Whether I will have as much inclination to sit and write in my blog after the store has ceased operation remains to be seen. How wonderful, the sunny day, cold and quiet, witnessed across the counter and through the window panes. But if I did not write, I might go mad!

The orchestral Christmas music playing on the CD with background bird song, sleigh bells, horses neighing and barking dogs, places me in the realm of contented day dreams. I have puttered away at the displays, dabbled with bookkeeping and chatted with the too occasional customer.

Today I will miss an afternoon cocktail party; but will head off to a concert this evening soon after the store closes. My daily exercise was bringing in the firewood this morning and chopping the kindling so that the two woodstoves will keep the house warm on this chilly day.

My partner, will be happily at home baking for our seasonal entertaining. The house will smell of everything good. No doubt he will have our two seasonal trees lit, and choral music on the radio. Buster, will stay close so that anything that might drop onto the kitchen floor can be quickly licked up. He will disappear from time to time to bring out a different stuffed toy to paw and shake and lay on.

Does it sound too perfect to be true? It is everything I have written and more.

Once again we approach the darkest day of the calendar year. The good news is that thereafter the days grow longer. Solstice is around mid-day on December 21 this year. We will have our Winter Solstice celebration on the evening of December 20. The event begins around a large bonfire in our paddock. We will be about 40 festive souls of all ages. Here is a poem I have written. There will be other poems read and songs sung.

Winter Solstice 2009

The days now are dark and dreary;
Though November remained so mild.
Our bodies have become too weary
With blustering winds blowing wild.

And gory news at every turn
The stories of famine and death
Tsunamis, quakes and fires that burn
Will take away one’s breath.

So let us gather around this flame
To kindle fellowship with friends
And burn the guilt and rid the blame
And heal whatever rends;

That as we call the sun again
To warm the soil and light our ways
To quick the seeds and soothe the pain
With the mystery of its rays,

We know we cannot stand alone
Or refuse the warmth that’s near;
For we are seeds that must be grown
By love and friendship’s care.

So stand we here this darkly night
To recall to our realm the sun
And let us smile by flickering light
And together have some fun!

Ours is a small, quiet lake. We have had our Woodhead retreat for 23 years. Days can go by without a passing boat; then, it is more often a kayak that will glide silently by than a motor boat.
The loons often appear off our dock in the early morning, and at night we can hear their eerie call. I have seen moose and deer from our wooded point, and bear on the lane into our hide-away.
This summer, at a waterside market, I saw on display some magnificent hand-built wooden boats in the old Muskoka style. Most were well out of my financial range. One boat, however, caught my eye. It was a 10-foot wooden dorey – a row boat. Now, whether it is the romance of rowing in the morning mist, the thought of good, hearty exercise, or reliving my Henley rowing days, this was something I had always hoped I might be able to have at the lake.
The builder said he could make it into a sail boat for a very affordable price: two boats for a little more than the price of one.
Life is short. I take possession in a week. Of course it will remain in storage until next summer season at the lake. And I already feel like a child, too impatient for Christmas morning. It is my 60th birthday gift to myself; so if my 60th birthday must come, let it come quickly.

In honour of Amanda, Warkworth's first annual Pumpkin Carving Contest was a great success. Although there were separate junior and adult competitions, the kids' entries were every bit as creative as the adults' - perhaps even better.

A video clip of the event is posted to YouTube.

Another dreadful vehicle accident. - Another innocent person badly hurt. So many people now affected by an act of shear carelessness or reckless disregard for the wellbeing of others.
At least this vibrant person stands to recover, albeit after a long and painful period of multiple surgeries and rehabilitation.
Life is so fragile. We are all so risk averse.
Wonderfully, our small village has rallied again to offer whatever support it can. Waiting to hear how, what and when to offer. Feeling a bit helpless and inadequate in friendship.
I try to remember always to appreciate the moment as if it were my last. To stop in the chaos and find the calm beauty. It isn't easy. It is healing.

October rainy day, the sort of day we fell in love with our soon to become home 16 years ago. Tomorrow, with the help of friends, we will be splitting wood for the fire. This wood is from trees that have been taken down on our property in the past 2 years. Since we have planted well over 50 trees these past 15 years, we do not feel as badly as otherwise we might that some noble giants have had their day, - as we all must.
Fall is a reflective time. So perhaps it is fitting that our grave markers are now holding our inevitable place in the tiny cemetery at the end of our road. How odd at first to see one’s name engraved in stone amongst the many stones that have stood there – some for almost 200 years. The previous owners of our homestead are amongst them. Indeed the cemetery is named after the original inhabitants.
October days are crisp or raw depending on whether there is the golden sun of autumn, or the wind blown driving rain that brings down the leaves. We must take them as they come. Yesterday was the former, and Buster and I took a long ramble down golden tree covered lanes under soft blue skies, picking delicious wild apples and brushing through fallen leaves as we went. Life is good.

A Porch Song

The quiet chatter of those who know the knocks of years
And laugh with wonder that they have survived
The slings and arrows hurled their way;
And in the field they have even thrived
If the tales they utter are but half true.
They fully understand the clock runs down
And each ticking tock they will imbue
With life’s timid vibrancy to the end.

Only birds and cows were witness there
To harmless souls in friendship’s flight;
And if they drank too much and chortled loud,
Their grins were wide with eyes alight.
The aches, the scars are nothing then;
The pain and tears that carved their flesh
Are softened by the singing wren
Whose cheerful song says rejoice, live on.

Brilliant day of soothing heat

wind blown ruffling canvas

and silent tread the passing feet

with the raw hum of space.

Chairs rock gently to and fro

The languid clerk paces

soft music on the radio

wishing time fast away.

June 12, 2009 would have been my father's 100th birthday, had he lived so long. Regardless it will be the centenary of his birth in 1909 in what was then called Port Arthur, Ontario. (I am not sure I entirely approve of the renaming of commnities, or streets or buildings, that have had historical significance.)
One wonders if he would have approved of the world today - I fear not. I wonder if he would have approved of what has become of his children and grandchildren. It is impossible to say. But he was a conservative man and a man of honour, an Edwardian. No doubt he would have had difficulty adjusting to life's changing attitudes and behaviours. He might have despaired.
Regardless, a centenary makes one take stock of one's own life, especially when one has been a part of those hundred years for almost 60 of them! As my father aged, he became more eccentric and carefree. Perhaps he knew that he could do nothing to change the world any more, nothing to stave off the forces of development. I think I am already becoming a bit like that. It's not that I don't care any longer about the world and it's future. It is just someone elses's turn, someone who has more energy and idealism... the energy and idealism of youth.
On June 12 I will raise a glass to my father's memory, and I will relish my burgeoning eccentricity.

After hearing on CBC radio the new CD of a singer-songwriter whom we had heard in a bar in Cobourg, Ontario, I had emailed her to say “congratulations”. Her name is Juanita Wilkins. My partner and I had first heard her almost two years previously.

Juanita wrote back and asked if we had ever considered doing a home concert. Odd, as we had only recently been exposed to the concept by my young nephew. He had informed us last summer that we had to go to hear a particular artist and that he was booked to do a home concert in a city near us. We went. We were thrilled and had since been to a second such concert of another well-known performer.
So we gathered together 30 friends and acquaintances who were willing to pay $20 each to attend our first home concert on 23 May 2009. The gardens were lush, the weather divine. Juanita arrived with her partner and another fine musician in his own right named Bill Candy. Juanita and Bill often accompany each other. And they arrived in party mode. So did the guests. What an evening. Everyone was thrilled. And the music continued well into the night.

Soon very soon , I will enter my 60th year. I am a person who has had great difficulty adjusting to being older. Yet, too many of my friends died in in the 1980s and early 1990s in the prime of their lives - most from AIDS, some from cancer or accidents. They never had the opportunities I have had.
Ageing seemed to happen so quickly. One day, it seemed, my body changed and the person I felt I was was no longer the person I saw in the mirror. Regardless, I am grateful at least that the person I feel I am is still relatively vital mentally and physically.
Oh, I know I can no longer hike up high hills without becoming out of breath, that I can no longer work from dawn to dusk in the garden without aching relentlessly, that sitting at my desk for long hours of work causes me great discomfort, that visual accuity is lacking. But I still love challenges, and trying new things. I have less tolerance for people's follies - for precrastination, for excuses why things cannot be done, a greater desire to be with people who are keen and positive in their outlook.
As much as I feel I have a lot of living still to do, were I to die today, I would have no regrets - well, not about things left undone at any rate. I have experienced so much. I have a lot of gratitude that I have had interesting careers, travelled extensively - especially in my youth, and known wonderful people all over the world. Most of all I have had the most wonderful friend and lover in my partner of 27 years.

On February 13, 2009, (a Friday), I attended an event for my best friend from high school. We graduated in 1969.

Although I have seen him periodically in the past 39 years, I would not say that we had continued to be close. However, his death in England a few weeks ago came as a shock and has saddened me.

After 5 years at high school, we took off to Europe together in early September 1969. We volunteered in a wonderful community in Yorkshire, travelled England and Scotland together, lived with friends in London, visited South Africa and skied in the Italian Alps.

But by February 1970 we had become estranged. Despite seeing each other and doing things together on occasion in the early 1970s, we never really connected again. I have tried to remember why. Now, so many memories have come flooding back, but I cannot be sure of their accuracy.

I thought perhaps it was because he wanted to be in the vibrancy of London and I in the pastoral splendour of the Yorkshire Dales. Or perhaps I was jealous of his friendship with my childhood and old family friendship with Jenny. Then again, perhaps it was because he was the more outgoing and debonair, the one everyone wanted to be with. I was the hanger on. And then, perhaps it was because I was, in an uneasy way, in love with him. Perhaps it was I who orchestrated our going separate ways. Memories tell me it was because he used to put me down, in a humourous, off-the-cuff sort of way. I really cannot be certain these many years since.

I last saw him briefly, very briefly, in the late summer of 2006. He came for lunch. He was very late. He was very distracted. He looked drawn and unwell. He was sad. Recently he had separated from his wife of many years. He was in financial difficulty. When we said good-bye, I thought it unlikely I would see him again. I did not.

I did not know he was very ill, that he was in fact dying. Neither did he until shortly after this last visit. My emails were ignored. My one letter unanswered.

There are so many good memories. So many unanswered questions. He was not one to share his innermost feelings. These have gone with him to his grave.