Another Covid day

Tags

anxiety, Canada., cooking, Covid 19, cuisine, Food, PEI, shopping, Stress

So this Monday we have lovely sunny and warm weather, so I went for an hour long walk to the end of our street and along the Hillsborough River to Victoria Park which is the former Royal Park of the Lieutenant Governor’s Residence. It’s a very big park about 90 acres of forest and parkland. On one side is the Residence of the L.G. with its 10 acres of manicured park and old trees. The grounds are usually open but the L.G. told the groundskeeper to close the gates during the pandemic.

It is so quiet and pleasant to walk along the streets by the river with its beautiful parks and old trees, mansions and nice homes. No cars and just a few people who seeing you coming simply take their distances.

I was at the supermarket yesterday and I just became anxious, nervous and tired of the place. There was not many people in the store it was quiet and no waiting at the cashier station. Still I just dislike it and find people in general to be self centred and not aware of their surroundings. I only go now about once every 8 days and try to go early to avoid people. There is stress in all of this and I am also tired of constantly sanitizing everything.

We are in PEI in a privilege situation in North America and Canada, no cases and no one sick or recovering. The down side, people immediately feel over confident thinking its over and let’s return to before 11 March when it all started.  Our Island borders are still closed but there is a lot of political pressure to re-open to allow people from elsewhere in Canada and the USA to come to their Summer cottages. Like many I am firmly against such an idea, Canada has 70,000 cases now most of them in Quebec and Ontario the two most populous provinces. With numbers still climbing each day though not as fast. Montreal is a real disaster area, it is so bad that the Government of Quebec may quarantine the entire Island of Montreal some 4 million people to flatten the curve.

We will have a quiet Summer in PEI our tourism traffic is down 90% and now operators are hoping in Islanders as customers, renting camp grounds and staying in resorts or renting a cottage by the beach.

Here are some pictures of what we have been cooking or got from the Water Prince restaurant across the street from us now open for take-out. You may know this restaurant where many celebrities comes for a lobster. It is a simply unpretentious place but the food is superb and we know the owner and his son and all the staff. Regis Philbin and Kathie Lee ate there a few years ago.

Malpeque Oysters on the half shell prepared for us at the Water Prince. A nice appetizer for dinner.

Haligut and chips. At the moment Halibut is in Season and I prefer it to Haddock.

Made at home, puff pastry stuffed with meat and vegetables served with Brocolletti.

Pastry stuffed with raspberry jam and sliced almonds.

Made this meat pie with vegetables for an evening dinner.

A 3 lbs Pork Roast in a cast iron pan, using a marinade of garlic, thyme, rosemary and Cayenne pepper. The cast iron pan is perfect and it goes into the oven. It was soooo good.

Banana Foster a New Orleans recipe with Rum, brown sugar and vanilla ice cream.

Banana Bread,  Nicky and Nora love a piece of banana in the morning after their breakfast. So we had too many bananas and made bread out of the more ripe ones.

 

Azzurro

Tags

anxiety, Canada., coping, danger, Friends, Italy, Stress, troubles, World

Italy has been hit very badly by COVID 19, the number of sick and dead amongst the elderly population is staggering, 60% of sick people are over the age of 60 and 100% of the dead are over 80 yrs of age. The Government in an effort to control the spread of the virus has ordered people confined to their homes. But those dear Italians are resourceful, people all around Italy organized themselves to sing from their balcony or windows or terraces in the afternoon at 6pm each day in an effort to socialize with neighbours. Italy gave us the Opera more  than 400 years ago and so it is normal to sing in times of joy but also of great stress.

I know that friends living in Italy have told me that they will sing this afternoon Azzurro and on other days Volare will be sung, etc.. The idea is to sing a song that is well known and popular with everyone, Italy has lots of those. Here is Adriano Celentato singing Azzurro.

Porto Azzurro is a comune in the Province of Livorno in the Italian region Tuscany; it is on the island of Elba, located about 130 kilometres southwest of Florence and about 90 kilometres south of Livorno. A beautiful place.

 

Stress and Dachshund views

Tags

Canada., Charlottetown, dachshunds, dogs, moving, PEI, Stress

This move is now behind us and all that is left is to organize the new house. On 28 May we arrived in Charlottetown after 2 days on the road from Ottawa, Yes Canada is a big country.

Our two dwarf Dachshunds slept in the back seat of the car all the way, only stretching from time to time and we stopped to let them walk a bit and smell the air, which they did. It must have smelt strange to them, nothing familiar, everything foreign including the surrounding landscape. Nora being a hunter liked the challenge, it was like doing a cross word puzzle for her, trying to figure out what she was smelling and what was about. Her familiar things were the car, her toys, the blanket, the food and us taking care of her and being there. On the other hand our Nicky the sunshine boy, Mister show Dog was stressed, he did not like the trip one bit and was acting out. He also had lots of familiar things about him and Nora was there so what could be wrong.  His routine was upset and he did not like the smells of things, too foreign. He wanted to go home to his two sofas to lounge, but they were gone. What was happening, this was scary and so refusing to eat, feeling lethargic, looking worried was his way of telling us this was no fun.

On 1 June the truck arrived with all our things, all 4 tons of it, which by the way is normal for a couple without human children or so says the moving company. This time around lots of boxes, cardboard does smell and Nicky again did not like it one bit and the new house, was fun because he could run everywhere with Nora, which they did a lot of. Now the furniture which had disappeared in Ottawa had miraculously re-appeared in Charlottetown. Nora was happy, Nicky not so much, and one member of the family was missing, so for Nicky the equation was not perfect. He was mopping so much that I phoned the Vet to enquire what should I do. He went on a 3 day hunger strike, though he would eat treats and drink water, would pass on regular food.

The Vet assured me that A) dogs do not, ever, let themselves die of hunger. B) Nicky was stressed by the move and all the changes.  All the while I was busy getting the new place in to shape. Painters came in to re-paint the apartment on 7 June just days after our effects had arrived. Then the spouse arrived on 9 June and instantly Nicky found his Joie de vivre and bounced back. All was well now and he could put the move behind him.

I was telling the Vet that often people will say that dogs are just dumb animals, I disagree. We have had dogs for 26 years now all of them Dachshunds and found that dogs can be very perceptive often more so than humans. They have their own personalities, witness Nora and Nicky, they are so different from each other, they are not related having different parents but nonetheless they are individuals.

Nora speaks to us in varying growls with many different pitches depending on what she is trying to say to us. Nicky whines or whimpers, he never growls unless he feels threatened. Nora barks to sound the alarm if someone approaches but Nicky does not. Nicky barks only if he is warning someone not to get to close or else. He also barks once sharply at 07:30am every morning for his breakfast, Nora never does.

I am sure they are both happy with their new home. Nora has lots of new parks to explore and she enjoys it immensely, she also wants to throw herself into the Hillsborough river behind the house. We won’t let her because it is the harbour and I do not want to have to go in after her. Nicky still does not like to walk, he never did, too lazy.

Nicky and Nora hiding behind the hat.

 

 

 

 

Seven weeks from now

Tags

Charlottetown, move, moving, PEI, Stress

 

Well the process is on, we are cleaning closets, accounting for what we have and in some cases wondering why did we keep this. I find that moods greatly influence what you want to keep and what you do not want. Finally one day you say to yourself, no I do not want this anymore and out it goes.

Some item are difficult to part with, often because of the quality of the item. I think here of clothing, Italian cashmere in very good condition but not wearable anymore because it is too big and cannot be altered satisfactorily. What to do with a white dinner jacket of Italian cashmere in mint condition worn twice in 11 years. It looks stunning with black tuxedo pants but honestly outside of some European countries or Japan, there is no formal occasion I can think where I would wear it. But who do you give it too? No I am not interested in selling stuff.

Books, we have gone through nine boxes so far for my books. I buy Kindle now and find it is a lot easier to carry around. We have replaced the Kitchen pots and pans with a new set, a first in 40 years, no excess here.

I do not think I forgot anything. I looked into new insurance policies home and car with huge savings. I will also need to apply for new Health cards (socialize medecine) this is a Provincial matter in Canada and each Province have their own procedures, though it is fairly simple to apply for coverage, just one form to fill out and submit with one photo ID.

Registring the car for new licence plates and driver’s licence is somewhat more complicated though if you follow the instructions it should be fool proof. Again each Province have their own procedures on this matter, it usually involves a safety check and proof of residence, your old driver’s licence but not the plates. Then will come the Internet telephone service and what package you want, it is all different from region to region in Canada.

I also want to do a COSTCO shopping before we move so we have all manner of essentials on hand. There is no COSTCO on the Island the nearest one is in New Brunswick some 2 hours away by car on the mainland.

However all this is a lot of work and though we are prepared and everything is planned, I am thinking that I am too old for this.  Things have gone well so far but still I want it over with and it will be soon enough. I can clearly see how just a few years from now I would not be able to go through such a move or any move, simply not having the energy for it.

This beautiful Georgian style building part of the University of PEI is two blocks from our new home and next to the R.C. Basilica of St-Dustan in Charlottetown.