Two days ago while lunching with my sister and her husband in the city (nearby where they live in Ottawa South along the Rideau Canal), we met two women – a mother and daughter – seated at table next to us. Coincidentally the mother was from Smiths Falls and the daughter from the Perth area (both in the County of Lanark where we also live). By further coincidence the daughter’s lawyer was a lawyer whom I had met about 50 years ago when we had both begun practicing law in Lanark County. He and I went skiing together at Mont Tremblant, went to the lounge in the afternoon, dined in the main lodge that evening and stayed overnight before returning to our respective digs in Smiths Falls (where he was from) and Almonte.
If memory serves me, he and I had also assisted the County Court Judge John R. Matheson OC CD QC FRHSC (who helped develop the national flag of Canada) to assembly books in the court house library in Perth. It was there on that miserable Saturday afternoon I recall having serendipitously located for the first time an account in the Dominion Law Reports of a court case in the Federal Court of Canada and subsequently in the Supreme Court of Canada in which I had the distinction of being denominated counsel for West Coast Transmission Co Ltd – a novelty to which (in brief) I was entitled only because at the time, being the most junior lawyer in the Ottawa law firm where I then practiced, I was able to fit into my robes having only lately been called to the Bar at Osgoode Hall. Following is the more pertinent story should you care to enquire.
The mother whom we met was familiar with Jack Kirkland a senior counsel who had also practiced law in Smiths Falls
Today I ventured back into the bowels of the city to return to my sister the container she had used to deliver to us a turkey broth she had made. The broth was absolutely divine! My partner used a portion of it last evening to create a fresh vegetable soup which was the perfect combination. The drive into the city was not something I had planned to do when I left the subterranean garage late this morning; but, when I learned that the car washes at Circle K both in Almonte and in the city (at the 2 additional outlets I checked there) were closed due to the extreme cold weather – and since the snowfall warning was not forecast until later in the afternoon – I called ahead to my sister to ask whether they planned to be home. They were watching tennis on their television. So I went ahead.
The roads were completely dry from the outskirts of the city (whence I had telephoned my sister) and their place. But by the time I reached their place, the sky was becoming clouded with tiny snowflakes; and the grey ceiling looked increasingly forbidding. Accordingly I wasted no time on the delivery, simply returning the container to my brother-in-law after a very brief rally with him in front of their house.
As I had foreseen the snowfall increased. Not long afterwards the dry dark roads were covered by swirls of light snow, mesmerizing the view from behind the wheel. The twisting, spiralling patterns of snow continued until I regained access to the 4-lane highway back to the country by which time the snowfall had gained sufficient momentum to threaten visibility. Nonetheless once back on the channel through the rural farmlands, the journey readapted its customary tranquility and leisure. As much as I value a clean car, I accepted the inutility of a wash today as slush began to form on the roads.
Upon regaining our tiny nest along the river, sheltered from the agitation of the snow, safely regarding my upriver view (and with my coat and silken scarf still on) – and having surmounted the threatened obstruction of the automatic garage door because of the freezing temperatures, I plopped into a comfortable chair in the drawing room and read my email. My goddaughter/niece had sent photos from the farm where she and her co-vivante live in Maxville east of Ottawa. Br-r-r! was the message. My niece is a professional photographer so we always have capital to share – though she has the dignity not to adjudicate my amateur hobbyist productions.
