Any old how…. Many moons ago we lived in another country and the local post-master was very cute and charming but apparently …. so we were told…. his marriage was volatile. Let’s call him Fred which sounds nothing at all like Dave. He had a son named after him –  lets call him Little Fred.

As I know I have mentioned before, Alan was a volunteer fire-fighter, both here in Canada and in that other country.

So a call came in to 911. Scramble. Radios and phones going – ‘Fred’s been shot in the head.’ Cars, fire trucks, emergency vehicles flying out to Fred’s house while the town’s population of 903 (used to 906 before we moved to Canada) was either wandering down to the firehall/police station to listen or on the phone to each other. ‘I guess it happened, Fred’s wife finally shot him.’

Now there are protocols when a volunteer FF/EMT group gets to this kind of situation that means they cannot go in until the police have secured the scene but seriously… in reality…. protocols/schmotocols… at least back in those days. So their best and bravest volunteer went in – a lady called BettyLou and believe me, if you ever have a heart attack you want her to be show up, she will scare the bejeezuz out of you as she tells you to stop mucking about and get over it, and save your life, but as always I am digressing – and BettyLou  found ‘Fred’.

Only it was little Fred. His sister had shot him in the forehead with a BBgun pellet. BettyLou put her thumbs each side and popped that sucker out like a zit.

Both ‘Fred’s’ are alive and well as far as I know.

Parenthood ain’t easy. Today got reminded of the time Alan kicked one of our kids across the room. I can just hear the intakes of breath and people wondering which authority to inform but bear with me.

So there we were, in the Emergency Room (Casualty) with both kids, Jonathan around… 6 years old and Matthew around 18 months to 2 years old. Matthew with a gash in the back of his head which was bleeding. Apparantly scalps bleed like crazy even when the wound is superficial. I guess I should hasten to add at this point that there had been no concussion or trauma of that type, it was a half inch cut on the back of his head. The nurse bent down and asked Matthew “What happened to you sweetheart?” Matthew replied “Daddy kicked me.” She got this look on her face and asked Jonathan “What happened?” Jonathan said “Daddy kicked Matthew across the room.”

We were immediately separated from the kids and from each other.

So there I am in a room with a very stern looking doctor asking what happened? Me: “Well it’s all my fault. There is a chest of drawers opposite our bed. I had left the top drawer slightly ajar. It’s Sunday morning.  On Sunday mornings the boys come into our room and climb into our bed. Then we play Humpty Dumpty where we lie in bed, our knees up, the kids climb up and sit on our knees, we all recite the Humpty Dumpty poem and at some random point we drop our knees and the kids, like Humpty, fall down and everybody laughs. Matthew was climbing back up onto his daddy’s knees for another go…. Alan has an ingrown toenail. Matthew stepped on his toe, Alan kicked out, and Matthew sailed across the room and ……then he hit the drawer.”

The doctor just kind of looked at me, silent. Then he left the room and after a while they showed Alan in. I said “What did you tell them?” Alan said “The truth, how about you?” Me: “The truth. Oh gawd we are never going to see our children again…”

Then two doctors came in and said “You’re OK. That story is so stupid it has to be true. If you had done it deliberately you would have come up with something more plausible.”

They put a stitch in the back of Matthew’s head and we all went home. Both kids are now adults and no, we didn’t kill either one, accidentally or on purpose. But as I said, parenthood ain’t easy. And to any ‘authorities’ reading this please, accept that sometimes a step on an ingrown toenail and an involuntary kick is just a step on an ingrown toenail and an involuntary kick. Those doctors showed common sense and gave us the benefit of the doubt.

Boy am I ever going to get flamed for this one I reckon……

After that I moved to the Isle of Wight. Several reasons. 1: my cousin had sent me the fare to get there. 2: my uncle and auntie had offered the free loan of a 3-legged caravan (trailer type thingie – yes folks I was trailer trash ) in a field to live in and 3: there was a really fab rock show happening in the summer that was in its early days back then. Jonathan wasn’t born ‘at’ the rock show but it was close.

Just after we moved there I had another crazy night. Went out for the evening, about 7 or 8 of us piled into a car with my cousin’s friend driving. Saw a cop car and he took a side turn into a field and turned off the car and lights etc. We all held our breath and the cop car kept going. I asked why and the driver of our car mentioned that he had been banned from driving for 2 years. I asked why. He replied that he’d been caught driving without a licence or insurance the previous year and was told that he could not drive again until age 17 – the legal minimum for driving in the UK. I said ‘Well how old are you now!?’ He replied: ’15.’

I was 18 years old and pregnant with Jonathan and while he was a bump on my front he spent a lot of his time riding on a Suzuki 50 motorbike. Chris driving, me sitting on a PanAm bag on the luggage rack on the back and ‘the bump’ on the passenger seat. No wonder Jonathan still loves to ride bikes.

After a while in the caravan/trailer we moved into a room in the town where Chris was working, rented out by guy who had the most fabulous outside toilet, Delft blue inlay in the china, it’s probably worth more than the house by now. I have forgotten our landlord’s name now but he had been a teacher but was retired. His friend was a headmaster at some private school who visited from time to time. One evening we were talking about me being pregnant and our landlord said he did not understand how I could be pregnant and his friend explained it to him, and explained that his mother must have had done that (had sex – yes folks Jonathan was not the result of immaculate conception) in order to have him, her son. Our landlord, remembered now, I think his name was Humphrey Something was horrified. Never believed it. Said his mother would never have done such a thing.

One time when I was walking back from a trip to the doctors, I tend to walk looking down, it’s what near-sighted people do, trying to figure out where the next step should go, I was wearing a mini dress and ‘the bump’ was all at the front so from the back I didn’t look pregnant, there were some workmen digging a hole in the road, like they do, wolf whistling and yelling at me ‘Cheer up darling, it might never happen!’ I turned around, pointed to ‘the bump’ and replied ‘Really?’ It was funny, we all had a good laugh…

Jonathan was due on August 5th and because I was so naive I assumed that was when he would show up. At just past noon, on August 5th he arrived. So naive or not, I was right! It was the Saturday of Cowes week on the Isle of Wight and I couldn’t get a taxi or ambulance for love or money, so I was considering going to hospital in labour on the back of the motor bike when some neighbours offered to drive me. Wonderful people, very kind, Christian Scientists. Kept telling me the pain was not there. I kept thinking “You’re not sitting where I am obviously…….”

But anyway after a few hours Jonathan arrived, in spite of me being left alone and a cleaning lady almost delivering him but in the nick of time doctor and a Swiss nurse came in and helped him into the world, tiny but lovely. I remember the nurse showing me the bruises on her hand that I had made holding her hand so hard. The maternity ward of that hospital overlooked/overlooks(?) the UK’s most high security prison. The prisoners were upset about conditions and were up on the prison roof. They used to wave to us new mothers and we would wave back.

Jonathan: You are very, very, very lucky that you were born male and named Jonathan Andrew. I had been reading a book when pregnant and was just enthralled by the heroine/main character and wanted to name my baby after her. Had you been born a girl you would have been called Rizpah http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rizpah

We decided to leave the island when Jonathan was a week old though I had been offered a roof over my head by a gay (male) couple if I wanted to stay there. Wealthy and they just adored the baby, what might have life have turned out like if I had said yes? We will never know. As we were on the ferry going back to the mainland a couple asked to see Jonathan and put a coin in his tiny hand to wish him luck and wealth.

I was reminded of all this because the other day in Toronto we saw a very new baby and I did the same thing. Felt good to pass on a tradition.

When we first found this house we were completely enchanted with the wildlife, just amazing. Though admittedly my current feelings about raccoons are torn. Yes they are cute. But leave my tomato plant alone! We also have birds galore, deer, groundhogs, the occasional fox, snakes that luckily are rare, squirrels, chipmunks, turtles and sometimes, black bears.

The first bear we saw would not have been in any great danger of being turned into a rug because it was older and quite motley looking. I spotted it from the office, it was out by the washing line and was slowly making its way around the house. It disappeared from sight so I moved to the kitchen to try to see it again. Nothing. So I climbed up on the kitchen counter by the sink to get a better look. Our house is built into the side of a hill so the kitchen window is up one floor which is probably just as well. Suddenly I heard a kind of huffing sound and there it was, front paws against the side of the building just under the kitchen window, looking at me through the screen. Had there been an Olympic athletic scout in my kitcehn I reckon I could have had a chance on the team. For a gently rounded, middle age woman the dismount I did from the counter was fast and high, and I landed on my feet. TaDa!! Apparently unimpressed, the bear just ambled off into the bush.

That particular year there were many bear sightings locally. So many that it made the larger press. A very irritated ‘man from the Ministry’ in Toronto issued a statement saying we were all imagining things, that there were no bears in this area and that any damage seen was done by cows. I wrote him an open letter in the local newspaper. I invited him to a free weekend of camping in my garden. I would even provide a tent, sleeping bag and food as long as he took a quick note of the ‘cow’ claw marks on my shed door and didn’t mind sleeping beside the big pile of ‘cow’ poop beside the tent. I recommended he wear his brown trousers. The newspaper kindly published but sadly the man from the Ministry did not reply or take me up on my offer.

Over the next few years I would see bears come up the hill, across the deck and through the arbour but I was never quick enough to grab the camera. Then, two years ago we spotted a new one, fairly young, I would say maybe a two or three year old out on his own for the first time. Here are some photos.

Then this past weekend, another visit. I reckon it was the same young man, all grown up. Sorry for the lousy photo but he’s quite definitely male

Apparently it is sentient sparkly, snowy looking, stuff that had developed the ability to hide when I took down the tree, travel up a floor, through two closed doors and into the corner of the bathroom window, hide again and then appear 6 months later. Who in their right mind would introduce such stuff into the house? Oh, that would be me. Well it seemed like a good idea at the time.

Meanwhile here is the latest score:
Carolyn 1 – Raccoons 0
For a number of weeks now racoons have been climbing up onto our little raised deck and uprooting my window boxes and planters, attacking my tomato plant and bringing down hanging baskets and the humming bird feeder. In fact somehow they managed to take away the entire feeder and I am a bit puzzled as to how since raccoons have little hands and that thing weighed quite a bit. So I decided to put the sofa cushions on the floor by the patio door and slept there. Sure enough, 11.00 p.m. I heard the little so-and-so’s. I flipped on the light and there was a fairly big raccoon climbing up the support post on one side of the deck and a younger one on the other side. And me. Hair all over the place, wielding a broom like Nora Batty from Last of the Summer Wine, well she always had curlers in but the attitude was the same.

Interesting scientific fact discovered, raccoons can express surprise, shock even. They came back at midnight and at 1.00 a.m. Three times really is a charm, they have not been back since. I have this image of what happened when they got back to raccoon home or pub.

Raccoon to raccoon buddies: ‘Never go near that deck! It’s horrible! I may never get the image out of my mind. The human female up there is nuts!’

I am totally in love. I am trying to come up with a cute nickname for my new fixation, suggestions gratefully received!

As some of you know my favourite thing indoors is my dishwasher. I love dishwashers. Washing dishes is my least favourite pastime, way more unliked by me than peeling potatoes and putting away groceries and I loathe both of those as much as I hate shopping. I drive Alan nuts because I will put recyclables like tin cans and empty jars through the dishwasher before setting them out for collection. If it’s not nailed down I put it through the dishwasher. If it doesn’t move for more than five minutes, in the dishwasher it goes. I have been known to put plastic bags through the dishwasher. The cats have learned to hide.

Now I have a favourite outdoors friend. Our roof needs to be redone, we have the scaffolding and have ordered the underlay and arranged for the shingles – going with dark forest green this time. What we are lacking is the manpower with Alan only home one and a half days a week so that will have to wait until September. But I had also been getting a bit down about the siding. It was becoming dusty and grimy and on the north side of the building, a wee bit green and mossy. But my new beau has come in, all power and brawn, and now that I can I turn him on several times a day, he just blasts it all away. I love, love, love it.

Allow me to introduce: The power washer! I love this guy. A little on the short side, about 2 foot tall at most, and fashion sense… he favours a bright yellow plastic jacket but I can live with that because when it comes to doing the thing that he does so well…. wow!

I am only just started. The siding is half done and during the week I will blasting the heck out of both decks plus the little one by the main door to the house. Next weekend I will get Alan to show me how to use the power sander and smooth the surfaces down again and then go buy deck stain/sealer. I am on a roll!

Power went out on Wednesday and did not come back until early this morning – today being Sunday.  No electricity for us means no running water so after hearing from Hydro how enormous the problem was and how long the outage was likely to be I had to check into a hotel. On my own on the Thursday, with Alan getting back from Toronto  and joining me on Friday evening.

Of course every cloud truly does have a silver lining. The Fairfield Inn includes a free continental breakfast. I don’t eat breakfast but I do like apple juice.  So down I went to the lobby and it was teeming with loads of very attractive men of all kinds of ages. They were wearing jackets with bright orange crosses on the back.  I asked one what that was for and he explained ‘So people can see us and not hit us as we work.’  I realised they were all Hydro One guys from all over Ontario here to fix the lines.  A pleasant view to start my day as I sipped my apple juice.  I did thank a table of them as I left to go back to my room. No, I didn’t thank them for the view nice though it was, I said thanks for the work and long hours they must have been doing to get us all back up and running.  Thus being polite and probably convincing them that this crazy little old white-haired lady had probably escaped from some secure facility somewhere.  There is something rather splendid about being an aging British eccentric, especially one with Canadian citizenship to boot.  A multi-national eccentric little old lady. Just enjoying the view.

Alan got back from his week in Toronto and fell into my arms.  OK maybe slightly.  OK maybe for a moment or so. There’s me wearing a smile, sexy underwear and Chanel Number 5 and what is Alan doing?  Studying the room.  It was a lovely room, very nice indeed, especially as they had upgraded me to a suite.

Alan:  ”So …. that’s odd, I wonder why the wall steps out a tiny bit just there? And look, that floating kind of thing just below the ceiling…. to house water pipes maybe? Why not put them in the ceiling. The ceiling is nice. Flat and not that swirly stipple that was the norm a couple of decades ago.  I wonder what’s behind the space to the right of the TV/entertainment console….. Have you looked at the windows on the rooms that are at a right-angle to ours?  And then looked at the length of the corridor?  It seems out of kilter….. I wonder why they only have one sprinkler?”

I love him to bits but sometimes the man drives me crazy.

Though to give him credit he did soon appreciate the smile and so on

We started off by staying at the Toronto Airport Marriot. I really recommend doing this. For about $20 over the normal night rate you get 15 days of free parking in a secure underground parking lot, free shuttle bus to the airport, it’s definitely one of the best deals out there. The 15 days can be before or after the night’s stay.

So off we went to the airport, a bit too early to check in so I sat with the bags while Alan went for a wander around the airport. A temporary check in counter had been set up for an El Al flight that was boarding dozens of Hasidic families. You know how they constantly repeat that safety message about not leaving bags alone etc.? Apparently there is always a moron who thinks it doesn’t apply to them. I’m sitting there just people watching, a couple of rows of seats in front of me is a middle aged Jewish couple also just sitting quietly waiting to check in. a man walked in to the airport with a smallish hard sided suitcase. Put it right beside them and immediately walked back out of the building. We all stared at the suitcase, looked back to see where he had gone. The lady caught my eye and I shook my head and said ‘That doesn’t look good…’ she said ‘Do you think I should tell someone?’ I said ‘Yes.’ and she went to find security. Two, young, tall, good-looking men in military uniforms, all close cropped hair and machine guns, showed up. One looked at the suitcase and we explained what the guy looked like and that he had gone out of the building about 5 minutes earlier. I was trying to figure out if it was even worth trying to move away when the other soldier came back in with the guy, who was now pulling a second suitcase. The soldiers were amazingly kind to him and explained that he just cannot do that and that he had scared a lot of people. Later his friend showed up and we could hear him complaining about people over-reacting when he had simply gone to get his second suitcase. First of all if I can pull two suitcases so can you buddy and second the rules apply to all of us you idiot!

Can you tell he ticked me off a bit? )

But once that was over we checked in and had a fabulous flight. British airways have come a long way from the slightly condescending BOAC days.

Something else I want to mention about the trip is the incredible deal you can get through http://visitbritain.com for train tickets provided you are a non-EU resident.  It pays for itself in just a couple of days and having seen the traffic over there, pays for itself in retaining your sanity immediately. Every driver in the UK appears to be playing a huge game of chicken. They are all crazy and coming from me, that’s pretty serious.

Think about it, allow the time it takes to get dressed for the occasion of the decade, climbing into Spanx, control top pantyhose/tights, then the frock and the hat – and in the UK that’s just the men – getting there, going through security, being seated, not wanting to cause a fuss by getting up and asking where the loo even is in Westminster Abbey, let alone get to it and then maneuvoring the hat into the cubicle and praying you don’t come back with your dress tucked in the back of your knickers….. no, everyone will hold it, or will try to. Hence the rush to buy Depends…..

Hmm got to find me a stock-broker.
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What ever happened to marketing? Hello all CEOs. Do you not even look at the ads your people come up with?

We often mute ads if there is a squeaky voiced woman or kids with voices like fingernails down a blackboard…. case in current point, some ad for a kiddy bike/tryke/convertable thing with a sun hat that has a female voiceover that makes whales and dolphins commit suicide on beaches all over the world. Looks like a great toy but I will never know because I lunge for the remote in the first 3 seconds and sadly for who ever paid big bucks for the ads that come after it because I miss them too until I glance up and see the show I was watching is back on and un-mute it.

But now I have a new one. Ok there is a new ad on TV. Typical plinky plonky music. Goes on for about 20 seconds with no hint of what the product is. Finally at the very it turns to be cat food. Alan had assumed it was toilet paper and I thought maybe a feminine hygiene product. Brrrp both wrong. Seriously? Cat food? Neither of us remember which cat food it was but Alan doesn’t want o wipe his a** with it and though I no longer need said hygiene products I certainly would not use that product in that way either.

Waste of advertising money if you ask me. Of course they don’t ask me but you get the gist.
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Back to the Royal Wedding. I can’t wait to see that US made TV movie about William and Kate. It looks so splendidly dreadful! London buses driving on the right side of the road, the couple on a shoot in Gloucester with a Californian mountain range in the background. Neither actor bears even the vaguest resemblance to the couple. It’s a shame the Queen Mother is dead, would have loved to see Nathan Lane cast in that part. But there again he’s much too good an actor and that would spoil it.

So we have no government as of yesterday noon. Can’t say that I have noticed anything. The sun came up this morning. I could still breathe. But there you go.

I worked hard, paid my dues and studied and passed the test to be a citizen of Canada and taking the oath that day was lovely, even though I would rather have pledged allegience to Canada the country and not to some woman who happened to be born into the right family at the right time, I guess you will have guessed I am not a monarchist, not that I wish her ill, I just think the whole system is archaic and ridiculous. But I digress…..

Will I be voting in the next Canadian election? Yes. I will vote for whichever party does the least negative advertising. I going to start making note. I no longer work so I watch TV. Every negative, hateful ad about the opposition will get a negative mark. Any that actually state what they WILL do for us if elected will get a PLUS mark. At the end I will tally them up and regardless of my political views I will vote for the party who states what they actually stand for against the ones who do negative ads. Anyone with me here?