Canada Day

Tags

Canada, Celebration, life

Tomorrow Friday 1 July is Canada Day # 155 making Canada one of the oldest country in the world. Most European country are either creations from 1870 or 1918 or 1945. Canada goes back to 1534 when Jacques Cartier arrived in what is today Canada looking for China. Then in 1608 Quebec City was founded, 1642 Montreal was founded, my ancestor arrived at Quebec City with his regiment in June 1662, some 360 years ago. The year 1759 marks a new page with the British taking possession of North America that was France. Responsible Elected Government begins first in Nova Scotia in January 1848, and later that year in the Province of Canada (Quebec-Ontario). It was then granted to PEI (in 1851), New Brunswick (in 1854). Canada enters into a confederation arrangement in 1867 and is seen as the modern creation of what is Canada today. So yes there is a lot of history prior to 1 July 1867 and afterwards to this day.

Having 6 time zones celebrations are very different from Province to Province. In Quebec it is officially moving day for some people. It is not as celebrated as 24 June which is now called La Fete Nationale du Québec with bonfires and open air concerts. Since 1982 the holiday we call Canada day has seen various celebrations, with fireworks, concerts, parties. Prior to 1982 it was called Dominion Day, Canada being a kingdom and it was low key, but with the referendum in Quebec on independence, the Federal Government felt it had to do something, so hence Canada Day. Now with the agenda of the Trudeau Government to remake the day, each province has invented new celebrations to include indigenous people. This is a very new idea and time will tell if it will be accepted. In Manitoba it has been renamed A New Day celebration, in British Columbia it is called Canada together. In PEI we are still celebrating Confederation but with less emphasis on the Fathers of Confederation and more on the people like the Acadians and the Mi’kmaq.

As for me, I am on BBQ duty at the Club and will enjoy my day with friends. I am just grateful that I live in a stable and peaceful country and that our lives are trouble free.

I think that in the end we all celebrate the way we want to in a very personal manner because Canada means different things to different people.

So Happy Canada Day to you all!

CAVENDISH BEACH, PEI our Summer place.

Activities

Tags

dinner, life, Marina, Rome, terrace, water

The other night we went to the Cork & Cast which is a floating restaurant with 10 tables in the marina by the cruise ship terminal. It’s a very quiet area, the food is very good and we have known the owners for some time. They have one cocktail I love called the Gin and Pink, it is basically a gin tonic with a fruity popsicle in a mason jar, I go there just to get that drink. The menu is simple, its fish, mussels, oysters and salads. I had the haddock on soft shell tacos. They also have a nice chowder. The food is good and well prepared, this is a place to relax on the water, no families or kids, just quiet.

Then yesterday I came upon images of the Summer in Rome, the city residential neighbourhoods have lots of treed streets, many are fruit trees, orange or flowering trees all along the sidewalks. In our area which was just outside the walls at Porta Pia, all the streets had shrubbery, trees and flowering bushes. It made for very pleasant walking.

I saw these two photos which brought back memories.

This one is just a coffee place and you can get a snack, simple no corp ownership.

This other photo is of a German artists who is working on his terrace while friends are having lunch. The ruins are the extension of the imperial palace built by Caligula and they are on the edge of the Roman Forum, in the background we see a church which is built into the Temple of the Divine Antonius Pius and Faustina. We also have a lateral view of the 3 columns of the Temple of Castor and Pollux. The terrace is very typical is a bit unkept, with large plants in terracotta pots, what a view.

View from our terrace at 26 Via Dei Villini, Roma, we had many dinners on this terrace.

Our street, it was quiet area and I could walk to work just 5 minutes away.

Some good news

Tags

Berlin, Canada, Charlottetown, diet, life, palace, weight

Well yesterday I went shopping for new jeans because the old ones did not fit me at all, too big now, so on sale they had Levi’s 501 and I got a size 34 which is 2 inches better on my waist. That made my day and shows that the diet works. I am now at 80Kg and hope that by next week I will be at 79kg or my weight of 2011. Met with my nutritionist today and he also coaches fitness training. He suggested that if I did not have a glass of wine with dinner I could easily reach my initial goal. Wine has a lot of calories around 250 per 9 oz glass. If you have 2 glasses which I do then with a meal this makes for a lot of extra calories. I will try it and see what happens. Exercise like walking is also very important. This is my little project.

Canada Day is coming up this Friday and because of the major renovation work at Parliament in Ottawa the festivities have been moved to a large vacant site below the hill called LeBreton Flats by the Outaouais River. I never went to Parliament Hill for the show too many people, upwards of 100K. Here in Charlottetown 1100 km away, I am the BBQ guy for the party at the Club. Looks like we will get nice weather.

Today I stumbled upon this picture in the German Newspaper, Berliner Zeitung. It’s a photo of the Cartouche or great coat of arms that will be placed above portal III of the reconstructed Berlin Palace. It will be made of copper, the photo shows the model to follow. The undamaged original was destroyed by the communist regime of East Germany in 1958.

The artist is Andreas Hoferick on the left with Oleg Bessonov, both are responsible for many sculptures on the rebuilt palace, the cartouche is 8 meters high. The second photo is the middle part which is inserted. It is to be installed in November.

Kensington and Summerside

Tags

ferns, flowers, French River, Holman's, ice cream, Kensington, PEI, Summerside

Today I drove Nick and Nora to the groomer in Kensington about 40 minutes from Charlottetown down Hwy 2. They go to the groomers every 3 months for coat stripping and a good bath. It is stressful for them, so it is a long day. On the way down they sleep on the back seat in their blankets with the air con going full blast, they like it.

The groomer lives on a big piece of land surrounded by woods and fields, the road is call 19 and it is a very simple turn off from the Hwy. like any intersection. She lives there with her mother who has her own house about 300 feet away. She has a ton of budgies and 8 huskies who have tons of land to run around. Of course when we arrive down the long driveway they start to howl and Nick and Nora do not like this one bit. Nora wants to kill them and Nick wants to protect Nora, quite the comedy.

Kensington is a small community, the police is known for being very strict about speed limits, so you do not date go more than 40Km. They are also known for their sense of humour which makes the news on the Island. About 3 years ago, they would arrest people and bring them to the police station all the while playing very loudly music by the rock band Nickelback. Apparently this was a deterrent to bad behaviour.

In the Summer when we are at the cottage at French River we come to Kensington about 10 minutes away for grocery shopping or lunch in the former train station. It was when we had trains on PEI a famous station, like Petticoat Junction.

From Kensington after dropping Nicky and Nora at the groomers, I went on to Summerside which is about 9 Km away to have lunch at Samuel’s, a very nice coffee shop in an old bank building. Summerside was until the 1990’s a big Royal Canadian Air Force Base. It was also a sea port and it has a famous light house way out in the harbour called Indian Head. Summerside is in section a very beautiful town and at the same time can be a bit of a mishmash with an area of big shopping malls for the region and other modern parts with nondescript architecture. The town did burn down 3 times in 90 years which is very unlucky, however a big effort to reclaim the bay shore area as a park and beautify the area around the city hall and the old armoury makes for a pleasant town of about 16K. Life is also less expensive in Summerside. The big industry in town is Agro-food Cavendish Farms (potato) owned by Irving Oil.

In Summerside one big attraction is the boardwalk area and Holman’s Ice Cream shop which is located in the former mansion of the family built in 1855. The Holman family are well known for their big department store both in Summerside and in Charlottetown. The department store is gone but not its building which sits on Water street and is now offices.

The family home was to be demolished a few years ago and a business man came to the rescue and renovated it and repurposed the building keeping all the woodwork and its beautiful garden full of flowers and sitting across the street from City Hall a building of similar period.

In PEI you probably heard plenty about COW’s ice cream which is a big industrial concern. I for one do not care for it but it is flagged to the tourists as the best. I much prefer Holman’s, it is made daily and the flavours change constantly, they even make flavours customers will request. However once the flavour of the day is gone, that is it. So on any given day they offer 15 flavours and yesterday at the shop there was a lot of people. They did not have pistachio but I bought sugar free Blueberry swirl and it was very good.

This photo taken at Low Tide shows the sand bars which appear and are a threat to any boat. You can also see the Indian Head Lighthouse which indicates where you can sail through.

So this morning we went out to York to see about buying a small fern in a 4 inch pot. This is pretty much the end of the season to buy flowers for the garden and they did not have anything like that in stock. So up the road is Jewel which is a farm/market store with 6 huge green houses with an incredible selection of plants and flowers and we did find that miniature fern with the help of the staff because there is so much it is a little overwhelming. It is so beautiful to look at in all its variety.

Summer is here now

Tags

Canada Day, Charlottetown, Mi'kmaq, PEI, Savage Harbour

Finally Summer, the weather is much warmer than it was just one week ago. The City Public Works crew were out hanging flower pots from lamp posts. The Strawberries from the Annapolis Valley in Nova Scotia have arrived on the market and this being PEI, the tradition is to ask on an enquiring tone from the Fruit and Veg section clerk, where are they from? Of course we all know the answer and the clerk as per the tradition will apologize and admit in a contrite tone that they are from Annapolis across the Strait 12 km away. Then you sniff at them and proclaim that you will wait 2 weeks for the real Strawberries from PEI to appear on the shelves and of course when no one is looking sneak back and buy the Annapolis Valley Strawberries to make shortcake for one of the numerous socials going on.

The City also came by or I should say the nice ladies from the big park next to our house who are in charge of keeping it nice looking, tending the flower beds etc. They always clean a little patch of weeds by our house that technically belongs to the City and they over the years have planted hostas and tiger lillies, it looks really nice. Public works has also changed the flags at the marina, they do this once a year or maybe twice, the wind rips them up pretty bad and it is disgraceful to see.

All shops are now open and we are going into full tourist trap schedule. So far the numbers are not high and even the cruise ships do not appear terribly full, maybe half full. Fine with me. What is a little sad are the arguments made by business owners and the Chamber of Commerce to keep wages down and offer little to workers, while gouging the unsuspecting tourists. You see it in restaurant prices, Air B&B at $500 to $700 dollars a night for one bedroom downtown. No wonder workers are next to impossible to find in all positions.

With inflation at 7% now in Canada and t 9% in PEI and with the price of gas, I wonder how many people can afford to come here to sit on the beach or go look at fantasy land, Anne of Green Gables. Yes there are other things to see and quite enjoyable, mostly national parks, but then again we are not that different from New Brunswick or Nova Scotia who offer more in terms of more varied restaurants scene, shopping, important sights, all because they have larger populations. Though we are told constantly that tourism is important, the City does very little to clean itself up, Queen Street the main drag looks shabby and other sites in town need a major uplift. They still have not finished renovating the Legislature, Province House, we have to wait another 2 years to see the Legislature return to the building, the final price tag which is covered by the Federal Government is about $100 million from the original of $36 million.

June 21, was Indigenous day in Canada, the National Broadcaster CBC and Radio-Canada played all day music from the First Nations. I was a little apprehensive as to what that would be, however it turned out that many artists, composers, musicians presented great music in very varied genres. It was a discovery, many were unknown to me and I wondered why do we not hear more about them all year long.

Also on PEI the Government has been including the original indigenous place names on road signs instead of just the English place names which were imposed after 1755, this is part of a PR exercise which is very cynical, our politicians have suddenly since 2019 discovered the indigenous people living with us.

One place is called Savage Harbour, on the North Shore, it was so named by the British to replace the name the French Acadians and the Mi’kmaq had for the place which was in French, Havre a l’anguille, (Eel Harbor), in Mi’Kmaq it would be Jipijka’Maq. The first French families in 1725 were Laforestrie, Blanchard, Chiasson, de Veau, Garenne and Poitier families, all farmers. It will be interesting to see if the PEI Government goes along with changing the name of Savage Harbor to its Mi’kmaq origin or even include the French name Havre a l’anguille, which they always try to suppress to this day.

In about 8 days its Canada Day and I believe we will be going to the Club for a BBQ in the garden. Tomorrow is grooming day for Nicky and Nora in Kensington and I will go to Summerside for lunch before returning to pick them up all cleaned up for the Summer.

Wanted P.A.S.

Tags

attention, clown, dachshunds, Family, hunting, life

Yes P.A.S. stands for a Professional Attention Seeker. Actually we have two such professionals living with us for the last 13 years. They are very good at getting your attention, efficient, do get results, not necessarily to your liking, but that is not the point.

Since we often mention how good their lives are and they have to earn their living, so they tell us we are professionals at getting your attention 24/7 and that is true, so what else do you want.

Our two, you may have guessed are Nick and Nora, our little wirehair Dachshunds. Like all of their breed, they are stubborn, never forget and pig headed about what they want. Even when you think they forgot, no they have not, they are waiting for the right opportunity, knowing that humans are fickle and forgetful. They also tend to want to control situations no matter what, it is easier to just give in. They love their routine and know it by heart, if you forget, they will remind you, no worries. Funny how they never remember commands but remember all manner of other details in their routine. Food and treats are no.1 priority and so are petting and getting pampered.

That is a wirehair dachshund hunting wild boar in Germany. A normal dachshund was bred to hunt, the wirehair is a more intense version. In Italy they are also used for this activity, Nora who comes from a long line of hunting/ tracking dachshunds has all the genes and since birth has displayed those traits of character. If we had wanted to, the breeder in Capena, Tiziana Tola would have trained Nora and they start usually around 6 weeks old. The wire hair is very popular in most European countries, Poland, Hungary, Austria.

The German breeders who started the breed sometimes did not pass down how they did it. It took hundreds of years and many generations of breeders to come up with what we have today.

If you want a fearless, brave and determined hunting dog get a wirehair dachshund.

Having said this Nick is from a line of show dogs and though he too could be trained to hunt and he is very good at learning quickly what you want him to do, he is not as intense as Nora. In fact with Dachshunds the female is usually dominant.

We had a short hair Bundnie and a long hair Reesie, they are more family oriented and home bound. But remain attention seekers nonetheless, they are also very funny and clownish to get your attention.

1. They can take whole day to pee, must find the right spot.
2. They can be irritated if they do not get proper attention from you.
3. They are very curious knowing everything that has been going around.
4. They are very lively and playful.
5. They can be a perfect watchdog if provided with the proper training.
6. They can be your best friend.
7. They will always be there to cheer you up if your mood is off.
8. They can be there with you if you are sick.
9. They love to sleep on your lap or in bed with you.

Lamb shanks and having a son

Tags

children, cuisine, education, fathering, Food, Jordan, lamb, rearing

This title is almost biblical, sounds like the Prophet Abraham and his son Isaac and the sacrifice asked by God. Luckily it ended in a lamb shank dinner.

So today is Father’s day, a bit of a commercial holiday like Mother’s day. But at the Farmer’s Market a lady from whom I bought stocks of rhubarb, wished me a happy Sunday (that is very Italian) and a happy father’s day, which surprised me. It also got me to think.

Today I am cooking for dinner 2 lamb shanks from well known local farm and their lamb is delicious. It takes about 2 hours to cook slowly with some thyme and rosemary. This is a meal I would have in Jordan every Friday, being prayer day for Muslims, we had the day off. Lamb in Jordan is a very traditional dish and it is prepared with much care. Lamb also appears at religious festivals, this of course is taken from Scripture and the Koran is basically the Old Testament with its stories and various prophets like Abraham, Moses, etc, including Jesus and his mother Mary.

So I was thinking if I had a son what would I want for him. I was reminded yesterday at a concert piano recital at the Club of Chopin, Bartok and J.S. Bach by young 12 yr old musicians, how education is so important to create a happy life and future for children.

I would emphasize reading and love of books, starting by books suitable for the age and then progressing to more serious books with time.

I would encourage visits to art galleries and museums, learning about paintings and its historical evolution and understanding what influenced painters is important because it develops the sense of observation and appreciation.

Learn to cook and appreciate food in many various forms. This is a life skill in my book, I find that people who cannot appreciate food or would not know how to boil an egg are deprived of an important life skill. Frozen food and fast food is not the solution, I unfortunately know people who feed their kids nothing but junk food because it is so easy to do so. Learning completely about vegetables and fruits, what is in season and what is not, appreciate cheeses from various cultures, there is more to life than commercial cheddar, baking is also an important skill.

This I would pair with learning about wines and how quality is not expressed in the price of a bottle, but the simple pleasure of what is good.

I would try to develop in him a taste for all cultures, pointing out that there is nothing to fear in what may appear strange or different. This is tied to learning languages, speaking a minimum of 3 languages fluently to me is essential to life, because if you speak many languages it opens doors to understanding others.

Above all, I would teach him to appreciate quality in all things and shy away from the simplistic and average.

Finally respect for people and a sense of civic duty and responsibility towards your community.

Children are a responsibility and need lots of care and at the same time the parent has to develop in the child self-assurance and natural curiosity. This is too often completely lacking in our world today.

Places to visit in the future

We have been talking about visiting some places in the not so distant future. Well I am thinking of a cruise, we use to travel with AZAMARA but they were sold to another company and now we are looking at Oceania, which uses smaller ships, under 1200 passengers. Oceania is known for its attentive service and very good food, to me that is very important on a vacation. The point of staying in an hotel including a floating one is paying for the service and it should be attentive. Also Oceania has NO kids on board, their activities and programs are not geared to children or teens, which is excellent.

Places to re-visit Dublin comes up, always enjoyed our visit there and lots to see, Belfast is also interesting to see. The last time we were in Dublin we stayed at the Gresham Hotel. The Guinness Brewery is on the list though I do not drink beer, however a Guinness with oysters is great. Another place in Ireland would be Wexford for the Festival in Oct-Nov., we or I should say Will has spoken about this for 43 years. We have to go at some point. The Festival is known for doing Operas that are either forgotten little gems or not often performed.

We have also spoken about going to Scotland because we have never been and again so much to see, just the Scotch tour around Scotland is well worth it. We started to plan for a trip to Spain and to see cities where we have not been yet. I would love to return to Granada, I found it enchanting with its palace and gardens, the story of Washington Irving who visited. The City with its ancient Moorish culture the likes of which I cannot remember seeing anywhere else in Europe. It is not often remarked upon but Spain has an important Moorish heritage.

This week we were talking about all the times we went to the Festival in Salzburg in May for Whitsun and how much we enjoyed our time there, staying at Hotel Bristol. The countryside around Salzburg which is a few kilometres from the German Border is very beautiful. We always came up to Austria by train via the Brenner Pass and our first stop was Innsbruck with its Imperial Palace built by Empress Maria-Theresa and the story of a family wedding when her husband Francis suddenly collapsed and died after a massive heart attack.

I do want to return to Potsdam and Berlin, to see the reconstruction of famous sites, but I want to wait for 2023 when most of it should be done. Another city we always enjoyed is Dresden. Each time we went the city had added to its historical reconstruction and re-opened museums. It was completely destroyed on 14-15 February 1945 by British bombing. It is a city with great museum, wonderful gardens, an Opera House and palaces of the former Saxon Royal House, the spectacular collections alone of jewels is worth the visit.

I would also like to return to Sicily, though we did an extensive tour, still there are places like Catania under the volcano Etna which I found beautiful and the wines and cuisine marvellous. Sicily is a real gem and most people do not realize it, it has only been part of Italy since 1870. It has its own language a mix of Arabic,Spanish and Normand French, very old words, difficult for outsiders to understand.

Then there is Portugal, a city like Porto and its history and other towns. We have only been to Lisbon and that was great. People forget that Portugal was at one time a great Empire.

What is to me anyway in travelling to going to see something specific, I can be a painting I heard about or an historical area. I am not at all interested in seeing the sights everyone wishes to go to, i.e. the Louvre and Mona Lisa or the nazi history of Berlin, there is so much more to see. Or going to Mykonos, I would say why, it is ruined completely by crass commercialism, drugs and discos for vacuous tourists.

Maybe as you grow older (not old) you wish for more quiet and relaxing vacation, less crowds and not waiting lines, good wines and vintages, great food catering to the local inhabitants. I have no bucket lists to check boxes.

So it is not the destinations that are lacking.

Another day

Tags

Belle River PEI, Canada, January 06, lunch, Ottawa, Parliament, Summer, USA

I have been watching on You Tube the testimony of various people involved in the January 06 attack on the Capitol. This is like a terrible car crash with dead bodies and blood, you are attracted to it and you cannot get away. Absolutely awful and very worrying in the context of what is happening around the world at the moment. As one well known commentator put it the other night, “we cannot allow Russia to win this war, the consequence for the world would be too awful.” I agree with him, Russia wins, we all loose and in a major way, not just militarily but economically and we see it already with inflation, oil prices, etc. Russia will not stop at Ukraine, the long term plan is to reconquer other former satellites of the Soviet Union. China will be embolden to attack Taiwan and make chaos in Asia, it would also be a victory for North Korea. This is not a joke, we are in very deep trouble and then Climate Change and Covid which is endemic now. I remain despite it all an optimist, I truly believe that things will sort themselves out.

Today we travelled 40 minutes out of town to Belle River, its a settlement on the coast where the Belle Rivière as it was known before 1755 was called. A friend of ours has an old farm house, so we visited him and we brought lunch with us. Given the 25 C sunny weather today it was a Summer lunch of cold chicken and Will’s own Cesar salad which is the authentic version. Our friend’s house is full of wonderful books, music and architectural drawings of ancient classical temple in Rome, a very comfortable house. It was nice to get away from the noise of Charlottetown. We are a week away from Summer vacation time and 2 weeks from our National Day, the traffic in the city is getting worse and the number of tourists rises every day, not fun.

The drive out is quiet, few cars if any on the Hwy 1 once you pass the town of Stratford.

So yesterday I came upon this photo of the Centre Block of Parliament in Ottawa. The 3 Parliamentary buildings on the Hill are under renovations until at least 2027 maybe later and the cost is currently around $ 3 billion CDN dollars. Nothing has been done in terms of maintenance since 1917 when the Centre Block was built, the last time I was in the building about 4 years ago before it was closed down, the electrical system was failing and only part of the building had working lights. Both the House of Commons and the Senate have moved out while this massive work is underway. The Senate is across the street in the old railway station which was completely renovated at a cost of $600 million and the House of Commons is in the West block which can be seen in the far left corner of the photo. It too was completely renovated at a cost of $500 million. Democracy is not cheap!

The photo shows a deep trench in front of the Centre Block, the Parliament Hill is solid rock, part of the Canadian Shield, so to achieve this, all the rock had to be blown up and removed. What is going in there? I really do not know, I remember hearing it would be a visitor centre and possibly a television media room for the broadcast of Parliamentary daily debates and other legislative work. Looks impressive, I would say this trench is at least 50 feet deep.

This and that

Tags

6 january, Canada, Denmark, diet, Enquiry, weight

Learned today that Lauren Boebert, US Republican Politician and representative of 3rd District Colorado was a prostitute at one time and had 2 abortions. WOW!! The past is catching up with her it seems. Now she is anti-abortion and a gun advocate. Watch second episode of the Jan 06 enquiry, Trump is guilty as sin and should be prosecuted. He may plead insanity or I was taken away with the moment type of defence.

The good news in Canada today, is a bit of a funny story and oh so Canadian. For years there has been a dispute between Canada and Denmark over a tiny little rock of an Island, Hans Island way up on top of the planet where our borders meet. The dispute has to do with who owns it, Canada or Denmark. So our military and the Danish Military has been exchanging gifts of whiskey bottles for years and now the treaty has been signed and both countries will split the island in too, so Canada now has a land borders with Denmark. See map below, new land border between the 122 and 123 parallel.

Today I am also very happy to report that my weight is still going down having reached 80 Kg. or 176 Lbs. I am trying to reach 79 Kg as the first marker and then continue to my final weight of 74 kg or 163. lbs.

I had a bit of a scare this week, my old home scale started to malfunction giving me all kinds of crazy weight measurement from low to far too high. I bought a new scale but it was defective and I did not realize it until I visited the nutritionist who used his professional scale giving a correct weight, he could not believe that I would gain 25 or loose 30 pounds in 24 hours, it should have dawned on me. So I returned the defective scale and got another model and problem solved. Losing weight is a great feeling and gives you quite a boost. At least now all the beautiful clothes bought in Italy fit again.

The Palatine Hill in Rome and the ruins of the Aqueduct that brought water to the palaces.