Rich and Nancie in Montreal

Marie and I enjoyed a few days this past weekend with brother Richard and girlfriend Nancie in Montreal. They had driven up for a quick getaway, staying for two nights in the old part of the city at the  Loews Hotel Vogue, a four star hotel on de La Montagne. We visited with Phil and Fer and kids, took the Metro back and forth and spent a lovely evening at Restaurant Le Robin Square, a small, stylishly modern eatery with expensive but tasty comfort food. Thanks for the visit and good times bro!   gws

William and Richard

on the Metro with me and William

Restaurant Robin Square

Thanksgiving Weekend 2018

 

 

This long Thanksgiving weekend was spent in Montreal with Phil and family, following our Elton John concert there a few days earlier. The weather was cooler than usual for October but sunny and these five days away from home gave me an extended period of time to recuperate and let my arm heal. I just had to remind William to try and not rip the stitches off as he is a typical rambunctious four year old who often forgets Grandpapa's booboo! Friday when the grandkids were in school and the parents off to work Marie and I took the Metro downtown to the old port where we wandered about, had lunch at an outside café and visited the Pointe-a-Calliere Archaeology Museum. It was from here on this spot it is believed the city actually started and grew from this point out. The "Queens of Egypt (Reines d'Égypte)" exposition was showing, a very impressive collection of 3500 year old artifacts that included delicate jewelry pieces, life sized statues, frescos, sarcophagi, a mummy, and funerary objects related to such legendary queens as Nefertari, Nefertiti,and Hatsheput. I especially was impressed by the dozen painted coffins, beautifully rendered and after thousands of years just as colorful as they were during the ancient Egyptian Empire. Afterwards we decided to take out a years membership so we could take advantage of upcoming exhibitions.

Marie and Maisonneuve, founder of Montréal

 

Italian cruise ship Aida in the old port



Ramasses II, seated between Amun, the Sun god, and his wife, Mut



Harem overseer Karat, 18th Dynasty, reign of Amenhoptet II (1425-1400 BCE)

Amy, Fer and William

Ben checking out his favorite canine dating site on Amy's tablet

Amy checking out her favorite music videos

best buds

fun on the local soccer pitch



checking out a local wall artist on St. Jacques

Phil admiring his 7 hour smoked turkey

Thanksgiving dinner was delicious and we ended up bringing the turkey carcass home to make soup. Thanks Phil and Fernanda for a great weekend. But before leaving the city I had my stitches removed at the Queen Elizabeth Health Centre in Montreal (after a wait of three hours) but the nurses were friendly and gentle so I didn't complain! A few days after returning home we had to drive the truck back to Thetford Mines where we had left our camper a few weeks before for repairs to an ongoing leak in the roof. It is a nice drive up past Lac Aylmer, past orchards and grazing dairy cows, then through Disraeli where we had bought Ben as a puppy two years ago. It was a beautiful day, hot and almost summerish there. Thetford Mines is well known for the discovery and mining of asbestos in 1876 - the city grew rapidly as the mines expanded and attracted people from all over. Although we hear about the health hazards associated with this "white gold" (L'or blanc as they like to say here) and demand has fallen, both the underground and open-face mines visible as you drive into the city are still in operation. But we almost didn't make it the RV dealer as the right front brake caliper broke on the way there. (Marie was driving and noticed the truck kept pulling to the right soon after we left home and when we stopped in Thetford I could see the rim was black with brake dust from the crumbling brake pads). We were lucky enough to make it to the local Ford dealer and have both front brakes and calipers replaced. When we finally arrived much later at the RV people (VR Thetford) we discovered that they hadn't done as good a job as we had hoped. Although they had replaced the Styrofoam insulation and the ceiling panels the caulking job was very sloppy and unprofessional. You could even see the screw heads that were supposed to have been covered and to complete their poor job they decided to crack the plastic frame around the fan and the table insert on the floor. Grrr. We are keeping our fingers crossed no more water will find its way in, planning to cover the camper for the winter and check it again in the spring. As I've always said if you want a job done right you've got to do it yourself...   gws

back home, middle of October

Cycling and walking path, Thetford Mines, Québec.

Elton John - Goodbye Yellow Brick Road

 The Goodbye Yellow Brick Road tour, kicked off in the USA on September 8th, an amazing 4 year, 300 show tour across five continents ( cities in North America, Europe and the Middle East, Asia, South America and Australasia). When we heard Elton was coming to Montréal we got our floor tickets early and eagerly awaited the big day, Thursday, October 4th at the Bell Centre. Leaving from Phil's place that evening we decided for the first time to eat at the 1909 Taverne Moderne at the Centre. I was impressed with the meal, the Guiness and the 46x20 foot main screen! It was a short  two minute walk through the bar to the rapidly filling arena and we had a chance to take a picture in front of the piano before the show started. Our seats were about 15 rows back on the stage floor so we had a great vantage point to see the show and precisely at 8PM the lights dimmed and the first notes of Bennie and the Jets filled the place...




  The farewell by one of the greatest artists in history, born Reginald Dwight, could have been just another rehash of his 70s and 80s monster hits heard on every pop radio station in the world, but fortunately the presentation, the choice of songs and their rearrangements, the big screen visuals and the fantastic band made this a totally unforgettable experience for Marie and I and the other 18,000 fans jammed into the Bell Centre. Elton John's vocals were at their peak and with original band members Nigel Olsson on drums, Ray Cooper on percussion and Davey Johnstone on guitar it was like a 1973 double album cover come to life. When you have had a career like 71-year old Captain Fantastic has had though you can do no wrong. His songs are so popular they are embedded in our culture and to think we are hearing them live for the last time made it all the more memorable. Starting off with that foot stomping "Bennie and the Jets" the crowd was on its feet and really never sat down, except for a few minutes during the slower songs. The next piece was absolutely mesmerizing - "Love Lies Bleeding/Funeral For a Friend" actually sounded better than did it over four decades ago. "I Guess That's Why They Call it the Blues", "Sad Songs Say So Much"", "Crocodile Rock", "The Bitch is Back", "Philadelphia Freedom", "Candle in the Wind" (the tribute to Marilyn Monroe version), "Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting", "Believe" and "Border Song" all followed, accompanied by wonderful video and still pictures behind the band on a huge screen. Elton also performed his first major hit "Your Song", the one I heard him sing on the radio in 1970 that made me buy the album I still have, as well as the non-hits "All the Girls Love Alice", "Take Me to the Pilot" and "Burn Down the Mission".

 

 

"Indian Sunset" from the 1971 album 'Madman Across the Water' was a magnificent ode to an unnamed American Indian warrior on the verge of defeat from the white man, the lyrics. as most of Eltons songs are, by his long-time songwriting partner Bernie Taupin : "Now there seems no reason why I should carry on, In this land that once was my land I can't find a home, Its lonely and its quiet and the horse soldiers are coming, And I think its time I strung my bow and ceased my senseless running, For soon I'll find the yellow moon along with my loved ones, Where the buffalo graze in clover fields without the sound of guns, And the red sun sinks at last into the hills of gold, And peace to this young warrior comes with a bullet hole."


"Tiny Dancer" and "Levon" (my favorite performance of the night as the band jammed it for at least ten minutes, except for perhaps "Someone Saved My Life Tonight") had everyone singing and swaying along. And in case you were wondering... he did do "Rocket Man" and ended suitably with 1973's "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road". A memorable experience for sure and worth the price of admission to see one of the most successful pop stars of all time (#3 behind only Elvis and thBeatleses). As the song says (Levon) Elton likes his money. He makes a lot they say...Sir John's charitable work should certainly benefit from this tour, particularly his support of AIDS awareness and research. We left the concert amazed that at 71 Elton John could sing for three straight hours and sound as good as someone half his age. And he still had 293 shows to go!...Wow. Next concert for us will be Fleetwood Mac in Tampa in February!  gws

Fall. Literally.

 September on the mountain is probably the nicest time of year and this one was as nice as it gets. Except for an unexpected wind storm, a painful "fall" and the loss of my Dad after a gradual decline (I will be doing a tribute entry for him soon) we passed through the month as busy as we ever are in that time between the end of summer and thoughts of what needs to be done before the inevitable cold weather in October. I finally decided to try out the propane smoker that was stored the past two years and was very happy with the first result, not so much with the second. Marie had bought two large trout fillets which would be our trial run. They smoked well and turned out perfect, tasty and firm. A few days later we smoked a medium sized pork ribs - unfortunately they were over done and rather dry, although after talking to Phil he thinks I took them out too soon. I will probably try chicken next. We had a cool period during the middle of the month and put the propane stove on in the basement for the first time since last spring just to get the chill out of the house. We haven't yet put on the radiant floor heating for the season as the sun warms up the house nicely still...

A slight hint of colour in the foliage, early September

 

Thankfully it warmed up considerably the week of the 16th to the 20th but during that time we had a freak wind storm overnight, probably the highest winds we have seen since we've been here and the next morning we were greeted by the sight of part of one of the two big maple trees in the front of the house blocking the entranceway and falling across my woodpile. I decided a few days later to remove both trees and with the help of Benoit Vallence cut the top half of the remaining one, the one I thought would have fallen long ago as it was obviously rotten. The next day, with the help of Marie pulling on a rope to ensure it would fall away from the house I felled the each of the remaining two sections, then cut them up to dry. It was amazing the light that now came through where the two trees once stood. This added sunshine will greatly help where I installed the two solar panels on that side of the house last year.

 

I had just piled up the wood!

  

timber!

A much deserved beer

Let there be light!

This was a two day job and after I had finished around suppertime of the second day, exhausted and ready to pack it in I foolishly decided to install a motion detector light on another tree by the drive, using an aluminum ladder. The ground was sloped, the force of my drilling into the tree just enough to twist the frame and we all tumbled down. I fell with my weight across the frame of the ladder and the result you can see below. I cut it deep enough to expose the muscles and tendons so Marie rushed me to the hospital emergency room in Magentic, half an hour away, where they saw me immediately, cleaned it out, sewed me up with 11 stitches and sent me home. It could have been worse - I missed the blood vessels and didn't break anything, but I was out of commission for a few weeks. Time then to relax and watch the colours of fall spread across the hills, go for walks to the lake and back and take time to vote in the provincial elections. The Coalition Avenir Québec, a centre-right party won, handily and surprisingly defeating the Liberal Party to become the first party other than the Liberals or the separatist Parti Québécois to govern us in nearly 50 years. Bonne chance Francois Legault!   gws

 

 

 

 

in a few short weeks, summer to fall