To my Canadian family and friends......

......best wishes for Canada Day!

Don't you love how this maple tree is almost the shape of a big maple leaf?  Taken at Bluffers Park, Toronto, in October 2009.  Here's hoping for more glorious fall colours in October this year - just for us.


Winter is well and truly upon us, we have had some very very cold weather this week.  Last week was the winter solstice but it was much too cold for dancing nekkid round the bonfire at midnight, or whatever our ancestors did on this occasion - so I didn't.  There are some things for which the world is not yet ready.  They must have been a hardy lot, those forebears of ours.


This week I was approached by someone connected with a local community radio station to see if I would be interested in being trained for, and perhaps ultimately having, a radio program.  I said yes!  So here goes.  Just goes to show that even at my advanced age there are new experiences to be had.  The radio station has a huge collection of its own music, and announcers also use music from their own collections - as I would.  Perhaps having a program which plays folk music might be a way to winkle out some closet folkies?  Let's hope so, because I miss being involved with folk music more than I can say.  While I enjoy being part of two choirs I do miss the interaction of getting together with like-minded people to just sit around and make our own music.


This town calls itself "Australia's Country Music Capital" and has a huge music festival in January with a much smaller one in July, but their idea of country music and mine are somewhat different.  My taste is for older music, preferably written before 1970.......most modern 'country' music to me sounds like pop music.  Just wearing cowboy boots and singing to a guitar doesn't make a song country.  There is even an annual school here for budding country musicians!  I was told of a young woman who took one of its courses a few years ago who was told she would have to dye her hair, as there were already enough dark-haired girls on the scene.  Supposing she didn't want to?  Music which is formulaic is not my idea of music - sorry.  Life would be dull indeed if we all liked the same music, or read the same books, or ate the same food.......


Has anyone spotted the housework fairy lately?  She hasn't been visiting here for some time and I have had to clean my own floors, and wave my own duster around.  I am not impressed.  The garden elves have also gone missing, probably playing games with the housework fairies somewhere a long way away from here.  


"Home is the woman's kingdom, and there she reigns supreme.  To embellish that home, to make happy the lives of her husband and the dear ones committed to her trust, is the honoured task which it is the wife's province to perform.  All praise be to her who so rules and governs in that kingdom, that those reared beneath her roof 'shall rise up and call her blessed'."


You know, I will gladly relinquish some of that supremacy to the housework fairy when she finally makes her appearance.


Enjoy your days!