Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays

Note to Bloggers etc: this year, for the first time ever, I sent out a generic Christmas card/letter via email. I decided to re-post a copy here as wish for blogger contacts and also other friends whom I probably missed in the original email because no one can do absent-minded oversights like I can do absent-minded oversights.

Greetings

Our card to you, below, comes from an October snowfall in our local park. I (John writing) really like the snow on the red maples that were still in leaf although that colour didn't last much longer.

I suppose the highlight of the year, even though I had nothing to do with it except to drive Sue to Toronto twice in two weeks, was Sue and Heather's donation of a piano to the Glen Gould Foundation. Back in the mists of time, Sue had taken piano lessons from Glen Gould's mother, and her parents purchased Glen's very first (to the best of anyone's knowledge) piano. Glen Gould inscribed the instrument to Sue, and it had been in the family since 1955.

The stars finally aligned to put the piano in its proper place, the Glen Gould Foundation. There was media interest, and Sue and Heather were interviewed on both TV and radio. I won't go into it in detail here, but I did post all about it on my blog here if you are interested to know more.

Other than that unusual event, life pretty well flows along in sameness. I display a few photos in two locations in town: a coffee shop and a hair salon. Both feature various artists, so the venues are not as odd as they might seem at first. On rare occasions I sell one, but otherwise I think of them as my galleries and am happy that some people pause to enjoy them. The seasonal card up above is hanging in both locations in different frames and sizes, without the seasonal wishes of course.

Our town will be celebrating its 200th anniversary in 2019. One endeavour was to produce a past-present calendar. The calendar went on sale in November, each month featuring a photo from the past juxtaposed with similar, current view. I helped with the shooting along with two friend photographers and did the monthly layouts.

In October, we made our typical autumn trip to the in-laws' cottage. Although we were a little late for peak colour, we still saw some fine sights. It's hard to pick just one photo out of many, but here's one of the rapids on Eels Creek near Apsley with a red maple in the background. It just seems so Canadiana to me.

The family is doing well. Shauna is the general manager of a retirement home in Ottawa, and Allyson is working on her second Masters degree at UBC in Vancouver, while still continuing to be employed.

The grandkids, Danica and Jonathan, are doing well in school. We no longer see them on an almost daily basis, but we have them and Shauna for a family dinner once a week. We also have the kids for a week or two in the summer. This year, I really thought it was special to go on bicycle rides with them. The following photo was probably from our first ride in early spring, but there were quite a few more. Riding with the kids was a great joy to their grandparents: generations enjoying the same activity at the same time.

We see a lot of JJ's hockey games. As a very little Easter present, I gave him a action print. You can also see some of my gallery of the kids in my den in the background and how much I dote on them.

And in the interest of equal time, here's one of us, with Danica on her birthday. To mark the occasion, we took her out of school for lunch at the coffee shop .

I trust that all of the photos didn't bog your system down too much, but I just thought that I would make my seasonal greeting a little more newsy this year.

All the best.

John and Sue