On getting to Quebec City and what was done there

I was correct about the B and B having been built in the time of Nouvelle-France. The building dated from approximately 1660. Breakfast involved a dish apparently called a Dutch baby akin to a large Yorkshire pudding with huloumi cheese and strawberries.

LeLoup, the owners’ Bernese mountain dog, looked on through a glass door. Désirée and Dominique spent a certain amount of time with him, even taking him for walk. This was good as Désirée has expressed a desire for a dog of that breed. Her parents had been having trouble explaining to her the concept that the breed was too much dog. The friendly but insufficiently trained LeLoup helped illustrate the issue to my niece.

We set off on a side road down by the river then climbed slightly to a road which had been the Main Street of Neuville before the advent of Highway 138. There we paused to admire a church which had become the local library. Unfortunately, some of us had longer to admire it and mural than we might of wished as Pappy had a flat tire, cause undetermined.

It being a sunny Saturday, there were a great many spandex cyclists on “whee” bikes out of Quebec City. It amazed Dominique to see some of them stop at a dep to buy a Coke and a Jos Louis. I wasn’t brave enough to tell her that I sometimes did the same.

There had been the idea that the modus operandi of the day would be to go from farm stand to local bakery in order the stretch the day out. There were two flaws in this plan. The first was that so near to a city, such stands grow fewer in number. The next was that the Route Verte/Chemin du Roi left highway 138 relatively early placing us on a nice back road which definitely didn’t have enough traffic to support road side stands.

We stopped at small to walk down to the River, then we were faced with a steep climb which everyone walked up.

We rode through some neighbourhoods populated by people with more money than architectural taste. One house was an exercise in fairytale medieval turrets and towers.

We arrived at Cap-Rouge where we found lunch in the form of a basic casse-croute, the better sit-down restaurant next door being too much trouble for the APU, i.e. he would have to wait in a mask for a minute to be seated. This brought me into conflict with his Nibs and an uptight woman who thought I was too close to her as I tried to park my bike. We were under a high iron railway trestle which Désirée thought ugly but which struck others as soaring.

After lunch, we had a long hill to face. Dominique and your correspondent made it up without pushing. We rode on until the Plains of Abraham and the Musée des Beaux Arts (as opposed to the Musée des Laids Arts) where we hung a left and soon found our air B and B.

It is a trifle eccentric, with two floors, street level and below with both bathrooms on the lower level. We settled in, showered and waited for Fil to arrive with the car and sundry items including food, notably supper.

This morning Dominique and I went to a nearby laundromat cum bubble tea joint in order to do our laundry. The bubble tea part of the operation didn’t open until noon. Afterwards, I cleaned Leonardo’s chain.

I then set off to my cousin Marianne’s house. Luckily, she was there and very willing to play hostess to a cousin arriving out of the blue. We chatted, me in her pool. Her sons,Liam and Nathan, arrived back from having taken the new puppy for a walk. “Toffee” is the pup’s name, chosen as an amalgam of “tough” and “happy” and as a reference to the light brown in his white and brown coat. They have had him for two weeks. It was fun to see a Brittany Spaniel again (Granny and Gandpa having had them). It was also a little sobering though as the last (and indeed only) Brittany Spaniel puppy I remember was Meg. She was born the same summer as my sister! Toffee is still a young puppy learning and playing. He was chosen for his boldness and sociability from his litter mates.

Afterwards, I visited the Plains of Abraham Museum which covered not only the Battle and related topics but also the history of the Abraham Battlefield Park. I was surprised to learn how recent (1908) the decision to make the park was and just how long it took to finish it (something like fifty years). Among the buildings demolished to make way for the park was Canada’s first observatory and the Ross armaments factory. The latter was an obvious thing to remove given the infamous reputation of the Ross rifle.

I proceeded to the Old Upper Town. I was thinking about lunch and was consulting my guidebook as to where it began to pour. Nuts to the guidebook, let’s go indoors. Thankfully, it proved decent enough. It had a large screen TV tuned to the CBC which was broadcasting King Lear. The sound was off but there were subtitles in English. After lunch, the rain subsided long enough to lure me down the the Quebec naval museum which was closed on account of Covid-19. In the process, I discovered my rear brake wasn’t up to scratch. I tried adjusting it with little success. A Google search of open bike shops led me on a wild goose chase to the Lower City and away from where I should have gone at the word “go”, viz MEC. Unfortunately, the latter is no longer where it was the last time I was in Quebec City, very close to where I was, and instead is now well removed from downtown. I set off in the thickening rain before noticing that it was getting a bit late for a visit to MEC on a Sunday afternoon. So tomorrow, I will go there after the Frida Kahlo exposition.

When I got back to the air B and B and drying off, Mummy informed me that Désirée had visited a number of book stores and that at one used bookstore, she had been so frustrated at the lack of organization in the children’s section that she had reorganized it herself. The owner gave her a book in gratitude. She’s got librarian in her genes. ;-)

On a short, slow day

After three vaguely long days and the fact there wasn’t an obvious alternative, I opted to bike with the rest of the group. I wish I had been more involved with the planning as I was concerned about Désirée who seemed both tired and a bit bored. This trip features a fair number of quaint villages and historic churches, but I don’t think is what you are really interested in when you are 12. Furthermore, there hadn’t been enough stops (as in any) for ice cream the day before. I had gone through several tourism pamphlets where I had found a salmon migration observatory which I believed would interest her. Regrettably, I only discovered it was closed after going down a long hill.

It was a short slow day. Humid and warm, but not hot. Climbing up out of Cap Santé, there was a sign forbidding “soufflage” or blowing. I took a photo and mock umbrage at the municipality for such a silly sign. What do did they expect cyclists to do going up the hill, hold their breath?! ;-)

In fact the sign was aimed at snow clearance vehicle drivers warning them not to blow snow off the road and onto the roofs of the houses below. I am still entitled to take mock umbrage.

Unless I am very much mistaken, tonight’s B and B was built in the days of Nouvelle-France. Unfortunately, this means beams at treacherous heights.

We are getting uncomfortably close to Quebec City. We have already passed one municipality which was definitely a suburb and several that likely are. The types of shops aren’t quite the rural ones desired by some in the party and the only ice cream place I saw today was at the wrong time for Désirée.

On some surprising luck and humour

By some improbable luck, both yesterday and today saw me arriving at nearly the same time as the others at our bed and breakfasts, despite different routes and yesterday, conveyances. Today, I arrive at the Auberge le Chemin du Roi something like a fifteen or twenty minutes after Mummy, Pappy, Dominique and Désirée, having taken a significantly longer and more arduous route from Trois-Rivières. The previous day, I arrived at the B and B about three minutes before they arrived from North Hatley by car along with Fil. You cannot plan on such timing.

Yesterday, after a brief visit to the Gilles-Villeneuve Museum, I rolled out of Berthierville, stopping to visit the Chapelle Cuthbert, billed as the oldest Protestant place of worship in Quebec, having been consecrated in 1786, if I recall correctly. This claim strikes me as a bit dubious as surely there would have been other Protestant churches built in Montreal or Quebec City before then! Especially given that one of the “intolerable” acts that led to the American Revolution was the toleration of Catholics which implies that being Protestant in was acceptable. It was also interesting that the chapel was in fact a Presbyterian place of worship dedicated to Saint-Andrew. The name Cuthbert was attached to as the family who built it were the Cuthberts.

That was about it as far as interesting things until Trois-Rivières. The countryside was agricultural Quebec, dotted with farms and rural garages. I did notice a truck delivering Radnor spring water decorated with a scene of misty mountains.

Getting close to downtown, I was faced with a triple railway crossing. I wondered to myself if all three were actually used. When I crossed them, I saw that they led directly into a paper mill and all three bays had lumber cars in them! I appreciate well-used railways.

At the B and B, it was strange as it was the first time I had seen that part of the family since January. Funnily enough, it was Fil who looked the strangest to me as he had shaved his beard a few days earlier and was now at the stubble stage. We went the Borealis Museum which was largely concerned with paper making and log driving. Both of these activities were important to the City. The videos about log driving suffered from a disconnect as there were many scenes of manly log driving shot in the fifties and some modern interviews with log drivers who were put out of work when log driving came to an end in 1995. There was too much “pastoral” nonsense about how happy the men were to be outdoors (in all weathers) and what nonsense it was to stop the log drives because it was bad for the environment and prevented yachts from safely using the rivers. There was no rebuttal to this. Nor did they show of how log drives had worked in the 1990s, as if they were the same as in the 1950s, I would be extraordinarily surprised.

We had tapas for supper overlooking the Saint-Lawrence. Then Fil drove back to North Hatley.

We set off together this morning. I soon left the party in order to track down a bicycle bell, having managed to forget to reinstall one before leaving. I then left the Greater Trois-Rivières area on a bike path which took on a road through a suburban development whose streets had been laid by some with a wicked sense of humour. I was climbing a hill when what appeared to be a single street crossed the road I was on. “Appeared” being the operative word. One the right hand side, the street was Place Pierre-Eliott-Trudeau, on the left, Place René-Lévesque!!!

I eventually left the suburbs behind and rolled along a flat country road with farms, fields and woods on either side. Then, I came to a sign for the Radnor bottle plant which bore no ressemblance to the advertising image!

My target was the Batiscan River Park. I had worked out it would make an interesting diversion from the 138 as well as being a challenge. It wasn’t quite as interesting as I thought, as I only saw a couple of rapids. However, it was a nice change and challenge to ride. While I was in the park, it sprinkled a bit. In addition, I heard some thunder and saw a lightning bolt, but that was it. However, the others only a few kms to the South took refuge from a deluge in the church they had been visiting. Luckily for them, Désirée had wanted to visit the crypt which meant that they were inside when it started to pour.

As I approached the Saint-Lawrence on the shore of the Batiscan River, I was surprised by the layout of a train bridge as the middle section had been built with a pivot to allow fairly tall ships to go up river. I suspect they were “goélettes”, the late form of merchant “schooners” far removed from the Bluenose and closer to the St-Roch.

Nearing Ste-Anne-de-la-Pérode, I noticed the Chenil du Chasseur. This was of interest as my cousin Marianne, who lives in Quebec City, had recently bought a Brittany Spaniel there! I am hoping I will get to see Marianne and her gang (including the Brittany Spaniel).

After a raspberry milkshake, it was a good mostly flat ride to the Auberge where Désirée spotted me rolling up the driveway.

On being too stubborn to come out of the rain

Mark and I took Kerry, Maria and Anna to Raccoons this morning. Kerry continued her campaign to reduce me to a nervous wreck by quietly toddling out into the hall and into the girls' bathroom while no one was looking. ;-)

The weather is very mild and it was almost sunny when we walked home. This lured me into going for a walk after lunch. It was sprinkling lightly as I left but I assumed it would let up. About two hours later, I returned rather wet having been too stupid and/or stubborn to turn back earlier.

Anna commented rather directly on my dampness when I came in like a drowned rat. Mad dogs and Englishmen.

I have noticed that the Canadian is the cause of a certain amount of anxiety for me on this trip as I am dependent on Alice and Mark for transport to and from the minimal station which is problematic given the poor predictability of the train.

On a grey day in Clearwater

The weather in Clearwater has been grey, warm and wet. Thus most of our activities have been indoors. Today, Mark took the girls and I to Raccoons which is related to BC's StrongStart program. It took place in the local elementary school a little way down the road. It covered a fairly wide range of ages from babies only a few months old to Anna who will be five in a couple of months. One baby called Richard could crawl very quickly even though his technique was seal-like. He seemed quite happy.

Later, Kerry gave me quite a scare. We had gone next door to the gym. I was chatting with a dad when I caught sight of Kerry who had climb up a series of poles attached to the wall until her head was above mine. While there was padding on the floor at the base of the ladder, it didn't look enough to cushion a fall from her height. She seemed happy but I didn't know how long that would last. More importantly, I didn't know if she could get down safely. I rushed over and hovered until she happily climbed down of her own accord. I made a point of keeping a closer watch on her afterwards.

(Alice later told me that Kerry had climbed up there before. Alice had taken her down out of concern. However, my sister was relieved to know that Kerry can get down by herself.)

When I got back to the house, I discovered that Via Rail wanted to know how I found my experience on the Train. I filled out the online questionnaire as best I could as a few of the questions were tricky to answer. One of them was "What was the principal reason for your trip?" The problem was that the available options included both "visiting relatives/friends" and "vacation/leisure" but you could only choose one option. As well, after I finished the  survey, I wasn't sure if I had remembered my trip to Vancouver  tomorrow during the anticipated future travel section.

On skates, Anna, Maria and Kerry!!!

I got to Clearwater around 11 PM where Alice was waiting having been given a fifteen minute warning.

This morning, Alice, the girls and I took a very local bus to the skating rink. We all borrowed skates. Each with her or his level of skill set out on the ice, the girls with the help of three sided plastic stands and the close assistance of Alice in Kerry's case. I had wondered about at Kerry skating but I assumed that this was routine for Alice and therefore said nothing. Kerry seemed happy through her concentrated face. It was only afterwards that I found out it was Kerry's first skate! I felt privileged to have witnessed the event and glad to have caught it on camera.

On winter biking, more thoughts

On Thursday, I was meeting with a financial advisor when after noticing my helmet, he commented that it was apparently about to snow on the morrow. I hadn't been aware of any such forecast, so I said I would check the Environment Canada weather site when I got home. It turned out that the snow in the forecast was for Friday night or Saturday morning so I could cheerfully ignore it. In the event, there wasn't any snow to speak of.

As my readers may remember, my oft stated philosophy regarding winter biking is: "I am a devout, not a fanatical cyclist," meaning that I don't ride during the winter, the winter being defined when there is snow on the ground. I just think that winter cycling isn't worth the effort.  I am at neither of the extremes of this CBC article entitled "Winter cycling: a good idea or flat-out insane?" That hasn't stopped me from offering practical advice (i.e. other than "don't do it") to a colleague who is thinking of continuing to cycle-commute this winter. 

Of course, this makes me look like a wimp compared to Anna, as can be seen from this picture Mummy posted! ;-)  Actually, the snow hadn't started falling when they set out on their expedition. Anna seems happy to ride in the snow. Maria seems happy on her scooter. I can only hope that Alice and Mummy weren't too concerned about the conditions!

On my next trip to visit nieces

I have just booked my second trip on the Canadian, namely a ride to Clearwater in February to see Kerry, Maria, Anna, Alice and Mark. I have also booked my third trip on the Canadian, namely Clearwater to Vancouver. In Vancouver, I hope to see a variety of relatives.

On a new cyclist

Alice has posted on Facebook that my niece Anna has learned to pedal!  Way to go Anna!

On nieces, David Attenborough and lizards I have seen

Due to my brother-in-law Mark's love of David Attenborough nature documentaries, my youngest nieces have a distinct affection for "Aboa's" (i.e. said documentaries on DVD) before bedtime. This in turn has led me to watch more of them than I might have to the point that I went out and bought the "Life in cold blood" series on DVD. The thing about most of the species in these series is that they are usually some incredibly rare species that I am never going to see outside of a museum or which live in some impossibly remote corner of the world. Not "ordinary" places such as Montreal or Sioux Lookout or Broken Hill, NSW...

...or not as the case may be.  It turns out that one of the episodes spent a fair bit of time on a lizard species that I have seen in the wild near Broken Hill, NSW.  On the day I rode out to Silverton from Broken Hill, I wrote about seeing a large-ish scaly lizard that I believed was a Tiliqua rugosa asper. This self same lizard species was the one that David Attenborough found so amazing that he devoted to it both a significant portion of one episode on as well as most of the "making-of" segment.  It turns out that these lizards are really quite remarkable. They are more or less monogamous. They are also viviparous, producing 1-4 young which can add up to about a third of mother's body weight which must be bloody hard on the poor females. No word on whether the male helps out by seeking out any particular dainty that the female might wish. ;-)

The thing is, after decades of watching nature documentaries, this was the first time that I had seen the animal in the flesh and in the wild before I had seen the documentary and it wasn't an animal that was, well, "boring", such as seagulls, white-tailed deer, skunks, squirrels,  raccoons, or moose.  You know, "ordinary" animals. Of course, I am saying this from a North American perspective. Doubtless, an Aussie or a Kiwi might think a skunk or a raccoons would be quite exotic, the same way that that Geoff, a Kiwi acquaintance, once asked me what it was like to live in a country with a land border!

(I.e. something that is hard to define.  My response was that it can demonstrate how the landscape you see is partially a human construct as when you cross the border from Quebec into Vermont the land looks very different (and I am not just talking about the roads.) )

On a previous entry, an update

In a previous post, I had stated that Maria's appearance resembled mine at similar age, and "quoted" a photograph from memory. While I was in North Hatley celebrating Désirée's and my Pappy's birthday, I consulted ye olde family photograph album and scanned the relevant image.

 While I was wrong as to the colour of my pyjamas, I was correct in my overall assement of a family ressemblance. It turns out, I was about 18 months old at the time. While I am perhaps a tad slimmer as to skull than Maria, we are chips off the same block.

When I brought the top photograph to my father attention, he inadvertantly insulted me by asking who it was in the picture! I found this particularly insulting as the picture to the left of it showed my elder brothers also in pyjamas playing with the train tracks. As you can see below, they had distinctly darker hair and lesser amounts of baby fat.

Incidentally, I am now wondering if those train tracks weren't in fact an early version of Thomas the Tank Engine toys as I now recall the engines had faces.

On nieces in cold places, Part 2

I guess it is something you do when dealing with toddlers in cold climates, but Alice surprised me the other day when, after strapping Anna and Maria into their car seats, she scooped up some clean snow (something that is in abundance 'round these parts) and made a couple of snowballs. She then gave them to Anna and Maria to play with in the car! They seemed to enjoy the "toys". Hardy folk my nieces.

Actually, Anna seems crazily hardy as she is very reluctant to put on clothes, spending a lot of time around in the house in only a nappy, much to my disbelief! I get cold just looking at her. Alice commented that maybe they were keeping the house too warm!

The weather has been a mix of sun, cloud and snow, some of it blowing. I have been skiing on some borrowed, wax-less skis at the Cedar Bay Recreation facility twice. Despite my family's prejudice against wax-less skis, they worked well enough for the well-groomed, gentle trails. When I finished skiing today, it was about -15 or so. When I took off my Gore-Tex jacket, I was surprised to see there was frost on the inside!

While skiing, I kept reflecting on Jackrabbit Johannsen who is said to have been given his sobriquet by the Cree whilst skiing in the woods of the Canadian Shield while working for one of the precursor railroads of Canadian National who in turn run the train line through Sioux Lookout. Hence, there is a connection.

 The parking lot at the Cedar Bay facility also has a stable which houses riding and draft horses that are somehow part of the community recreational facility. (I don't know the details, and it doesn't matter.)  The upshot of all this is that there are a number of horses outside some of the time. (Alice or Mark has since informed me that they are outside all the time.) These include a pair of "grey" draft horses and 9 month old mule! I know the latter as I suspected that the latter animal wasn't entirely a horse, so I sought confirmation from a woman who was leading a horse into the stable and therefore seemed likely to know the answer.

It is supposed to be below -30 for the next two nights so I have plugged in the block heater on my rented car. I am slightly worried that the plug I have used may not be actually turned on, but I shall see what the situation is tomorrow. It is rather important that the car start on Friday morning, as I have to drive to Thunder Bay in time to catch my plane back to Montreal!

 The relationship between Anna and Maria is that of siblings, i.e., they both agree and disagree about many subjects, sometimes simultaneously! Maria spends a lot of time observing and imitating her big sister, sometimes to the latter's chagrin. As someone who had a little sister, I can testify they can be a pain at times! ;-)

I feel Maria is in something of a grumpy or at least irritable phase. There has been a lot of squalls coming from her, which given her cuteness are somewhat heartrending. On the other hand, she does bestow her smiles quite readily. There is one that rather reminds me of one captured in a photo of me around the time we got the train tracks (think Thomas the Tank Engine, only in cheap plastic). I think I was older (2 or 3) but I was wearing footy pajamas (yellow if memory serves) and I was holding a pot.  More importantly, I was grinning ear-to-ear.

Anna is, well, Anna. She is living in her world and quite determined to make it everyone's world. She has a strong personality matched with a very good imagination. If Maria has a smile evoking mine at a young age, Anna reminds me of my brother Philip's self-determination.

On nieces in cold places, Part 1

For my professed love of winter as a proud Canadian, I live in a balmy part of the country. Montreal is pretty far South for Canada all things concerned. Thus, when I rented a car in Thunder Bay yesterday, I was taken aback when I saw there was an extension cord in back beside a snowbrush.  A quick look at the front of the car revealed the presence of a block heater!

I was on my way to Sioux Lookout to visit Alice, Mark, Anna and Maria also referred to as "Mia". I had flown in on Porter Airlines, which required a change at Toronto's Billy Bishop/Island Airport. This is slightly disconcerting as arrival involves flying very close to downtown Toronto. Next to the runway was a deHavilland Dash 7 in United Nations colours! Apparently, the Rob Ford saga has attracted the need for Peace Keepers! ;-)  Actually, there were two other Dash 7s were parked across the runway so I suspect that there is a company that operates them out of the airport.  The Western end of the runway extended into Lake Ontario where the strong Westerly wind was sending the waves crashing into in the rocks and up to ten feet up into the air.

When it came time to leave, my plane was pushed back by an electric tug, along with three other planes. I was assuming that my plane would follow the others East along the taxiway, before taking off into the Westerly wind. However, for some odd reason, we taxied to the Western end of the island where we waited for a few minutes, before taxiing to the Eastern end for take off. The only theory I have as to why, is that a fairly large orange helicopter needed to take off. It was marked "ORNGE", and was evidently a medical evacuation helicopter. I thought "ORNGE" was an acronym, but according to Wikipedia, the name of the company is simple "Ornge" as in "Orange" without the "a". This was done mostly for trademark reasons!

Thunder Bay is located in quite a dramatic location with several mesa-like hills near the airport. The snow and the trees made sedimentary layers very obvious.
After getting the keys from the rental company, I phoned my sister to discuss road conditions and her take on the weather. Sioux Lookout is more than four hours by car from Thunder Bay. We agreed that the conditions were good enough.  While, there was little weather to for me to deal with. However, I wish I had brought a yellow lens for my sunglasses as there was sun through thin low clouds. I was disconcerted to see about four or five transport trucks that had run off the road, including one that had ended up completely off the Trans-Canada even though it was perpendicular to the highway! It was also on its side.

It was disconcerting to see signs advertising hotels "only three hours ahead".  Equally odd were various signs designed to warn drivers against driving too long and/or too fast.  The last time I had seen such signs was in Australia on the highway to Adelaide.

The road to Sioux Lookout was snow-covered and as night was falling, driving was becoming a chore, and I was very glad to get to Alice and company's house. They were in the process of ending supper, which given the toddlers, was a somewhat chaotic process. I delivered my precious cargo of Chinese barbecue pork buns to Alice, before tucking into my supper.

Anna was happy to see me, but Maria wasn't too sure about me, even though she was obviously curious, looking at me, and then looking away.  The last time I saw the two of them was January 2013. Consequently, they have grown significantly. Maria especially. The little bundle is now cheerily toddling little thing with almost disproportionately large hands. I swear, they are almost the size of her big sister's!  Maria has yet to grow some her teeth, particularly the canine teeth, so when she makes a big smile, she shows an almost rodent-like set of teeth which combined with her fat cheeks, makes her look a bit like a happy hamster!  While she toddles very confidently, she has yet to start talking, but I get the feeling it won't be long.  Anna's hair has grown quite long. As well, she talks a lot and unlike some toddlers, very comprehensibly.  Mark and Alice seem well, though Alice does seem a bit tired and Mark is relatively hard for me to read.

Today, Alice, the girls and I went for a walk/toboggan ride outside as it was "only" -17 C and very sunny. Anna was quite determined not to wear her outer most pair of mitts. We walked up the road for a bit towing the bairns in a sled. We then turned onto a snowmobile track for a bit where Anna decided she wanted to pull the sled, but not with Maria in it! This caused a bit of an bicker. Afterwards, Alice took the girls and myself on a tour of Sioux Lookout and then went shopping for groceries with the assistance of Anna and myself.

After lunch, I drove back into town in order to inspect various sites of interest, most notably the Slate Falls Airways landing strip on the one of the lakes. They had number of planes in evidence of mixed origins. Only two seemed currently in use, namely a de Havilland Canada Otter whose radial engine had been replaced with a turboprop. Its landing gear consisted of a ski and wheel mix. The other operational plane was a small Cessna Stationair 6 II which surprised me by having oversized balloon or tundra tires rather than skis. However, the surface of that bit of the lake was being kept relatively clear of snow by Slate Falls Airways, so I guess it wasn't an issue.  The other planes at the site included two de Havilland Canada Beavers, one with original radial engine and the other with a turboprop.

On cartoons, unclehood and a moose-fish story

I know I haven't been posting a lot, but I do have some fun cartoons to pass on. This one from "Rhymes with orange came out in May, but I kept putting off using it. However, the current November weather has brought it make in my mind.

This one from "Pearls before Swine" rather captures my opinion for professional cycling in general and Lance Armstrong in particular.

This one from Bizarro doesn't have any message but very much amuses me, given the varying definitions of "biker"!

This last one is from Stone Soup. I like as it embodies one of my pet games with various nieces. It also illustrates one of the dangers of the practise! The perils of unclehood.

Finally, there was an interesting moose related fish story on the CBC today. It seems a Greenland shark nearly choked on a moose hide!

P.S. November 22, 2013

According the CBC, the moose eating shark incident has gone viral with others making their comments and images. Some of them are hilarious.

On how my nieces have grown

I have just got off Skype with Alice and company, direct from their vacation on Salt Spring Island. The short version is, "My God, Anna and Maria have grown tremendously!"  Anna is now talking a mile a minute in long sentences. Maria can now walk with assistance. I now realise I haven't seen them since January.

A screen shot from Skype

Perhaps foolishly, I asked if I might visit them on my winter vacation at the end of February.  Foolishly, as Sioux Lookout is not easy to get to from Montreal.  I can almost say, "Thank God, I don't have a car, or else I might be tempted to drive there!" ;-)  I just checked on Google maps and the distance is about 2000 km!

I was flattered to learn that Anna is mistaking my brother Stephen for me. Apparently, I made a sufficient impression in her mental space that she assumes very large (to her) uncles with dark hair and grey-shot beards are me! Stephen and I are relatively alike in size and shape though I am a bit trimmer. Anna also commented that I had a "pink forehead".  I tried to explain that I was going bald like her Pappy but I don't think the message go through.

On cute niece photos

Alice posted this wonderful photo of Anna which I am shamelessly reproducing.  It makes perfect sense from Anna's perspective.

If you let a 2 year old help you take the laundry out...

In addition, Kristine sent me this photograph of my niece-cousin Julianne about to run in a Terry Fox event wearing the "speedy" biking shirt I had given her four years ago. Evidently, I had bought a shirt with lots of room to grow.

On a saying of mine being proved right

I am known for having stated a number of times in various contexts with regards to pregnancy due dates: "Babies can't read calendars". Before any ardent feminists jump on me, I will freely admit that as a never married male with no background in medicine, I can't say this is based on anything but observations of a less than statistically valid number of pregnancies of women of various ages as well as heresay from various women and doctors.

Having stated that disclaimer, I haven't run into anyone who disagreed with the basic notion as it really is a very basic observation. Furthermore, this article from the BBC website, more or less proves the fundamental accuracy of my statement, as well as reinforcing the notion that science, for all its wonders, still has a lot to learn about how we come into this world.

On fan service

At Margo's request, here is a fan service account of Désirée's first birthday party. As previously mentioned in this blog, I bought a rocking moose from Ikea for my niece. The night before her birthday, I assembled it for my bit of pleasure. I give you my work:
The morning of her birthday, I assembled a single child bike trailer from MEC. This was something that Dominique had asked for from the parents. For reasons that are essentially irrelevant, I was asked to do the honours of assembly. This I happily did. I rather enjoy putting kits together.

Having had wind of this present, I had inspiration to buy additional quick release hitches for said trailer at MEC. There are now sufficient hitches for Mummy, Big Sister, Granny (Already Installed By Yours Truly or AIBYT) and Papy (AIBYT) to be able to share the task of hauling Désirée around by bike. There is an additional hitch left over for guests, likely to include yours truly.

The party itself was a relatively subdued affair, with Désirée's Mummy, Daddy, big sister Eowyn, uncle Daniel, Granny Susan, Grandpa Hugh, her maternal Grandmother Monique and step-Grandfather Serge. It was the first time I had met the latter two, so it was quite an interesting evening, with quite a number of photo ops such as the one below.
Among the topics of discussion was Philip and Dominique's upcoming (July 11) wedding. They are, very sensibly, trying to keep it a low key affair of only about twenty invited guests to be held at Robin Hill (the family summer house for those less intimate). About a month or two ago, I had been at a party where my father was saying how some of his siblings wanted to attend. I subsequently told Dominique that she should ignore him and only invite those persons whom she and Philip wanted to invite. I then jokingly undermined my own advice and stated that I would like to be among the select few!!! ;-) Dominique accepted my advice and assured me that I had always been among the few.

Getting back to the party, Dominique's stepfather recounted how he had been the one to officiate one of his sons wedding. Apparently in Quebec there is some process or other that you can apply to be the person who administers the vows at a given wedding even if you are "lay person". (By a "lay person", I mean someone who has no qualifications such as being a priest, justice of the peace, etc.) The suggestion was made that Philip and Dominique might want to that. There was even the vague idea tossed around that I might be the person in question. In a much later (viz the next day) conversation between my father and myself, I admitted that I had no problem with the concept of a lay officiator but that I didn't feel that I wanted to be the one as I don't see myself as having the moral authority to do so.
As can be expected, the Grandmothers were in full doting* mode.

Incidentally, the date of Philip and Dominique's wedding was moved up from August on the news of Margaret's pregnancy. Furthermore, we found out recently that it will be a boy. Thus, in the event every thing goes well, I will have a nephew to uncle!

There are a few more photos in my photo site under "More gratuitous baby shots".

* In the process of writing this entry, I looked up the verb "dote" in my Concise Oxford Dictionary. I was somewhat disappointed to see that the official usage of word is to "be foolishly or excessively fond of" which isn't quite the meaning I intend. I will have to find a superior, less potentially pejorative word to describe their affection.