Le premier Juillet

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Canada., Dominion, Nation

Aujourd’hui c’est l’anniversaire de mon pays le Canada. Un jour de réflexion sur notre pays et ses bienfaits.

Today it’s Canada day and a time to appreciate what we have and be thankful. Ours is  the second largest land mass in the world, we have 6 time zones, 3 oceans, 38 million people, two official languages and the rule of Law.

 

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Life Events

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Birthday, Halifax, Harness races, Mont Blanc cake, PEI Symphony

This evening is the 51th Gala of the PEI Symphony with our New York Juilliard Maestro Mark Shapiro at the Top of the Park restaurant at Red Shores raceway. Live orchestra with a well known Island singer Tara MacLean and comedian Patrick Ledwell. It is sold out and it promises to be a very nice evening with harness racing live on which we can place bets, live auction the items are wonderful, plane tickets, pounds of lobsters, Canadian artist art work, designer jewellery, etc and great food, I really like Top of the Park, their food is alway tops and the menu changes daily. The guest list is impressive, the ”gratin” of the Island will be present, all the big names. Will has worked very hard at organizing this event, preparing things and giving interviews to the press.

 

Tomorrow is my 63rd Birthday, friends will come for a glass of bubbly and a Mont Blanc Cake which has chestnut purée and whipped cream. This is my favorite cake, we use to have it all the time in Rome. Will surprised me today with a beautiful bouquet of flowers.

The cake I ordered from my favourite pastry chef Valerie. A Mont Blanc with Chestnut purée. “Mont Blanc” cake. Layers of vanilla sponge, soaked with chocolate liquor, then chestnut mascarpone cream, meringue, more chestnut cream, whipped cream, more meringue, more cream… more… more…more. Topped off with shaved white chocolate.

We will be going to Halifax about 3 hours away for a few days, change of scenery and to see friends.

Birthday Bouquet it has a subtle fragrance

40 years onwards

Tags

life, love, Will

I am posting this a few days ahead because we are going to Portugal on Sunday and will not be taking my computer with me. Anyway here you go, we started to celebrate last night with our friends and neighbours over dinner and a bottle of Rosé Champagne.

We met in 1978, I was a student at the University of Ottawa and Will was with our national airline. We had both moved on our own in 1976 to the National Capital, me for studies and he for work. We were both arriving from major metropolitan areas so Ottawa felt really small town.

What was suppose to be a one drink meet and greet has lasted all these years. We bought 2 houses and sold them, we moved, travelled and lived around the world, we had and have dogs, Dachshunds, Bundnie, Reese, Nicky and Nora. What a time we had and the wonderful things we have done. I am very grateful for those years with Will, I really cannot imagine my life without him and without all the music festivals we went too over all these years here in Canada and around the world. The parties we gave and all the food Will cooked and fancy recipes with the funny stories that went with them.

So to celebrate we are off to Portugal, make the anniversary special has we have always done with any and all celebrations, be it Birthdays, Christmas, Thanksgiving, vacation time, etc, our day 23 November. We got married 11 years ago in late July but our November date is the one that matters most to us.

Rome 2010 at the top of the stairs of the Capitoline hill

Via Appia Antica, 2009

Cape Sounion, Attic Peninsula, Greece late afternoon

Roman Summer Season of the Teatro del Opera at the Baths of Caracalla.

Vacation in Assisi, Italy

Will and I often attend cooking school and this one just outside Rome, Will is making ravioli by hand, I believe they were stuffed with pumpkin purée and quite good. I made a dish of grilled anchovies, using the entire fresh fish, it is very sweet and pleasant.

At dinner after the Opera during the Salzburg Whitsun Festival at the Sketch Bar, Hotel Bristol, Salzburg, Gunther the barman took the picture. May 2009. We stayed and dined at this hotel in our many visits to Salzburg for the festivals.

At the Mozarteum in Salzburg during the entracte, Will reading the program notes of all the concerts for the Season 2011.

1996 Christmas in our home in Hunt Club in Ottawa. I came home from Jordan. Photo in our dining room with those little sterling silver snowflakes in the foreground hanging from the chandelier, that we still use at Xmas time.

Our last picture in Ottawa, taken by Jean-Marc Carisse in 2016. Wearing our Austrian trachten jackets.

 

What can one say of a life time of wonderful memories. It’s been a slice! May it continue for many more years.

Rubies the stone of a 40th Anniversary