My Garden Decor
Even when your thumb is not particularly green, you can have an intriguing garden– certainly one with more personal, perhaps nostalgic, history behind it than the heirloom rose in the corner. Not to knock the roses though, because my robust and invasive Rugosa, covered with scented blooms, carries with it a story of the Alaska Highway. But back to those garden specimens that have sprouted without roots and need no pruning or fertilizing. Probably the first of these is an ancient cast iron Franklin fireplace. While directing its placement in a corner by the hedge of my present yard, my husky...
Read MoreIt’s Never too Early
Yes, it snowed; today it’s raining; most every day is dark and sunless … but … the perfect day is close at hand to raise your spirits! If you’re gardener, whether novice or old hand, save the date for that magical day, SEEDY SATURDAY! Mark it on your calendar now, if it’s not already there … SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 1. That’s the day to make sure you visit the Qualicum Beach Civic Centre at 747 Jones Ave. between 10 am and 3:30 pm. when all the space in and around the building will be waiting for you with ‘everything garden’ … experts, information, displays, books, and...
Read MoreWar of The Words
Perhaps it’s the plague of one’s former profession, or one’s devotion to a lifetime of reading, but yesterday’s front page headline in our local paper was a blow to much I hold dear. “Word removal worries” it stated in big bold letters. The accompanying story featured a local teacher and her class of 10-11 year-olds learning that one of the most revered dictionaries in the English language had removed words of our natural world to make room for those of technology and ‘newspeak’ in its school dictionary. This happened a few years ago and was protested at the time by...
Read More“IF WINTER COMES … “
Heads up! The snowdrops are a-bloom, the daffodils’ greenery is above ground, … so most obviously Spring can not be far behind! And Seedy Saturday 2019 in Qualicum Beach is less than a month away! For this day full of curiosity, wonder, learning, and ‘dreaming in green’ (picked up that sweet phrase in Switzerland!) here’s the day to mark on your 2019 calendar: Seedy Saturday February 2nd 10:00 am until 3:30 pm, at the Qualicum Beach Civic Centre, 747 Jones Ave. in QB. Admission by donation. To quote from the Seedy website, “Seedy Saturday is an annual event that provides a...
Read MoreOf Brains And Books …
What? Why? How? When someone close to you suffers a stroke, you suffer too … groping for answers to questions you never expected to ask. Some questions go without answers, but many of the answers are out there just waiting to be found. When my dearest friend and partner suffered a stroke eight years ago his friends and mine rallied round with sympathy, support and suggestions that might help both of us. Some offered suggestions for a book or an article that could help shed some light on a phenomenon that we knew little about and never expected to deal with. And then came an invitation to...
Read MoreSame Desk, New Toys.
This is a second chapter on the foibles of my family room desk and writing corner with a little illustration to indicate only too clearly the dearth of good housekeeping which too often invades that particular space. (Editor – a link to the first chapter is at the end of this one). However, the new year has brought about a few changes; I was going to say improvements, but that’s not exactly the right word in every case. When last year’s computer of a certain age (known to me and a few in the loop as ‘Alvin VI’ ), seemed to be forgetting a lot of what I’d told him and...
Read MoreIf Winter Comes …
January, the winter month with probably the most shivery feelings involved, this year being no exception, is a month with a dual personality. Even the harsh sound of the month’s name grates on one. But January took its name full of stern consonants from a two–faced god so it does have some redeeming features. The god Janus, supposedly adopted from the Greeks and given a Roman name, is sculpted, painted, and carved as a stern figure whose head looks in two opposite directions, backward and forward. He was known to preside over conflicts and wars; the gates of Roman cities were...
Read MoreBooks, Bills & Bios.
That title pretty much describes my desk in what I call the ‘view area’ of my family room. When I first looked at this spot some decades ago when house-hunting, it sported a rudimentary desk, but what truly grabbed my attention then was this corner’s ideal placement with easy access to the kitchen beyond. What better place to store helpful book titles, pay the inevitable bills, and write irresistible biographies of talented artists, writers and musicians or announce the what, where, and when of upcoming events? Here I could sit searching for just the right phrase, watch the decreasing...
Read More“Dear Little Buttercup”
With a quote from Gilbert and Sullivan’s H.M.S. Pinafore many a gardener could well agree: “I’m called Little Buttercup – dear little buttercup, though I never could tell why”. It’s that word ‘dear’, likely the very last adjective to come to mind as on hands and knees, we try to extract, eradicate, and remove forever the creeping scourge of Ranunculus repens. Although the buttercup has its tame and cultivated cousins, it’s the one that fills our spring fields and garden beds that earns the title of an aggressive major weed. A favourite walk down the back lane where I can...
Read MoreTime To Think Spring
The seed catalogues have been here for a month. You might be spending evenings in the rocker by the fire, but as you start dreaming and flipping pages, drawing up backyard maps, planning and deciding, checking those boxes of saved or leftover seeds, you may come to the realization that the months of dirty fingernails are not far away. And … “SEEDY SATURDAY” is just around the corner. This year’s “Seedy” in Qualicum Beach will bloom on Saturday, February 6, from 10:00 AM till 3:30 PM at the Qualicum Beach Civic Centre, filling all the halls and overflowing outdoors, as usual. Many...
Read MoreSafety In My Garden
I have to thank Peggy Grigor and her Island Woman piece of March 23rd, “Lessons in My Garden” for finally getting me busy on this article! Her thoughtful thoughts remind me of that line from the Prophet Muhammad: “If I had but two loaves of bread, I would sell one of them and buy hyacinths for my soul.” In the interests of keeping body and soul together, I want to offer some tips to help us enjoy not only the planting of those hyacinths (and peonies, and asters …) but their bloom to come. Gardening is fun, but it’s also work, and it can nag at us if we get behind in the caring for...
Read MoreGive Up The Wheel?
Some time ago one of those photo jokes appeared in my inbox. The single frame showed an intent and apprehensive ‘grey hair’ hunched at the wheel; in the passenger seat sat a small dog with a look of abject terror on its face. The caption? “How you’ll know when it’s time to stop driving.” Yes, humorous, but an unsettling message for those of us who might be approaching ‘wheels loss’. While we’re still safely in charge of a vehicle is the best time to consider the evidence that could lead to hanging up the keys, as well as some simple steps that can maintain, or even improve...
Read MoreA Stroke of Luck
It was a cold and snowy January morning five years ago when I found a dear friend slumped in his chair, breathing but unresponsive, his empty coffee cup rolled away from him on the carpet. It was three days since I’d last seen him, hale and hearty on a bird-watching hike. When the ambulance team had him wrapped and strapped on a stretcher, I asked, “Do you think it’s a stroke?” “Probably,” was the terse answer. Six months later my friend was moved from hospital, after a minimum of therapy, to a care facility. Five months after that he was brought to my home for a holiday...
Read MoreAt My Mother’s Knee
As reminded in a recent letter, mothers are people to be loved, respected, cherished, and cared for (or not) every day of our years, not only on a Sunday in May when our outpourings of affection have been directed to the bottom lines of Coutts/Carlton, florists, and fancy eating places. Every one of us remembers our mothers differently, just as our growing and present years are different; some of us still have our mothers, others have been without them for months or decades. Some may still be grieving their loss. The memories are bound to be varied and innumerable. Whatever form the memories,...
Read MoreThey Also Serve Who …
A few years back, a dear friend and I often commented on the ongoing construction of two care facilities in Parksville and Qualicum Beach, most often expressing our vehement desires to end up any place but … Fate was not listening though, and since a severe stroke, my dear friend has been a resident in one of these buildings for five years. I, on the other hand, have been a constant visitor to the facility, and though I most dearly cherish my health and freedom, I now appreciate the gap these facilities fill; the link between self-sufficiency and dependence in our community; and yes, the...
Read MoreColour your Winter
Island Woman articles breed articles, as do casual emails from family. Two of these, juxtaposed on the same day, incubated this one. Sarah & Sean’s “Beauty on a Cold Grey Day” led me to remember the outdoor colour present even on the most miserable of our days, and a note from my daughter in chilly Fort McMurray, in reply to my dismay at dismantling holiday décor, suggested we needed that indoor colour through February. Pandora’s box popped open! Away with the winter blahs! In the midst of some other necessary but mundane job, I made the first splash. The aging Christmas...
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