Lilac Heaven

It's true, we are in Lilac Heaven these days. They're all over the place. While out driving yesterday, I could have stopped myriads of times to take pictures. Be thankful that I sometimes exercise some restraint. The first four photos (including the closeups) are from Thesha's yard. These plants are new and varied. The other pictures are all from our drive-about; they are very mature plants — pretty well wild by now, in fact.

Thanks for stopping by. Have a good weekend.

Published ...

... sort of ... well, not really ... but I'm bragging anyway ...

I have Flickr contacts who have had their photos used in publications. -epm, a fine upstanding Yank, had one put in a tome about Canadian Geology if you please. My SIL had one photo placed in a British educational publication and another made into a souvenir. So, the following is not a great accomplishment by any means, but nearby Mississippi Mills had grabbed one of mine for a little poster advertising rental space in the Old Almonte Town Hall. I suppose I will see my work live, so to speak, when I will be there for a concert in another week or two, but, meanwhile, they have sent me a copy via email to assuage my thirsting ego.

More Arizona Memories

These photos are all from Monument Valley. We took a three hour jeep tour near sunset with a native guide (whom you see in a few photos), and it was marvellous. This was the single best thing we did in Arizona, better than the Grand Canyon in a very real way. The tour guide (Frommers)that we followed suggested doing four main things if one had only one week to spend in Arizona: The Grand Canyon, Sedona, Monument Valley, and Canyon de Chelly. Due to distance, I had some doubts about the latter two, but I decided to follow the suggestions and was very glad that I did.

About the slideshow: I do know that Flickr and Picassa support slideshows and have used both. But AFAIK Flickr will only generate a show based on a whole set, but I didn't wish to display a whole set or to create another set. For Picassa, I would need to re-upload photos that are already on the web, which seems to be a waste. This site, Slide, allows me to import whatever pictures that I have already posted in Flickr, and it does so fairly easily. I tried several sites, and this one seems to work most efficiently for me. Also note that I've gotten rid of the butterflies in this display. :)

A Few Photos ...

... from Sedona and the Grand Canyon two years ago. Partly, I just wanted to experiment with this slideshow. I could do with a plainer, non-butterfly version. There are lots of options, but most are somewhat fancified for this plain old guy. You do get a plainer and somewhat better rendition by selecting View All Images below.Maybe I'll do another show of other parts of the trip tomorrow.

We Are Thirty-Nine

One can hardly fathom, where the time goes, but Cuppa and I are thirty-nine today. Just as it was all those years ago, it was the rainy Saturday of our May long weekend. Of course, at the time one barely noticed in the hubbub of a wedding, reception and getaway.

We were married in Toronto and spent our one official honeymoon night (yes, one whole night!) in Stratford where I had proposed a year earlier in the Shakespeare Country Garden after we had seen Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream: not that the play had spurred my proposal, for I had pretty well decided on the timing, and the garden seemed a romantic spot.

My heart was pounding, but I'm not sure why. It wasn't as though marrying this girl frightened me in any way or that I expected her to refuse. Nevertheless, it's a once in a lifetime occurrence, and one wants it to go well. Poor Cuppa thought that I was about to tell her that I had decided to leave her for a year or longer whilst I ventured to New Zealand. I had distant relatives there, and they had sent calendars and photo magazines over the years, and I had always thought that it would be a wonderful place to visit, long before Lord of the Rings may have increased its popularity as a destination. I still do think that it would be a grand place to experience, but I have no real hopes of ever getting there, and that's okay too. Some dreams pass or at least seem less important as time creeps forward.

In an poor and awkward segue, I do want to connect the old part of our story to a more recent one by referring to another trip, our holiday to the west coast last year around this time. We were walking around English Bay in Vancouver when I began to consider which of our vacations had been the greatest highlight. Was it The Rockies, The East Coast, Arizona? Cuppa was somewhat in front of me at the time, and I recall realizing that it was not a vacation that was the highlight of my life but that the wife of my youth and middle age and dawning old age was .... and is.

Foto Friday

I don't know that I've ever quite clearly explained our babysitting gig, a labour of love that will go on for months or years. Right now, we're committed for the remainder of this year, and we'll reassess then. So far, it's going well despite illnesses on everybody's part. While I have been recovering well for over a week, Cuppa is still under it, so I have been doing more hands-on baby care. Hence, for the second day in a row, we had a onesie incident.


On a typical day, Cuppa and I will get up at six o'clock and head over to the kids' house shortly thereafter. We both port our laptops every day. It may seem silly because there are computers in the house, but it's nice to have access to your own, and that's what notebook computers are all about anyway. The thing is The Bonnie Wee One often wants to be involved. She likes to look at pictures and videos of herself, and I have also found some cute YouTube clips for her such as a hippo singing The Lion Sleeps tonight.


Even setting the machine up can be problematic. Every morning I crawl under the able to hook up the power. Yesterday, she crawled under there with me, and it took awhile before she would let me out again. Needles to say, both Cuppa and I find it hard to get a lot done while we're on the job. We might start out to do something, but the kid may have other ideas.


Yesterday, we went for a little drive and ended up at a park where we stopped to feed Nikki Dee a little lunch.


Although you can't see them in these photos, the black flies have come out to play, so we didn't stay too long. But here are two closer shots of the kid having lunch.



And here's the view from the other direction. The park is on the Mississippi River in Eastern Ontario (not the Mighty Mississippi — just the little, unmighty one).



On a normal day, we'll cook supper for us and the kids, so we sometimes don't leave until after seven o'clock. It makes for a long day, but it's a good and worthwhile thing for us to be doing.

Time to get back on the job. Cuppa has been occupying the child while I wrote this blog, and it's my turn to shoulder some of the workload.

Ain't it Grand?

Grand Auntie visited on the weekend; she and Grandma took The Bonnie Wee One for a little walk.

Poor Grampa

Hi, It's Nikki Dee here, and the way that my grampa dressed me this morning cracks me up.



The old guy didn't realize that he was putting a onesie on me until he pulled my jeans up. By then he was too flummoxed to be bothered fixing his mistake. Grampa hates onesies, but I have no idea why.

Anyhoo, for his sins I made him work very hard holding onto me while I spent some more quality time on the table.

Up and Down

This was the kid climbing up and down her little picnic table the other day. She had been doing this for some minutes before we started the video. I kept trying to make sure she didn't fall off the other side. BTW she's wearing my hat. Cute, eh?