Sporadia

Sporadic indeed. Thank you to all those who emailed me to see what was happening.

I hasten to assure I am still above the sod and not pushing up the daisies. I haven't popped my clogs in other words.

In old age. everything, yes everything, slows right down. 

And the managing of energy and where we throw it becomes almost a full-time job.

I want to do so much, packing everything in, and have yet to come to terms with my own limitations.

In short:

Tax season has entered my life yet again. I embrace my now minimum business which funds a few of my wee luxuries. This year I need a new computer as the one I have, though functioning, is showing her age by screen dimming and being quite nasty in her behavior on my Zoom calls which moved me to use my phone which is not the best solution, especially when I chair some meetings and can't quite see everybody as the gallery is tiny.

I also am restarting my writing workshops.

And I agreed to sit on the tenants' committee in my building as I feel quite passionately about seniors' wellbeing and am a highly vocal advocate of same. 

So there you have it. Meanwhile, I started a lovely sweater for my Parisienne Grandgirl.

A couple of shots taken on Sunday of our beautiful harbour (and sky) in St. John's taken from the south side.

I'll try and behave myself and update more frequently.

And also get caught up on all you lovely fellow blogmates out there.

Slainte!

A Mini-tour of St. John's, Newfoundland Yesterday

We get quite a few cruise ships in our wonderful harbour here in St. John's. Yesterday it was the Insignia. So I toddled down to the harbour front to have a gawp.

There was a lot of traffic down there so I couldn't get far enough away to get a good shot of the whole ship so I decided to go to the south side of the harbour, which is always devoid of tourists and vehicles and crammed with boats of all kinds, fishing, service and coast guard.

So I took another shot of the ship across the harbour.

It's always lovely over there, I saw this gull sitting on a pole surveying the scene. You might have to embiggen to spot him but he caught my fancy.

I love the houses climbing the cliffs surrounding the entrance to the harbour.

I then took myself off up Signal Hill, which was crowded with busloads off the cruise ship and I overheard some conversations. Apparently this cruise line speccializes in off the beaten track cruises and their enraptured comments about St. John's were pleasing,

I stopped to talk to a woman who had six dogs and I fell in love with all of them.

I am old so no one gives a tosser when I am listening to conversations, I have the advantage of being invisible. So I was sitting on a wall behind two thirty-ish men who were holding hands, standing extremely close to each other, pretending to be catching the spectacular view but their undercurrent was electrifying. Summary: they were on the cruise, had met the night before on the deck at midnight, were married (to unsuspecting women?) and were planning another midnight sojourn once more when the ship sailed later on, meanwhile they had to get back to their wives who were left browsing in the tourist shop. As they were whispering intensely I took this photo of a fishing boat heading out to the open ocean. I am always struck by the forty shades of blue we have out here.

And I pondered on the secret lives of others.
 

My Beautiful City

 This is a photo taken by Ray Mackey of the city of St. John's, Newfoundland, at night.

This is the city during the day.

The harbour is spectacular and we have ships coming in from all over the world.

Nestled in the city itself is an active fishing village called Quidi Vidi which is beside where I live.

A photo, courtesy of Gerry Boland of Cabot Tower, which I can see from my window. This is the site of the first transatlantic radio transmission in North America by Mr. Marconi. The dog in the picture is Chief, a fixture on Signal Hill for many years, a gorgeous friendly Newfoundland purebred who sadly died a month or so ago from cancer. He and his owner will be missed by everyone.

My Locale

I had a rough morning and beginning of afternoon (pain) until I laid me down and got up an hour later full of beans and was up for a "take the garbage out" (I've written before how this is positively Herculean) and then go for a mild runabout in the car and a wee walkabout by the lake near me.

I firat took a stop here about 100 metres from my home to survey the incoming fog which is quite blocking the triangle of ocean you can see in the distance.

Then I stopped on a dangerous corner near "my lake" to capture this, I've been dying to take it for a while and the road was quiet so I did.

Next I parked the car by the lake and took these. One curious duck out of hundreds paddled over to check on me.

And the fog slithered slowly in, creeping onto the boathouses and the boats and reaching for the gulls flying above.

And a cruel touch - this is the watchhouse of the HMP - Her Majesty's Prison which overlooks this magnificent lake but the fence is so high you can't look in or the convicts look out. They must sense the freedom in this beautiful spot though.

And finally, I go across to the other side and look down at the vanishing lake and the soft fog. How I love this place.

Etc.

A bit of a downer of a week, not sure why. I feel a little burned out as I did much walking on Sunday through necessity and the body takes ages to recover, physically and mentally.

I feel I've lost a lot of my creative juices though I am "socking" away which keeps my fingers limber.

A friend did this lovely thing last night for her small circle of friends on Facebook and sang us this wonderful old Quaker song. Just herself and her guitar and I was transported. I sang harmony to her beautiful rendition. Here it is sung by Audrey Assad but I have to confess my friend's older voice and her guitar had a profound effect on me.


I'm in the unusual position of having no "paying" work. My in-basket got cleared out. I'm not overly worried, financially, as there are some doings in the pipeline.

One of my friends had to pull the plug on her TV as she could no longer afford cable and her back and neck got shot out when she was lifting her patient into a car for a visit to the doctor. My friend is a home-care worker and 74 and is now terrified financially that she can no longer work and may have to sacrifice her car. Senior poverty is a global issue but I have written enough on that and will update once we hit the floor of parliament in early December.

Here is a picture from here in St. John's, taken by a local photographer to give you an idea of the beauty the liners and other ships see when they cruise into the harbour. Houses on cliffs always fascinate me.

Amadea

I spotted this ship Amadea curled up to St.John's Harbour yesterday and just had to look her up.

Here she is in Wikipedia.

I wouldn't mind one of the two Royal Suites. You could have the other one.

She has a crew of nearly 300. More crew than the passengers and she cost $150,000,000 when first built.

I wouldn't mind sailing to Greenland on her. That would be my type of cruise. And I like to believe she's small enough not to do much damage to the environment.

Here's her schedule. Expensive.

From my rusty Latin, Amadea would mean love of the goddess or goddess love.

Ships and trains fascinate me. Always have. I see one like this and I want to board her and see where she takes me.

I apparently can at Harbour Symphony Time where one year the Amadea was part of the annual symphony, a meticulously planned sound event, conducted digitally and all boats in the harbour participate. Best heard from a distance. But magical nevertheless.



PS Isn't our harbour beautiful even on a mauzy day?

Finding My Beach

Since I moved to the city I've thought "I need a beach". I'm kind of fussy about making a beach mine. It always takes a while.

It has to be open to the wild Atlantic.

It has to have sand.

It has to have rocks.

It has to have perches.

And little recessed areas for a chair for the knitting or a book or a meditation.

And people and dogs and kids to observe.

I found it, 10 minutes from my apartment.

Voila!

Status Update

Qidi Vidi Village in the heart of St. John's - photo by Perry Howlett

It's been an unusual December around here. Normally, our December is green. But we've had lashings of the white stuff. Then a layer of ice on top. Then more lashings of white stuff. I have a tunnel up my driveway to the garage. I am very lucky I've a lot of land around me to handle all the snow. In the city people are stuck. Nowhere to put it. And St. John's does not clear off its sidewalks. Seriously. Like at the first sign of snow it rolls itself up in an ice fortress for the winter and tells everyone to feck off. I fantasize, sometimes, about living there in the heart of downtown St. John's which is uber pretty. But holy Hannah, I would go mental in the wintertime. Especially at my age, nervous about breaking something in a bad fall. Hearing the horror stories of others who smash their pelvises and other sundry bits on icy sidewalks. Kids risk life and limb meandering through traffic in the middle of the roads going to school. I've seen sidewalks piled six feet high with the snow from the roads. Impassable. Completely.

I'm reading Caught by Lisa Moore. And I'm thoroughly enjoying it. I love her writing style where the small is magnified into something beautiful, the swish of fabric, the lupines at the side of the road, the lighting in a bar. I was fortunate to be her dinner companion at a conference and was in awe of her vast general knowledge.

I'm trying to put a priority list together and getting nowhere. Screen sucking distracts me. I need to unplug the effing Thingies and get on with my life rather than create these endless byroads in my brain. I can waste, um, two six hours and not be able to tell you what the hell I was doing or even try and sound minimally intelligent at the end of it all. Not good. For me. For anyone.

Avoidance.

I'm the expert.

Free lessons.

Sometimes, you just have to laugh (and laugh)

My daughter arrived yesterday. She was on standby, so was bumped to a later flight and arrived in St. John's 5 hours later than originally scheduled. This does not faze on her at all, being well equipped with books at Toronto airport, and then having the good sense to be seated next to a travelling companion who became an instant friend. The journey flew, she told me, a 3 hour flight seeming like 30 minutes.

She was tired but exhilarated when she got here. We were overjoyed to see each other as it has been just over a year, the longest separation ever since she arrived in my world forty-mumble years ago. You can't shut us up when we get together. So we pile into my car. Ansa had been on tiptoe in the back seat, mention my daughter's name and she is alert, head to toe. She kept looking for Daughter's dog who has shared her space on more than a few occasions. Alas, not to be. Shamrock stayed behind in Toronto under the care of Grandgirl, who is now, OMG, old enough to handle the animals and, OMG cubed, old enough to stay by herself.

So we pull across the parking lot and whump-whump. Flat tire. Middle of the night. I call the CAA and we sat and waited for the roadside assistance, exhausted but laughing insanely. It just seemed kinda perfect, you know?

And PS, where else in the world would one leave an airport parking lot and the attendant extends a huge dog biscuit to the canine passenger? Newfoundland: we loves ya!

Photo of the Day

What pleases me most about this picture, taken today, just outside of St. John's - which, by the way, is the oldest city in North America - are all the lines in it, the grey, the white, the black and then the rather outrageous salmon pink paint on the trim.