November
2014
Dear Friends,
We are off at the end of this month to visit Douglas and family in
Oxford, where they seem to be enjoying themselves enormously. Douglas, on sabbatical, may even be getting
some writing done; Candy has transformed the garden of their rented house;
Thomson claims to be enjoying English literature in his A-level school and is
playing field hockey in the men’s league; Molly, who looks very smart in a
school uniform, has survived two detentions in her first week; and Ellen, whose
school is just around the corner, has made a legion of friends.
In mid-December we fly back to Montreal and will spend the next
three weeks there (with Rachel and family) and in Ottawa (with Colin and
family). Time for singing, story-telling, and following, as much as we can, the
pursuits of our other fine grandchildren, including Rowan who, to our delight, has been in first
year science at UBC this fall. Dancing,
skating, karate with Griffin, cross-country skiing with Teagan – such, we hope,
will be our viewing responsibilities. Muriel,
of course, is taking a harp on these visitings, and I my voice. Jolly times are foretold.
A full summer at New Denver with almost all the family and, a
particular highlight, the performance of a much-shortened Midsummer-Night’s Dream. Rachel’s
two, Lily and Alice, have theatre and dance in their blood, as do Molly and
Ellen. They had seen this play in
Vancouver, and arrived in New Denver with enough “thou beists” and Elizabethan
words to require a response. So I
shortened the play to about twenty-five minutes, keeping the rudiments of plot
and Shakespearian words that I thought seven to eleven year olds could
handle. They did, even Alice whose first
language is French and is only beginning to read in English. Imagine four little girls singing this to an
Elizabethan tune composed by my sister:
You spotted
snakes with double tongues,
Thorny hedgehogs,
be not seen;
Newts and
blind-worms, do no wrong,
Come not near our
fairy queen.
Chorus:
Philomel, with
melody
Sing in our sweet
lullaby,
Lulla, lulla,
lullaby, lulla, lulla lullaby;
Never harm,
Nor spell nor
charm,
Come our lovely
lady nigh;
So good night
with lullaby.
And then
Alice, as 2nd fairy, with great zest and without knowing what aloof
or sentinel means.
Hence, away! Now
all is well:
One aloof stand
sentinel.
Theatre does
not get better.
In Vancouver, we are more staid.
Muriel is an enthusiastic and steadily improving Irish harpist. I am writing (or editing) and self publishing
historical booklets on the early Slocan Valley.
I am becoming increasingly grouchy.
I consider the mid-term American elections a global disaster. We have to
do something, and fast, about climate change.
One local bright spot. In
Vancouver municipal elections yesterday, we returned a mayor whose
transportation policies center on walking, biking, and public transit. Here’s to a merry and walking Christmas – and please ignore the
contradiction that we are flying to England!
Cole
P.S. The above handbill from my Harris grandfather, New Denver, 1930s.
