Whirlwind

Tags

books, Charlottetown, dachshunds, EUR, Haviland Club, Italy, Rome

This week has been very busy, the big good news and I big uplift is that Will was able to start drinking tea and eating pudding. He has not had anything to eat through normal means in the last 3 months. Now he will have to do therapy to learn to swallow again normally as the tumour shrinks and dies. He is relieved and so am I and we are happy about this outcome, but we do have many more months until the final results are known. It is however looking good.

Monday I was invited to attend the inauguration of the new City Council. The next municipal election will be in 2026. The Councillor of my Ward 1, is now deputy Mayor, she was my opponent in the election of 2018. A smart lady, very political and we have become friends. The Mayor is trying hard to forge a new agenda, hopefully with this new Council it will be possible.

This week I had things to do each day. Wednesday went to Belle River about 45 min outside of Charlottetown to see a friend who has a beautiful old house in the area. He gave the Club 85 art/culture books, truly a wonderful gift for our Club Library. His house is full of treasures and has that old European feel about it.

Picture taken by Reg Porter in his house.

Then Thursday it was off to Kensington and Summerside in driving rain and fog to get the old puppies to the groomer. They do not like it but it has to be done and she does a great job. Now they are clean for Xmas.

This is so stressful for them and when I came to pick them up at 4:30pm they first peed and then ran for the car. Sleeping on their blankets on the back seat all the way back to town.

Nora at Home waiting for her dinner.

Nicky the quiet one in the family and now blind.

Tomorrow Friday should be quiet only the Club in the evening. Now the Xmas decorations are up, it will be quiet just the 2 of us, that is perfectly fine. I made an appointment to get a pre-Xmas haircut.

One stem and 5 blooms of this white Amaryllis, a beautiful elegant flower. I have another one growing, a red one. The stem is 2 feet tall.

Last Friday at the Club in what was once the formal salon of Esther Lowden’s home, a nice Winter fire in the Pink Sicilian Marble fireplace. It is so pleasant to sit in this room and just enjoy a glass of wine by the fire.

Here is another view this week in the afternoon. It is a very comfortable room.

Now I saw this photo this week of the EUR neighbourhood of Rome (Esposizione Universale Roma), it is on the outskirts of the city on the way to the airport. It was started my Benito Mussolini in the 1930’s and was to be his modernistic view of Rome, it was never completed due to the war and his fall from power in July 1943. However it is surprising by its modernity of style.

This building dominates the area and is very interesting. The Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana, also known as the Palazzo della Civiltà del Lavoro, or in everyday speech as the Colosseo Quadrato, is a building in the EUR district in Rome. It was designed in 1938 by three Italian architects: Giovanni Guerrini, Ernesto La Padula, and Mario Romano. Despite its origins, Romans are very proud of its architecture and what it says about Rome and the future. The sky is dramatic like it is usually in Rome.

A brisk sunny Saturday

Tags

CANCER, Chili con carne, Haviland Club, Montreal, PEI, Santa Claus, Weather

Well today is the traditional Santa Claus Parade in Montreal, it has always been a big affair and indicates the start of the Xmas Shopping Season. In the old day, maybe 40 years ago EATON’s dept store hosted the parade and it always ended at the Store on St-Catherines street in Montreal. Now the dept store is gone like all great dept stores and the parade is on Sherbrooke street, still downtown of course and still a very nice parade. The one thing I do remember was that in the old days Santa had to enter the store through a window on the 5th floor of the facade of EATON’s this was way, way, up there, I always thought he would not make it, it was so high, it was all part of the spectacle.

This morning I got up and after walking and feeding Nicky and Nora, I prepared all the ingredients to make a Chili con carne in the slow cooker. It will be ready by 6pm. I follow a recipe which is fairly simple and I add to it celery, a carrot to the usual garlic and onion with one Jalapeno and one red pepper. I do not like it too spicy, it does not agree with my stomach. I also mix veal and beef in the recipe. What I do not eat right away can be frozen.

The newsletter is done for this week and it is about all the preparation for the various events at the Club in December. We also had our Annual general Assembly and I was elected Chair of the Membership Committee. Recruitment is a big portion of this job.

Will is completing is cancer treatment on Monday, he has done well all along and was quite brave considering the aggressiveness of the treatment over the 6 weeks. Now we wait and return to the centre in December for further assessment. Only in March will we have the final word. Patience is of the essence and a certain degree of serenity.

Other than that, life is very quiet now socially speaking. This coming week I am giving a talk on diplomacy at the Irish Benevolent Society. In PEI a very large number of the population is of Irish descent or Scottish, in both cases, descendants of poor people who were deported by the British to PEI with the promise of a better life. A lot of people I know told me they were coming to hear me talk. So I better be prepared to say something half way intelligent.

Victoria park, Charlottetown

This past week

Tags

Charlottetown, Halifax, Haviland Club, Nova Scotia, Oriental carpets, Tereza Berganza

This week one of the great Opera singer died, Teresa Berganza
March 16, 1933 – May 13, 2022. She truly was a star of the Opera stage and lucky those who heard her perform. Will did many times. He wrote a blog entry on her passing. willyorwonthe.wordpress.com/2022/05/13/another-great-has-left-the-stage

Tomorrow morning I am going away to Halifax, 3 hours down the road off Island. I am collecting my 6 Oriental carpets from the cleaners of such rugs in Bedford a suburb of Halifax. I will return to PEI on Tuesday.

Last night at the Club, we had a mix-in Military Dinner with members of the PEI Regiment and the regimental bands, Members of the Royal Canadian Navy and Air Force. Everyone was wearing their Mess Kit. The food was wonderful the main course was a filet of Beef Wellington, one of my favourite dishes. The best part was because I have lost 11 lbs I was able to wear comfortably my Italian silk and wool dark blue suit. I bought that suit in Rome in 2010. I could not wear it because I had gained so much weight.

Here I am in the Great room of Farringford House with my fellow members in their mess kit of the PEI Regiment, the fellow next to me is a Colonel and the other fellow a Captain, both now retired from the Armed Forces.

I still need to loose 20 lbs. I was asked to make the Loyal Toast to Her Majesty at the dinner this being the Platinum Jubilee Year. I followed the formula of Windsor Castle, not the one President Obama got caught it by speaking the name of the Queen to soon which is always the cue for the band leader to give the signal to start playing the Royal Anthem. Once they start they cannot stop. So I was careful to word it properly and we had the Royal Anthem on cue.

Because the Lieutenant Governor was also present, the band played the Royal Salute upon her arrival with her ADC a Canadian Royal Navy Commodore. There is a lot of protocol in such dinners, the food was fantastic, the wines and the port was also very good. Throughout the evening the Band played including Canadian Regimental marches.

H.H. Antoinette Perry, Lieutenant Governor of PEI with members of the PEI Regimental Band and her ADC, Cdr John Macdonald, Commanding Officer of Naval Base Charlottetown on the right.

Events

Tags

Acadie, Charlottetown, Christmas, Christmas markets, Fanningbank, Haviland Club, Macphail homestead, Noël, PEI, Port La-Joye

Well  the whirlwind of events continues, with Christmas approaching. There is no war on Christmas here, decorations and Christmas theme events are everywhere, numerous Christmas Fairs, so many in fact that you can easily chose which one you want to go to and which one to skip. Concerts, choirs performing, parties of all sorts.

We started with a Christmas dinner on 2 Dec at the Homestead of Sir Andrew MacPhail in Orwell. We reserved for the dinner because the capacity is under 30, the Seasonal food was wonderful, everything they serve is from the farm and garden and the price of the dinner was very reasonable.  The Fair at the MacPhail Homestead was so beautiful. I think what I like about the Homestead is how this once private home has kept its character as if Sir Andrew was just about to walk in on you, there is no crowds ever. The Fair to raise funds for their operations, we bought a beautiful Queen size wool blanket from MacAusland’s Woollen Mills of PEI located in Bloomfield in Prince County about 90 minutes West from Charlottetown.

the tree on the enclosed veranda of the MacPhail home.

Stollen, marzipan potato and jam by Sabina

The dinner table in the old dining room of the Sir Andrew in front of the fireplace with of course the oil portrait of Sir Andrew in his academic robes from McGill University in Montreal.

At the Homestead we met Sabina Schönknecht from Murray Harbour North who has beehives, makes preserves, Stollen at Christmas and also sells Marzipan as a treat and makes her own dog biscuit. In the Summer she also has chickens but they are European not North American, meaning they are black. See Lucky Bee Homestead on Facebook. Sabina is originally from Dresden in Germany a city we know well. This Season we also went to the one at the Eastlink Centre just East of our home and the Farmer’s on Queen Street just up a few steps from us.

Many of the Fairs are organized to raise funds for an historic site like the MacPhail Homestead or for a charity. There is a lot of poverty amongst our small population of 150,000 on the Island and this time of the year, there are loads of food drives organized by social clubs, the National Broadcaster CBC, Farmer’s, businesses like Receiver Coffee Co. and Churches. They always manage to feed and provide Christmas cheer to many poor Islanders.

Then because I work as a volunteer at the Official Residence of our Lieutenant-Governor we were invited to dinner at Fanningbank, the house is named after General Sir Edmund Fanning who in 1789 reserved 100 acres of parkland for the exclusive use of the Crown. The house itself is in the Palladian-Greek revival Style built in 1834.

Our new Lieutenant-Governor H.H. Antoinette Perry is an Acadian from Tignish, up West. She is also a musical teacher and plays both the piano and the organ regularly, she loves to have the guests sing while she plays on the piano. When we meet we always speak in French.

Will had a birthday and we had guests for the event, he got some pretty impressive gifts. He really cannot complain.

We also went to a Service of Lessons and Carols at St-Peter’s Anglican Cathedral on Rochford Square. It was in the old style Anglican Service and the Lieutenant-Governor came always accompanied by her Aide-de-Camp in full uniform. There was a small buffet afterwards and we had the most splendid Smoke Salmon from Lord’s in St-John New Brunswick.

Now we are looking at Xmas Eve dinner and Xmas day luncheon in Vernon Bridge at friends. For New Year’s Eve I was thinking we could go to the Haviland Club which is at the end of Water street, again steps away from our home, so we can drink and celebrate and walk home.

The Haviland Club in Charlottetown, a former private residence built in the Italianate style.

This Wednesday 13 December marks a very sad anniversary in PEI, that of the violent deportation of the Acadians in 1758. Thousands died at the hands of British troops who were sent to occupy the Island then named Saint-Jean. It was an early episode of ethnic cleansing and the Mi’kMaq people did not fair better. Every year there is a ceremony at Port La-Joye (Fort Amherst) to commemorate the deportation of the Acadians who left the Island on boats often un-sea worthy. Two of those ships Duke William and Violet carrying more than 600 people sank on their way to England, the Captains, Officers and crews were saved but all passengers/prisoners perished.

The photo shows pilgrims at Port La-Joye which is the entrance to the harbour of Charlottetown and faces the Strait of Northumberland. The flag in the photo is the Acadian National Flag with the yellow star Stella Maris. Many of those who survived the horrors of British occupation returned after 1765, some hid in remote areas of the Island in what is called the Evangeline region (Prince County).