A last cast of the dice.

Mark very kindly took us down to Laval, to where he was to pick up his new car, on the understanding that we would park his old car on his cousin's driveway before catching a taxi to the airport.

10 minutes after leaving him and well into our last road journey, the car stopped.  And wouldn't start again.  Not at all.

So we parked by the side of the road, rang CAA, and settled in for the wait.

45 minutes later, the CAA guy arrived - and the car started first time :-(

So we completed our journey to the parking space - where the car faltered one last time  before we left it.  The taxi wafted us to the airport; we had a last smoke meat sandwich in Moe's; a fairly smooth flight, but no sleep to speak of.

Home - Guy and Julie are already here; they went out during the day whilst we caught about  four hours' sleep.

"to be continued......"

End game

4.00 pm.  The car's in the barn - cleaned as best as minus 6 and loads of road grit will allow!  It's been snowing all day; softly, persistently but enough to whiten all our tracks.  The bird feeders are replenished - the turkeys haven't come back, despite the buffet bar installed for them.

You may have wondered about THAT chair - here it is!

 

Little Kate's filleted inside and ready for the next stage another time.

Time to go and pack now.  Off tomorrow.  Happy and sad together - best that way!

Animation, admiration and an advert!
The Pine Siskins have been joined at the niger-seed feeder by as many Redpoll!  There are times when there are over twenty birds either on, under or waiting for the feeder!

Meanwhile, this place continues to stun us with its silent beauty.  Here's looking north across the lake:

But silent as the surroundings may be, the house has continued to ring with company!  

P&N took to the trails on their new snow-shoes on Saturday and came back needing hot chocolate!  A and I followed on with one pair of raquettes and one pair of skis!  Oh for the days of strong legs and downhill ski-ing!

Maybe next year we'll make some proper plans and get fit enough ahead of time.......

Little Kate now has all but two of "her" inner seams filleted; the best implement seems to be a kitchen spatula.  I should be able to complete the last two today (Sunday) and then will be content to leave "her" until we're next here.  I 'm not sure if I can get the boat up the cellar steps; it would be nice to take some pictures on the snow!

 But the work that we did last summer continues to delight us!  The house is ultimately photogenic and visitors seem equally, pleasantly surprised.

D & L came for supper with us all on Saturday evening, bringing gifts of romantic candles.  Supremes de volaille, sauce estragon; yum!

Conversation long into the evening, brilliant washers up - thanks!

 

So now, the advert!

Our local potters (on the road out of St Jovite towards the resort of Tremblant) have made us a pot for the Becel  (Margarine) tub, to keep in the fridge and bring out "as is".  

G&J have the very first one, we now have our own, and there are at least three more available for sale.

 

William Morris said something like, "Have nothing in your house that you either do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful".  This pot is both and we commend them and their work - which uses many other glazes as well - to you.


And they are such good company, too!
 

Robert Burns!

The winter festival exported around the world that has, down the years, given us the GREATEST pleasure is Burns' Night.  And this year we were not to be outdone by distance, supplies or lack of effort.  This year we would, like Cinderella, "Go to the Ball".

P&N have brought a haggis up from Ottawa - much less greasy than a British (Scottish) one and the better for that.  We made tatties and neaps and whisky sauce; as well as a game casserole for those of a gentler disposition........

So, perhaps for the first time, the Selkirk Grace and the Address to the Haggis have rung out on to La Minerve soil.  Well, not strictly on to the soil since it is two and a half feet under snow; nor even "out" since at minus 20 something it's far to cold to be declaiming to the open air.  But certainly "rung out"!

We had cranachan - with a Canadian twist; maple syrup instead of honey and strawberries instead of raspberries, but hey!

We (the Internet) piped in the haggis; we had the address; we had the toast to the immortal memory, and to the lassies, and the response....  We had "turns" and A and I stepped out an Orcadian Strip the Willow.

Much fun, much laughter.  and, in the middle of fierce winter, "We are still alive"!  (Thanks, Pam, for these photos!)

Little Kate is taped up for filletting - technical for "moving on"  :-)

Just another day in the wilderness!


A woke in the dark to the sound of some animal outside.  Maybe fox; maybe something else.......

So we decided to go for a snow shoe hike!  Lovely day for it.  Cold, crisp snow, blue sky, perfect!

A less seen side of the house ;-)

There was some sign around the bird-feeders and a trail heading up into the wood, where the turkeys had gone off to the other day.

But we headed off up the usual trail, made easier by all that piste bashing last weekend!

Every trail has a beginning

We saw nothing unusual, in fact very little track at all until we came to the main, public trail that forms the back boundary of the property.  There a clear trail, recently snow-brushed, of quite big pads wound through the scrub.  The light was poor for good images; each snow-puncture might have been 3-4 finger widths across.  Puzzle.

The apple tree at the end of the wood.

 We kept the bright sun on our left shoulder throughout and eventually came to the clearing around the apple tree that we "pruned" last September / October.  It felt a bit like "the lamppost at the end of the wood"!



Roxy (with us again for a couple of days) loved the walk, and so did we.   But we were glad to be back; some of that snow is DEEP, even with snow-shoes on.  And the slopes are steep, too.

Turkey trough

We've decided to spoil our turkeys.  Apparently they've been raiding everyone's bird feed debris.

So we have built a manger for them; its legs go another foot and half into the snow.


Progress with Little Kate is good; A has covered a cushion, to match the newly restored rocking chair.  Dark now, the fire's singing gently.  Guests for supper tomorrow, then all weekend.  Must start cooking!

Bee-Gees, Beatles, Bach and Little Kate!

A quiet day, as you can see; very cold, more snow, chats with friends and family via Skype - and some work stencilling, levelling and taping the new canoe for resin application later in the week.

Caesar salad for lunch, Tortiere for supper.

Happy!

Home from the sea!

Well, the St Lawrence, anyway!

Pictures tomorrow but to say safe and sound; despite a cracked windscreen, blessedly 15 Km NE of Quebec as we drove to a local beauty-spot, and 4 Km NE of our eventual repairer.

Hats off to the insurance company; prayers of thanksgiving that we'd charged the phone and bravo to VitroPlus for prompt, pleasant and effective service!

Home at 10.20pm - bits of minus 30 degrees Celsius on the way - DEFINITELY cold!

So -  Quebec city is the oldest city in North America.  Founded by the French, it was looked at enviously by the British during various conflicts and eventually fell to a "surprise attack" in September 1759 by the forces of General Wolfe who had sent his troops up a cliff-side track from the St Lawrence river; the famed "Battle of the Plains of Abraham" 
The resulting battle - 15 minutes long - saw Wolfe dead on the field and Montcalm mortally injured, eventually to die the next day in the city itself.  Soon afterwards, the city surrendered to the British forces and, despite losing a number of subsequent engagements, the British never surrendered Quebec.  The final die was cast many miles away from Canada by the defeat of the French Navy in the bay of Quiberon, off the French mainland coast.  This meant that the French could not send reinforcements for the siege of British-held Quebec.  In September of 1760, the French capitulated at Montreal and, within four years, the Treaty of Paris brought to an end the war and ceded much of France's possessions in Eastern North America to Great Britain.

The Citadel inner gate

During their tenure of the City, the British did much to re-enforce the Citadel - the fortress that crowns the cliffs where the river narrows.  This served both to defend against the Americans in later years, and to protect the garrison against the increasingly unpredictable Quebecois themselves.
 

Old city and the St Lawrence from the citadel

North West of this, and immediately adjacent to it, lies the city of Quebec itself.  It's familiar to European eyes, quite like Edinburgh mixed with some Breton towns, and walled all round.  There is a MUCH larger conurbation surrounding this, with large docks - ice-locked at the moment - Hotels and homes stretching for many miles.

Probably the most well-known building in the Old city is the Chateau Frontenac - which is in fact an 1890's hotel! It was built by the railway as a terminus for its transatlantic passengers; just like the Great Western hotel in Bristol was built by Brunel!  In fact, the railway line is further from the docks in Quebec than it is in Bristol!

Ice-bound docks

Although my Grandparents travelled both into and out of Quebec in the 1920's, I don't for one moment expect that they stayed at the Frontenac!  We resisted the temptation to take afternoon tea there; but we didn't resist too much food!

The Old City itself is charming, pleasant to walk through and as full of restaurants and gift-shops as Edinburgh or York themselves!

It is full of surprises; buildings of every period jostle together; grand buildings, homely buildings.  You can probably search the grand buildings for yourselves; here's a homely one.

And for such a heritage site, surprisingly not all of the space is occupied, there are places under redevelopment, within the ramparts, and there are schools, too!  The view from our fourth-floor bedroom window included a play-ground with kids sliding down a wonderful snow-hill and others playing a mixture of field and ice-hockey - ice hockey with shoes on.
 

We came across these kids very correctly waiting to be called forward to their car by the teacher as he identified the parent within.  Such order! 


Of course, we did some of the touristy things, too.  We wandered all around the ramparts of the old city, or within them, rather, since they were closed because of the snow.  



We went down to the lower town, almost beside the river, at day and at night, where really Breton houses remain, converted to the MOST exclusive jewelers and furriers and restaurants.  
 
In one of the restaurants there we met this chap!






There's a funicular railway up from the lower town to the forecourt of the Frontenac - fortunately!  Not so fortunately, it's closed at night :-(







Last morning we headed North-West 15 Kilometres to the Montmorency Falls; the highest in North America (including Niagara - they're just bigger!).

 It was bitterly cold!  And the cold - or something - triggered the star-fracture in our windscreen into a proper, 2 foot long crack!

So, after probably the worst, pastiest rice sushi ever, we sat for 3 hours in the lounge of the repair-shop - and now have a new windscreen!

A long and very gentle (top speed here is 100Kph - about 60 mph) journey home, here we are.  Log fire blazing, tums almost settled (!), bright and super chilly outside.  Painting and chair-repair ahead.  Home!

Guess who's coming to dinner!

(NOT the  truly great film with Spencer Tracy, Katherine Hepburn, Katherine Houghton and Sidney Poitier!) 

,
But THIS chap!

 AND its chums!

So we were distracted and delayed leaving home this morning by the antics of this lot at (under) the bird-feeder!  They are proper Turkey-size, too!

We've come to Quebec City for a little treat.  More tomorrow :-)

(Now, HOW long do you cook turkey?)

Full house!

Did I say better now?  Well, that lasted for a while!  It lasted whilst G&J&L and we spent a lovely, distracted, lazy sort of day on Friday; just messing about in the snow.  It lasted whilst J & R and B and L arrived from Vermont on Friday evening after a long but relatively trouble-free journey.  It lasted for a very happy supper with appetites only partly dulled by packets of crisps in the car on the way up but totally undulled by the prospect of desert!  And wonderful fresh (frozen) Vermont apple juice!

It lasted into Saturday with a "messy" morning and lunch at the diner in the village, followed by a ski and snow-shoe adventure on a local trail; in fact, it lasted all the way to Saturday supper.  And then it sent me shattered to bed whilst the conversation rattled and chuckled around that supper table, before it woke me every hour from midnight to 6.00 am.  Roxy was very put out to find me coming to displace her from the couch at 01.00.  She bore it bravely with huge sighs of resignation from her bed!


But suitable medication and rehydration salts saw me fit for the traditional photo...

... before the New Englanders left for the border and we gathered the Torontians for the trip to the airport - to find their flight cancelled because of the fog.  (Did I say that we are in the middle of a spectacular thaw here?  Two days of warm air up from the States; temperatures at plus 8 centigrade.  Everywhere the sound of running water; the roads clear to the gravel; we have lost about a foot of snow cover in two days!).

So, they are booked in to a swank hotel in Tremblant overnight, courtesy of the airline.  Guy has had to arrange to hold his business meeting tomorrow morning by uplink of some sort!  I dunno; these jet-set executives!  :-)

The little house is quiet now - despite the Wagner.

So, despite the lurgy, a GREAT weekend; thank you all so much for coming; come again!

In memoriam .......

Sheila Moore's memorial service was held in Montreal today; it was expected to be overfull with people of all sorts and standings in Canadian society, for Sheila's life touched many.

We didn't know her very long, or very much, but what we knew we loved.  


During the afternoon, many of these people will have joined Mark and the family in the ancient Jewish mourning tradition of Shiva; a time to remember with condolence, sorrow and pleasure the person who has gone from our circle.

Our Shiva has been more private, more practical, but every bit as intensely meant. 

In the summer, when things looked a bit more hopeful, I began this poem.

Just last week, I finished it in a way probably expected, but certainly not hoped for.

Forest.

You looked so well.

Was it last week we saw you, full on in your summer greens,
rippling, laughing, ignoring sun or rain,
colouring the lake with your shine reflected;
and we shared your sun,
believing that your summer colours would never change
at least, not yet.

Confident in your July glory, your full-forest jade,
the warmest August in a century;
and all the time, the agent of your Fall,
like worm in apple, works away inside,
fills you up with hints and tints of change.

Flickering, at the corner of my eye,
a lemonning of colours
speaks a coming, souring transformation.
and yet becomes a long and glorious Fall;
blazing in its declaration.

We went away and only now returned; 

and so it was today, with sky of clearest, clearest blue
and ice a-dance on gable, drain and all those homely places,
they told me you had gone.

You could not have picked a better day;

A queen’s day.

Farewell

Time flies!

and it's Friday already.  Wednesday was more work in the cabin; mostly ensuring that it continued to warm.....  Strange, the baseboard heaters continue to cut out at the trip switch.  But it takes less time each time to raise the house's heat  partly because the ambient temperature is going up - which is good and bad, both. Good for heating the cabin; bad for the snow - it's due to rain this weekend would you believe....

G, J & L arrived at our local airport last evening; 55 minutes flying time from Toronto - instead of 9 hours' driving.  It's a previous USAF / RCAF B52 and interceptor missile base from the cold war, so it has a ridiculously long runway.  And a log cabin for a terminal building!  It's just right for what it is.

The terminal buildings at night - courtesy of web-site

It's about a 50 minute drive home from there.  Lila fell asleep immediately we got in to the car - and slept well for the rest of the night.

The journey home seemed quicker with company - A stayed at the cottage; she'd been ill all day and I caught it overnight too.  Hmm - better now but tired.

Strange happenings.....

Firstly, our internet provision stopped at about 19.45 Canadian time yesterday.  It wasn't just us and it came back on at about 14.00 today!  Secondly; the phone rang at 05.45 this moning; just once.  Odd; very odd.

Meanwhile our cleaning of the cabin, and its warming through, continue.  It was 50degrees F in there today when we went down; the baseboard heaters are doing their job!  We've now secondary glazed the windows using a sort of "Cling" film.  Feels better again.

But the weather has been a lot warmer today - 0 degrees at times.  And the forecast is for warmer still into the weekend, before it dips again next week.

A is restoring the rocking chair; I have a painting that is at least drying this time!

L & A's for supper tonight - yummy.

Getting ready for visitors!

As well as the cabin - star of (far too) many of these pages - there are on the plot a cabin (the original settlement here), a barn and a goose-house.  The cabin is a charming little, two-storey, gaudily cheerful log cabin.  It is not winterised, that is to say; it is not double glazed, it does not have and insulated floor and the water supply does not seem to have a heater wire.

This is a view of the windows as they presently are, that's a 3 mm layer of ice crystals!;

So it's really not much use for anything other than summer use.  It is reputedly rather damp but that was some years ago and we have a dehumidifier that may deal with that if the problem recurs.

The upper floor was a later addition and is of a somewhat "rustic" nature, but it seems weatherproof and so it is being pressed into service for some of the (hardy!) visitors coming at the end of the week.

P spent several hours, with the magnificent help of his N. America DIY handbook, trying to find the fault in the base-board (convector) heaters.  One's OK - the other keeps tripping the relay and turning both off.  And they have remained so, so I have disconnected the offender - it's on the wall behind the fire anyway!.

Hmmm

Anyway - the little wood-burner stove is brilliant, roars away, but is limited by only taking 13" long logs.  So I shall have to get the chain saw out to trim some of the existing ones.  Ahhhhh!


The cabin has not had a path cut, but the repeated visits are doing the job.  This is the doorway with a 3 foot snow-drift alongside!  (That's the goose-house in the background).

The cabin really is cute, and when we have "double glazed" the windows with plastic sheet, it will be much better than the tent that our hardy visitors were suggesting! 

I tell you, we know some daft people :-)

Twelth night


Tomorrow sees the beginning of Epiphany; the time when we remember the arrival of the three travelers, bringing their strange gifts for the Christ child. 
I can think of no more moving account of their journey than that of TS Eliot's poem,  "The Magi".

And so our lovely matchbox nativity will go away for another year; 

the garland of lights across the windows will come down, 

and we shall live with gold - for kingship;  frankinsense - for priesthood; myrrh - for burial; until next Advent.

 













Down to St Jovite for supplies today; visitors are coming soon and we need to stock up with hardware, as well as foodstuffs!

Here's a typical Laurentian "car-park" at this time of year!

Time and the internet slow down.

It has been VERY cold, but today, Friday, we woke to snow and it has snowed all day.  And it has also warmed up to minus 10 or there abouts.

So we've cleared the car of the original 4" of powder (no good for snow-balls),

continued the repair of a rocking chair,

shopped (on line, but slowly because of a poor download speed - the weather?)

and eventually been for an evening walk to visit Gilles and Dianne at the bottom of the lane.

Our Canadian French is definitely improving!

(There is no such thing as bad weather, just poor gear!)

When icicles hang by the wall.....

Today is fiercely cold.  Not just on the thermometer, but because the wind has moved to the North.  Even the birches have bent to the snow; a very typical sight here.  It's a day for a little exercise, and a lot of enjoying the wonderful scenes from the safety of indoors! 

It's been minus 18 Celsius pretty much all day; moustaches freeze almost as soon as their bearers go outside; lots of time is spent moving and removing gloves.  The car turns over slowly to start from cold; we've bought a cable for the block heater in order to pre-warm it.  We're getting through the wood in the tunnel; I think we may have to raid the stack on the trail before the month is out!

 

But we've replenished the bird feeders - although we've seen precious few birds so far.  P's started a sketch for a painting.  And we've taken photographs - as you can see.





And then, late in the afternoon, we heard the news that Sheila died at about 1.30.



May she rest, and Mark live, in peace.

Happy New Year; Bonne Annee!

It's been a simply glorious day today.  

Natalie's rock

For reasons best known to itself, the lower element in the water heater has decided to work – so we have plenty of hot water.  

We went to a jolly supper yesterday evening with friends locally where we had barbecued salmon - done outside at minus 12 degrees in a snow-storm....  The drive home was a bit nervous, although we've driven in much worse as it turns out, but not for nearly a year.  

The gritter came along the road at 4.30 a.m. - on New Year's Day.  The snow plough has been through during the day.  Yves came at about 09.00 to clear our drive up to the front door.  C'est normal.

We got the chain-saw out and trimmed some branches that had previously fallen on to the power lines to the cabin; but we've Roxy, the dog, to stay again.  Sheila has gone in to the hospital, almost certainly for the last time.  Mark rang to say that they'd called the ambulance and we met it coming down the drive as we drove away with the dog.  Roxy's a delight and full of beans.  No trouble at all but it's very sad.

We've re-arranged canoes in the basement so that I can get on with the new one.  And now the clear, blue day is drawing to a close.  Tourtiere for supper and perhaps just a little glass of wine?
And tomorrow is the 2nd of January - amazing!