Back home, and back to reality!

We have been home for several days now, and still both keep talking about the great time we had in Canada.  Interesting places - some new to us, some we had visited before - and wonderful friends, even strangers we met were friendly and helpful.  Somehow, though, I think we picked the right time to leave Ontario as the weather there has become much colder in the past week or so.  While we don't mind the cold weather we have here in winter, and the cold fall weather we had in Ontario, neither of us have the right clothing for minus 35 deg C.

Meanwhile here at home, the temperature is plus 35 deg C, which is quite warm - summer has hit with a vengeance.  This summer's forecast is for hot, hot, hot, and probably dry.

This is the Sydenham River on a cool showery misty day in Harrison Park, Owen Sound.

Makes you feel cooler just looking at it, doesn't it?

For years now Kevin and I have been joking about taking "the award winning shot" - the picture that would win first prize in a photographic exhibition - this is mine.

Now that we are home we are falling back into the usual routine.  Since coming home on Monday I have been to two Christmas/end of year functions, with more to come.  Yesterday's quilt group Christmas meeting/party was fun as our challenge quilts were revealed to much ooh-ing and aah-ing; even my Plastered Pinwheel quilt was muchly admired, to my surprise.  Some of us tend to be a little diffident about our own efforts, don't we? The worst part was the insistence of the group president that we each be photographed with our own quilts, a real challenge when one hates having one's likeness taken.  When we packed up to move here I managed to lose most of the pictures of me taken over the years I worked in school libraries.  When one doesn't take a good picture one avoids having it done.  I don't want to hear "it's such a good picture of you".....all I can think is "my gawd, do I really look like that?"

Ah well.  Not much can be done about it........

On the flight from Toronto to Vancouver I watched a Canadian movie, "Marion Bridge", which I enjoyed so much I watched it again a week later on the flight from Vancouver to Sydney.  At the end the actors portraying the three sisters sang "Song for the Mira" which I hadn't heard before and absolutely loved.  Found the words and chords on the interwebz, now to find a little guitar time.  Even brought a present home for one of my guitars, a set of strings I can't get here, and of course they travelled in the hold in my checked bag.  Can't you just imagine a set of guitar strings setting up alarms in security?

Speaking of checked and carry-on bags, have you seen the size of many of the bags people take into plane cabins these days?  We each travelled with a backpack (which went under our seats) and a small un-wheeled bag, our big bags were checked.  But some people arrive jauntily down the plane aisle with bags they can barely lift into the overhead lockers, and there is much pushing and shoving as they try to make their bag fit in with everyone else's.  It's that sense of entitlement and importance at work again, isn't it?  On our flight from Vancouver to Sydney our row was shared by a Canadian man who works in the airline industry, and he told us he always checks his bag using the logic that, if people only travel with carry-on bags, eventually airlines will decide that checked bags can not just be charged for but be done away with completely.  Imagine trying to have a six-week holiday with only a small carry-on bag for clothing and souvenirs........

"No lady will retain possession of more than her rightful seat n a crowded tram-car or railway carriage.  When others are looking for accommodations she should at once and with all cheerfulness so dispose of her baggage that the seat beside her may be occupied by anyone who desires it, no matter how agreeable it may be to retain possession of it."

When I become queen I shall spread out over as many seats as I like, to make up for being squashed all these years.

Enjoy your days!