Blow, blow ye wintry winds

Winter has hit and we Warkworthians have long since completed our preliminary preparations for the coming holiday season with lights about the property and wreaths abounding.  With the fresh snow, too early for my liking, it looks rather magical at night I must say.

Speaking of the fresh snow, Wednesday evening my partner John was out. It had snowed heavily all day! I went outside after finishing up my legal work and got our newly tuned 20-year old snowblower out to do its wonderful work. I had completed about 1/3 of the drive and patio when it died - of course at the foot of the hill... 

I finished the drive by hand in an hour and a half... Then, I dragged the machine back up the hill and into the shed. Exhausted, I went inside the house, put a log on the fire, took a pain pill, and had a substantial glass of wine, all in an effort to console myself.

I had to leave next day at 7am for a conference, and so I phoned a friend to ask if he would come in the morning to help John load the trailer so that John could take it into the repair shop in Campbellford, a town about 20K from here.

Overnight it had snowed again heavily and by the time of my anticipated departure, the drive was plugged with the white stuff. So, in my benevolence, I decided to help John with the shovelling before I left. I really had no option if I wanted poor little Mini to get down the drive. But I also decided to try to start the snow blower again, this time using the electric start cord instead of the manual pull ... It started right away, and I, smiling, directed the machine down the drive where it promptly conked out near the bottom again. It would not restart...

John and I dragged it back up the hill. Then John, in his wisdom, decided it was a problem with the gas line. I made fun of him and asked him if he had learned that in mechanics class on the moon. It's a joke with us. Every time he has a suggestion that comes out of the blue on a subject that he has no expertise in, I ask him if he learned that in whatever class on the moon. I am sure there is a long since forgotten rationale for that tease.

Before we put the pathetic snowblower away, he decided to check the gas tank. I insisted that I had already checked it last night and it was almost full. He ignored me. He often does. It happens after 33 years. He opened the gas cap, stood back and announced with his renowned clerical passion: It is bone dry! ...

I proclaimed that it had certainly looked full. In the dimness of dusk, and with weary and ageing eyes, it had definitely looked full - no doubt because of the reflection of the little remaining fuel and the dim light. Alas, it had been empty all this time!

Now, unfortunately, I have given him a story to tell at parties for the rest of the year. He has even started to learn how to tell it in Spanish in anticipation of Christmas festivities in Cuba!

Cottage Closing

A Ritual Gone Awry

People often ask us why we would have a cottage when we live in such a wonderful rural part of the country. A simple answer is that we bought our cottage retreat 29 years ago when we were living in the heart of downtown Toronto. The continuing answer is that we love being by water, away from telephones, televisions, computers and all of the invasive communication. We love the solitude. You see we have no hydro and no plumbing at our lakeside retreat.

Every year, of course, there is the annual opening in the spring, and closing in the fall. As we get older, which each of us must, we try to do the closing, in graduated stages over time.

We have two and a half docks. One we simply pull closer to shore and tie securely to trees on either side. One is small and sheltered and we simply leave it as is. The other we must disconnect from a short bridge that is bolted into the rocky shore. To do this, we must both get into the water. Therefore, we do that around Labour Day when the water is still relatively comfortable. We learned our lesson when one year we had left it to November. Not at all a good idea!

This year we had advanced our closing ritual somewhat. In addition to the docks, on the Labour Day weekend, we had put some of our outdoor furniture into its winter-resting spot on top of the bed in the bunky – Bunkingham Palace as we have been known to call it. So that left very little to do on our final early October weekend: The wooden Muskoka Chairs were moved from their various perches into the cabin, interior furniture was shifted to make room for the intrusion and a hammock was hung in the sitting room from corner to corner weighted down by blankets, cushions and pillows to just a foot and a half off the floor.

The row boat was rowed across the lake, carried up the hill at a friend’s much more elaborate cottage and stored in one of her two spacious garages. That left only our carefully restored cedar canoe. We had left ourselves lots of time this year for one last paddle around the perimeter of the lake before we would carry it to our Jeep, secure it on the roof and drive it to the barn that would be its winter home.

It was a lovely sunny day. Cool and crisp. A bit of a breeze had just picked up. We are both experienced canoeists. We would stay close to shore and that we did. The lake was bereft of human habitation. Only one couple of cottagers could be seen in the distance working away on their deck. All was well.

We paddled to the south of the lake and down the almost primaeval river a short distance, and then back into the west Bay. Rounding the Bay was a little more work. The wind had grown stronger and the waves, though manageable, made us work for our pleasure.

We rounded the mouth of the Bay into the main lake, still close to the shore, paddling a little more rigorously against the wind. Then, all hell broke loose!

The gusts of wind grew dramatically. The waves had white caps and made balancing the canoe a challenge to say the least. Our bodies were sails and the waves our engine. Paddling was senseless and even risky. All I could do was use the paddle as a rudder and keep our backs to the wind. The wind and water pushed us at great speed to the south end of the lake. We kept as low as we could in the canoe, fearing the worst.

Finally we reached the north Bay. We enjoyed a bit of a reprieve from the aches of over-used muscles, secret panic and the tension of body and spirit. But we still had to round the north shore and head back up the east side of the lake… but the waves pounded and the wind blasted.

Waves slapped across the gunwales. At times paddling only kept us in place and away from being dashed onto the rocks at shore. Nerves at peak, we paddled strongly into yet another small Bay for some shelter and to rest at a dock. Then sense took hold. We decided to come ashore on the sandy beach. We would walk home to get the Jeep.

No one was home at this cottage property with it’s expansive lawns of delight to numerous Canada Geese that tend to use it for both nourishment and toilet. Why had we not brought our shoes? The initial walk up to the road was on soft velvet, but the two plus kilometres trek along the gravel road and down the long lane into our cottage was slow and painful – an unholy pilgrimage of self-inflicted torture.

We returned to retrieve our blessed canoe with Jeep, rope and cords. We lifted it onto the roof of the Jeep with some difficulty as I am not a man of great height. I tied the bow to the front of the vehicle and John tied the stern firmly to the rear. Yes, he had tied it firmly and painstakingly; however forgetting that the tailgate had to be closed and could not be closed over the rope. Groan.

But what might have seemed distressing at another time, seemed mildly amusing to us after having already endured and survived the raging waters, the angry wind and the pestering pebbles.

We returned to the cabin to pick up some boxes of food, blankets and a chainsaw, only to realize that putting these in would now take a gymnast’s contortion. We could no longer open the gate to easily get into the Jeep’s bowels! Grunt and moan, we did our best to pack these remaining items from the front seats.

Then to the cabin to lock up and away. Our cabin has an inner sanctum that we do actually secure with door locks – two sliding doors and a main door into the outer cabin. The inner cabin contains the kitchen and bedroom; the outer the sitting and dining areas.

Once the inner cabin was secured, we had to wiggle our way through the storehouse, crawl under that weighted hammock and heave ourselves up on the dining level a foot above the rest, and then, finally, out the back door. But that exit door would not budge. It was locked – from the outside.

You see the outer cabin is never really locked. The door of our final exit is merely bolted on the outside to keep it closed against the winter winds. We were locked in!

One could only laugh at the look of dismay and astonishment on each other’s face. All that wiggling and wriggling had led to giggling. And we had to retrace our path to unlock a door that was locked from the inside, go around and unlock the door that was locked from the outside, then return to re-lock the door that should be locked from the inside and exit from the door that is now to be bolted again from the outside until next spring.

The cottage is closed for another season. The canoe has been driven to its cradle in a barn. All is well. Ah men!

The Death of a Lifelong Friend: MKB 1953-2014

Kim Broadbent and I had known each other since I was 12 and she was 9 years old. She lived on a distant continent. Our relationship developed long before email, text messaging or Facebook. We wrote letters - volumes of them and only met in person when I was brazen 19. After hitchhiking from Johannesburg across the desert to Cape Town, I climbed through her bedroom window one early morning in December 1969. It was a planned visit.
We were very fond of each other, even passionate in our adolescent way. If expectations had had their way, we might have married. Whether we would have stayed that way is an open question. The expectations were defeated by my own struggle with my sexuality. It was not to be if I was to be honest with myself and the world. But Kim and I remained very close - I would say soul-mates if I did not dislike the word. We are both Tauruses - stubborn as hell.
We continued to write, to visit each other: She made many visits to Canada and I to England where she had lived for a time. And Kim made a recent journey to our home, knowing she was dying. The cancer we all thought she had defeated ten years before came back with a vengeance. She made a difficult journey across two continents to say goodbye. It was a too brief visit. And a tearful goodbye. She died on July 19, less than six weeks later at home in Cape Town. She was a too young 61. Yet she faced her prognosis as she had met all of her life's challenges, with courage and grace.
Kim was vivacious, funny, determined and opinionated, moody, a wonderful listener, infuriating, a loyal confident and very religious and irreligious at the same time. I miss her greatly, not just the emails and cards, the telephone and more recently Skyping, but miss knowing that she is there, sitting in her lovely home or bravely protesting the proposed destruction of a precious wetland or planning another visit.
The world is a better place for having had her here. I am a better person for having been part of her life and she mine. Carpe diem!

Starry Starry Night

This has been a hard winter. It’s not the snow. There has been a lot. More this year than I can recall since the winter we moved in twenty years ago. But the cold. It’s been this cold before of course. But not for such an extended period. Minus 33 Celsius for days on end, and before wind chill is taken into account. Minus 21 on a regular basis. Today is mild. It’s only minus 1.

But snow and cold apart, it has been the ice that has laid us asunder. Treachery under foot and under wheels. Still, when the sun shines, as it is at this moment, it couldn’t be more glorious, more breathtaking and awe-inspiring.

This past Tuesday, I had to leave early for work. Early means up at 4:45 a.m. and departure from this hilltop by 6:00 a.m. I had to force my way out the door. In the night, we had had snow and blowing wind. The snow had piled thick and heavy against the screen door. I squeezed my way out, cautiously because of the thick ice that lay buried and ready to trip me up.

It was still snowing heavily. And there was a strong wind. The car, once cleaned off from as much snow as I could manage, inched its way down the steep drive through drift after drift. If it had not been a Jeep, I would never have made it. Mini lay covered in snow, hiding as a child who pulls up the covers tightly upon hearing mother’s “time to get up.”

The roads were not ploughed. Indeed, at times I was not really sure where the road was. But at half my usual speed, and in 4-wheel drive, I made it to the station just as the train pulled in. The day progressed as work days will, and soon it was time to head to the station for my journey home. I was tired.

I sat in a seat on the crowded train beside a man who was busy working on his laptop and talking on his i-phone at the same time. I could tell that a domestic dispute had erupted, and I uncomfortably shifted in my seat, pretending I was asleep.

The drive home was fine, but I dreaded what I might find upon my approach to our lane. And find it I did. A bank of heavy snow blocked the steep driveway. Beyond that was drift after drift of deep snow. There was no passage for even this Jeep.

I parked the car on the road and trudged up the hill to the shed, where our trusty snow-blower finds its home. It is now eighteen years old, but it has been well and regularly maintained and has served us well.

Yes, I was already exhausted. I would have preferred to head inside to light the fire and prepare my supper. But this monumental task had to be done first. The news on the car radio had been calling for freezing rain. An anathema. For even this mighty snow machine would not traverse thick and wet or icy mounds of snow.

But what sounds to be drudgery was anything but. It had turned into a dark and starry night. The moon was just rising. The wind had ceased. The air was crisp and the atmosphere clean and silent. Absolutely silent, for the snow muffled any distant traffic.

It took me a little more than an hour of up and down the hill, and a little more with a shovel to tidy up the evening’s labour. Then the Jeep glided up the hill, with a pristine wall of snow on either side. Yes, this had been a tiring end to a tiring day. But it had also been invigorating. A day spent sitting in car, on train and at one’ desk, on train again and in car yet again is death to energy. I had, however, rediscovered my energy, and now I was ready to go inside to a fire waiting to be lit and a supper waiting, at this late time, to be poured from a cereal box. And it felt good. Very good.