Well, it's here...

Winter arrived on the weekend blanketing my part of the world in about 4 inches of snow.

There was a time that this first real snowfall would bring tears to my eyes - and not tears of joy either. I used to have to drive at least 250 kms each and every day and white knuckled winter driving that kind of distance slants a fella's perspective on this whole winter thing.

Two things have changed - I no longer need to drive in crappy weather AND I have kids. Having kids is the big thing. They reintroduce you to winter and all the fun things that are just waiting out there for the properly bundled person.









I can now appreciate something like this...










And especially something like this...












Winter's a long old haul...you've gotta make the best of it.

Lest We Forget

This morning I will be travelling to my kids' school at around 10:35 to watch the Remembrance Day Ceremonies. Today my son's class will be performing All You Need is Love before the 2 minutes of silence.


This poster is from the Veteran's Affairs website and I encourage a visit. I am currently working on some background for the main character in my story Old Timer. He served in the Korean War and the website is a wealth of facts about the war but what really interests me are the personal accounts peppered throughout from the soldiers who were there.

On a day like today it does us all good to spend a few minutes reflecting on everything we've got and the price tag attached.

Bonfires, Poetry and Fireworks

A lot has happened since my last posting.

Let's see...

Hallowe'en was a joy as always. It's my favourite holiday and always has been. Unfortunately our street is one of the oldest in town with large spacious lots so the number of steps between houses create a poor distance to candy ratio for the trick and treaters. We got about twenty or twenty five visitors before the older kids started showing up in their teenager costumes.

I submitted a collection of poems - yes, poems - to the CBC Literary awards collected under the title Sign Post Deep in Snow. I've never really been much of a poem writer but I am pleased with wjat I came up with. Now it's wait and see.

During the weekend to family attended a Guy Fawkes celebration a few days late hosted each year by some ex-pat brits we know. There was of course a bonfire and fireworks - our host told me that the fireworks were technically illegal as Victoria Day and Canada Day are the only two days you can lauch fireworks in Canada without a permit (don't know if this is true or not but I'll take the word of the guy with the lighter and mittful of explosives). The location makes the annual bonfire an event to be attended. The house is large and was built for entertaining. It is litterally a stones throw from a small lake (more of a pond really - you can walk around it in ten minutes) with a cleared torchlit path around it. The fireworks were set off over the water so you got the double effect of the reflection. The kids loved it. When we got home we even got a chance to catch a bit of V for Vendetta before retiring to bed.

Currently I am working on finishing Root of Evil - before returning to The Witch.