The table is set to go

When we first decided to look into moving to NZ, we knew that there would be a lot of stuff that, not only could we not take with us, we didn't WANT to take with us.  Stuff that sweet people had given to us and we did not feel comfortable in tossing out.  Stuff that was wonderful and amazing and is now tired and/or well, tacky. (Orange fondue pot, anyone?) and Stuff that is simply no longer needed on the current part of the voyage.
These are the things that are going out, no matter what, in the April Petrolia Town Wide Garage Sale. Some of them are already in the garage, with more to move in as mid April draws near. (Thankfully, the opening day tournament at Sawmill is not on the same day as the town garage sale--can you hire someone to do your sale for you? We have also begun the shredding of 22 years of tax files (yes, yes, we've kept the last seven), paycheques and the triplicate pictures, or hair different shot of that incredibly cute child.

There are also the things we want to take with us but, before going with us, they need a face lift.  In fact, even if they go nowhere they need a little cosmetic work.  And that has begun. It was with great trepidation  I sent off my parents rock maple Vilas  table and chairs (with two panels).  Not to be stripped and re finished, but to be stripped and (shudder) repainted.  The two women who did this assured me that someday should somebody want to 'take it back' and varnish it; it is entirely possible (be still, my siblings).  But for now, I am enjoying it.
I still have the table and all the wonderful memories that go with it.  The meals under which it groaned.  The bun fights that the Collins girls inevitably instigated when sitting too long.  The elbows that rested upon it (not, I repeat not, during a meal) with the owner listening to the stories of the family past and present, engaging in political discussion, or howling at my Daddy's 'shoemaker' jokes that he brought home from Polymer.  We did everything at that table -- ate, laughed, fought, and cried -- I remember all of us sitting around it the night Dad died back in 1969.  I remember coming home from the hospice after Mum died in 2001 and telling Mike, Yvan and PoPo, the story of her passing.  The table holds much more than plates for me.

That table will never change; it was never about the colour or the finish, but the memories that are so ingrained in the wood as to give it a spirit of its own. It is ready for the adventure.

OOPS

Last night I mentioned to Michael that he "never reads my blog".  He frequently asks if I have read other blogs (All right, I admit they are more interesting), points out some fascinating detail about them, but is sadly lacking in knowledge regarding my offerings.  At any rate, last night he brought his computer upstairs to show me a photo from my spot.  I looked at it and said yeah, that's the bridal swan.  He then asked me to look at the background of the picture-- and there he was, sitting on a chair near the bed in a state of, shall we say, undress.  If one were to blow up the picture, then one would see how very undressed.
The photo has been changed.  Apologies to Mike.  If anyone of you should have noticed this, I hope that you were not scarred for life.

Hockey Night in Canada and New Zealand

First of all we have to set the stage in Canada.  No crummy rain or dull setting for the first major playoff of the new decade.  Nope, the kids in Ontario were all happy to see this come down the tubes the day before.  It was the first snowy day that we'd had all winter; Mike was getting anxious, because it is simply not winter if a dump of snow has not been dropped on the town by a squall.  So, Monday the 4th it finally came down--not at all up to Mike's Fort Erie standards, but enough to put a smile on his face as he headed out to clear the driveway, and visit with the neighbours  reminiscing about the snowfalls of their childhoods. In celebration of the snow, we left the outside Christmas lights on that night.  Next day, not quite Epiphany, we took down the tree early as the household Goddess, A. was coming today in order to make everything beautiful.  She did.
On the Monday night, we had spoken with our friend Es in NZ, and had cooked (or kooked) up the plan to put my lap top in front of our TV, turn on Skype and send the show to NZ where she would be waiting to watch the Canadian Juniors play the US for the gold.  Sadly, the Canadians have to be satisfied with five golds in a row, followed by a year with the other, unmentionable, metal medal.  There was no joy in P-town, or M-town last night.  However, the Olympics are on in a month -- give or take-- and the Big Girls can show the world what Canada has....

It was a night for pictures, however.  I am uploading a couple and for the sake of anonymity, I will show only the ones with the figure of Miss Es blurred.  However you will see the two buddies as they watch the battle.  This seemed pretty tame to me so, after watching my obligatory "good wife 1 period of a sports event'  I toddled upstairs to read my book.  I did discover in the morning and found out that for the last period they had been sitting side by side.  Thank goodness the team lost, or who knows where this could have ended?

Not used to the camera yet....

I am not used to my new camera yet.  It is just great, I love it and used it today to take a movie of the cat.  So much fun.  However, I have yet to read the directions and scan the manual, so still have a lot to do.  Last night En and a girl friend D came over for an evening of Dominoes (Mexican Train) along with our friend Sammy.  Mike had to finish the Juniors game before coming up to play with us (Juniors won, have their berth).  We played until just past midnight, missing the New Year by several minutes, but still drank our champagne and wished each one the best of the new year.  We played another game, the guests left, and we went to bed. 
I played with my camera this morning, hence the video of the cat, then Mike and I walked (tramped) to the Anglican clergy's home in town for her levee.  It was a great event and we walked home, deciding that after the last few days of indulgence, we could eschew dinner.  It is bloody cold here today but my friend outside of Calgary assures me that it is even colder by about 25 degrees.
Happy New Year to you all.  I feel it in my bones that we are in for a great year. 

Still Christmas....

It is still Christmas for several more days yet, so I am not behind on my blogging. (Je blog, tu blog, nous bloggons, vous bloggez)  However, being as it is going to be 2010 in a few hours, I felt that I should get going and have Christmas 2010 completed. Yvan came home on the Monday before Christmas; we picked him up at Wyoming where the train makes a quick stop. As it was past supper, he wanted his mummy to make him "egg in a basket", two of them. Thursday was busy; we had a late lunch en famille, then Mike and Yvan went out.  I headed out about three o'clock to head to St. Matthew's Florence for my first service.  All three were lovely. A couple of the men from Florence always put on a small display of fireworks after the service and though it was still twilight by the time we all got out of the church, the fireworks were visible and effective.  All the kids, previously only in the state of "wired up",  immediately went into Warp Drive.
Next was Dresden and I finally get to take the "cute angels" from off of the altar, and put them over the nativity scene.  I have managed to keep them there for the last few years (only after Christmas, mind you1) And why are they ever on the altar you ask?  Because I am not the rector and have not chosen this hill to die on, thank you.  At Dresden, I pick up the peanut brittle made fresh that day from one parishioner and the cranberry pecan pie that will go to my sister's house for dinner the next day.
Finally, Aughrim-- up near Alvinston, in the middle of a cornfield and a lovely service by candle light.  By the third service I can no longer sing the preface for the Eucharist and am barely speaking, but that's ok, the music is very good and the representatives from Dulce Jubilo do a great job, as they also did in Florence.

I manage to get back home by ten o'clock, make a Camembert in puff pastry and get over to Sylvia's to meet Mike and Yvan as the folks from Christ Church, Petrolia slide in to finish the night with a party and Syl's homemade clam chowder.
This is this years version of "the tree".  As Mike and I were putting it up, we wondered to one another if this were to be the last Christmas in this house.  At any rate, when we put it down, we will be looking over the decorations and letting deciding which to put in the garage sale.  None of the ones that are on the tree, for certain, as we are at the stage that we no longer need to put on boxes of ornaments; we have collected enough singles that each bear a memory.  A ball labeled KIM, because no decorators seem to make one that reads YVAN.  An angel that my mother made for me and a Styrofoam, glitter and pipe cleaner 'inky pinky spider' that Yvan and I made when he was young.  My generously proportioned ballerina-angel is also a favourite, not to mention a pomegranate and an acorn hand blown ornaments from my parents tree--apparently some of the few things that one could get post war-time.   
We got up around nine on Christmas morning as we were all so tired from the previous evening.  We took a long time to open our presents and declared ourselves to be well satisfied with our gifts.  In the fall, when I asked Yvan what he looked forward to most at Christmas, he replied: "Christmas breakfast".  So once again, the pea-meal bacon was cooked on the barbecue, the eggs poached, the muffins toasted and the hollandaise sauce prepared.  Eggs Benedict for all...

We have always sat in the same chairs at Christmas; it seems that we do habits so well-- and this year's picture of Yvan opening his gifts is similar to last year's and the year before and the year.....ever since the year when we moved the tree upstairs.  Around the second millennium. Yvan loved his Swiss army brand back pack.  And me, my new camera.

Christmas Day, we went to my sister's house for dinner.  We had the usual great meal.  Sister Frieda flew back from her vacation in Cayo Coco, Cuba on Christmas Eve, and drove from Toronto on Christmas morning.
We did not have Christmas Card weather this year, but the roads were safe for traveling.  We also had our FEZ, Benjamin and his partner, Rhonda join us for Christmas dinner.

Lagoon and Cenotes and Critters---Oh My!!!

We went to two different types of cenote this visit--neither of them like the sacred cenote at Chichen Itza nor the one we swam in en route to that site in 2007.  This particular cenote is called a 'open' cenote and is ancient. It looks like an "ol' swimmin' hole".  It is probably about 30 meters across and about 20 feet deep.  One can see (under the water) the place where the cenote is connected to the underground water system.  Apparently its younger but much larger cousin is about a kilometer away. That particular cenote was closed because a film was being made there.  But this was an absolute delight.  The bottom was covered with a rich fern-like growth that was host to several different kinds of fish such as a beautiful blue catfish.  Mostly, though, the inhabitants were several different colours of tetras that nibbled at your skin as you floated.  I guess you could say that we 'were feeding da fishes'. There was only our tour there (six of us) and that was amazing.  Later in the swim we did have two more visitors, young people from Germany on their gap year world tour, a charming young couple who now know all about Canada from their week in Montreal.  Oh well, I suppose I can't say I know all about Mexico from four trips to resorts here.

  That day we also stopped at a lagoon in Akumel.  This place did not support as many varieties of fish as Xel ha. but was quite lovely to swim in.  Mike and I lazed in the water and watched a huge eagle wait for, and finally catch, a fish.  I was not bright enough to take a picture of the lagoon itself, but at the site was a large, permanent show of three artists' work.  I spent a long time enjoying the works.  I have no idea who the artists were but it occurs to me if I could check it out on the web as the site is called Yal-Ku.

After Yal-Ku we drove to Akumel to have lunch.  It is all included in the day, and is great to get out of the hotel (that doesn't serve that much Mexican food--more international, including sushi) We stopped off at a Mom and Pop style restaurant and had chicken and tacos.  We finally found out why the bean sauces are so runny in the Yucatan--they are cooked, spiced and then stored, sometimes underground, historically.  The chicken was great, I purchased some of the paste they used to marinade it--just add lime juice.

Yvan and I tried to make this the other night using pork ribs.  We discovered that the taste of the pork overpowers the spice; everybody prefers the home made rub I make anyway.  Next time it will be with chicken and with a little chipotle spice added to zing it up a touch.

After lunch the gang of six plus driver and guide moved off on another cenote, called the Grand Cenote.  It is a cave cenote as well as having open areas.  The water was beautiful as well; not as many fishes as in the first cenote but a few.  It was very large--we could swim quite a way into the cave part which was much deeper than the other part.  We disturbed the bats as we swam around the stalagmites, stalactites and columns.  When we looked back towards the mouth of the cave the light entering made the water turn the most exquisite blue.

Finally I am going to include some of the fauna we saw this time, jut for the fun of it. First I have a lovely iguana from Tulum, overlooking the Caribbean Sea.  He was just resting peacefully, and then another male clambered on to a nearby rock and off it went scrabbling down with his ruff flaring.

I have already mentioned the birds in a previous posting, but there were several that I had not seen before.  One morning I found a couple apparently doing some sort of mating ritual, or exhibiting aggressive behavior -- I don't really know which, but I was having a bit of difficulty deciding on their gender.  At any rate, they kept hopping sideways --if one hopped to its right, the other would hop to its right, and then left, and then right.  It was quite odd and seemed to have been going on for a long time, and would seemingly continue to do so.

Mike woke up eye to eye with this little fellow on the beach one morning.  He thought at first that it was just a grain of sand, but when he looked more closely he saw the tiny shell.  It looks like the uni residence version of a hermit's home.

Finally I have a couple of pictures of the variety of animals we found in our rooms everyday.  Alonso would leave them with us when he left.  Some of them were quite clever. We aren't quite certain why he decided we should have the swan display (reserved for the bridal suite), but it may have been that after finding out that we had been married so long, we needed a little romance.  Que sabe?

Last Day in Akumal

We don't have to leave the hotel until four today, and it isn't noon yet.  I am downloading the paper for Mike to read in the airport while we wait until nine o'clock to take off out of here.  We don't arrive in Ontario until late tonight and will stop over.  We will see Yvan on our way home tomorrow.
Yesterday we took the walk to the cove we saw last year.  Attempted to

go there already this trip, but we were with a couple who were nervous about the No Trespassing signs.  It is quite a rough walk (or tramp) over coral and tourist debris, but worth the trip.  Some good snorkeling although the water had been stirred up by the rain the previous evening and could have been clearer.  Mike and I did an hour or so paddling around.  A couple different kind of pelicans; I am not certain if there were more than one kind or if they were male and female.  I am thinking two sorts--if and when we get to NZ I think I would like to take up 'birding' more seriously.  I will have to get Sue to teach me and do bird tramps. I felt the mad urge to leave my mark here, so I made an Inuktisuk; which I undoubtedly have spelled wrong, and I expect P to correck me. 'bless him.