Notre Anniversaire

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#44, Anniversary, Family, life

Today 23 November is our 44th Anniversary, we have been together all these years. Difficult to think back so far, a lifetime really. A life spent around the world. Our first meeting was supposed to be more a social call and here we are. What a wonderful life, can’t imagine it any different.

Happy Anniversary to us.

Portugal, painted tiles, Azulejos, great scenes decorating buildings and telling a story, they are magical to look at.

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.

Quiet day

Tags

Anniversary, Concert, Family, life, New Year, Vienna

Today 1 January is a quiet day, it’s 5C outside, no snow, no wind, no one in the street, grey skies, all is shut down. This year 2022 marks for my family an anniversary of sorts, our ancestor arrived at Quebec City on a French War Ship with his regiment in 1662 some 360 years ago. He was part of many French Regiments sent to Canada to put an end to the Indian wars threatening Montreal and other settlements. He established himself, had a farm and the rest is history.

I listened to the New Year’s Day concert from Vienna, it was nice but had none of the glamour of previous years, the concert hall was half empty and there was little in terms of flower mass decorations usually found for this concert. It was all very restrained no doubt due to the difficult situation with Covid. However I like the part where they follow this little butterfly from the greenhouses of the Schonbrunn Palace and all over Austria along the Danube etc. The close up of this fragile butterfly landing on beautiful flowers is enchanting. This is a country we always love spending time in, Austria is so civilized.

I do pray that 2022 will see us return to a more normal situation. However as with Climate Change I fear that we are in for some turbulence and rough seas ahead. The future will not be for the faint of heart.

So let’s look forward in a positive manner. I read this saying today and I thought well suited for the year to come.

“Let it be in your heart that every day of the new year will be the best day of the year”

Images from foreign festivities

Tags

cuisine, Family, Food, life, US Thanksgiving.

On American thanksgiving both my sister and my brother who are American Citz sent pictures of what they were doing. My sister and her husband got dinner at a Jewish Deli they have been frequenting for decades. My brother and his wife who live in Florida had roast beef. My brother loves to BBQ and he is very good at it, he also like to use his smoker and that is how he cooked the prime rib. I wish I had been there because I know how good it must have been.

Cooked just the way I like it. What a nice piece of beef. He served it with asparagus.

I do not know where he got his Continental Airline Apron. Years ago he use to be an airline mechanic.

Hopefully in 2022 we can visit and see each other. I also hope that my sister will come up to visit PEI.

The things you hear

Tags

Childhood, Family, life, lullabies

Yesterday on Radio-Canada on the classical music program they played what I quickly identified as classic old French lullabies. One is Au Clair de la Lune and the other is Fait dodo, Colas mon petit frère. Both are very well known and are probably the first songs any child will hear from his Mother or sibling. As a small child, I heard these two lullabies hundreds of times. It is the only two I know by heart to this day. This is the sort of thing you cannot forget because it is so tightly close to early life.

Here we have Angèle Dubeau, an international artist, a Canadian violin player, who I met in 1987 in Mexico City where she had come to give concerts with her Stradivarius, a beautiful instrument which was guarded due to its rarity and great age.

90th Anniversary

Tags

Anniversary, Family, Mom

Today my mother would be 90 years old, she died some 7 years ago after a long illness.

Always elegant, this photo was taken in my parents apartment at the Chateau Laurier Hotel in Ottawa by their friend photographer Yusuf Karsh who also lived at the hotel for many decades.

Rollande Gougeon Beaulieu

I often think of her and how a wonderful person she was to us kids in our childhood. I have her sense of organization and looking forward. She instilled in us the importance of reading and learning. She loved the arts in all its form and she would speak to us about it. Though she is gone now, she is still with us in many ways.

Circuit Breaker

Tags

artichoke, Birthday, brother, Childhood, cuisine, Family, Rome, Spring

This past week our little Island province went from 1 case to 15 cases of Covid19, all due to a handful of under 30 who travelled outside the Province and failed upon return to observed the mandatory rules of 14 day quarantine. They in turn infected their friends and all of a sudden we have a crisis. Unfortunately too many people still think they are above it all and it does not concern them. They put everyone at risk with their irresponsible actions. What was most shocking was the 2 girls twenty something who being sick decided to go shopping instead of going straight home, result they infected staff and other clients in the store which had to close. Or the 17 to 24 group who went to the Gym in Summerside a small community about 50 minutes from Charlottetown. They gave false names and phone numbers so they could not be traced, only then when they were found by the Health Authorities lied further by giving false information. I have a real problem with this type of reasoning. Do they not care that they are putting family and community at risk? Summerside has a population of 14,000. small town in other words.

At the news conference Dr Morrison, chief medical officer was visibly upset and appeared very tired, she and her staff of the Health Dept have been working flat out 24/7 doing a tremendous service. Well some people are making death threats against her. Unbelievable that anyone in their right mind would say such awful things. They are upset and cannot understand the gravity of the situation. News UPDATE as of Sunday night we are now in a RED zone and everyone is confined to home for 72 hours, the only stores open are grocery stores, gas stations, pharmacies. The streets are deserted.

I was at the grocery store just before the Premier and the Chief Medical Officer went on the air to announce the restrictions Saturday afternoon, which closed the Island and all businesses, restaurants etc. Stay Home and wear a mask even outside. There was a noticeable air of panic and anxiousness in the air at the store, many already knew the bad news and we are back to where we were one year ago. The difference this time we have some 7,000 Islanders or 4.5% of our population who have received the vaccine and more have been called up, vaccination is in effect and moving ahead, that is a big plus.

IN OTHER NEWS

As we enter March Winter is clearly coming to an end, the days are 1 hour longer now. As my Birthday is coming up, Will asked me to see some old photos of myself, one photo was taken some 59 years ago, the other 62 years ago. I have to say looking at those photos made me wonder, it is another time and place gone forever. Now when I think of the past, it is mostly 5 to 10 years ago, this to me is manageable and in the realm of reality. Anything beyond that looks to remote, so many people, family and friends I knew simply gone, they are memories of another era. I also realize how the world as a whole has changed and with it our lives.

Maybe the Pandemic also affects my view of the past. Our movement are curtailed and everything is local, the rest appears to far away to reach.

Me standing with the beach ball and my little brother who is 2 yrs old and I am 4. In our little pool my Mom put together and I was asked to fill it with water, in our backyard. C.1959

Finally today I miss Italy and Rome, saw some pictures of friends gardens all in Spring flowers and the trees are also in flower, greenery everywhere under the beautiful sky. It looks so relaxing and pleasant. It is also artichoke time and you can buy the whole thistle plant and stock and make a beautiful meal of it.

Love the colour, such a nice green vegetable to eat. We use to buy them this way in the Vegetable markets in Rome.

In restaurants in Rome you could order the artichoke dish in two styles, Carciofi alla Romana, Rome Style Stuffed or Carciofi alla Giudia, Jewish style fried, both very good.

43 Years

Tags

Anniversary, Family, life, relationship

With November another Anniversary for us. It has been 43 years since we met and have been together all these decades. A whirlwind as the photos attest. Of course there are more photos but this would be a movie and I do not want to bore you dear readers. This year we will have a quiet celebration at home with a glass of bubbly. Probably for our 45th in 2022 we will have to do a big party, like hire Frank Sinatra to sing with Benny Goodman’s orchestra, I hope they’re available.

Cape Sounion, Aegean sea, Greece for the sunset.

One of my favourite photo of Will in the Garden of the Drottningholm Palace, near Stockholm. Syd the gnome travelled with us.

In Charlottetown for a Xmas Charity Event, 2018

1996 with our first Dachshunds, Reesie and Bundnie, who came from Chicago and Egypt.

On Mount Nebo in Jordan where Moses saw the Promise Land, Palestine in the background.

As Autumn moves ahead

Tags

Autumn, comfort, Fall, Family, life, PEI

This Sunday 25 October Europe is setting their clocks back one hour and next Sunday 1 November, All Souls Day, we in Canada will set our clocks back, this means that Winter is around the corner. Today the weather climbed to 5C. which is not warm and the wind is cold, the air smells of snow. Just 48 hours ago it was still 12C and pleasant. The smell of snow in the air, you know that level of humidity with the salty sea air, the leaves on the trees are turning colour, a sure sign that colder weather is on the way.

The Sun is setting at the moment and the horizon is turning violet colour, a lovely shade, probably caused by the cloud bans and the reflection of the setting rays, it’s a half moon tonight.

Many wish to do away with the time change, I see their point this one hour fall back on the clock means it will be dark by 5pm and at the Winter Solstice it is around 4:30pm which is really early. But since I have lived with this all my life, I really don’t mind the time change. To me it means a new Season, Holidays and changing wardrobe, flannel sheets, etc. This is one thing about living in Canada, you need at least 2 if not 3 completely different wardrobes for the different seasons.

I think we got use to the idea of not travelling, a return to the time prior to the 1970’s when few people travelled internationally, when mass tourism did not exist. Going to the USA by car no less was common but for a lot of Canadians it meant the New England States. The wealthier people went to Florida and for a taste of the exotic Key West, you know all those artists living there. But I think that given the way things are going we are in this for at least another 12 months if not 24 or until October 2022. I am also not holding my breath for a vaccine, I think this is not going to happen any time soon.

What I want to do now is keep comfortable and cosy, surround myself with the familiar and shut out the world, there is too many disagreeable things going on in Canada and elsewhere. We have the puppies to look after and God knows they are demanding little monsters and they talk back. We use to say they did not like children, but nooooo Ms Nora and Mr Nick talk back quite a bit and are insisting. Oh well, if that is all we have to complain about, we re doing ok.

This photo of the old puppies was taken a few days ago, Nick got a nice grooming since and does not look so disheveled.

Bonne Action de Grâce!

Tags

Canada, Family, Food, Friends, Peace, PEI, pumpkin, thanksgiving

Well this weekend we celebrate Thanksgiving, despite the Pandemic and numbers of sick people surging in Ontario, Quebec and Alberta and a new and developing situation in New Brunswick, we can be thankful in Canada for so many good things we enjoy. First and foremost everyone has access for FREE to Healthcare, Covid 19 tests are Free and easily accessible. You need healthcare it is available and you have no worries about it. Even the Seasonal Flu Shot are FREE. When you have your health, you got it all.

Here in PEI we have no COVID and anyone who has been sick total 61 have stayed at home and have received help and follow-up from Health PEI. No deaths and no hospitalizations.

We live in a peaceful and stable country, the Government of Canada has numerous programs for help and support financially anyone who needs help during the Pandemic. This is more than we can say if looking at other countries where people are left to fend for themselves.

We live in a nice house, we have friends and a good social life. We have our two puppies who are demanding but we love them, hey their Dachshunds, what do you expect.

So we have a lot to be thankful for and appreciative of our blessings in this life.

Happy Thanksgiving! Bonne Action de Grâce!