Useful Peoples' Party

                                                                                                                          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 2^nd 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.