Christmas Day at the Bings

We had a wonderful Christmas yesterday....thank you so so much,  Susan and Chris.  Excellent food and warm fellowship and many laughs and of course dearest Beau was the star of the show.    Many bad photos as usual but at least I manage to make some record...

Maybe the next trend will be bad Christmas photos kind of like ugly Christmas sweaters....we can compete!

 Emily and Richard opening the gift from Don and Elaine.  We feel very blessed to have two such wonderful young people in our lives.

 Richard doing the carving as usual...now a tradition.

 Jim and Tiny in anticipation of the bad Christmas cracker jokes.

 Monique and Susan

 Dear darling Beau.

 Ian, Beau, and Chris.

 In our family,  we always took a photo of the empty table...can't lose that tradition.

 The turkey!

 Emily and Richard  had a lot of fun with Beau and Beau loved them.  Beau started nibbling Richard's ear then headed for the "nether regions" ....typical guy :)

Merry Christmas everyone!

Family memories

My friend, Donna, posted some of her old Christmas family photos on her blog:

http://donnasreport.blogspot.ca/2012/12/family-memories-at-this-time-of-year.html

and mentioned her father's company Christmas party for families and the wonderful presents for the kids.  My Dad worked for B.C. Electric and they had fabulous parties and presents too.  Usually the present was either the best or among the best present I received for Christmas.  Each child received the same gift according to age and gender. There always was some lovely entertainment too...jugglers, musicians, magicians.  It was quite a thrill for families like my family who didn't have very much.  And then there was the big ham that Canada Packers gave all the workers.  My mother was particularly appreciative of that!  Once the union came in,  no more hams.

Those were the days of people burning mainly coal for heat and driving home from this magical evening was almost always in pea soup type fog.  I'm sure my Dad didn't appreciate it but it was all part of the magic for me.

Grannie Cavallin, me, Dad, Craig, Mom.

Richard and Emily bring cheer to the "sick house"

Richard and Emily braved the "sick house" and brought much cheer.  We opened our Christmas presents...wow...a cornucopia of goodies from Richard and Emily...thank you so much!

So glad to have Emily back safe and sound from Indonesia....was a wonderful experience.

Itty Bitty Book Review: "The Paris Wife"

"The Paris Wife" by Paula McLain

I loved this book and would recommend it to anyone.  Told from the point of view of his first wife,  Hadley Richardson, and their days in Paris in the '20's.  I feel like reading Hemingway again and got A Moveable Feast from the library....his memoir about his time in Paris and with Hadley. 

Media outrage at NRA statement

Good on you...American Eagle!

The statement was surreal...it could be a Saturday Night Live sketch.

This might work...

The Italians do know how to do Flash Mobs...

http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=GBaHPND2QJg&feature=youtu.be

The Snug

Jim and I went to The Snug last week and split a fish and chips(very ample for a lunch) and I had the Heather Ale and forget what Jim had.  It was busy so started at the bar which was a good thing since the bartender let us sample all these Saltspring Island beers we weren't familiar with.  Then a table came open so we had the best of both worlds.

I guess I'm on their Facebook page so this little video came through.

http://youtu.be/bep93YOA-QU

The Pieman cometh....

John arrived today in proper Pieman uniform and delivered Fern's wonderful tourtiere and homemade chutney.  Looks delicious as usual....thanks so much, Fern, you know it is always very very appreciated and enjoyed.  John left his hat so now this will become one of our Christmas decoration treasures.

 Fern's pastry is unbelievable,  not to mention the chutney, the tourtiere,...

 Special delivery.

The hat will be part of our Christmas tradition now.

Fern took a better photo of John.

My new Macbook Air

Jim picked up my new Macbook Air yesterday.  I LOVE the way Apple packages things.  It's such a pleasure to open.  Wow...seems as light or lighter than  our generation I iPad.  I think I'll wait for Richard to get it all set up.  Having this wretched cold is bad enough....don't think I can deal with tech hassles as well. 

This is kind of cool packaging too.  Some apple grower in Japan has grown Apple stuff on his apples.

Thanks to my dear friend, Elaine.

I had to cancel our Tuesday swimming and lunch date because I've come down with this miserable cold....haven't had one for ages and had forgotten what it's like.  This is worse than usual...more like a "Jim" cold...but I can't blame him although he often blames me for colds even though I hadn't had one.  He insists I'm a "carrier" like Typhoid Mary.  Ah well...what are wives for?

It really brightened my day when Elaine dropped by with this card.  Before I opened it,  I commented, "I wonder if there is a cat in it?"  Elaine replied, "Now, why would you think that?"  I think Elaine has bought every cat card in the city and has holds on any new ones coming in!

Thank you, dear friend.

 Looks a little like our old Max...

True spirit of Christmas

Since I have my blog I find I don't really use Facebook much for posting but I do enjoy postings from others.

Friends of Bronwen's made this little video which I just loved.

http://youtu.be/2Q-Ti9PSuMU

And Kate posted this at about the same time:

Something to keep in mind during the final week before Christmas, courtesy of an excellent letter to the editor in The Globe and Mail: "The opposite of scarcity isn't abundance - it's enough. Our material possessions add to our happiness when we learn to appreciate what we have; they add to our suffering when we aways want more than we have."

 

Tis the season for mysteries

Two more mysteries by Louise Penny....both very good.  I think now I only have The Murder Stone and her latest in hardback left.  I think I'll give mysteries a bit of a rest....very very intrigued by Hemmingway at the moment since I'm in the middle of The Paris Wife.

In Our Time podcasts with Melvyn Bragg

This is for you radio lovers out there.   I've never really been into listening to the radio in real time but I love the idea of podcasts.  This series is amazing and you can download them and listen at any time.  They run about 45 minutes which is just about right.  Lots of great guests and Bragg is a wonderful moderator.  We listened to a very lively discussion last night called "Sensibility" which focused a lot on "Sense and Sensibility" by Austen.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/iot

What lost is found....

I was really thrilled to come across my bag with our maps in it.  I had given it up for lost in the shuffle.  No big deal to buy another map but lots of sentimental value since these were the maps we used to travel around with.  And thanks to Elaine I have at least local maps of Bandol and Carqueiranne.   When they were with us in France she is the one who had the suggestion of picking up local maps at the tourist bureau.  I suppose I have a few more around somewhere or other for other places but usually we have a guidebook and use that.  They do make great souvenirs and perhaps the ones I have are even more special just because I don't have them from all the places we've been.

 X marks the Hotel Splendid where we always stayed in Bandol.

X on the water marks our apartment on the port where we stayed in 2002 & 2003 and where we hosted Maureen and Roland.
X a little further in marks our wonderful villa where we stayed in 2005 and hosted Don and Elaine and Susan and Alan.

Words fail in such a tragedy

The Adventure of English....Melvin Bragg

 

We just finished watching this fascinating 6 part mini series on the history of the English language.   A number of years ago (mid 80's)  there was a series The Story of English which was also very good but this is higher budget and even better.  Melvin Bragg is always involved in excellent programs.  It is available on YouTube if you have Apple TV and can watch it on your TV and the library has it on DVD.  Really worth a look.

"The Adventure of English is a British television series (ITV) on the history of the English language presented by Melvyn Bragg as well as a companion book, also written by Bragg.
The series and the book are cast as an adventure story, or the biography of English as if it were a living being, covering the history of the language from its modest beginnings around 500 AD as a minor Germanic dialect to its rise as a truly established global language."

http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/adventure-of-english/

Christmas Bookclub at The Penny Farthing

We had a super time at our Christmas Bookclub meeting and Wendy very generously treated us all....thank you, Wendy!  And Wendy had her family provide us with transportation there and back....now that is one hostess.  We did all enjoy the book,  Louise Penny's first mystery novel, "Still Life". 

The most fun ( along with the eating and drinking of course) is the Book Exchange.  It was a very lively exchange with many "steals" but everyone was happy with their book.  I brought the latest Alice Munro (no surprise there....) and ended up with the CBC Massey Lectures by Adam Gopnik called "Winter".  I loved his "Paris to the Moon" about his time with his family living in Paris and look forward to reading "Winter" on wintery days....maybe we'll even get some snow.  I remember in 1996, the year of the big big blizzard I had just begun to read "Snow Falling on Cedars"....very appropriate.

I took some very bad photos but did manage to get everyone more or less.  I must start taking my digital camera with me....the iPhone just doesn't cut it when the light is very bad for photos.  Well,  that my excuse..

 Roberta, Pru, Gretel

 Heather P., Adrienne, Wendy

 The very serious business of ordering...Susan,  Heather K, Roberta, our great server, Wendy

Jean et moi

Christmas Buffet at the University Club

Monique treated us to the Christmas Buffet yesterday....a tradition chez nous!  The Seafood Newburg
and the ham were particularly fantastic and of course the plum pudding with creme anglaise...Monique waits for that all year...

No need for any dinner at all last night and had some wonderful papaya for breakfast today...perfect.

Merci beaucoup, Monique!

 It was impossible to get all the desserts in the photo.

The chef.

This tasted sooo good this morning and ripened to perfection....always a bit tricky to know exactly when to cut it.

Thai Lemongrass in Cadboro Bay

 This restaurant deserves another plug for the food which is excellent.  We went with Patty and Terry last night and thought we'd order exactly what we ordered the first time since it was so good but got enticed by other dishes and so had all new things and loved every morsel.

Our menu last night:

Lemongrass Dressed Prawns
Panaeng Salmon
Spicy Noodles with Prawn
Masmon Lamb Curry
Steamed Rice

Cool fireplace video

Ian sent me this....quite cool.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqbrgA-Z99E

Emily has arrived in Jakarta

Emily and her team are now in Jakarta and will be heading out to the jungle soon where the deforestation areas are.  This is part of the UBC International Reporting Program she's in.   I'm sure she'll have some tales to tell at Christmas!

This will be quite a change from the big modern city below!

Computer dying slowly..

Just to let my readers know that my computer is in the process of crashing so if there is a pause you will know why.  I have one on order at UVic and I probably will be able to post via the  iPad and I can pick up mail easily on my phone so all won't be lost but everything won't be completely up and running until Richard is over at Xmas.

Children's Art

Always brings a smile to my face...

In loving memory