As a sixth generation Canadian and a descendant of the United Empire Loyalists (originally from Yorkshire, England) I delight in making claim to a pedigree founded on both British and American roots.

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The elves were having an awful time of it! The conveyor belt carrying the Teddy bears, model cars, train sets, smart phones, dolls, doll houses and wind-up toys had jammed no less than three times already this morning and it was only ten o’clock! Now it jammed again. This, of all things, at the busiest time of the year! There remained only days before Christmas Eve, even fewer because they couldn’t really count Christmas Eve itself. Everything had to be packed and onto Santa’s shiny crimson sleigh no later than noon on Christmas Eve if he were to make his worldwide rounds in time. To complicate matters further Santa had lately put on a bit of weight which was having the disadvantage of stealing precious moments in his descent down the chimneys (except of course those in which slick metal liners had been installed although they sometimes propelled Santa with near disastrous results). Continue reading →

Everyone’s talking about the weather!  It has been fabulous! For the past month we’ve had an unmitigated run of yellow sunshine, blue skies and warm temps!  It’s the summer we never had.  I believe next week we’re headed for stormy skies and lower temperatures but we’ve certainly had nothing to complain about lately.  Frankly I adore a lovely autumn day.  The air is clearer and drier than in the summer.  And if I can get away with wearing a light sweater that’s a plus too (which if you care to know is not strictly a fashion choice but rather a lamentable accommodation of my protuberant belly). Continue reading →

Stand back, Columbus!  Settle down, John Glenn!  After weeks of failed attempts to log in to the back end of this web site I have at last discovered the key.  Which is hardly a secret since I only did what GoogleⓇ told me to do in the first place.  But I’m still taking some of the credit because as with any other fortuity the collision of time and place has proven once again to be essential to its evolution.  The truth be told, I only stumbled upon the way to do it. But isn’t that how so many of even the greatest discoveries unfold? Continue reading →

As fortune would have it I am currently reading a very odd book recommended to me by an exceedingly erudite ancient friend who has a string of degrees after his name from some of the world’s renowned universities. While his professional occupation is that of a litigation lawyer he is exceptionally well-read and excels in matters literary of every description (as well as being a published author on some very narrow points of law). His literary curiosity is however vast. More than once he has steered me to scintillating manuscripts which, like the one I am reading now, go back a very long way.  The book at hand is Marcus Aurelius’ “The Meditations” translated by George Long. Continue reading →

Today is Sunday. For some reason this afternoon as I drove home from visiting my elderly mother at her retirement residence (or what she prefers to call the “Nut House”) the traffic on Baseline Road from Carleton University to Bells Corners was bumper-to-bumper, utterly clogged in syrup.  It went on for miles. At first I thought it might have been the Sunday shoppers flooding the malls along the way.  Then I imagined people jamming the highways to get to the Palladium in Kanata where normally there are events like NHL hockey games and rock concerts. By the time I reached Terry Fox Drive (which essentially separates Kanata from Stittsville) the traffic had abated but I still had no inkling of the reason for either the swell or the dip. It had taken me at least an hour to cover about fifteen kilometres at the most. Continue reading →

Although I aim to steer myself upon smooth roads inevitably I happen upon the grit and gravel of consternation. It’s rather like taking a summer drive in the country hoping not to encounter road construction. I suppose there are some for whom the recurring disturbance of life is not an unbalancing condition – though I can’t imagine why it would be desirable. Perhaps because the alternative of stability and assuredness suffers the perceived want of novelty or dynamism. Some people are born dare-devils and risk-takers. My preference is far less robust; I am not by any stretch an Indiana Jones model. Instead I’ve always opted for a controlled environment (though I hasten to add one based on reason not blind submission or unqualified behaviour). Continue reading →

One naturally becomes introspective about being Canadian on July 1st, Canada Day (or what in my memory was once called “Dominion Day”). The holiday was renamed Canada Day by Act of Parliament on October 27th, 1982, sidelining the name of the holiday commemorating the formation of Canada as a colonial territory of England on July 1st, 1867. Continue reading →

Seemingly it is part of my cognitive blueprint to crave an historical account. Yesterday afternoon on a warm summer day my inner yearning was appeased by a lengthy conversation with local personage John Hawley Kerry while sitting on the veranda of his sprawling Elgin Street residence in the Town of Almonte. Our fortuitous conference was entirely extemporaneous. Initially my intention was to return to him two plastic key chains which he (as our Landlord) had provided three years ago when we rented a condominium apartment from him and his wife Donna Nield-Kerry. We subsequently purchased smaller versions of the chains suitable to our needs. Though this was the nominal mission the real purpose was to share with him my new Lincoln Continental automobile. John and I are shameless car buffs. Continue reading →