A City with History: Tomorrow we drive off to la vieille Ville de Quebec for a conference. This is a City with a large history of its own and which has also played a big part in my personal history. At 18 years of age I had headed off alone to a grand old hotel on the North Shore of the St. Lawrence River to work during my summer break. I was about to enter my senior year of high school - grade 13.
It was on the train heading east out of Quebec City that I met the man from Montreal with whom I would have my first sexual encounters. It was with young vibrant Quebecois working with me that I spent a great deal of time-off in the old walled City.
This was the summer of Pierre Elliott Trudeau, the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia and of the Quebec separatist flourish. We were all would-be freedom fighters, dreamers and laughing, intense philosophising youth. It was a summer of happy love and induced shame that would keep me closetted for a number of years yet. But six years later it was a Quebec City, Roman monk who would bring me joyfully out again and encourage me to live my life with integrity.
I have not visited this walled City for over 27 years and I go now with my lover of almost 25 years with vivid, lingering memories of anything is possible.

Well, another birthday has come and gone - but, since we tend to celebrate birth-months, I still have a few more days left to be pampered.
We are about to head into the garden to see if we can't get the major weeds under control. The gardens are lush and all the blossoming trees and shrubs have and continue to put on a banner performance this year.
Everything has grown exponentially... except for the prize apple tree that the tumbling 90 foot high spruce took out in a storm this past winter and the 2 other apple trees the rabbits killed by eating the bark.
We opened the cabin for our 20th season last weekend and nearly got carried off with the black flies. The docks were much harder to deal with than usual - either because of the age of the docks or the age of ourselves. In this vein, several years ago we went to arrange for friends to stay at the German woman's B&B on the far point across the lake from our cabin. She did not seem to remember us and asked where our cottage was. We told her and she replied: "Oh yes, that was the one the two young boys used to own."
Sheesh....

More Milestones: In an hour or so we are about to head off to our cabin near Parry Sound for the opening of our 20th season at the lake. The car is almost packed and Buster is eager to hop into the space prepared for him. It will be time to put the docks in, uncover the canoe and kayaks and to prepare the outhouse!
Tomorrow, will be the 50th anniversary of my arrival in Canada via a 5-day ocean crossing on the HMS Britannic to New York City with my family and then an overnight train to Toronto:1956. Then in a further four days I will be 56!

Today is our 24th anniversary and the start of our 25th year together! Despite societal obstacles, we have fashioned our own way - and are so glad we did. We have a better, fresher, and more vital relationship because of it. We did not try to fit ourselves or each other into a pre-ordained mold.