Disappointed Camper

I was wanting to go off to the bush after all the people that were here for Easter weekend had gone home.  I took a drive up to the lake, 15 minutes above the village, to see where the best spot to camp was for a few weeks, and maybe just park the pickup to hold the spot.  It is a first-come-first served camping area with wide areas between the sites that can each cope with 3 or sometimes more RVs.  I told Old Man that if I wasn't back in an hour I would be holding down a spot and putting out tablecloths on the heavy wooden table and setting up campchairs along the shore to claim my territory.  Then he could bring up the RV.  However all the spots were full.  Our landlord was planning to pull out of one of our favorite spots today and we arranged to pull in after he left.  But it rained all night and off and on all day and  he couldn't get his trailer up the hill as the mud is sandy silt and slick.  So he left it there.  Our RV is stocked and ready to go.  We will just have to wait until the rain lets up and the mud on the rocky road out of the site uphill to the main road, is dried enough to safely move big units on it.  The lake has lots of returning wildlife to watch.

I am still waiting for someone to 'fess' up about bumping our bumper last Nov.  

So in my disappointment about not being able to go camping, and not wanting to camp in the rain anyhow, I went surfing on the Royalty.nu site to see pictures of the Queen's 88th.  I found this picture also of William and Kate and George arriving at some airport down-under.  The dress received rave reviews and the yellow was a nod to their symbolic colours.  However, William in an aside told Kate that she looked like a banana.  I can't stop laughing.  

Praise the Lord

Easter ceremonies are over.  I brought the children from the Sunday School lessons in the hall, for a 3 minute walk to our suite for an egg hunt.  After an explanation about the connection in the symbolism between eggs and the round tomb cover and new life in the Spring we walked to our suite and I took them on a spying tour.  They  were not allowed to pick any eggs or coins up, but could spot as many as possible for later when I would turn them loose.  These children are all being helped by Social Services which is so good for them.  But their mothers also appreciate the time to meditate during the church service when the children are led out after the second 

hymn.

Here is one of the children who calls herself a Jesus follower.  She told me that , and I just listened.  We do not proselytise. 

She does a lot of reading and thinking on her own time.  Her parents are agnostic.  But she is so convinced and spiritual.  She cried about the crucifixion.  I caught this shot of her as she ceased to look for eggs, and admired the painting about our fireplace.  

We had 10 family for dinner after the service.  I thought there would be 4 passing through and staying in beds one or two nights.   We adjusted and everyone got a bed.  Everyone got fed.  Happy Easter.  I did a lot of scrambling.  They had to go 2 hours north,

 to Williams Lake for the induction of Old Man's father, Clarence.  It is all over now.  Some stayed with us and some stayed out in the Motorhome.   I made baked ham, two pies, smashed potatoes, a large salad,  and the local Indians were so wonderful to deliver fresh picked asparagus, which all these cowboys just love.  

I am going camping tomorrow and will be out of touch for awhile.  I need some ME TIME.   I am going to the lake to fish for trout and poke sticks in fires.  Alleluia.

Happy Easter

Holy Week is a time of contemplation and meditation and prayer.  On Thursday I attended the evening foot washing ceremony.  I must admit that for some reason my feet felt especially clean afterwards.  And they have for days afterwards.  I attended the Good Friday service too, and had tears at times.  It really is the Greatest Story Ever Told.  A minister, 30 years ago, told me that in every good, well-acted movie or novel, you can find the "Christ Story" if you look for it.

Good Friday service was solemn and touching.  Knox United joined us for a small congregation of two churches' older folk coming together to share sacred times.  The reflection, from Alice Watson, hit many heartstrings.  She said things that we needed to have confirmed.  

Our altar and area around the front was stripped of any ornamentation.  All Maundy Thursday participants in the foot washing, were invited to help strip the altar of any ornamentation.  It is part of life to acknowledge the dark times and the light times.   This is how our altar (above)  looked after the Good Friday service.  And I was so happy to do the Easter Jubilation today.  I took the Sunday School kids for a quick lesson on the real meaning of Easter, and then we went on a hunt for candy eggs to put in our baskets.  

And so today we proclaim....Alleluia  Christ is Risen Indeed.

Holy Week

Last Sunday was Palm Sunday so of course we were given little palm crosses.  At the end of the service of eucharist we walked out the back door in procession waving our crosses and saying, "Hosanna".  We just marched down the street and back inside the hall at the back of the church but it felt like we were living the Gospel reading for that day.

I took the Sunday School kids out for a lesson on the story of the days this Holy Week before the glory of Easter.  They made crayon-resist hard-boiled eggs.  Eggs symbolize new life and the rolling of the round stone from the front of Jesus' tomb.  We put them on the after-service snacks table in a basket for a decoration, but parishioners kept taking them and putting them in their pockets.  

I would say gently,  "I think the children want you to see their art work but, they also want to take them home."  It was fun to watch the expressions on faces as they reached into their pockets and put them back in the basket.  They were on the table with the muffins and cheese and crackers so it was understandable.  I think another year I would let the children keep their best favorite art project egg and offer the rest to the (mostly older pensioners) that wanted them.  

I just returned from the Maundy Thursday evening foot washing and eucharist.  

It is a sombre but spirit-filled time. 

However, I am not looking forward to going to the Abbey tomorrow for the Good Friday service at 10:00 AM.  It is a dark service but we need the reminder that life isn't all bluebells and balloons.  But still I dread that service.  The United Church joins us this week for the Maundy foot-washing and Good Friday service.  We are asked to leave quietly, without socializing.  I will be so glad when we can have flowers on the altar again.  For the 40 days of Lent each year we only put greenery in the altar vases.

I will be so glad, when on Easter morning, we can say "Alleluia" to each other again at the end of the 40 days of Lent.  

RV ing time again

It is time to start RV-ing again.  We do love our camping out in the wilds.

 Our storage policy for the winter ran out on the motorhome yesterday so we had to get regular insurance again and go get the unit from up above town and de-winterize it (flush the anti-freeze out of the tanks and lines) back down here in front of the B/B.  Our landlord kindly helped with that.  

We had taken it to a friend's farm late last November to just leave it to sit until Spring.  However a few days later the farm folk noticed a dent and shattered plastic stuff on the front grill.  The time frame is just a few days in late November before we flew to Ontario for Christmas with the grandgirls.  It had been hit by a black or dark blue object, maybe a hitch.  The people that deliver wood would have hit it higher in their bigger truck.

The hit also cracked out pieces on the passenger side of the bumper.  

The force of it popped the other driver's side open too.

Nobody will admit to backing into it which would be easy to do turning around on ice or backing up to go back down the drive and may not have been too noticed at the time by the driver.  But that little bump did a lot of expensive damage. The farm girls took pictures as soon as they saw it, and Insurance originally assured us we had 2 years to get the "hit and run" damage fixed.  That was good news as we can see a $1500 or more bill to get the repair done.  Nobody has admitted to the dent and the insurance now says they won't pay as somebody who lives there or a visitor must have done it and it should be covered by their insurance.  Sigh....  We have had too many mechanical bills this winter with pickup clutches and gear problems.  Our pensions won't carry all these extra expenses.  It is so discouraging when people don't use their integrity and report their own mistakes.   Maybe it was a hill-billy who didn't have insurance.  

Another worry is that Old Man Watching is back on Interferon drops in his eye as some 'cancer ruffles' are forming on his iris again. He will do them for two months and then get a check to see if he needs another operation.  It was very painful the last time, and he may refuse.  He says he is ready to die and tired of medical crapola.  

Our happy news though is that the birds are twittering and I am seeing so many different kinds of ducks in the lakes.  

The blossoming trees around the village are a delight too.

Everywhere I look, I see pink and white eye-candy.

Spring Has Sprung 2014

I think I say that every year.  Still it delights me when the green begins after the Canadian winter and the muddy time of 'break-up' ends.  That is when everything is slick mud on rainy days, or dusty layers of film on the rocks and trees and streets on windy Spring days.   The rains are welcomed like a gentle Alleluia.  The winds are welcomed like a gentle Hosanna.  Summer is not far away.

I raked the side entrance to our back porch, ready to watch the hostas, forsythia, buckets-of- gold and peonies break through and begin to 'strut' their stuff.  
   

 

We usually go out this way from the back porch as that is where our coats hang and footwear is organized.   I will be in charge of weeding and planting some annuals when I see what perennials show up and where the empty spots are along this side of the house.  This is the way we usually go into the house and around to the back porch with our groceries from the street.  The yellow forsythia bush in bloom is telling me it is time to prune the roses, but there aren't any here.  You are either into roses or you are into the easiest pretty things to have in your yard.  I definitely want to put some snapdragons where the sun hits as they are my favorite.  I found a  patch out back where I can put my glorious zinnias in full sun.  

Then today after the lovely Palm Sunday Service at St. Alban's, I must have been feeling magnanimous, and I offered to the landlord that I would weed the vegetable garden all this summer.  I love tidy gardens with no weeds.  I like clean windows too.  I hate cooking.  'Wanna trade jobs?'

It was Palm Sunday today.  During Lent we do not put flowers on the altar, just greenery.  But today's greenery is always vases of palm branches.   I didn't take my camera but the ladies did vases much like this.  

My little less-privileged girl, Trinity, got to ring the bell at 9:30 and then again about 10 minutes before the service started.  She was delighted to be so important.  She was allowed to put out the altar candles with the long-handled snuffer last Sunday.  There are protocols.  The left = Gospel Candle can not stand alone so must be put out first.  

The Sunday school children also were given the job of handing out the palm leaf crosses.  Near the end of the Palm Sunday service the Sunday School children went back into the chapel (after a lesson on Holy Week and making fancy decorations on hard boiled eggs) .

 They were sent to be with their own families, for communion, and/or blessings at the rail.  After the last hymn, we raised our little palm crosses that the children gave us, and walked out the back door and down the street to go back inside the Hall, for the coffee hour.  Those that knew what we were up to, waved their palm crosses and shouted "Hosanna."  Some visitors are shy and didn't know why we are doing this.  

It was a bless-ed day for me.  I am not looking forward to the grim Maundy Thursday service of foot washing, or the Good Friday service that I always want to call 'Bad Friday'.  I do understand the theology though.  I just want to get back to saying Alleluia whenever I want.  We are supposed to restrain ourselves until Easter/Resurrection

Sunday.

Crone's are arising

We Crones in our group, had been a little distant from each other the last months of winter as so many ran away to Mexico or South America or to family resort weddings in the tropics, or had operations that took weeks to recover from.  Anyhow, last week we were blessed with two gatherings that most of us attended.  The first was on Friday after work (for those who still work) to celebrate that Rhonda had a working leg again.  Her walking-cast was off.  We went to her house on the river to sit in the sun, but that only was warm enough along the Thompson River for about 15 minutes, so we came back inside the sun porch. 

Then the next day the lady in blue above, Janice, who also has had severe medical issues all winter, had her 60th birthday.   We congregated at another Crone's house.  We call ourselves the Crones in the most respectful way.  We are women who are willing to share wisdom and kindness and give of ourselves to others.

The next day we gathered with other friends for a co-mingling time with Janice and her family for a gourmet spread.  Her husband made a wonderful chocolate cheese cake and put the candles in it . 

It was a delightful evening.  But do you notice that at 70, we leave earlier than we did at 50 and 60.......

We left the teenager children and even the house hosts and were the first to say goodnight.  They don't even do anything exciting that I am afraid to miss later.  I used to stay up all night at parties so I wouldn't miss anything.  There is nothing to miss anymore.   SAD  SAD  SAD

I guess we may have done it all.

I am always catching up...a blog for this week

We have had a few Crone's gatherings in the last few weeks.  People are back from Mexico and South America.  They brought colds back with them and I woke up with one yesterday.  It must be the Montezuma cold.  But I hit it fast with massive doses of zinc tablets and actually now, on day two, it is not so bad.  I still cough a bit but my headache is gone.  I just feel lethargic.

 I need to catch up on my blogging.......or not..... but just feel tonight that I want to read all of yours.

My grandson is coming for a week of fishing/camping/horsemanship.  He is #64.  I wonder how many more years he will want to play hooky from school for a week to be with his 'Nanny'....who he says is 'squishy' as we hug and read books and giggle together.    Well I laughed but his mother was horrified that he would say that.  I am squishy, I am 70.  I told him to wait until he was 70 to see if he gets 'squishy'.

moose

I texted some folk in the village this morning to say there was a moose on their front lawn.  They went to look and texted back that it was gone.  

Happy April Fool's Day.

It wasn't too far fetched as last week we had a bear and cub raiding garbage cans and compost heaps.  They had a ball one evening in the alley behind the bakery.  

It makes one look before stepping outside.  The conservation officers came with a big-barrel bear trap much like this one, 
        

and they seem to have been removed.

ps.  One of the smarties I wrote to about the moose in their yard wrote back that it was now steaks and in his freezer......  clever fellow.