Let's Talk about TV

I am the youngest of six children. My mother was, no doubt, a little weary by the time I came along. I remember that even though our family's TV received only two channels, CBC and CTV, I watched quite a bit of both channels. When I was small, nearly every morning I was not in school I spent on the living room sofa being gently entertained by Mr. Dressup, The Friendly Giant, and Sesame Street. Halfway through Sesame Street, one of our metal TV trays would be set up and my mother would deliver me lunch, usually a grilled cheese sandwich with a side of ketchup. Sometimes a bowl of soup, too. Lunch would be followed by quiet time on my bed with a book. I presume I was sent outside to play after that, because I remember being outside a lot, too. On school days I would often watch Happy Days with my elder siblings. Sunday evenings we all watched The Magical World of Disney and The Beachcombers. The Irish Rovers also, but I can't remember which night they were on.

 In the days before home video a movie might be shown on TV about three years after its release, and always with commercials. On the commercial breaks my mom would call out, "Okay, go get your pyjamas on!" and we would race to be back before the movie or TV show resumed. On the next break she would say, "Go brush your teeth and wash your face!" In summer, she would add "Go wash your feet!". The stakes were high during Primetime, especially with only one bathroom in the house. Every show not a rerun was like a live performance. None of your 'pauses' and 'plays' of today's streaming services and PVRs. My parents were big fans of The Smothers Brothers and Wayne and Shuster, but the humour often flew over my head. I tried so hard to get the jokes, and laughed along as if I did. We weren't allowed to watch soap operas in our house, but when I was sick and nothing was on, I was allowed to watch Coronation Street. It bored me to tears. I'm sure my mom knew it would, and that I would eventually turn it off and read. I remember her often reading while we watched TV, but like most moms she could keep an eye on everything even when she was reading. She was super critical of advertising and marketing. She would argue out loud against the claims of toothpaste and cigarette commercials, trying to detox our sponge-like little minds from the poisons of capitalism. I can still hear her voice even now when I encounter a commercial which makes elaborate claims over a product's efficacy or promotes the 'luxury lifestyle'.

I slept over at my friend Antonia's house nearly every Friday night when we were preteens. Her family had cable and thus Saturday morning cartoons. Wonderfriends and Scooby-Doo were my favourites. As I transitioned into the teenage years and started babysitting I took advantage of the bounty of Cable TV. Once the kids were in bed and my homework done, I sat glued to Knight Rider, Magnum PI, Rockford Files, and the 'must see TV' of NBC: The Cosby Show (I know, I know), Family Ties, and Fresh Prince of Belair were among my favourites. Some time when I was in high school reruns of those three sitcoms made their way over to CTV. When I didn't have extra-curricular activities after school, or planned hangouts with my friends, I would come home, make a big bowl of popcorn and unwind in front of our little black and white portable.

As VHS's became common my friends and I discovered Monty Python and movie nights which involved a trip to the video store and the choosing of one to three films to rent for the evening (but this is a post about television, not movies, so I will stick to that topic). My newly acquired brother-in-law introduced my family to some great British comedy shows on video, too, like Blackadder and Mr. Bean. As I developed academically I became interested in news stories. I followed Terry Fox and Rick Hansen, Election nights, and the Calgary Olympics, feeling a part of something great in my own country. Growing up in a small town nowhere near a big city, TV for me was a link to the big possibilities of life. I became a devotee of music shows like VideoHits and Good Rockin' Tonight 'with Terry David Mulligan' (That rolls off the tongue, doesn't it?), and the National Ballet's performances filmed for CBC.

When I was in college and still living at home, CBC borrowed a mystery series from the BBC called Inspector Morse. My parents soon became hooked on it. Up until that point my experience with murder mysteries was limited to plays like Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap, which I absolutely loved, and some exposure to Sherlock Holmes stories. Inspector Morse was something new and different, each episode one and a half hours of puzzle solving poised against a backdrop of beautiful English countryside and the hallowed halls of Oxford University, accompanied by a gorgeous classical music soundtrack. Needless to say, I joined my parents for most episodes of the show and I have been a fan of the murder mystery genre ever since, although, in my opinion, Inspector Morse has not really stood the test of time. 

When I moved out, got married and had children of my own, watching TV was the main activity my brain-dead self engaged in once the kids were in bed. I loved shows chock-a-block with quirky characters and clever, snappy dialogue like Northern Exposure and Gilmore Girls. Period Dramas such as Jane Austen adaptations were also high on my list. As the kids got older we watched TV as a family, but please don't ask me for a detailed list of what we watched. That part of my life is a blur. America's Funniest Home Videos and Saturday Night Live were in there somewhere. My eldest horse-crazy daughter and I watched Heartland for a couple of seasons. We also rented a lot of movies and borrowed videos from our local library.

In the modern world of streaming services we have way too much choice of shows to watch on our televisions. My household has basic cable, Netflix, and Amazon Prime with Acorn added on. I could spend twenty-four hours per day watching TV and still not even put a tiny dent in all that is on offer - a far cry from my two-channel childhood. I probably still watch a bit too much TV, but honestly, I find it as I have always found it: relaxing and often transporting. When my husband is home he enjoys watching sports and 'surviving in the wilderness' shows like Mountain Men and Alone, which is generally when I read a book. He also likes mysteries a lot, so we watch those together when we can. Our neutral ground on days when we are tired, or when the weather is bad, is HGTV and the like. Boring, yet satisfying, predictable yet somehow addictive, renovation and house-hunting shows are the ultimate 'Veg TV'. (So are Hallmark movies, but that's a topic for another day.) 

I have always read a lot - my mother was a champion of reading - but I was, and always will be, like many of my Generation X, a TV kid, even if I never once set eyes on Captain Kangaroo.

Where Have all the Bungalows Gone?

For the past year I have been watching an Australian cop show. I discovered it while looking up an actor from another favourite Aussie show, and gave it a try. I was hooked from the start. It is one of those shows that takes me to another place, another time, and gives me a needed escape from the current reality of pandemics, wars and invasions, and the general uncertainty of our times. The fact that this show gives me forty-five minutes of entertainment nearly every day, and that justice is almost always served with a side of humour, is not the reason I bring up the show. I'm not telling anyone they should watch it. In fact, I am sure many of my friends would find it far too quaint. I bring it up for a different reason: its architecture and set design. 

The cop show which ran from 1994 to 2006, and is comprised of a whopping five-hundred and ten episodes, is called Blue Heelers. In watching the show, which takes place in a fictional small town called Mt. Thomas situated a couple of hours from Melbourne, I noticed how modest the houses were. Most of the characters live in older, one-storey ranch style homes often with peeling paint, rusty door hinges, and the very basics in modern conveniences and decoration. Sure, there are fancier homes featured now and again in the show, but those are rare and provide contrast to help illustrate a character. Everything in the show is much more aesthetically humble than what we have become accustomed to nowadays, both in mainstream film and television and in real life, and I find that thought-provoking. 

Blue Heelers reminds me of what my hometown was like in the 1970's and 80's before people came from the cities and restored it to the mini San Francisco it was originally built to be before time, weather, changing fashions (imagine beautifully carved stone buildings modernized with a face of tin siding) and economic ups and downs had their way. The characters in the show are wary of  'yuppies from Melbourne' buying up small farms and changing the vibe, and the property values, of their community, so perhaps Mt. Thomas has since gone the way of many other charming small towns and become a haven for city folks looking for that je ne sais quoi. I don't know yet - I am only on season four of twelve. Anyway, my point is, in this age of Instagram and renovation shows we in North America have come to expect a rather heightened standard of what our houses and communities should look like, (and I believe this standard is, in some small part, to blame for the ridiculous property values in British Columbia, but that is a topic for another time). 

Don't get me wrong. I am as guilty of aesthetic snobbery as the next person, and sometimes renovations and rebuilds are necessary, but to be completely honest, I like a little dingy alleyway, slanting shed or crooked fence mixed in with all this perfection. I like a hole-in-the-wall second hand bookshop that smells of old books, the occasional grandma's house that hasn't been updated in thirty-five years, or a bar that serves good beer but mediocre food on scratched tables perched on faded carpet. There can be an undeniable honesty to places that have not yet been smoothed over and made presentable with the latest in decorative touches and architectural features. I believe it's called character, and my favourite cop show has it in spades.

Perhaps I am merely a sad romantic, but I don't care about that. I care that we are slowly but surely gentrifying the heck out of our communities and that our kids may never know the fun of dancing to a great live band in a dive bar, of drying their underwear on an old radiator in their first apartment above a pizza place, or the struggle of saving for a first home that is somehow attainable for them even without Mom and Dad giving them a 300,000 dollar down payment (true story). Humble beginnings can be good beginnings and lead to true appreciation of all we have through life.

Until next time, 

Rebecca

Thoughts from a Sports Fan. Sort of.

I remember moving to Strathcona Park Lodge where we had no cable television for a couple of years. The kids and I were happy with rented movies and borrowed VHS tapes from the library, but by year two, after enduring many, many evenings with me and my collection of Jane Austen made-for-TV movies, my husband made a decision: we were going to get a sattelite dish. With the FIFAWorld Cup of soccer and the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics coming up that year he just could not stand our TV-free existence any longer. My husband is, by far, the biggest sports fan in our house. He will happily watch anything from darts to football. I spent a great deal of our first months of married life watching the various tennis tournaments with him and our two male roommates, Derek and Finn, at Panorama Resort where we all worked for the summer of '92. Over the years of being the wife of a sports-enthusiast, and picking up a certain amount of interest in it through osmosis or resignation - perhaps a bit of both - I developed into a fan of tennis stars Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf and later, Roger Federer whom I still cheer for although other younger players are outshining his star on a regular basis now. The year the Blue Jays won the World Series in baseball I was cheering just as much as anyone, although I have not cared much about baseball since. I will admit that it was indeed good to be able to watch and cheer on the Canadians competing in Salt Lake for the 2002 Olympics. We had come 24th in the medal rankings in Sydney and then 4th in Salt Lake behind Norway, Germany and the USA. Not too shabby!

The Winter Olympics are an exciting time for many Canadians, I think because we, like many winter nations get the rare chance to really show the world what we are made of. Besides the obvious skill and talent of our athletes, many of them are well spoken and generous to athletes from other countries, even supplying them with equipment when they have not the funding to supply it for themselves. The more medals we win the more this fact about our people comes to light. Our athletes are proud to represent our country and know that their country is proud of them in return.

I have been a fan of the Games since I was a young girl stuck in the house one rainy summer with not much else to do besides read and watch the summer Olympics. I distinctly remember Romania's Nadia Comaneci and her perfect score for her gymnastics routine; I could barely believe her talent. Back then in the early 1980's, the Cold War was raging and boycotting the games was rampant. 65 countries boycotted the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow, which led the USSR to lead 14 Eastern Bloc countries to boycott the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. Some athletes from the boycotting countries still managed to compete under the Olympic flag. Every Olympics seem to be fraught with calls for boycotts for environmental concerns, for human rights concerns, for political reasons, and for the huge amount of money spent by the hosting country to put on the Games when it could be spending it on projects like affordable housing and improved health care for its citizens. (I heard yesterday in an interview with the head of the Sochi Olympic Committee that they spent about two billion dollars putting on the Olympics and seven billion basically building a city to host them in.) Despite these protests the Games continue to go on, every two years, alternating between the Summer Olympic Games and the Winter Olympic Games.

One could argue that the Games serve to shine a spotlight on the hosting country, for better or for worse. Hopefully, after the Games, the host country works at dealing with whatever problems have come to light while it realizes how to best take advantage of the good things the world has discovered about it - Sochi looks like a beautiful place to visit with its dramatic mountains and Black Sea shorline. The Olympics have also served to gain equality for women in sport in most countries, as every sport over the years has been gradually represented by both sexes to the point where we now care just as much about how, for instance, the female mogul skiers do as the males. 'Equality' and 'Peace among nations' are phrases one hears linked with the goals of the Games. To me, the Olympic Games are always a bit of a litmus test of the global climate at the time. If you look back in history, you can find elements of this global climate in everything from the choices of team logos and uniforms to the various scandals which have come to light, scandals which have demonstrated, at long last, a general distaste in the sporting community for things such as the notoriously dubious judging in figure skating and incidences of blood-doping among athletes.

A poster featuring a dove of peace - of large concern
during the days of the Iron Curtain.

My youngest has just become keen on the Olympics this year. She announced this morning that she likes the Luge and other similar events best because of the uncomplicated judging aspect.There is nothing to get muddled about in her mind - no subjective elements like in many of the other sports. You are either the fastest down the track or you are not. She and I cheered on our mogul skiers on Monday. The moguls are one of my very favourite events, perhaps because I have attempted to ski moguls myself and can appreciate how much strength and skill it takes to do what these athletes do. Our Canadians, both from Quebec, topped the podium and it was quite a thrill for my daughter to witness their climb from the top twelve to the top six, and then, oh glory be, to the win! She was so inspired she made some Olympic themed cookies that afternoon.

I have always enjoyed the figure skating events, but I will admit, here and now, that I got a little bored after watching short program after short program of the Pairs Figure Skating event this year. So many of the routines began to look the same after a while: side by side triple jumps, throw triple 'sow cows' or however they are spelled, that over-the-head spin they do, the footwork section, etc. Oh, I appreciate the work that went into their skating and their routines, but perhaps as I get older I realize that for me, something is missing in figure skating. I suppose when one is watching a sporting event which involves artistry, one has to expect the technical elements to trump whatever else is going on, because that is what sport is about. Artistry, on the other hand, is more subjectively judged. I thoroughly enjoyed watching the Canadian pair, Duhamel and Radford, because they really appeared to be dancing their routine, rather than powering through the technical elements like so many of the others. They were in third place after the short program. The Russians, in first and second place, certainly deserved to be there. Their programs were virtually flawless and ticked all the judges' boxes, but what I could not stop thinking about while watching their routines was the beautiful dancing in the ballet interpretation of War and Peace in the opening ceremonies this year. That really does it for me. While I enjoy figure skating, ballet is just that much more special, I suppose because while it involves serious athleticism, it is the artistry that trumps everything else - the athleticism is merely a vehicle for the art. That being said, and for someone generally on the outside of the sporting world looking in, I find the Games fascinating for so many reasons, and will continue to be impressed by these young athletes and what they can train and push their bodies to do.

Speaking of sports fans, my dear Dad is currently in the hospital. He is having some heart trouble, but is in good hands. I was half-way through editing this post when I got the message. Please keep him in your thoughts and prayers. 

Many Milestones to Go Before I Sleep

Our daughter lighting the birthday candles

This week my husband turned 50. This weekend our second son goes off to university. Next week, our eldest daughter enters her last year of high school, and our youngest will enter middle school. I am slightly overwhelmed by it all. I reflect on the fact of my husband turning 50 and think, whoa - my dad used to be 50; when I was a kid life seemed like it would last forever and anyone over 40 was practically ancient. Now that I'm in my 40's, Whoosh! is the sound the years make as they go by.

However, I like being in my 40's. I like how calm I am, and how generally patient I can be. I like my kids being at the age they are at, still young enough to be fun and fully open to life, yet old enough to have meaningful conversations with. Sometimes I look at mothers with young children and think, Oh, I remember that feeling. You are so tired and earnest, and everything your child does now seems so important to his future. I say 'his' because my first born is a boy. I remember with some guilt how much I expected of him at the age of two. Cringe.

When I met my husband, I was nearly 21 and he was 27. While apparently quite opposite in our interests, his being sports and business, and mine being the arts and literature, we fell in love over our shared taste in music, our love for nature, and the British comedy shows like Black Adder introduced to us by our brother-in-law, Brent. In fact, it was Brent and his wife, my sister Clare, who introduced us to each other at the Elephant Walk Pub in Vancouver. When we parted that first evening, and to paraphrase Ring Lardner, we gave each other a smile with a future in it and never looked back. When my mother heard we were dating, I am sure she thought he was too old for me. But when she met my new boyfriend, she told me he was very young at heart. And he still is. He says he certainly doesn't feel 50, except for this past Monday night when he had coached soccer for two hours in the pouring rain. He came in the house looking like something the cat dragged in. And we don't even have a cat.

We had a great party for my husband this past weekend. Several of our friends gathered at our home for an evening of friendship, food and good cheer. My husband was so touched by everyone's generosity, and was thrilled that our eldest son could come home for the event. My husband is having a good year. Besides reaching the half-century mark with great success and blooming health, he trained for and completed a 160 kilometer cycling race in July, knocking a full half hour off his personal best time. He looks and feels great - except when the invisible cat drags him in - and I am proud to be his partner in life, cheering him on. Quite a goal driven person all his life, my husband is mellowing, as I am, with age. He is more concerned with the quality of his life, and his family's life, than the visible achievements he may gain, although he was pretty darn happy to kick that road race's backside.

Speaking of goals, I thought this would be the summer I would train for a half marathon, but no. I injured the inner tendon on my right knee early in July and have only been able to walk. No hiking, no running, all summer long. I've made the most of it, though, enjoying many an evening walk-and-talk with my daughters. Although my knee is greatly improved and I plan to introduce running back into my life this fall, it is still giving me some minor pain now and again. That patience I mentioned earlier is coming in handy. There is always next year, I tell myself. Life is long, and yet it is short, too. We must make the most of it and be true to the gifts we've been given, and that includes the loved ones we have been given. I look forward to life unfolding as my family grows and develops. It is a new stage we are entering, that is certain.

When my husband and I were first married we listened to a lot of Neil Young. One of our favourite songs, 'Harvest Moon' seems apropo to the moment. The video is, too. Enjoy!

The title of this post is adapted from the last line of Robert Frost's poem, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening. Have a lovely weekend, all.

Road Rage in the Alleyway

I am sometimes, okay, fairly regularly, proven wrong, especially when I make a blanket statement, a generality. The other day I was going about my business, doing my errands, and chatting with an acquaintance at her bakery. We were talking about our little town and I heard myself saying, "What I like about this town is that it is refreshingly devoid of drama." Those, my friends, were to be what Shakespeare, or somebody, called 'famous last words'.

As I left the bakery, order in hand, making my way to the after-school program I run at the church, I decided to take the little shortcut through the drive of the ambulance service building. As I turned the corner, I became witness to an episode of full-blown road rage. Two men, one in his car, the other just out of his, were shouting at each other - apparently one had tail-gated the other the full twenty minutes' drive from the city. I am not sure who initiated the shouting match, but both men were of good size and well able to cause injury to the other if the argument escalated to a physical exchange. I kept walking, wanting to be out of the way, but after about fifty yards, I turned back because the shouting had become louder and more violent and both men were now out of their cars. I saw one of them throw down his jacket like a hockey player throws down his gloves before a fight. They started posturing and circling like inexperienced boxers in a ring - or gorillas fighting over a banana - and it looked ridiculous. Suddenly, I felt a surge of indignation, and I shouted at them, "Hey! Do you want me to call the police?" One of them shouted back at me, "Yes! Go ahead and call the cops. Then I can tell them how this guy drove five feet behind my bumper all the way from (the city)!" More 'F' words from the other guy, and they were back at it, but somehow hesitating a little to start throwing punches. An older man from across the street began to walk slowly and cautiously toward the pair, and I decided to carry on to the church so I wouldn't be late for the kids who would be arriving soon. I yelled at the pair to 'for crying out loud grow up' and left. I don't think they heard me, and I didn't end up calling the police.

Maybe because I've been watching too many episodes of the BBC's Robin Hood with my girls - we've been saying to each other lately, "Where's Robin when you need him?" in certain situations - but I wished I'd had the time to go back to the scene and intervene. I knew one of the men by sight, knew who his wife and children are, too. I felt like asking him, "Is this the kind of example you want to give your family? Do you want them to hear you calling another man a 'faggot'? Do you want them to see you exercise your stupid pride, rather than just apologize to this man for riding his bumper so closely, which by law puts you in the wrong, and then leave in peace?" And I wanted to tell the other man to walk away, that fighting would get him nowhere. But, I had somewhere to be. I hope that older man was able to calm the pair down and talk some sense into them, especially because both of them were old enough to know better. I hope, above all, that he wasn't hurt. That none of them were.

The road rage scenario got me thinking on a number of levels. When we are in a car, we are in a safe bubble of anonymity in many ways, and the other person is just a stranger who, perhaps, drives more slowly than we'd like. We believe we have the right to treat that person solely as the operator of the vehicle, not as another human being, so we feel quite free to swear at them, hurl abuse if we see fit, and speed past with a honk and a raised middle finger at the first opportunity. I've seen it so many times; people who would behave somewhat politely to another stranger in person, behave like a complete ass just because they are in a vehicle. That has happened to me before, when I wasn't driving as quickly as the woman in the vehicle behind me would like, so she floored the gas at the first opportunity and screamed at me as she drove past.  She was still only a car ahead of me at the red light, seconds later, so what did her rage really get her?  I still remember her face as she stuck it out her window to scream at me, and I remember thinking that it takes an awful lot of energy to get that angry.

Why do some people need to scream at others when they are slightly inconvenienced? And why do some people, particularly men, feel that fighting with fists is the only way to make a point? Why do they not back down when they know they are in the wrong, and if they are on the receiving end of that wrong-doing, do they not just walk away? Tailgating is not exactly a cause for World War III. I am pretty sure Robin Hood wouldn't bother raising an arrow to another man just because he drove his horse-drawn cart too slowly in front of him. If that driver was endangering the lives of others by mowing them down in the road and stealing their hard-earned gold, however, that would be a different story, of course.

From what I have seen, most episodes of road rage are a lot of drama over something quite trivial - just people looking for a fight, really. Sometimes I think the world needs to go for a long hike followed by a collective yoga class, given a cup of soothing peppermint tea and be made to read a selection of enlightening books before it even thinks about getting behind the wheel.

The Photo of the gorillas is from thefabweb.com. The other is from BBC.com Have a good weekend, friends. Stay cool. 

And speaking of bananas, Stella has a great banana cake recipe over at her virtual cafe. 

A Great Estate in the Modern World

I recently watched a three part documentary program called Chatsworth on our local PBS station. The series showed the inner and outer workings of one of Britain's greatest estates. Viewers were treated to everything from lambing on one of Chatsworth estates' thirty-seven farms, to the Olympic qualifying International Horse Trials held on the grounds, to the potentially contentious decision by the farm shop manager and the Duchess whether or not to bring French cheeses into the all-English shop. We also got to meet some of the five hundred or so employees who work for the estate as well as visit many of the rooms in the Upstairs and the Downstairs, so to speak, of the whole operation. My husband found the series interesting for its many similarities to the hotel business in which he works, and because there was much in the way of beauty to look at for the armchair visitor. I found it fascinating because I know that the author Jane Austen based her character Mr. Darcy's 'great estate in Derbyshire,' Pemberly, on Chatsworth. I also appreciated the inside look at how this particular branch of aristocrats, the 12th Duke and Duchess of Devonshire, maintain their vision of a self-sustaining operation; for Chatsworth is entirely maintained through the Chatsworth House Trust. When doing the research for this post I consulted the highly informative Chatsworth website, and found the following statement:

All visitor admission income goes directly to the Chatsworth House Trust, a registered charity dedicated to the long-term protection, enhancement and sharing of Chatsworth house, its collections and landscape, with and for visitors. 

The Duke of Devonshire and his family live at Chatsworth, paying rent to the Charity for their rooms. One of the major projects the Trust has helped to fund is The Masterplan, the colossal 14 million pound [I don't know how to make a British pound sign on Blogger] restoration project being undertaken to allow visitors to experience both the inside and outside of Chatsworth as you've never seen it before. 

This work and many other essential projects can only happen thanks to the continuing support of visitors and annual members as well as the efforts of the Trust.

14 million pounds...that constitutes a lot of visitors.

Great houses have long been admitting visitors for a small fee. The proceeds help in the upkeep of the house and estate, which would otherwise be impossible to maintain by the inheriting families; Chatsworth has taken this approach and applied it exponentially. In addition to the running of restaurants and a tea room, the estate hosts over forty weddings a year, rents out cottages, sells its high quality farm produce, holds many, many special events such an annual flower show, art exhibitions in the New Gallery and 'Christmas at Chatsworth'. All of the proceeds from these operations go back into keeping Chatsworth viable and beautiful, and a national treasure for England, while employing hundreds of people. If the documentary truly reflects reality at the estate, then from what I saw, the majority of the employees are happy and proud to work for Chatsworth. I am impressed.

I have always had a sort of fairy tale love for grand old houses drenched in history, and when I read Charles the Earl of Spencer's article in Vanity Fair a few years back, I understood the way many of the owning families feel about their great houses. Many of them believe they are merely one of a long line of caretakers of the house and contents, including centuries of collected furnishings and art as well as established gardens and acres upon acres of precious woodland. The Earl's article went on to say that when several British aristocrats began marrying wealthy American debutantes (often for the money badly needed to keep up their estates and families, especially once global trade made things difficult for British agriculture - the produce of which funded the lavish aristocratic lifestyle of old), many of these Americans did not understand the role of caretaker of the property they had also, for all intents and purposes, married. They bought and sold the belongings of the estate as if they were their own, which in a way they were, but an ownership 'not to be taken lightly,or wontonly.'*  With Americanism penetrating the English aristrocracy, divorce also became more and more common, and as the 20th Century progressed, countless estates with all their accompanying treasures were left to second, third or fourth wives to do with what they willed, instead of being passed on for safe-keeping to the eldest son. The Earl finished up by saying that great houses are what England is known for in many ways, but that the lifestyle and societal situation; i.e., class system needed to keep them up for the sake of the family attached to them, some for many centuries, are no longer understood or generally accepted by modern Britain, not to mention Ireland or Scotland.

I do not know the facts and figures so I am not sure how many great houses in the U.K. and Ireland are presently solely operated by and for the sake of the families who own them. I have also read that after the First World War, as well as the introduction of financially crippling Death Duties, so many great houses were broken up into flats, destroyed or turned over to the National Trust for historical protection and conservation, when the family money was gone. Families who have weathered the storms of war, taxation, depression, recession, and great societal changes, and have managed to hang on to their property, have funded their estates in similar ways to Chatsworth, with varying success. The Duke of Devonshire's father began the process of self-sustenance at Chatsworth and the present Duke and Duchess have carried on with his work, opening up the family home to the world to be shared, loved and appreciated, rather than resented, for all its freshly gilded grandeur and 1000 acres of woods and gardens.

I know I would love to visit Chatsworth and other houses like it. I am naturally drawn to beauty in architecture and landscape and love to see them done well. As a Canadian and part of the Commonwealth I  maintain an interest in my Queen and her relatives, and no matter what people will say to the contrary, the aristocracy will always garner interest and fascination from the international community. We only need to remember the recent Royal Wedding between Prince William and Kate Middleton, or the present squabbles over which place, York or the Midlands, has the better right to claim ownership of the newly discovered bones of Richard III. I would also suggest that the ancient bones of the aristocracy's houses don't do Britain's tourism industry any harm either.

*from the Solemnization of Matrimony in The Book of Common Prayer

Addendum: Starting on February 15th, I plan to watch The Manor Reborn, a documentary four part series that, according to the Knowledge Network program guide, "follows the transformation of the 16th Century estate in Wiltshire: Avebury Manor. In a unique collaboration with Britain's National Trust, a team of historians, experts and volunteers is bringing this majestic home back to life." Apparently, the team's goal is to recreate different eras of history in its rooms, which will "tell a story - of the people who lived in the house, and of Britain's decorative arts throughout the ages." Cool!

The above photo is from www.bestukireland.com 

We've got a great new story and recipe over at Stella's. Just click on the link on the upper right hand corner of this blog.

Fifteen Seconds of Fame

I am going to be on T.V. I was interviewed yesterday morning for a spot on the Chilliwack cable access channel, Shaw TV, in my capacity as a spokesperson for the community arts council with which I have been involved for over nine years. I am not sure how many people watch Shaw TV, but they do have several community programs on the go, and a certain audience base. The interview will also be seen by all those who go to the channel for the television listings which take up the bottom half of the screen while my spot, and many others like it, are airing; so, I am imagining competing with what is on at 5 pm, 8 pm, 11 pm...etc. I am also imagining my son responding to my being on Shaw TV by quoting Austin Powers: "Whoop-dee-do, Basil".

I was having a wild hair day yesterday because I am letting it grow out a bit and it is presently at its winged stage, but I ran my fingers through it and put on my best moss green wool jacket over a black t-shirt and went off to meet the TVcrew at the arts council gallery. The crew turned out to be one multi-talented fellow, whose voice I had heard for years on the station, although I had yet to see his face. While he set up his equipment, gave me a clip-on microphone and adjusted the camera settings he told me to take a deep breath if I was nervous, which honestly, I was not; a bit keyed up is a more accurate description. I have given so many speeches in that gallery as to be quite comfortable babbling away by now. The great thing about being interviewed by a professional is that it is his job to make you feel at ease. I did not have to look at the camera at all and just answered his questions to his face, which appeared open, interested and friendly. The show presently on display in the gallery is a retrospective of work by an abstract artist who passed away in 2010. I had interviewed the artist's husband who sponsored the show, and co-written a newspaper article on the artist's life, so I was well able to answer the interviewer's questions at length with, I think, some clarity, which was a great relief. Of course, afterwards, I remembered all the little things I had forgotten to say in the interview, but the guy who works in one of the back offices of the gallery has been interviewed several times for the same channel in his capacity as a spokesman for the local festival of the arts, and he assured me that the interview would be edited to such a degree as to barely resemble my expectations of it.

Of course, the experience of being filmed and interviewed, which was a new one for me, got me thinking about the concept of having one's face on television for the public to see. I remember in college, an older male friend suggested, somewhat teasingly, that I become one of those news readers on TV. Perhaps it was my 'all Canadian girl' look. People are often telling me I look like I come from Saskatchewan. I'm not sure if, in their eyes, that is a compliment or not. My cheeks are always pink, so perhaps I have a permanent look of having just come in from the cold.  I think it would get a little depressing, reading all that bad news hour after hour, day after day..."and today, more bombing in Syria"...and such. Nevertheless, I considered a career in broadcasting for a short time, mainly because I loved, and still love, radio, but the consideration passed and I went on to other things. My sister Monica is the reporter in the family these days, although my dad wrote for his university paper and then the Vancouver Sun for a short stint. Monica is naturally curious, loves a good story and very much enjoys talking to people about any manner of subject. She is also quite community minded, has a good sense of the bigger picture of a situation and knows which questions to ask. She writes for a newspaper these days, but her dream job, she tells me, would be to work for CBC Radio. I'm not sure if she has ever considered working in TV.

I am amazed at the advancements in the world of television that have been made since I was born. When I was a baby cable television was a new thing. My family did not have cable, but as I was growing up I never really felt denied because all the major shows like The Muppet Show, Magnum P.I., Remington Steele, The Wonderful World of Disney, Family Ties and The Cosby Show were broadcast on our two channels via our television's antenna. Then along came satellite dishes the size of something out of Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and PayTV. I remember watching Superchannel at a friend's house, and having to pretend that horror movies didn't scare me to death. Television and movie stars, to us back then, still had an aura of mystery about them and lived in a magical land far, far away, but with the introduction of VCR's and expensive home video recorders, suddenly having one's face on the screen was not that unusual. And, with local cable access shows popping up everywhere, any high school student who was truly interested in a career in television could volunteer at the station and work their way up from there.

With the invention of YouTube anyone with a video recording digital camera and a computer could have their 'fifteen minutes of fame'. I don't watch a lot of YouTube or other internet channels, but I have read about various television stars popping up with unusual and often quirky programs which are available for viewing only on the internet by an astonishing amount of people around the world. The attraction to those stars who make these internet shows must be complete creative control: no network executives breathing down their necks over content and accepted standards (yet), no censors really to speak of, low production expenses, and immediate release of episodes. My filmmaker daughter is bemoaning these changes  somewhat. She says YouTube used to be about the amateur filmmaker, the little guy. The YouTube home page used to have equal representation of all sorts of videos according to subject matter, not according to number of views. Now, she says, only those videos with millions of views are featured. People like her can still make and upload their videos, but the chances of them being seen are becoming more and more limited.

I have a natural curiosity to see myself on television, perhaps because television was such a big part of my childhood as it was for so many of us who grew up in the last half of the 20th century. I suppose I will have to start watching the TV listings channel more regularly to try and catch my spot. Besides in my capacity as speech maker for the arts council - we commissioned my daughter to make a montage of scenes from one of our annual gala events in which I make a brief appearance on our website - I have never been in any of the films my daughter has made and uploaded to her YouTube channel. She did once film her sister and I dancing around the kitchen singing along to "I'm on my way, from misery to happiness today...uhu uhu uhu uhu" by The Proclaimers. Fortunately, that video is stored deep in the files of this machine, where it will remain. I'm certainly not after fame at any price; yes, I am showing my age.

Here are The Proclaimers with 'I'm on my Way'. Because they do it best, of course.

The Saving Grace of Satire

It began in high school: my friends and I made a habit out of making fun of pretty much everything we could. We would gather at Jenn's house for the annual 'sing along with The Sound of Music' event on New Year's day. We would watch the film, recite the dialogue along with the characters, sing, and then when Maria whips out her guitar on the mountaintop for 'Doe a Deer', we would always say to each other as the orchestral strings of the soundtrack commenced, "And suddenly out of nowhere there appears an orchestra on the mountaintop" and we would laugh and laugh at the idea. We would put Duran Duran records on the 45 rpm setting on the record player, and Jenn and Mike would go on their knees like Duran Duran dwarves and sing and dance along to the sped up tunes. That was hilarious. When we discovered Saturday Night Live and Monty Python, my friends and I would memorize long passages and songs from their films and spend hours reciting them to each other around camp-fires and at parties, or in the back of the car on our college commute. We ate up satire and sketch comedy with the eagerness and voracious energy of youth, and we told funny and embarrassing stories on ourselves and about each other. Laughter took up the greater part of most of our conversations. Almost nothing was sacred. Almost nothing escaped the microscopic lens of our sharp wit and our desire for fun. We made a sport of critical thinking through satirical humour, and I do believe, in many ways, it saved us.

My children have the same approach to life that my friends and I had at their age. I see evidence of the fact every day, and I love it. The ability to laugh at one's self is of great importance to my way of thinking, and the ability to laugh at the world, and what it continually serves up, is vital for the survival of one's individuality and true purpose in the world. My family recently acquired Netflix and we are making our way through ten years of missed Saturday Night Live seasons - my husband and I watched the show all through the '90's but missed the 'naughts (2001-2009)' or, as they are called by some here in North America, 'the Bush years' of the show almost completely. SNL's 'good natured skewering' of everyone from politicians to the head elf in Santa's workshop makes for good TV. Some of my favourite episodes are when an actual politician, be he George Bush Senior or Senator John McCain, appear on the show and are given a chance to retaliate. The result is always a healthy experience for everyone: for the audience who get to see a more human, not to mention humourous, side of the politician, and for the actors and writers on the show, who get a bit of their own back, exhibiting a tremendous sense of fair play on their part. The first Monty Python film I showed my children was Monty Python and the Holy Grail, complete with insulting Frenchmen, anachronisms galore, a wimpy knight named Brave Sir Robin, and King Arthur riding a non-existent horse while his squire knocks two coconuts together to provide the sound of the horse, should one actually have been in existence. My kids, all of them, found the film refreshing, intelligent in its silliness, and downright funny.

We in Canada have always revered satirical comedy in general. With shows like SCTV and The Air Farce, which began on CBC Radio and made its way to television, Codco out of Newfoundland, This Hour has Twenty-two Minutes from Halifax, and The Rick Mercer Report, Canadian politicians, celebrities and Canadian contemporary society are never safe from a good natured ribbing, and I think we are better for it.The U.S. has, of course, Saturday Night Live, but they also enjoy the brilliant political satire of John Stewart in The Daily Show with John Stewart, as well as The Colbert Report with the irrepressible Stephen Colbert. Stewart and Colbert are so well loved and respected in their nation that an overwhelmingly large percentage of the people stay abreast of the political situation chiefly through their shows. I know there exist many shows out of the U.K. which provide that nation, as well as many fans around the world, with countless opportunities to laugh at themselves and the world at large. Comedians such as Rowan Atkinson, Stephen Fry, Tracey Ullman, and of course the aforementioned favourite Monty Python, all use their great talents to help make their society truly democratic. As writer and satirist Jonathan Swift said, "As Wit is the noblest and most useful Gift of humane Nature, so Humor is the most agreeable, and where these two enter far into the Composition of any Work, they will render it always acceptable to the World."

I remember reading a satirical essay in my English Literature course in college entitled A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift, in which he suggested a way to deal with poverty and hunger, which were rampant in eighteenth century Ireland, was to raise babies for consumption by the upper classes: "I grant this food will be somewhat dear, and therefore very proper for landlords, who, as they have already devoured most of the parents, seem to have the best title to the children." The essay was shocking to me for something written in 1729, but it also appealed to me greatly. I am not sure of the effect it had on the social policy of the time, but obviously, the essay swept the nation much like the latest YouTube video does now, and woke many people up to the absurdity of a nation starving its own. A Modest Proposal is not far off the sort of satire produced in the present age. In fact, Swift's essay, and others like it, as well as the political cartoons of the time, most likely inspired it. Every age has employed its satirists, and they are as important to the workings of a healthy society and its institutions - churches, schools, government, etc.- as the institutions themselves. Satirists provide the checks and balances every person and every institution with power over others needs, and they accomplish this feat with the most welcome leaven of humour and the intelligence of wit; I shudder to think what would happen to us if this was not so. Apparently, a school district in Texas tried to shut down classes which taught critical thinking to students for fear that teaching children to think for themselves employing logic and reason would cause problems in the more God-fearing homes of their student body. To that I, whom some would call 'religious', cry foul and laziness - should we not teach our children to think, to question, to form opinions based on the good values we have brought them up in? To my own children I say, "Question everything by all means. Just be prepared to do the work to find the answers." And laugh. A lot.

Here is one of my favourite Rowan Atkinson sketches, satirizing the stereotypical English public school headmaster.

Emma and I have a new post over at Stella's Virtual Cafe. Check it out...please. 

Time to Get Goin'

We are off on holiday tomorrow, and even my husband gets to come this time. It has seemed like a long week trying to paint ourselves out the door (figuratively) at work and at home, and I am hoping for a decent sleep tonight for both of us before we hit the road...good sleeps have eluded us lately. I hope all my friends and readers have a good and happy week and I will be back to read posts and write posts before too long.


In the meantime, why not head on over to my other blog Stella's Virtual Cafe and check out what's being going on there this week? It involves a swarm of cyclists and a French sandwich.

So, here's a little song to help you, and me, get on our way:

In the meantime, enjoy the London Olympics if you are a fan. If not, then enjoy everything else.

Restoring Photographic Memory

"Imagine life with no photographs. No smiling faces. No family snapshots. No record of your past. Welcome to Liberia... When Canadian brothers Jeff and Andrew Topham return to the war-torn West African country of their childhood to re-shoot their father's photos from the 70's, they find a nation whose own photographic history was destroyed by war. Suddenly their tattered envelope of family photos takes on a significance they never could have imagined. Liberia '77 shows how despite time, war, distance and culture, photography connects us all."

Such was the blurb, accompanied by a black and white photo of two young boys and a pet chimpanzee in our Nov/Dec Knowledge Network program guide, enticing me to tune in to the brand new documentary commissioned by the Vancouver-based public access channel.

The documentary first intrigued me because I have had a genuine interest in Africa since I grew up with a friend whose family had immigrated from Zambia. Their stories over the years had woven their way into my subconscious in a way I was not aware of at the time. The connection they had with their homeland was deep and intense, but what I could not have realized was the sense of responsibility they felt towards the troubled country, even after they had moved thousands of miles away from it. Their English grandparents had put down roots there, and the roots had apparently held fast through the family line.

The story also intrigued me due to the fact that the Topham brothers - Jeff is a filmmaker and Andrew is a photographer - are from Vancouver and the elder brother is about my age. The black and white photo of the two brothers (minus the chimp) looked very much like photos of my siblings and I from the same era. Similar hairstyles, similar t-shirts, similar looks of health in the cheeks from a childhood spent outdoors and free.

My husband and eldest son joined me to watch Liberia '77 and it proved to be a riveting two hours for the three of us. As the story unfolded, we moved from a position of reclined comfort to one of perching on the edge of our seats, elbows on knees, fists under our chins. As Jeff and Andrew visited the site of the former compound where their family and the families of the other employees of the Canadian company which made explosives for the mining industry had lived, they interviewed Liberian workers who had worked with their father and asked about their former houseboy James with whom they had been very close as boys. Having left the country in 1979, the Tophams had escaped the effects of the two civil wars. The Liberians they met filled them in with horrific stories about what had happened to the country and its people during the war. In one interview, one of the former company employees describes having to bury his company identity card, a common practise, since having photo i.d. was proof of some kind of wealth to the soldiers and was therefore dangerous to an individual's existence.

The boys do find out what happened to James, and it is not good news. Jeff meets James' wife and thirteen year old son, whose widowed mother is not only too poor to send him to school, but has high hopes that Jeff will help them.

"Some of the events that unfolded were a lot heavier than I was prepared for," says Jeff. "I expected the emotion to come more from seeing the state of the country and my memories being dismantled. What caught me off guard was the sense of responsibility that came with being there."

That sense of responsibility has led to the Liberia '77 Photo Repatriation Project. After a request from the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Liberian President, whom they had the opportunity to meet, the Topham brothers have put out a call to the public to send them images of pre-war Liberia. Many, many important images, images that help to tell the story of a country, were destroyed during the war. Do date, over seven hundred images have been gathered from donors so far, and the brothers plan to return the photos to the National Museum in Monrovia. They are also raising funds to transport themselves and the photos back to Liberia.

"During the filming, we also discovered that much of the country’s photographic record had been destroyed by war.  Historical events, significant people and places, were all but forgotten by many we met, overwhelmed by memories of violence.  We met a whole generation of Liberians who had grown up in a time of conflict, knowing nothing but violence and destruction.  And we learned that many who had photographs of their happy, healthy families were marked for death by rebel soldiers.  To save their lives, people actually burned their own photos, even threw their cameras away. The National Museum was looted - its contents destroyed.  We found it closed and dilapidated, a small remaining collection of the country’s photographs randomly piled and rapidly deteriorating in a corner closet.

We also realized that the envelope of our dad’s photos we carried was more than just a collection of family snapshots of our idyllic ex-pat childhood.  For many Liberians we showed them to, they were rare proof of a once peaceful country – and hope for a brighter future for a country working hard to heal. 

Sando Moore, a Liberian photojournalist who lost all his archives said to us:  "If you don’t know where you came from, how can you know where you are going?”

One more reason I found the documentary so compelling was that it married some very important things: historical identity, artistic integrity, compassion and personal responsibility. It wasn't just 'another sad story' about Africa. I have chosen to support the project by making a small donation. If you are interested in reading (and seeing) more about the Liberia '77 Photo Repatriation Project please visit the website.

My Zambian-born friends return to Africa every winter to help coordinate many worthy projects there, particularly for women caring for Aids orphans. You can find their website here. I have sometimes wondered what it is that compels them so strongly to give so much of themselves to the people of their former homeland. After experiencing Liberia '77, I think I have a bit more understanding of their desire to give back.

The photo is of the Topham brothers with Evelyn, their pet chimpanzee.

Tomorrow is Another Day, Thankfully.

So it was Groundhog Day here on Thursday. I don't put much faith in the shadow of a rodent to predict the length of winter, but I do like an excuse for my annual viewing of the only film I know of with 'Groundhog Day' as both its theme and its title. Our one and only movie channel was showing the film that night which stars the beautiful Andie McDowell and one of my favourite funny-men of all time, Bill Murray, so I hunkered down last night, after the kitchen was tidied, to watch it.

I had had a tough day. The kind of day that makes you so world weary you want to crawl down below the earth into Mole's hole and stay there in front of the glowing fire for a good long while. Since Mole and I are not on quite those familiar terms, apart from in my imagination, I had to settle instead for an evening in front of the glowing television. The TV is capable of supplying its own kind of tonic, however, and Groundhog Day ended up being exactly what the proverbial doctor ordered.

In the film, Bill Murray plays Pittsburgh TV weather man, Phil Connors, who is reluctantly sent to cover a story in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania about a weather forecasting groundhog. This is his fourth year on the story, and he makes no effort to hide his frustration. After he and his crew, the lovely and kind producer Rita and the amiably goofy cameraman Larry, are prevented from leaving Punxsutawney due to the weather they must stay the night. On awaking the 'following' day in his bed and breakfast Phil discovers that it's Groundhog Day again, and again, and again. He is the only person in the town who is aware of the day being the same again and again; everyone else believes it is February 2nd for the first time. First he uses this to his advantage, then comes to the realisation that he is doomed to spend the rest of eternity in the same place, seeing the same people do the same thing every single day. I don't want to give away too much of the story, but suffice it to say, Phil will go on living the same day until he gets it right. Finally, he wakes up on February 3rd a changed man, but it has taken months or years of tries (we never know how long it has really been) to live Groundhog Day in a way that allows him to escape his massive time trap and carry on with his life. The film manages to tell its cautionary tale with intelligence, great warmth, and the caustic wit of the inimitable Bill Murray.

When I woke up to my alarm clock yesterday, February 3rd, it was not playing 'I've Got You Babe' like the clock in the film, but it was playing, just as it was on Groundhog Day when the digits read 6:30, Leonard Cohen's 'Hallelujah'. The coincidence was a bit staggering and I woke up quickly. Was I also to be doomed to live the same day again? No, of course not, but the idea of it made me think...

For the past few months, I've been getting up in the morning, and after making sure my youngest is ready for school I fire up the computer, check my email and log into Facebook. Facebook has its up side: funny photos of cats in impossible poses, posts by my family members inviting me into their day, a comment or two on my own sharings, links to new music or video, invitations to events, etc. Facebook also has its down side. For each person this downside is different. Maybe it involves gossip or slander involving a friend, or those all too common photos of mistreated animals or a starving child paired with a photo of someone with an iphone, or even insults to one's ideology. I know very well that most people on Facebook do not intend to hurt their Facebook contacts. However, there is a great deal of indiscriminate leaping onto various bandwagons from which are flung various declarations and images which, when they hit the innocent (and dare I say it, sensitive) bystander, can be as a dart to the heart. A couple of these darts hit me on Thursday, and although I tried not to take them as personal attacks, I could not help the wounds they most certainly inflicted. I limped around with them all day long.

I came to realize, as the day progressed, that Facebook had somehow become my own personal version of Groundhog Day. Every day I got up, got on, and experienced the same type of highs, the same type of lows, but what I didn't realize was how my habitual ride on this emotional teeter-totter was affecting me. By Thursday, I suppose I had reached my saturation point. I felt dizzy and overwhelmed, and in order to move on I had to make a decision about my relationship with that form of social media. In order to regain perpective I have decided to go on a Facebook fast. As someone wise said, "Fasting is not about denial but about freedom...freeing ourselves from the things that bind us and keep us from good relationships with ourselves, with others, and with creation."

Here's to the freedom of a brand new day.

And here's Leonard Cohen's 'Hallelujah' performed by John Cale.

Welsh Cakes for a Royal Wedding

Canada is in the Commonwealth and, even though we have had our our own constitution fully in place since 1982, we still acknowlege the Queen as our head of state - which means she is on our coins, our twenty dollar bills, and on special Royal occasions, our stamps. We have a Prime Minister, not a President, and a Queen's representative called the Governor General who resides in our capital city, Ottawa.  The Queen calls Canada her 'home away from home' (after Balmoral Castle, I'm sure) and Prince William and Kate Middleton have taken us up on our offer to host them for nine days of their honeymoon tour. Of course, much of the country is pretty excited about that and many will even show up to see them in person.

When I was a child I watched the Queen's televised annual Christmas message with my parents and found I was interested in the doings of her family. My dad's mom, whom we called Nana, had a real love for the Royal Family.  According to her my Great-Nana, who had come to Canada from London, had the same tartan as the Queen Mother, although I was never able to figure out what that meant to my family.  My Nana brought us souvenirs of Charles and Diana's wedding when she visited one summer.  We watched Charles and Di's wedding on television and when baby William was born, my Nana sent me a collectible spoon commemorating the great event. When I visited my sisters in Winnipeg the summer I turned eighteen, we went to see Prince Andrew and his bride Sarah Ferguson on their honeymoon tour.  They looked like very normal people, and I was, I admit, a little disappointed. Perhaps I thought they would glow or something.  When my daughter, Emma the horse lover was little, she saw a picture of Queen Elizabeth riding a horse and decided she was alright.  Emma even wrote her a letter that said, "Dear Queen Elizabeth,  I like horses, too!"  Unfortunately, I forgot to mail it.  I turned into a bit of a Royal watcher after my Nana got me started, and therefore, can be found skimming through Hello! Canada Magazine when in the supermarket checkout line or reaching for Majesty in the orthodontist's waiting room, rather than O Magazine or Prevention. 

So, being the Monarchist that I seem to find myself, I was a bit put out when listening to an interview with an American historian on CBC Radio the other day, when she said to the interviewer:  "So, I know you all have this thing with your ex-queen, like you all get excited when she's going to go to Banff of something like that."

The interviewer, Brent Bambry, sort of laughed uncomfortably and said, "Ex-Queen?  Do you know something I don't know?" 

The historian said, "Okay, your sort-of queen.  But you must admit, the whole relationship between Canada and the monarchy is ridiculous."

Bambry quickly changed the subject, most likely in an effort to calm those listeners who were probably already calling or emailing the station to protest, and asked her about her recent book on the annexation of Hawaii (which once had a monarchy, by the way) by the United States.  I thought the historian was quite rude, but more so, ignorant, about Canada's long, and in the words of our present Prime Minister Stephen Harper, "loyal and affectionate relationship" with Queen Elizabeth II and her predecessors.  If I had been so motivated to call the CBC, it would have been to complain about their guest not doing her homework.  As far as I know, our relationship to the Monarchy has never been the cause of any major strife, and in fact, the only reason my beautiful province of British Columbia is part of Canada is because Queen Victoria's governor James Douglas hopped to it and pronounced it Crown Land before the U.S. could annex it during the Cariboo Gold Rush.  (We screwed up over Alaska, and lost it, but that is a whole other long story.)  I know the historian interviewed does not represent the sentiment of the U.S. as a whole.  Plenty of Americans have great respect for the Royal Family, and treated Lady Diana as one of their own.

Banishing thoughts of scornful, mocking historians to the recesses of my mind, I was wondering what title the Queen would confer on Prince William and Kate when they are married a month from now.  According to my research ( ten minutes spent looking around on various royal-watcher websites), whatever title the Queen gives them on their wedding day, once Prince Charles becomes King, William will inherit the title Prince of Wales from his father and Kate will be Princess William of Wales, or something like that. In any case, I am looking forward to viewing the whole thing on television, though my family will tease me unmercifully for it.  Able to partake in neither the Royal Wedding Fruitcake nor the famous Chocolate Biscuit Cake because my 1987 within-ten-meters viewing of Andrew and Fergie was not enough of a connection be warrant an invitation to Westminster Abbey for Will and Kate's wedding, I will most likely commemorate the occasion with a pot of Earl Grey tea and a plate of Welsh cakes, a recipe I found years ago and make a few times every spring for my family.  Even if they don't care too much about the Royal Wedding, my family will enjoy the cakes, which are the size of a cookie, the texture of a scone, and the flavour of a delicate fruitcake. 

I include the recipe for Welsh Cakes here, in honour of the future Prince and Princess of Wales, in case there are others out there who would like to join me in making them.  They can be served with cheese, jam or butter or rolled in sugar when hot.  They really are good!  By the way, I won't be seeing Will and Kate when they come to Canada.  They are snubbing Vancouver in favour of Nunavut, but that's okay.  Judging from previous experience, I think I almost prefer to view my Royalty at a distance...or on TV.  Will and Kate, best of luck. I'm pulling for you. 

Welsh Cakes

2 cups all purpose flour (not self-raising)  (500 ml)
1/2 cup granulated sugar  (125 ml)
2 teaspoons baking powder  (10 ml)
1/2 teaspoon salt  (2 ml)
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg (1 ml)
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon  (1 ml)
1/2 cup butter, margarine,  lard or even solidified coconut oil ( but you'd need to experiment with it)  (125 ml)
1/2 cup currants  (125 ml)
1/4 cup mixed candied citrus peel (or just the grated peel of a lemon or orange)  (50 ml)

1 egg
1/3 cup milk or substitute (soy, almond, rice, coconut, etc. milks)  (75 ml)
1/4 teaspoon almond flavouring (optional)  (1 ml)

Using large bowl, put flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, nutmeg and cinnamon and stir together well.  Cut in butter until crumbly.  Stir in currants and peel.

Beat egg with fork.  Add egg and milk and almond flavouring (if using) to dry ingredients.  Stir into dough as for pie crust.  Roll 1/4 inch (2/3 cm) thick on floured surface.  Cut into 3 inch (7 cm) rounds with biscuit cutter.  Fry in ungreased frying pan over medium heat, letting rise a little and browning both sides.  To test pan for heat, drops of water should sizzle but not bounce around on pan.  Makes 2 dozen or more if smaller rounds are cut.

Enjoy, and happy baking! 

Cheerio,

Rebecca

The above photo of Welsh cakes is from flickr and is also featured on squidoo, where more traditional Welsh recipes can be found.  The photo of Will and Kate was taken by Ben Stansal and was borrowed from the Guardian newspaper website.

Running on Empty

Last week was one of those weeks.  I had a million things on the go and was starting to get bogged down in the details.  Despite the fact that I listened intently to the news from Libya at least twice a day, news of a whole country in crisis, a life and death situation for its people, I couldn't seem to get past my own tribulations.  I'm like that sometimes, caving inward, obsessing over things I can't control, like the weather report or the ever present possibility of an outbreak of headlice at my daughter's school, all the while knowing I'm being ridiculous, praying for deliverance and trying desperately to look at the bigger picture to gain some perspective for crying out loud. Finally, after a few days of struggling to be heard my inner voice of reason spoke up.  She said firmly, "Sit down, pick up an absorbing book and start reading.  Do it now!"  I obeyed, and as my hamster wheel of a mind slowed down and focussed on something outside myself, I gradually started to regain my sanity and an overall sense of calm.

I am a mother of four, a volunteer, an event coordinator and a writer.  My mind is usually going a mile a minute and I'm putting out energy left, right, and center all the time.  Some weeks, like last week, are particularly packed and by the end of it I've really got nothing left.  The tank is running on empty, and beginning to consume itself.  If I don't put some fuel in the tank my mind is left to its own destructive tendencies and things can go from bad to breakdown.  But what exactly is my fuel?  I think everyone has their own fuel.  For some people it's a good bottle of wine shared with a spouse over dinner or a weekend getaway.  Those are both fine options but can get a bit expensive.  My fuel is more readily available and budget friendly.

Yesterday I took much of the day 'off'.  By that I mean I took one day to just relax and not expect too much productivity from myself. I spent the whole morning watching a DVD I'd borrowed from the library and had not yet made time to watch.  I had tried to renew it online but was prevented by the fact there was a hold on it.  The DVD, a three hour and twenty minute BBC production of George Eliot's beautiful story Daniel Deronda literally did take my whole morning, and I enjoyed every minute of being able to watch it without interruption (apart from the breaks I took to make a cup of tea and visit the bathroom). No one even phoned which was real luxury.  After lunch I went for a walk downtown to pick up some buns to go with the leftover chicken soup I had made the day before - so I didn't even have to make supper.  After supper my husband and I did the few dishes there were and then settled down again in front of the television as the weather was too nasty for an evening walk.  The Washington State PBS channel had a great show on about The Troubadour - a Los Angeles club where basically all the big names in the 1970's singer-songwriter genre got their start.  James Taylor, Carole King, Jackson Browne, Eagles, Crosby Stills Nash and Young and even a twenty-three year old Elton John were all in that L.A. music scene in the early '70's.  They were also all part of the soundtrack of my childhood so I watched the program with special interest while my mind kept drifting back to my parents' pine panelled living room with its record player and hundreds of records. (We also noted that Jackson Browne had exactly the same hair style back then as our eldest son has now.) After the program I had my customary evening soak in the tub, read my absorbing murder mystery novel and went to bed.

This morning I woke up ready to take on the world once again.  I had no idea what I was going to blog about this week but I sat down at the computer and immediately thought of Jackson Browne's song, "Running on Empty".  I typed that in to my title box and started writing this post.  I wrote a bit, then went to have my weekly coffee out with friends.  After coffee I put up posters around town for the annual Writer's Workshop and 'Open Mike' evening I organize with my friend The Librarian and walked home for lunch.  The warm sun was breaking through the clouds.  The birds were rioting in the trees and the hope of spring coming at last was visible on the faces of almost everyone I met.  I noticed that the snow from the last two snowfalls was melting fast and had revealed, to my great relief, that my snowdrops, which had begun to bloom weeks ago, had survived. 

My tank runneth over.

Here's Jackson Browne performing Running on Empty in 1978.  David Lindley, whom we saw perform last summer at our local music festival plays the great slide guitar solo near the end.  Enjoy! 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2O_1plEd3i4

What's Your Happy Place?

Admittedly, this time of year I am growing a little restless in anticipation of spring.  By way of a bright spot in the muddy wet coastal January that we both share, a friend recently sent me one of those 'planetbossi' slide shows, this one of a  resort in Bora Bora with swaying palms, water that could only be described, somewhat reduntantly, as aquamarine, and white sand beaches with luxurious guest huts perched on stilts just off shore.  While I enjoyed the colour-drenched photo-tour very much, I had no emotional connection with the place since I have never been there or anywhere like it.  The closest I have been to the equator is Cannon Beach, Oregon and in fact, I'm not one to pine for tropical holidays.  I'm sure I would find plenty to enjoy once I arrived there, but as far as a dream destination goes, the tropics don't actually interest me all that much.  (I'm now covering my ears while you scream, 'WHAT?  ARE YOU CRAZY?')  Perhaps I would think differently if I lived in freezing cold Saskatchewan or blizzard-stricken southern Alberta, but I don't and never have. 

So what do I dream of during the dark days of January?  I dream of places I have been to on holiday, places of summer warmth and beauty where my family and I have spent long, bright days doing precious nothing and everything away from the daily concerns of work and home.  This morning, when I lay awake in the 6 a.m. darkness, thinking about the day to come, I suddenly and inexplicably remembered the week's holiday we once spent in Bamfield on the West Coast of Vancouver Island and I felt a bright glow of happiness.  I am convinced that half of the value of a good holiday is the place it creates in our memory - where the multisensory experience of visiting somewhere removed from our usual routines and pathways provides something almost tangible that we can access at will to spin and weave into a gold, green and blue tapestry to fling over the dull sadness of the late winter landscape.

It was our fourth summer living at Strathcona Park Lodge.  I was sitting on a log with a few other parents, by the beach volleyball court watching the Lodge children play their version of touch football.  There have always been children at the Lodge.  The couple who founded the Lodge in the 1950's, Myrna and Jim Boulding, raised five children there. The eldest, Elizabeth is a marine biology professor at the University of Guelph in Ontario.  Every summer, she and her husband and teenaged daughter came home to Vancouver Island.  The opportunities for hands-on marine research being non-existent in the landlocked province of Ontario, the Marine Biology department of the U of Guelph sent several students to the Bamfield Marine Sciences Centre on the West Coast of Vancouver Island each summer.  Elizabeth and her family rented a small house - more of a cabin, really - for the four months of each summer and we at the Lodge would be treated to many visits from her husband and daughter who would return often to visit their Lodge family.  Liz' husband, Toby is also a marine scientist in his own right, but he had put his career on the backburner to look after their daughter and to work on various carpentry projects -  he is an incredibly skilled woodworker and had helped build many of the fine wooden buildings at the Lodge.  This fourth summer, Liz was to spend much of her time in Scandanavia doing research on some type of snail and so her husband and daughter chose to spend even more time than usual at the Lodge. 

That day at the beach volleyball court, we had started chatting about summer holidays when Liz and Toby asked me what our plans were.  I was saying, well, we have a few weeks and aren't sure how to spend them all, when Liz offered their cabin in Bamfield during the time she would be in northern Europe.  It took about ten seconds before her offer was accepted. 

Bamfield is on Barkley Sound, is divided by Bamfield Inlet, and populated by Huu-ay-aht of the Nuu-chah-nulth, the local indigenous people. Europeans founded a small fishing community sometime in the late 1800s. In 1902, the Bamfield cable station was constructed as the western terminus of a worldwide undersea telegraph cable called by some the All Red Line as it passed only through countries and territories controlled by the British Empire, which were coloured red on the map. (The cable initially went to Fanning Island, a tiny coral atoll in the mid-Pacific, and from there continued to Fiji, New Zealand, and Australia.) It is the home of the first marine and fisheries lifesaving station, founded in 1907, on the Pacific Coast of Canada. Bamfield is now home to several sport fishing lodges, which pursue primarily salmon and halibut. Bamfield is also the northern terminus of the West Coast Trail, a world-famous hiking trail built in 1907 along the west coast of Vancouver Island to help survivors of the area's many shipwrecks find their way back to civilization. The trail runs many kilometres along extremely rugged terrain.Today Bamfield is primarily a tourist destination, either for the West Coast Trail, ocean kayaking or sport fishing. And as mentioned above, Bamfield also receives many university students who attend semesters at the Bamfield Marine Sciences Centre.*

We had never been to Bamfield but we knew enough having gone to stunningly beautiful Tofino, also on the West Coast of the Island, with my husband on a business trip, to welcome the opportunity of seeing it.  The additional prospect of staying in an accomodation, gratis, and with indoor plumbing and a real bed (instead of camping at a nearby campsite as we did the following year) made the offer even more attractive to me, who was six months pregnant with our youngest child at the time.  We set off late in July and drove the very rough dirt road from Port Alberni in the center of the Island to Bamfield.  We located Liz and Toby's cabin and unpacked our supplies.  The cabin was fairly basic, but unlike our home at the Lodge, it had a small black and white television with four cable channels!  The kids found their room also to discover to their utmost delight, a full set of Tintin and Asterix comics belonging to Liz and Toby's daughter.  'This is the LIFE!', exclaimed my eight year old Ian when watching cartoons on the TV the next morning.

The entire week was filled with experiences which drew a similar reaction to Ian's from all of us.  We visited Pachena Bay several times, which is the West Coast Trailhead, and explored the best tidal pools we had ever seen filled with brightly coloured creatures in crystal clear water.  We watched grey whales feeding just off shore.  We took the water taxi across Bamfield Inlet and explored the colourfully painted shops and buildings along the boardwalk, and then hiked to the western side of Bamfield and picnicked on Brady's Beach.  My husband and our boys negotiated the ladders and slippery boardwalks one day and hiked to the first beach on the West Coast Trail while my daughter and I baked a cake in the cabin and had a tea party all to ourselves.  We played rounds and rounds of badminton on the cabin's sloped lawn and visited the Marine Sciences Centre which also houses a length of the original telegraph cable of the All Red Line in a glass case and an accompanying historical display.   When the kids were in bed in the evenings my husband and I watched whichever 1960's James Bond film happened to be playing on the television - one of the channels seemed to be having a bit of a Bond festival, which was right up our alley for light holiday entertainment, and in black and white to boot.

Bamfield Inlet and the dock where we caught the water taxi

That first Bamfield holiday was one of many good holidays we have enjoyed as a family, but thinking about it now and remembering all the details, I think it fair to say it was one of the best.  By the next summer, Liz and Toby had given up their lease of the house - Liz was simply travelling too much for her research to justify hanging onto it.  We went back to Bamfield the following summer and camped at the First Nation campground on Pachena Bay.  Besides it being extremely damp camping in the rainforest (I learned to bring wool sweaters, socks and hats camping after that) and the firewood too green, we had another good holiday.  The mornings were misty but the afternoons were gloriously sunny as I sat thawing on the beach with baby Katie, now nine months old.  My husband had brought kayays this time and he played in the surf with the kids and explored along the west shore of the bay by himself.  It was all great, but the creature-comfort part of me (and it is a big part) thought wistfully of Liz and Toby's cabin with the kitchen where we had made waffles every day, of the comfortable beds and of the little black and white television with four good cable channels, which at that time in our lives, signified decadence indeed!  Some day I hope to return to Bamfield...perhaps to one of those luxurious fishing lodges?  I can dream.



*the information in this paragraph came from here.  The photos came from tourism sites.  If you want to read a great article with further description of Bamfield see this article.