought a couple of great slabs of polystyrene insulation panel (which was surprisingly cheap) and some appropriate glue and a few coach bolts and washers to hold everything together (which were not! Neither was the paint to do the spots. Arms and legs spring to mind). To be honest, when I went to the hardware store I didn't really have polystyrene in mind. I thought MDF or hardboard would be good. Then I picked a couple of bits of half inch MDF up and thought again. All that weight at the top of a ladder, I thought. Hmmmm! All that weight coming loose and getting blown off the ladder, I thought. Hmmmm! All that weight landing on some passer-by, I thought. Hmmmm! Let's have a look at the polystyrene.
 
Back home, I lugged a lump of the polystyrene to the top of the ladder to try and gauge the appropriate size for the beast. I was immediately aware of the wind resistance as I tried to manhandle it to the top. It weighed nothing, but it caught the breeze like a sail and I was so grateful I wasn't dealing with half a ton of MDF. I took two days to create the cow and do a couple of signs to go on the ladder and the bale. We even created an intricately sculpted cow pat to go beneath the animal with a 'BINGO!' sign next to it, in honour of the 'cow chip bingo' that goes on at the fair (I think I explained this last year - but it basically involves dividing a field into squares. You put your money on a square, and then a cow is let into the field. Where craps the cow, there is the winning square. It might be the truest incarnation of the old saying 'where there's muck there's brass!)
 
I eventually go onto the Nature job, and they were extremely patient and understanding about my pathetic inability to get the work to them on time. I got most of the rest done over the weekend but lost a fair bit of sleep. I didn't get the final bit to them until this afternoon, so they won't get it until tomorrow morning. Thank goodness for understanding clients.
 
I also had to do an illustration for the Times Educational Supplement over the weekend - and I found the best way to tackle that was to work on it in the interminable periods while I was waiting for the computer to do its stuff (a lot of the Nature work was done on the computer on this occasion). I really wish I could afford one of the new, beefed up G5 jobs. I'm still working on the little imac I brought with me, but when you're working on big Photoshop files with dozens of layers (literally) at high resolution the thing just creaks along like an arthritic tortoise. So it can take 5-10 minutes each time you save the file as you go along (and I'm sure I don't need to mention the consequences of not saving as you go. I've been there, done that and lost hours of work, literally hours and hours of it, courtesy of a frozen programme. Nightmare! Avoid at all costs). It was actually a good thing to have an alternative project on the drawing board while the computer oozed along. The alternative is that I tend to shout and swear at the thing, in the deluded conviction that it will hear what I'm saying, see the error of its ways and respond accordingly. So far, no result. Hey ho! One day, maybe.
 
Angie's eye has already been caught by the next shiny object (see the entry for 15th April). We were at a Pony Club party on the shore of Charlestone Lake, and the hosts have a Sea-doo - A jet ski, effectively. Angie had a go on it, and now she wants one. Once again, I shall intone the responses and wait quietly for the next shiny object to bob by and catch her gaze. Shouldn't take too long.
 
Oh, she also cadged a ride on a picturesque cart that was being hauled around the track opposite us by a team of heavy horses. This was quite a sight - we normally only see the lighter horses, pulling the racing buggies, steaming round that track. It's all in preparation for the Fair. The funfair arrived and began setting up on Sunday night, everyone is chasing round like blue-arsed flies, and we have a polystyrene cow at the top of our ladder. All is right with the world.
 
Here are some photos of that wonderful cow... oh, and one of the competition across the road.
 
 
 
Friday 27th June
 
I have been duly admonished for my neglect of the blog, and I am here (as promised) to try and bring things up to date. Thanks, Arthur! I've split it up into several entries, rather than write a great screed in one, so there are new ones under this, too.
 
School is over for the interminable summer weeks - and Hattie has wasted no time at all in settling into a routine of sleeping late and then draping herself about the house wherever televisions or computer screens are to be found. It's been three days, and I can already feel a twitch coming in my left eye. How I will survive another ten weeks of it I have no idea.
 
Angie has been steaming around today. She went to Kingston this morning with a bunch of ladies who have persuaded her to try another fat fighting regime. She's had to stump up a year's subs up front, and the worry of that has sweated a couple of pounds off her already. She only started on Monday! She came back today armed with cookbooks, diaries, things to measure portions and whole armfuls of stuff I haven't looked at yet. I will have to look at it, of course, because I just know which lucky fellow is going to get the pleasure of preparing all this stuff.  I'll try and keep you posted on progress. It should be fun.
 
Then, as soon as she got back to Lansdowne, it was over the road to man her card stall, which she has once every Friday at the Farmers' Market. This is proving to be a reasonable enterprise. She sold almost $100 worth today, up from about $60 last week, which was up from $45 the week before (the first week she did it). Even after forking out $70 for an awning to keep the sun off, after nearly frying in her own juices the first week, she is well up on the deal.
 
I have to report that we have a barmy grackle in the vicinity. At about the time we opened the pool, around the end of May, we noticed a lot of bird crap all around the edge of it. We mopped and scraped and scrubbed the stuff off, thinking that once some activity got underway the thing would stop sitting there and the consequences would cease to be. BUT - not only does the poo re-appear, but we've seen the thing doing it. We imagined, foolishly, that the bird would probably perch itself on the rim of the pool, idly taking in the view of the trees across the crystal blue water, and casually squeeze out a crafty one when it thought no-one was looking. We could understand that. What we were not prepared for, however, was the grackle skimming in over the water with the turd in its beak, landing, then carefully placing it on the rim. It starts at one end and works its way round, forming a neat arc of birdy doos around the circular edge. Then it will often go and stand on the first of the pool's steps, in about an inch of water, and wash its beak. Talk about cheek! And it doesn't always make the graceful glide across the water without dropping the stuff in the pool. We have thought long and hard about the motive for this behaviour. Is it some bizarre avian ritual? Is it art? Is the bird simply off its chump? However, Angie has noticed that it seems to come from a nest at the side of the house, so her theory is that it's simply clearing out the nest of fledgling crap and dumping it in the handiest place for a quick clean of the beak afterwards.
 
And talking of barmy birds, the robin that nested in our porch last year came back. We left the nest for it - and the daft bird built another nest on top of it. So now we have a double decker nest in the porch. We're going to leave that nest now, and see what happens. It could become the world's first skyscraper nest before it finally gives up and falls over. Definitely one to watch.
 
Here are some photos of Angie at her stall. I tried to get a photo of the daft grackle, but it was too quick for me. I took one of the poo, but to be honest it wasn't very pretty so I'll spare you that.
 

Stop press: Angie's just got back from dropping Hats off at a sleepover, straight from her riding lesson, and apparently she jumped today! Not a whopping, high jump, but she got the horse over some crossed poles for the first time (for H, that is. The horse probably does it in his sleep). No photo of the momentous event, I'm afraid, or of the beaming smile of triumph Angie tells me H had afterwards, but still I thought it was worth a mention. I'll try and get a pic next time.

Tuesday 17th June 2008

A few weeks ago, a very nice lady, Kathy Hollins, came to the house to do a sort of questionnaire thing about something or other. I forget what that was about, but she rang us shortly after the visit to invite us to go and have some tea with her and her husband, Clive. So we took ourselves off over to Howe Island, where they live, and had a very pleasant afternoon bashing a tennis ball for their dog, Oyster, with a racquet that wasn't quite up to your Wimbledon standard (in fact it was quite possible to swing the racquet at the ball, get the ball square in the middle of the racquet head, and still find the ball on the floor behind you. Whopping, big holes in the mesh, you see - not those little, square ones favoured by most tennis aficionados). But why, I hear you ask, bother with the racquet at all? Why not just throw the thing? Ah! Dog slobber! Oyster is trained to place the ball on the bat, so no need to get your hands wet. Makes perfect sense when you know.

Anyway, although their sailing boat was under wraps at the time, they invited us to come and have a sail as soon as they'd got her out and scraped the barnacles off her bottom. We went today. We didn't get the sail up because the river was a bit choppy and the wind was a bit too ferocious, but still, we had a trundle about the river using the outboard motor and jolly exhilarating it was. Even Hattie had a nervous turn at the tiller, and there's a photo here to prove it.

But her success at the tiller was as nothing compared to her horse riding at the weekend...

( Before I go on, let me apologise if this bit turns into one of those 'and then we were all tremendously successful and now we run the place' type round robin missives. Sorry! But you have to tell it like it is)

There was a dressage day where Hattie takes her riding lessons. There were two categories, and Hattie, along with ten others, did the lower category which didn't include cantering - just walk and trot. There's a very encouraging system of placing: there are ten places, all of which get a rosette of one colour or another. Anyone not in the top ten is 'reserved' - and they get a rosette for that. The top 3 get medals and a rosette, and the winner gets a trophy as well.

She got second place! Despite only having ridden for a year, (and despite doing one of the elements twice - steaming nit). I have to say, the kid looks good on a horse. It wasn't always thus: when she started, a sack of spuds in the saddle would have given her a run for her money. But get a load of the photos here. I am pleased with the child! Almost worth her stinking the car out with the smell of horse sweat and unscrubbed stables every week.

I've also put a couple of photos of Hattie's school production of 'Paintin' the Fence' (musical based on Tom Sawyer).  It was surprisingly good, although our expectations had not been ratcheted up too high after the last concert we saw at the school. These photos are dark (we didn't want to use flash and risk putting off the kids) but are a lot better than the ones I haven't posted. If you're interested, Hats is Huckleberry Finn, the one in the straw hat in the middle of the first photo and on the extreme left of the second. If you're not interested, don't read that last sentence.

Tuesday 20th May

Our kittens, Henry and Mary, are barmy. We have to accept that as a fact now. Mary thinks she is a rabbit, and nibbles the edges of any paper you leave within reach. Artwork, too - she's not particular. Henry is what Hattie calls 'A Nelly'. He shambles up to you and throws himself on his back, and he won't go away until you've rubbed his belly. He may be the most inert cat I've ever seen, to the extent that, when you put him down after holding him, he doesn't always bother to engage his legs. You end up just sort of pouring him onto the floor like a furry bag stuffed with porridge.

We were disturbed from our early morning slumbers at the weekend by a telephone call from our neighbour, Bette, who wanted to tell us she could see the kittens on the window sill. The kittens were in the attic bedroom, and we had left the window open for the heat, but we knew there was a mosquito screen up so we just thought she was worrying unnecessarily. Anyway, Angie went up to have a check, and I stumbled down to the kitchen to put some coffee on. I had got the coffee pot under the tap when I heard panicky yells of 'David! Come here! Quick!' (That was the gist - there may have been a few extra words here and there). I dropped the pot and legged it up the three flights of stairs as fast as my ancient pins would manage. Beneath her bronzed exterior, Angie was sheet white. Henry, the big hairy kitten, was sitting on the window sill outside the mozzie mesh. There was no sign of Mary anywhere. We were worried. The first trick was to get Henry in, which was complicated by the fact that you can push the screen out (which is what the kittens had done - they had worked a corner loose), but you can't pull it in. So how to remove the mesh without catapulting Henry off the sill? We managed it, but it was a nervous, touch-and-go-ey few minutes. Then I went down into the garden to see if I could see Mary, the little black kitten. I looked up at the window; there was no sign. With heart in mouth, I looked at the ground under the window. Nothing! Angie, meanwhile, had gone to the window over the veranda, on another side of the house, and found Mary sitting on the veranda roof. She let her in, and sighs of relief were breathed all round. We were told later that the neighbour had seen Mary marching around the guttering on the opposite side to the veranda, so she must have walked right round the building.

We keep the window open no more that two inches now. Better roasted than pancaked!

Just to remind you, here's a picture of the house from the deck, looking up at the guttering. See that little dormer window? That's where Henry was sat. See that guttering? Yup! That's where Mary took her stroll. Bastards! They're doing fine - but we're going greyer by the minute.

 
 

Tuesday 15th April

 

Spring is sprung! And though the grass cannot be said to have riz much yet, it is at least greenish and snow free. Hallelujah!

 

Before the snow bid its final farewell, Angie bullied George, next door, to let her have a go on his snowmobile. He did, and after a quick spin round the field at the bottom of the garden riding pillion, he let her loose on her own. Now she wants one, of course, but thankfully the snow is all gone so there's no point. I'm relying on her attention span giving out before it snows again next winter (some other shiny object is bound to come along and distract her).

 

A couple of weeks ago Gananoque Curling Club hosted the Ontario Junior Curling Championships. 80 teams from all over Ontario converged on the place to sling the rocks about and Hattie, with her 2 months of curling experience and know-how under her belt, was in the school team. You would not believe how cutthroat a game it is. In the same way that croquet looks all genteel and placid, but conceals a wealth of ruthless spite, so with curling. They smash each other's rocks out of the house with gay abandon, leaving frustration and despair in their wake. No quarter is asked or given, and no prisoners are taken. Then they shake hands and stump off for a doughnut and a drink (it was sponsored by Tim Hortons, so the doughnuts were free. Woo hoo!).

 

Oh, Hattie's school team, the T.I.E.S. Timberwolves, got into the last 16. Frankly, that was amazing, so more power to their elbow. The girls done well, 'Arry.

 

Last week we forced Hattie to skive off school for a couple of days and we biffed off to New York to meet up with Tini and Richard, our best mates from Lincoln. It was fantastic to see the old cardigans again, and a fine time was had by all. We went to see Spamalot, took a boat trip around Manhatton, saw the Statue of Liberty, wore our shoes through on miles of pavement, almost set foot in Central Park and generally behaved like a bunch of tourists. Angie and Hattie went for a ride in a rickshaw, which must have been a bit of a hairy go in the nose to tail traffic. The Empire State Building was just outside our hotel bedroom window. See the photo taken on the hotel roof patio.

 

Poor old Hats was a bit grotty for the trip. She had caught some kind of horrible lurgi at the beginning of the week, and after croaking and nasally dribbling her way through the school day on Monday we let her stay in bed on Tuesday. On Wednesday we heaved her out of bed at 4am, lurgi or no lurgi, so we could drive 2 hours to catch a train in Syracuse at 7 am. The train was delayed, of course, and eventually arrived in Syracuse about 40 minutes late. Then it was delayed some more, and what should have been a leisurely stroll from Penn Station to Grand Central Station to meet Tini and 'Chud at 2pm (the train was supposed to get in at midday) turned into a breathless sprint. We were late, of course. Someone is always late when we get together with T and R. How well I remember that time, back in Lincoln, when they were coming round for a meal and I cooked a souffle. They were late that time - about two hours late. Hmmmm! I only did that once.

 

We came back to Lansdowne on Thursday afternoon, leaving T and R to enjoy the rest of their holiday. Hattie was still feeling like death warmed up on Friday, so we didn't send her to school then, either. It sort of cuts the moral high ground from under you when you have to tell the school that Hats didn't come to school on Tuesday because she was ill, and the same on Friday... but she didn't come on Wednesday and Thursday because we were in New York. Sounds a bit thin, doesn't it?  Brassier necks than mine would have been less than convincing with that story.

 

So I let Angie tell them. She was fine.

 

Right! Bunch of photos. Angie on a snowmobile, one of that daft turkey balancing on a branch to get at the seed bell, The Timberwolves curling (Hattie throwing the rock) and a few of us lot and Tini and 'Chud in New York living the high life.

 

 

 

On a sadder note, poor old Bob, the black cat that we brought with us from the UK, died a couple of weeks ago. She was about 18, and had been ailing for a few weeks. We'll miss her.

 

 

Monday 10th March 2008

 

Yes, I know! I neglected the blog again, and it's not like nothing has happened worth writing about.

 

For example, see that bit in the last entry where it says 'it's all green and springlike'? That just seems like a lifetime ago. The snow has been lying thick and constant ever since, and this weekend has been particularly spectacular. I'd shovelled the stuff off the drive on Saturday because the Pony Club kids were coming to do a craft session with Angie on Sunday (scrapbooking it was) and we'd need the parking space. Unfortunately the weather excelled itself overnight on Saturday, and on Sunday morning the stuff was knee deep again. Angie marched out with the shovel, but George next door told her that it had defeated his tractor so her little shovel was a non-starter. We had to get a bloke with a JCB to come and shift it. We mentioned to George that we were wondering about getting a snow shifting attachment for our little ride on lawnmower to save a bit of shovelling. He said, "Well, you can, but it wouldn't scrape the scum off a piss pot." So we haven't bothered.

 

The wild turkeys, which last year we occasionally saw huddled in the field at the bottom of the garden, have got bold this year. I think they were drawn by the crab apples that fell in he autumn, just before the snow came. We see them marching round the garden most days now, huge and surprisingly long legged and athletic looking. Imagine a peahen with a blowtorched head (red and bald) and you'll have the idea. And while I'm on the wildlife theme, a woodpecker has carved a little round hole in the tree outside Angie's studio window. Very neat, it is, and Angie assures me that she's seen the woodpecker, and sometimes two of them, going into the hole and generally biffing about in a woodpeckery fashion. I have not seen them yet, so I only have her word for it. Hattie says she's seen them, too, but it may be a conspiracy. I make frequent detours to the window on the off chance I'll see a head poking out the hole or a backside disappearing into it, but so far zilch.

 

And to anyone who has unaccountably found rugby songs involving woodpeckers' holes running through their head - STOP IT! You should be ashamed!

 

Hattie is extremely chuffed to have got a part in the school production of 'Painting the Fence' - a short musical based on Tom Sawyer. She's Huckleberry Finn, and she was reasonably confident after the audition. "I think I'll get it, 'cos I'm the only one that can do the accent." That was a double take moment.

 

I've avoided banging on about work in this blog (some would say I've avoided the blog entirely - mea culpa) because I really don't want it to be one of those round robin type affairs that read like a list of achievements. However, I can report that after a slightly difficult year last year, particularly at the beginning when we seemed to be moving house every couple of weeks, I've settled into a good work routine and I'm getting plenty done. I have had a couple of illustrations in the Globe and Mail, albeit only in the travel section, and continue to do the odd piece for The Guardian. I've also been doing surprisingly regular work for Nature (The Science Journal) - including some covers. I don't know if they're testing me to destruction, but they always seem to have a firm idea of what type of illustration they want - and it's never the same two illustrations running. 1930s pulp sci-fi magazine cover, woodcut, clean and graphic, cartoon etc. I'm going to get some examples up on the site in the Editorial Illustration section so you can have a look.

 

Here are a few photos. The turkeys are there, looking as daft as only a turkey can, and the piles of snow after the JCB had shovelled it off the drive. Eskimo Nell wasn't available, so I had to use a substitute model to indicate scale. Notice the snow that was piled up against the door; we imaginedthat it would all flop in when we opened it, but in fact it was compacted and took several sharp swings of the shovel to make a dent in it.

 

 

Saturday 12th January 2008

 

2008, for goodness sake! What's that about.

 

Angie is still in Lincoln; she flies back on Thursday and we're all looking forward to seeing her again after 3 weeks away.

 

The weather is very peculiar here. The snow has all but gone. I don't believe for a moment that it's over for the winter, but just at the moment, apart from the odd diehard lump here and there, it's all green and springlike. It was like it yesterday, too, except that there was rain which had turned to slush. I mention this because I bundled Hattie off to school at the usual time, as you do when there's no snow about, and she arrived to find it deserted. It was a snow day, apparently, but without any snow. a slush day, perhaps. Whatever you call it, there was no school and she came home for the day. Today, there's not even slush. Clear roads, green grass and cloudy skies.

 

Wednesday this week that was a real stinker. It was blowing a hooley all day, pulled three 2ft tent pegs out of the ground that were holding the pool cover on (it stayed in place thanks to the water still being frozen - takes more than a few days of above freezing temperatures to melt that lot). In other parts of the township, trees were blown down. How do I know this? Because the power lines were down and there was no electrcity. We do everything with electricity. Oh, the furnace is oil fired, of course - but it doesn't actually burn any oil unless the electrical part of the business is telling it to. No heat. No cooking. No light (and it was cloudy and gloomy enough for that to be a bit of an issue while I was trying to work). I decided, after an hour or so peering at my work and getting cheeses off with the process, that the thing to do would be to remove the build up of rubbish under the deck.

 

We have to take recycling to the tip ourselves, they don't collect it. Leave it a couple of weeks, and there's enough there for you to want to ignore it a bit longer. The ostrich thing. Then there's more of it, and it's just plain daunting. We'd got through the daunting stage and were approaching the health hazard area. Great bins and bags full of tins and plastic and paper. To be fair, most of it was sorted into those categories - but there were mysterious bags full of assorted treasures. Every one had to be opened and checked and sorted into paper, plastic or tin. Or glass, of course. Almost forgot that one. The dismembered christmas tree was in a bag, too. That counts as 'garden waste'. There were also three bags of genuine household rubbish that had reappeared from under snowdrifts after the snow melted. I didn't even realise they were there. They count as landfill, and we have to buy little orange stickers or they won't accept them at the tip. Fortunately, we had enough of those little stickers to do the job.

 

It was raining as well as blowing while I was doing the sorting, but the thought of achieving closure with all this crap drove me on. It would be gone from our lives very soon. I shivered and sorted and sorted and shivered, and eventually I got it all bagged and boxed in it's various categories and went to back the car up to it so I could load it in. The car was in the garage.

 

I went through the little human sized door at the side and pressed the button that opens the garage door proper. Guess what? No ruddy electricity! The door remained shut. I had a few tugs and shoves at the door but I couldn't budge it. There was a way... there HAD to be, but I'm blowed if I could think what it was. I went in the house for a cup of tea. No tea! No electric! I had a cup of water and either I rang Angie or Angie rang me. That was nice. After that I went back into the garage and had another think. I noticed, dangling about a foot above my head, a red handle on a piece of string. Aha! I pulled the handle. Nothing happened. I pulled it again - and then I pulled the dangly handle and heaved at the handle on the garage door. BINGO! Got the garage door open! I backed the car up to the rubbish pile, opened all the doors and flattened the back seats. I began loading. There was too much stuff. I could see that as soon as I started. Was I daunted? No chance? Was I going to make two trips to the rubbish tip? Get stuffed! I shoved and shuffled and squeezed the bags and boxes into the car until there was nothing left in the drive.

 

Then I thought I'd better just check the house; maybe I needed to empty the bins in the rooms. Did I ever! There were the industrial sized bins that Angie and I use to chuck our waste paper - we each have one in our rooms. They were both full and overflowing, and Angie (God bless her) had a bin bag full of paper next to hers where she emptied it the last time. The car was full, but I squeezed it all in anyway, using the passenger seat and any tiny spaces I could find. So, with my car full of none too sweet smelling rubbish (I think some of the tins weren't rinsed out as fastidiously as they might have been), and my visibility zero everywhere except the front windscreen and the driver's wing mirror, I biffed off to the tip. There was a glow of elation at having wrestled it all in. Soon it would be gone. Oh, how I was looking forward to the trip home.

 

There's a big notice outside the tip with the opening hours. That's where I first found out that the tip is closed on a Wednesday. It was Wednesday! I swore loudly at the notice, turned the car round and went home, muttering dark oaths. I garaged the car, leaving the windows open to mitigate the rubbishy smell (I was NOT going to unload it all and then shoe-horn it in again in the morning). I probably stank, but I was too close to it to tell, and there was not a fat lot I could do about it. Showers and hot baths need electricity.

 

I decided to be practical. It was still a bit gloomy for work, but I had a letter to post, I could take Angie's books back to the library, and I needed to get something from the local Freshmart that I cold cook on the barbeque or Hattie and I wouldn't be eating that evening. Bread and butter, maybe, but not much else. I gathered the stuff and went first to the post office. The lady sat in the unlit post office, and sold me a padded envelope in which to send my stuff. She could NOT, however, tell me how much postage I needed to put on the thing to send it. The scales are linked to the computer, and it does that. At least it does when it's got some power to run it. No power; no idea! Remember the old days, when you shoved your letter on a set of mechanical scales and the pointer simply pointed to the amount it would cost to send? How simple was that? I had to take my padded envelope home with me.

 

I went to the library. The library has a generator and functioned perfectly. This was a treat, and there were no fines to pay so it was with a lighter step that I took myself off to Freshmart. I could get some burgers, or even get some mince and MAKE some burgers. A couple of spuds baked on the barbie with burgers and some veg cooked in a little foil packet and we'd be away. I may have even smiled and swung my bag, now empty except for the padded envelope, as I marched off down the street.

 

There was an ominous darkness to the Freshmart. I wasn't worried. No electricity, I reasoned, no light. Actually, the shop was shut. No electricity, no nothing! The tills wouldn't work, I was told later. All was chaos. I slumped home and had a bit of a sit down, stinking quietly to myself. Probably drank some more water. Probably swore under my breath a bit. Couldn't have a cup of tea. Couldn't have a shower. At about 3:15pm I fired up the barbie and shoved a couple of spuds on it. We had a bit of cheese left in the fridge, so that would have to do. At 3:30pm the electricity came back on. Hoo-bloody-ray! I took the spuds off the barbeque and shoved them in the oven.

 

After that it was plain sailing.

 

I took the rubbish to the tip on Thursday.

 

(PS - No photos this time... but you didn't really want to see a photograph of a car full of smelly rubbish, did you? Hmmm? I thought not).

 

 

Wednesday 19th December

 

Over a month! Mea culpa! And it's nearly Christmas!

 

We're on course for a white one here. The snow is about 2 feet deep all over the garden, the roof and the rest of Ontario. Our very kind neighbour, George, clears our driveway with his snowplough (Canadians just seem to have these things in their sheds. Snowploughs, all terrain vehicles, tractors, trucks, generators, skidoos and things Uncle Tom Cobbley never dreamed about) whenever he gets it out to do his own. It saves us a whole pile of shovelling and we are very grateful indeed. I did, however, have to get he shovel out yesterday and clear the drive we don't normally use because I was worried the people that deliver fuel oil wouldn't be able to access the inlet. It took me all morning and my arms still ache from it. It snowed again today, but they delivered the oil so I'm blowed if I'm going out to clear it all again.

 

Mind you, it's not all bad. If you don't have to drive in it it's very picturesque: the snow sits on everything like an enormous Christmas card. One evening a couple of weeks ago I was in the car park of a shopping mall. This is not normally the most inspiring environment, but it was dark and there was snow and that was lovely. And the most spectacular thing was this: on the edges of the car park there are low shrubs, mostly bare of leaves but with just the odd one at the ends of some twiggy branches. There were also small trees here and there, with no leaves at all. Here's the thing, though: every branch and twig was coated in a layer of ice so that each tree and each shrub looked as though it was made of glass. Each small leaf, left at the ends of the shrubs' branches, had its own ice coating, completely smooth and transparent, so that they looked like droplets on a chandelier. In the car park lighting it was quite magical. A couple of days ago, in a shop window, Angie and I saw a sort of crystal tree decoration, with small glass droplets hanging from it, and expensive though it undoubtedly was I swear it was not a match for that shopping mall car park, and the more so because the car park effect was transient. It was there, and it will be gone, and that makes it so much more precious.

 

Kingston Youth Strings did a concert at the beginning of the month. Hattie says she fell off once or twice, but nothing too serious. It was a relief, actually, because I had been to the last rehearsal the Tuesday before the Saturday concert and it was all a bit skin-of-the-teeth. Oh, me of little faith! They played really well and a splendid time was had by all. They shared the concert with the Kingston Youth Orchestra, who were extremely good.

 

Hattie and I went to a Messiah in Kingston - we got in free because we were dragooned by Youth Strings to sell water in the interval (a fundraising enterprise). We had to stand, but it was well worth it. Kingston Symphony Orchestra is a truly remarkable group. They accompanied some of the solo soprano's passages with a solo violin (actually, the violinist was Hattie's teacher, Gisele, who is the 'Concert Master' - or leader). The effect was incredibly intimate and truly magical.

 

I'm posting a couple of photos of the snow. I think some where taken through windows, so please forgive the clunkiness.

 

 

As an afterthought, here are a couple of earlier pics taken at the Lansdowne Christmas Parade. Not so much snow then. One is Hattie pummelling her friend, Maddison's brother. The other one is Santa parading past our house - so there can be NO EXCUSES! He knows where we live. If I don't get a Christmas Pressie, Santa, there's going to be big trouble!

 

And I've been good!

 

 

Friday 2nd November

 

And it's my birthday... so I'm feeling very old.

 

On Monday I had a very interesting visit to the National Film Board of Canada in Montreal. I've been designing some characters for an animation project, and the first bit of experimental animation had been done with one of them. Very exciting, particularly because the system it is being created in makes 3 dimensional drawn animation - the sort of thing IMAX does with real life filming and computer generated animation. The drawings are made in virtual space, which is a mind boggling operation. Difficult to explain, but the results are very exciting.

 

Hallowe'en has been and gone. My word, it's big here. The entire neighbourhood was out on Wednesday, all dressed up to the nines and carrying bags the size of dusbin liners to collect their treats in. We had a conservative collection of sweetie bags to begin with, about 15 bags, until Hattie spoke to Pam Miller (who used to live here) at school. She said that everyone comes by the house on Hallowe'en, that quite a few people didn't even know they (the Millers) had moved out yet, and that they usually found themselves shovelling the candy out. So Hattie and I  made a mad dash to the shop and bought what they'd got left in the way of chocolate eyeballs and fun sized Mars bars etc. Most of it got distributed, too. Buckets of the stuff!

 

We all went to a Hallowe'en party at the riding stables at the weekend. I'm embarrassed to say I fell asleep. It's the age thing, I think. I've posted a photo of Hattie and Angie in their costumes. Yes, that is Angie in the big, black BOO costume.

 

Oh, yes! We had promised Hattie a kitten once we were settled into the new house. We've been doing what bad parents do and putting it off, but we finally decided it was time. Angie had met someone from the Gananoque Humane Society, where all the unwanted cats and kittens go, so we took ourselves off there and had a look. We've adopted one! Well, two to be more accurate, and it was all I could do to drag Angie and Hattie, kicking and screaming, to the car before there were another dozen on the list. They sit there looking all cute and big-eyed, batting your finger with their fluffy paws. The bastards! They do it on purpose! We get them next Saturday, after they have had all their jabs. They are quite small, so this is before they have been neutered, but we are under obligation to whisk them off to the vet when they reach 5 months. There are some photos of them, too. The big grey fluffy one is a boy, and the little black one is a girl. She absolutely insisted on being adopted, she really did.

 

 

 

Wednesday 24th October

 

Just a brief entry to mention that I've had to check my webserver four or five times a day recently to delete the rubbish that keeps getting dumped in the guestbook. Lists of bone brained links mostly, and I'm fed up with it so I've lost the page in its current form and replaced it with a NEW guestbook. Angie found this one on a website she likes to visit, and I followed the link and put one here. I have no idea if it will work - but if it does it should be great. You can post photos and little vids and stuff. So if you're reading this, and you haven't been to the guestbook page yet, go there next and say hello. Go on, do it!

 

Oh, I should probably mention that I elected to 'approve' all entries before they are posted. I just did that so that, should the phantom spammer re-emerge, I can block the stinker before he drops his tatty links all over my site. It's not because I want to check your spelling or anything. Honest!

 

 Fingers crossed it works.

 

You still here? Guestbook! NOW! I need some entries to see if it works.

 

Monday 22nd October

 

Time has done its stuff again, and I'm late with the blog update. What can I say? I can merely grovel an apology and ask your forgiveness.

 

And stuff has happened, too. Lots of stuff! Hattie had taken her first horse riding test and scraped a pass, which is amazing because she'd only been riding a couple of months. Angie, or 'Wild Bill Parkins' as she probably ought to be known now, went on a 3 hour trail ride with a bunch of mums and the lady who runs the stables where Hattie rides. She came home saddlesore but elated. I think she means to repeat the experience at the earliest opportunity, now she knows they make horses that can carry her weight.

 

Although we are not yet eligible to vote, Angie decided to do her bit for the democratic process by being a poll clerk in the recent provincial government election. She had to do a full day's training course and swot up on the do's and don'ts of the process, but she came though like a good 'un. She'll be running the place any day now, you see if she's not.

 

The pool is now closed down and covered for the winter. It's looking a bit forlorn with its black plastic cover, with half an inch of water on it and a few plastic bottles of water slung over the side to weigh it down against sudden gusts of wind. It's sunny and fresh today, but we've had a few chilly ones. The other day a woodpecker was having a bash at the deck rail, so I suspect the insect population is dwindling a bit. (Not the ruddy flies, though! They make extremely cheeky flies over here, not like the timid jobs you get in the UK that avoid you where possible. These little stinkers seek you out, especially while you're eating, and expect first refusal on your mashed spuds and gravy. Bastards!). Being soft hearted, and seeing the plight of the woodpecker hammering away at the barren woodwork of the deck, and then moving on to the equally barren upstairs railing of the veranda, we have hung birdseed, suet slabs and all sorts of birdy goodies on the trees and the garage and, well...the upstairs railing of the veranda. Naturally, we have not seen a bird in the garden since. Ungrateful perishers. The trees are now well into their autumn colouring. All along the main highway, the 401, you could imagine they're on fire they get so red and orange. Unfortunately the ones at the back of the house are being rather prosaic. Like a very dull striptease they are bypassing all the teasing and splendour and going straight for crinkly brown and then nude. No doubt about it, though. Summer's been and gone and winter's just a matter of time now.

 

Oh, yes! We bought a ping-pong table! It fits beautifully in the upstairs room with no windows, but that room has some sloping walls so we have to be careful. Fine for playing, but then the ball rolls into a corner and you leap athletically to retrieve it and fetch your head a wallop when you stand up. Hattie's learning lots of new words.

 

Oh, and the latest on the mousetrap saga. This is a cracker. We just couldn't live with ourselves using the snappy trap, so Angie brought home a thing she borrowed from someone she met somewhere. The idea is: you bait it inside and when the mouse crawls down a little tube to find the goodies a mechanism flips it into a little compartment where it is trapped. Then you let it go. Easy. We smeared on the peanut butter and waited. We checked it every morning. Nothing. Plenty of mouse poo all round it, nothing in the trap. It went on for a couple of weeks like this, and Angie was making dark mutterings about bringing back the snappies, when one morning last week, as I went to the kitchen to make the coffee, Angie said, "Check the trap, because I heard a lot of scrabbling about under the sink just now." Now, the space under the sink has two doors. The door on the left has a swing bin attached to it, so I opened the door on the right. I moved the little plastic compost bin, where we put the veg peelings before taking them to the big compost bin down the garden, to get a view of the trap. There was nothing in it. Not a thing. Mouse droppings all around it as usual, but the trap was empty. I closed the door and got on with making the coffee. It was maybe an hour later when Angie breezed into the kitchen, opened the LEFT door to chuck something in the bin, said' "Eeeek!" (or something equally girly) and slammed the door shut. There were three mice sitting in the bottom of the bin, looking all cute and Beatrix Pottery. We'd taken the liner out of the bin the night before, probably because it was rubbish day, and the mice, who had obviously got used to being able to leap into the half full bin, have a good munch on whatever was in there and then get out easily, had all leaped in and were stuck. One attempted a sort of 'wall of death' hurtle around the sides and very nearly got to the top, but couldn't quite make it. So, anyway, I took them for a little ride in the car and let hem go. The bin is now a full time mousetrap (although nothing seems to have been for a visit since then).

 

And that's it, really. Angie is still doing cards for those UK magazines she works for, and has had the odd commission locally. Hattie seems to b doing OK at school. They're all having jabs today - hepatitis B I think - so she'll probably be feeling a bit sorry for herself when she gets back. She did have a sort of dry run last Tuesday, though, when a wasp got caught on her woolly glove and stung her on the thumb. She couldn't play the violin for a couple of days. Every cloud..... :-)

 

And I continue to slog away at all the work I'm behind with. 'Twas ever thus. We've been in Canada for over a year now. It seems like a few days... and forever... simultaneously. How does that work?

 

Here are some pics. Angie and the gang on their trail ride; the three mice in the bottom of the bin; and at last a picture of that house centipede. There it is in all its glory, scuttling across the kitchen floor. What do you think? Ugly or beautiful? I must confess: the more I look, the more I sway towards Angie's verdict. UGLY perisher! (The centipede... not Angie).

 

 

 

Click on a link to see earlier blog entries:

 

July - September 2007

April - June 2007

January - March2007

November - December 2006